“You’re not getting this one,” Patrick said. Using the touch-screen, he pre-programmed a zigzag course for the second SLAM. “Hit
The ship’s defensive guns successfully hit the first SLAM seconds before it hit them, but the second missile was impossible to hit — it was all over the sky, skimming just a few meters above the water, and the guns could not keep up with it. The missile finally plowed into the starboard gunwale just below the number six 37-millimeter gun turret.
The penetrating warhead cap, propelled by the missile’s powerful rocket motor, drove the missile through the number-twelve lifeboat on its davits and barely managed to pierce the heavy armor of the number-six gun turret before detonating the five-hundred-pound high-explosive. The blast ripped a gaping hole in the side of the frigate, killing the gun turret’s ten-man crew and instantly knocking the gun out of commission.
“Good hit!” Patrick McLanahan cried out. “One impact… only minor secondaries, good hit but no kill.” The Super Multi Function Display automatically switched back to full integrated “God’s-eye” view, and Patrick scanned the area. “Search radars down… cancel that, search radars back up. Everybody’s transmitting… I’ve got air-search radars at five o’clock and a new one at two o’clock. India-band missile radar’s still up at five o’clock. Damn… we didn’t knock out that frigate yet. So he can still launch missiles…”
Just then a “Missile Warning” light began to blink on both the Super Multi Function Display and the pilot’s center CRT monitor.
Patrick said, “Now I’ve got another Charlie-band missile director radar at one to two o’clock — that must be from the center destroyer.” He was about to touch the electronic countermeasures icon on the bottom of the SMFD, but the computer had already brought the ECM status panel forward on the screen — and what he saw caused his throat to go instantly dry. “Charlie-band missile director… computer’s calling it a DRBC-51 radar directing an HQ-91 SAM system…”
“A -91?” Cobb asked. “Shit, we’re well inside that mother’s range!”
“I know, I know,” McLanahan moaned. He had spent too long screwing with the SLAM missiles and lost track of all the other warships around them. “All trackbreakers active, missile warning system and HAVE GLANCE jammers ready, chaff and flares ready, HARM missile programming against that radar… shit, shit! Charlie-band tracker changing to Charlie-three command…
The “Missile Warning” indication changed to a “Missile Lock” warning. “Missile radar locked on!” McLanahan shouted. “Trackbreakers on… descend and accelerate if possible…”
They were already as low as they could safely go at night — the huge B-2 was less than one hundred feet above the Celebes Sea, with Cobb hand-flying the Black Knight, since the terrain-following computer would not fly the bomber overwater below two hundred feet. “C’mon, you guys, where the
McLanahan was rewarded a second later with precise range and bearing information from his B-2 to the destroyer displayed on his SMFD. He knew he was not using radars or lasers to get that data — that meant that his wingman, the second B-2 stealth bomber in his attack formation, was ranging on the destroyer and data-sharing the information with him. The question was, who was going to get there first?
“Locked onto first air target,” the operator of
“Understood,” the chief of the
In the large aft missile magazine, a large eighteen-missile rotating drum dropped an HQ-91 onto a rail and fed it forward to an open station, where four missileers snapped large triangular fins on the nose and tail sections of the missile body. Two other technicians made a fast check of the finning process, and the missile was sent forward, erected, and rammed upwards onto the launcher rails. A second magazine crew had done the same with a second missile for the twin-rail launcher. As the missiles clicked into place on the launcher, a continuity check was automatically performed and an electronic report received from each missile — if the “report” was missing or erroneous, the launcher would immediately swivel over and down and spit the bad missile down an armored safety chute for examination or disposal.
Thirty seconds after the alert was sounded, the aft launcher was loaded and ready, with two more missiles belowdecks finned and ready. “Aft launcher reports ready, sir,” the aft launch operator reported.
“Deck clear, stand by to launch on three, two, one,
