Fly Into Black
by Michael G. Crawford
Chapter Nine
"Diamond, Catcher. We have four supersonic bogies inbound, at 60 miles."
"Where are they, Lt.?" asked Admiral Hardy as he paced the CIC aboard the Saratoga.
The young woman scanned the ELINT burst, and quickly called up a fix on the radio signal from the sophisticated signal processing equipment of the AEGIS ship, the Antietam. She was sitting about a half a mile to the port of the Saratoga, having steamed all night at top speed to join the 12 ship Task Force. Upon her arrival, the U.S.S. Julius A. Furer and the U.S.S Parsons moved back to add further air support to the replenishment ships some 30 miles behind the Task Force.
"Triangulation confirms Catcher is 15 miles out, Sir" replied the AIROPS officer as she finished her calculations.
"Aye. That's getting a little close, don't you think, Chin?"
"Yes, Sir" replied the Captain of the Saratoga, " C.A.G., confirm they're hostile and then your weapons are free. Take em out."
"Yes Sir" replied Jim Cordoza. Then turning to the AIROPS officer, C.A.G. nodded.
"Fielder 1, this is Diamond" radioed the young woman.
"Copy Diamond."
"Confirm Catcher's bogies. Weapons are free if confirmed hostiles. I say again, if hostiles, weapons are free, confirm."
"Roger Diamond, understand weapons free if hostiles."
Then turning back to the Admiral and the Captain, C.A.G. waited for the next development.
The Admiral frowned as he locked eyes with the Captain. "Chin, I don't like supersonic surprises."
"Me neither. If we wanted to take a chance, we could post another AIRCAP about here..." said the Captain, pointing to the tactical display, indicating a point just West of Cracias a Dios, "...then we'd confirm their launch point. Once we have it pinpointed, we launch a suppression mission."
"Wish we could. But I think CINCGULF's order will stand. Look at it this way. We are supposed to look super superior down here. We have Castro to our Port, the nasty Venezuleans at our Bow, and the Nicaraguan's are taking pot shots at us. We are supposed to make it look easy, make it look like we control the seas here-abouts. A massive Air Strike from this task Force is going to look like pretty heavy action in the press. We have to do our dirty work with as little committment as necessary."
C.A.G.'s face showed disgust as he interrupted in a whisper, "Yeah and one of my guys is gonna' get blown out of the air with all this farting around!"
"Jim's right about that. Hell Admiral, this is the shits" agreed Chin also in a hushed voice.
"Calm down you two. We can handle it. C.B.G. Kitty Hawk will be here by noon, and the Washington is cruising up on the Western shore. Shortly we'll have a critical mass of aircraft, two AEGIS cruisers on this side. There'll be 7 Hawkeyes in the air over here, and we'll know about every launch from the East Coast as well as 60 miles inland."
"Yeah, first we gotta get through the next six hours" replied C.A.G.
"I though you joined the Navy for adventure, C.A.G." was the Admiral's reply.
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South of the Carrier at twelve-thousand feet, the Hawkeye known as Catcher was climbing for more altitude. Her command pilot, Lt. Roger Wheeler, was talking to one of the AEWC guys in the back.
"...getting so much clutter from the coast, I can't really pick em' out. I don't think even twenty thousand is gonna help, Lt."
"Okay, we'll try anyway. There sneaking in on us, and I don't like it." Roger scanned the small radar receiver screen in the cockpit, which was slaved to the "real" units in the back. On it were painted the new bogies, as well as the two numbered blips of the Tomcats racing to intercept. To the left of the bogies, two "hiding" Tomcats were also racing in, their job to distract the bogies while positively identifying them as hostile. If they radioed in a positive ID, the "Catcher's" aircover would launch their Phoenix AAMs in stand off mode, designating the hostiles from about 30 miles away. Hopefully they would take out their targets without ever getting in range of their opponents.
"Fielder 1, Catcher. You copy your targets changing to 310? Vector 195" came the voice of the operator, and Roger noted the change in direction of the two Tomcats almost simultaneously. Since two fighters were setting up for attack, they were observing radio silence. In fact, Roger fully expected the Hawkeye operators to shut down shortly as the bogies got within range for using their ARMs - Anti-Radiation Missiles - designed to home in on active radar emitters. The Hawkeye certainly qualified with her 20 foot RADOME blasting out a 100 kilowatts of microwave signal.
As the ID planes snuck up on the Bogies, their radar lit up, setting up a fine target fix, and the ELINT burst from their FLIR pod made positive ID.
"Diamond, Catcher, we have postive ID, Bogies are four MIG-28 fighters. Attack radar has come on, and they are avoiding our ID flight."
"Copy, Catcher. Fielder 1 and Switch Hitter, your weapons are free, say again, weapons free."
Roger watched as the MIG fighters veered away from the ID Tomcats, right into the path of the oncoming Switch Hitter surprise attack flight. In a moment, he watched as the display was updated with the ELINT signal indicating lock on and fire of the Phoenix missiles, four from each aircraft. As the eight missiles streaked away, the ID Tomcats coming in from the East banked away, getting themselves well away from the targets.
Then as the Phoenix semi-active homing radar burst out a search, the MIGs began a hard turn back toward shore, diving for the safety of the confusing ground clutter of the coastline.
Then, "Diamond, Switch Hitter. Contact on Bogies. Splash one MIG-28, rest are retiring."
"Copy Switch Hitter, well done. Loiter for ten, then return home. Fielder your backup is on its way. Return to your racetracks until relieved" radioed the carrier, as Roger breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't like it when his Tomcats took off to go after targets. It left him and his crew all on their own, defenseless against anyone desiring to poke out the eyes of the Carrier Battle Group. And since there were a helluva' lot o' boats in the water behind him, he expected the temptation to go after his little Hawkeye was ever greater.