Sky Masters полностью

“I sent the scenarios to you along with the photos,” Stone said. “It’ll make interesting reading for you. Masters practically duplicated the entire Air War College and Naval Postgraduate School war-gaming computer models right here in my command post, complete with up-to-the-minute intelligence data, and we’ve built and revised data tapes for the B-52’s Offensive Avionics System suite and for the B-l’s AP-1750 strike computers for the Air Battle Force aircraft. We’ve fought the battle of Mindanao three times already.” Curtis remembered the old saying, “Don’t ask the question if you can’t stand the answer,” but he asked anyway: “Who won?”

“It depends, sir,” Stone replied. “Exactly how bad do we want the Chinese out of the Philippines?”

“What I want is to send a ship into the Celebes to search for the downed crews from the Tomcats we lost. I also want to get the Navy back in there just to tell the Chinese they can’t lock us out. I need some air cover. The Navy planes are grounded for now.”

“Sorry, sir. Don’t think we can help,” Stone said. “We’ve only got seven F-15 fighters on station — we’d need at least twenty to cover a rescue operation. None are modified for air-to-surface ops.”

Curtis swore to himself. With Ranger out of the fight, they were really stuck for both offensive and defensive punch. It would take time to send in another carrier group, and that would allow the Chinese to fortify their own sea and land forces.

What they needed was real offensive and defensive power. They needed the Air Battle Force in there — right now.

“You told me the carrier battle groups could protect themselves, General,” the President began. “One hit, and now we’ve got sixty dead and hundreds more injured.”

All eyes of the members of the National Security Council swung toward him.

… All but Thomas Preston. The Secretary of Defense believed that this confrontation was inevitable, but he obviously saw it not as the beginning of the end of tensions in the Philippines, but the beginning of dangerous hostilities. Like looking down the barrel of a nuclear-loaded gun. Curtis rarely agreed with him, but this time he very well may be right

“Sir, there was a malfunction of one SM-2 Aegis missile during the cruiser Bunker Hilts response,” Curtis explained. Thirteen more men had died of their injuries in the past thirty minutes alone; thirty more were given no better than a fifty-fifty chance of survival. It was hard for Curtis to formulate an objective, detached analysis of why and how so many men had died. He was numb, but pressed on: “Bunker Hill had positive control of the situation until the time of the mishap. Admiral Walheim’s antiair-warfare deputy, who was in command of the engagement from Bunker Hilts CIC, terminated all the rest of the missile launches that, in all probability, would have destroyed the last incoming missiles. Control of antiair functions transferred to the cruiser Sterett, and the switch was made smoothly, but Sterett couldn’t put enough firepower in the air to stop all the missiles.”

“What about inner defenses? Didn’t Ranger have any guns to protect itself?”

“Ranger's fighters shot down one of the aircraft carrying the antiship missiles and took shots at the missiles themselves, but F-14 Tomcats are not really designed for chasing down cruise missiles, especially with enemy fighters in the area. Ranger itself had two operational short-range RAM launchers — heat-seeking missiles mounted on a steerable box launcher — plus two Phalanx automatic Gatling-gun defense systems, but although both systems were functioning neither could hit the incoming missiles. We’re investigating.” “We also lost two fighters. Why?”

Curtis bristled at the notion that he was responsible for explaining the vagaries of aerial combat, but he explained. “Sir, the fighters faced multiple enemy aircraft at all times — at no time did we have better than a one-on-two match-up. The fighters were responsible not only for protecting themselves and their ship, but the Air Force aircraft as well…”

“But why did we have such poor odds?” the Vice President, Kevin Martindale, asked. “Why did we have only eight fighters airborne? We should have had sixteen or twenty…”

There was a hushed tension in the room; Martindale followed the furtive glances of those around him to the President. “We authorized only two escorts per aircraft,” Taylor explained to the Vice President. Everyone could tell that the President’s admission was a stab wound for him. “They were talking about thirty-plus fighter escorts up there…”