CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

The 5-G acceleration slammed Tombstone into his seat as it always did, his Tomcat speeding down the deck, hitting 150 knots in less than three seconds. The island flashed past on his right, men the expanse of deck where damage control teams were working on the warped deck and broken cats.

“Two double-oh airborne,” the Air Boss said. There was a pause. “Luck, Stoney.”

And Tombstone clawed for blue sky.

CHAPTER 22

WO hours, 26 March MF Fulcrum 401

Lieutenant Colonel Ramadutta could see the enemy’s defensive line forming on his radar display screen. It was unlikely that the Americans had yet seen him.

The Fulcrum was a marvel of modem technology, with electronics that even surpassed much of what was available to American pilots. Unlike any Western fighter, the MiG-29 gave its pilot a variety of long-range tracking options, including an excellent pulse-doppler radar, an extremely sensitive IR im-ager, a helmet-mounted computer display—though this was absent from the MiGs sold to India—and a laser ranger. By flying close to the surface, Ramadutta was hoping to mask himself from American radar. At the same time, his own radar was off to avoid giving away his position directly. Instead, he was using the MiG’s infrared search/track mode, or IRST. Meanwhile, enemy aircraft using their own radar were quite visible to him, plotted on his display screen by the Fulcrum’s electronics.

Over his headset, he could hear the Indian strike aircraft calling to one another, reassuring and bolstering each other as they formed up their attack waves. Ramadutta had deliberately left the Jamnagar area in company with a flight of large, slow BAC Canberra bombers. Those relics of the fifties, Ramadutta thought, would not stand a chance against the American fleet. But their takeoff had given him the cover he needed to leave the airfield unnoticed by the watchful radar eyes of the American Hawkeyes.

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Keith Douglas*

He glanced left and right, making certain that the other three aircraft of his flight were tucked in close. Together, they could hit the American air defenses without warning. That would give the Indian strike planes their chance to get through.

He signaled his comrades with a waggle of his wings, then pushed the throttle forward. The Fulcrum thundered, shuddering as it approached the speed of sound.

Then he was through and still accelerating, pushing faster and faster as he hurtled south, skimming the crests of the waves.

0631 hours, 26 March Sea Harrier 101

Lieutenant Commander Tahliani was worried about his Sea Harrier’s fuel reserves. Harriers gulped enormous quantities of jet fuel, especially when they performed such unorthodox. maneuvers as hovering or viffmg.

After shooting down the American Tomcat, he’d expected the other U.S. fighters to follow him and had circled back toward the east in an attempt to draw them out.

The F-14s had not taken the bait, circling instead toward the north.

Tahliani could see the battle unfolding on his radar screen and understood the Americans’ caution. They were heavily outnumbered in the air, and the ground-based aircraft from Kathiawar were beginning their move.

This, he decided, might present an opportunity to Viraat’s Sea Harriers. It seemed that they’d been momentarily forgotten, lost in the surface clutter of the sea, or simply overlooked in the enormous scope of the rapidly escalating battle. There were several targets within easy reach, targets that would let the Harriers prove their special place in the Indian fleet’s aviation arm.

He was leery of launching another Sea Eagle missile at the American carrier. Tahliani was fairly sure his one shot, released solely to decoy the American Tomcat, had hit the ship, but there’d been BO indication that he could see of damage, no reduction of power, no pillar of smoke on the horizon. Possibly

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the antiship missile had been shot down by the carrier’s point defenses at the last second.

Or possibly the U.S.S. Jefferson was simply too large to be badly hurt by ASMs.

But there was another target within the Sea Harriers’ reach, one much smaller than the nuclear carrier, but one that was vitally important to the American naval squadron. Kill it, and the battle might be won for India there and then.

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