Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 12 Bombing
Lieutenant Isa, who was in charge of the attack, lowered his head and pressed a few times on the front HDD to connect the predetermined path points. It can be seen that the entire attack was carried out along a ravine, and finally turned a corner on the side of a big mountain. See the landing field at the bottom of the valley.The first attack will be carried out by him, his F16 carrying TV-guided bombs in addition to the Blue Shield pod.The difficulty of the attack is to find the target and launch the weapon in time. Since the valley is too narrow and long, the whole process is quite hasty for a single-seat fighter.If he can't hit, the two Xiaolong fighters of No. 26 Squadron will launch a second attack with ordinary 500-pound bombs, of course, the chance of hitting the target is even less.

"There are still 5 minutes. Remember my words, the night is your friend and your worst enemy." Colonel Sammy said something old-fashioned, and looked at the RWR monitor. The main radio threat has not appeared, which shows that the first mission of the mission Part of the covert approach was done well, and the Indians were not alert.For many years, relying on the cover of night and mountainous terrain to approach the enemy has always been the main subject of Pakistan Air Force research. In this regard, they are not lost to any other professional air force in the world.Of course, as with everything else, low altitude and darkness are double-edged swords, and even with accurate GPS and inertial navigation equipment, such terrain-dependent missions are still very risky; so a compromise solution is Attacking after dusk or pre-dawn would also interfere with thermal night vision, but after many rehearsals it was concluded that low-light mode could work.

"I've already seen that mountain. I'm about to turn." Lieutenant Isa slowed down as he spoke. At this time, the relative altitude measured by the radio was only 500 meters, which was only slightly higher than the mountain in front. The horizon has turned white, and visibility has improved a lot.This is a dilemma. Although approaching at low altitude is very dangerous, it is still worthwhile to drop altitude if you weigh the threat of being discovered by nearby low-altitude missile positions.

Lieutenant Issa turned on the power of the Blue Shield pod, turned around the mountain, and immediately turned on the automatic level driving. His eyes had to temporarily move away from the front, move to a CRT monitor below, and adjust the mode to low-light mode.It was an adventurous time, and it is conceivable that the Air Force did not dare to send out the new two-seat F5s of the 16th Squadron, which were more suitable for this mission, obviously for fear of losing the new aircraft.

The targeting pod is just under the belly of the aircraft, and its orientation is consistent with the nose, so in theory, looking at this small screen can barely control the aircraft.The lieutenant adjusted the magnification to 8, and immediately found that in the green background, there were two silhouettes of M17 helicopters side by side. They were parked on the flat ground of the valley, a few kilometers away, and there was a cliff not far behind. The location was chosen well, which created a lot of difficulties for the air strike. If the movement of pulling up after launching the missile is a little slow, it will knock down the mountain.

He first switched on the seeker power of the AGM65 missile according to the procedure. While the seeker was warming up, the captain manually turned on the laser rangefinder of the targeting pod and measured the target's slant distance, which was only 2.8 kilometers.After a while, the missile seeker has started to work, the captain switched the display to the missile seeker channel, so that he can see the field of view of the missile, the effect of low-light imaging is far inferior to that of the reconnaissance pod, the field of view of the missile Much smaller than the scout pod, and only has a 2.5x magnification, but the target is very close.

Lieutenant Issa aimed the cross in the missile's field of view at the first helicopter, and the target slant distance prompt showed that it was only 1.9 kilometers away.

"Griffin [-], the target is locked." Issa said.

It was a fleeting moment, and then the captain saw the muzzle of a 23mm anti-aircraft gun next to him turning towards him. There was no doubt that the soldiers there had heard the aircraft approaching, but in such visibility, they should still Unable to target yourself.He raised his head slightly, looked straight ahead, checked the autopilot status on the HUD, and was still in a stable level flight state. When he lowered his head again, the LOCK ON prompt flashed on the screen, and the distance to the target was about 1500 [-] meters, already close to the minimum range of this kind of missile.He pressed the launch button, a flash of fire flashed under the wing of the plane, and the missile flew towards the target. The lieutenant pulled up the plane sharply, and if he didn't go away, he would knock down the mountain in front; The soldiers on the ground looked at the tail flames from the afterburner; but the enemy still started shooting, and they could see tracer bullets flying by both sides of the cockpit, and they were quite accurate, so he pushed the throttle valve to the afterburner state, and the speed rapid increase.With an explosion, the shooting on the ground stopped.Lieutenant Issa wanted to circle around to see the results of the battle, but the rising sun jumping out of the horizon blinded him, so he had to continue climbing to avoid making random turns and knocking down the mountain.

"I see, there are two targets that have not been hit. The warhead is too weak." Colonel Sami said on the radio.

"Attention Griffin 2, check below you, I see something behind you." Uhak said.

Lieutenant Issa immediately made a roll, and he immediately saw a white flight trail flying towards him in a large arc.

"It's Sam 7, it follows you."

Lieutenant Issa immediately lowered the nose of the aircraft. He was still flying with afterburner, and the trailing missile was very close to him. These are only anti-aircraft missiles carried by the infantry, but they are very concealed and difficult to detect when they fire. Most of them are caught by these missiles. The downed pilot would not know the missile was behind it until it exploded.Lieutenant Issa pressed the button of the jamming tracer and fired 5 groups in a row.Then, he barely made a turn at 800 km/h, the missile was dazed and flew the other way, but this time it really scared the lieutenant, not every pilot will experience it once in their lifetime Missile chase; the lieutenant's movements became a little stiff, and he could barely steer the F16 awkwardly away from the battlefield.

"The light is good, Abbas, you make a second attack." Sami ordered, and his wingman immediately rushed to the valley. For him, it was easy to attack with conventional bombs, but it was also very difficult to hit.The Xiaolong fighter jet dived down and dropped two 2-pound bombs. The impact point was far away from the remaining helicopters. For fear of hitting the mountain in front, the pilot's nerves had to undergo a great test. Obviously Abbas did not Withstood such a test.

"Well done, I've thrown the more off," said Colonel Sammy.

"Colonel, don't be too forceful. I suggest that we plan to fly over the valley and conduct a horizontal bombing." Major Ukha, who was acting as a cover, said.

"Level bombing? Sounds like bombing the runway."

"But Colonel, visibility now..." Uhak continued babbling, as if to say that the Colonel was too old to see clearly.

"...Griffin's lead plane, at 3 o'clock on the right, detected a signal, possibly MiG-21, at a distance of 17 kilometers." This is the voice of an early warning aircraft 150 kilometers away.

"Leave it to me. Colonel, you just drop the bombs."

"Very well, the latest bargains are always picked up by young people."

"Colonel, I am always near your two o'clock."

Colonel Sami began to enter the attack field. This area was narrow and short. Compared with the first and second attacks, the light was only slightly better, but the surrounding Indian infantry were also more vigilant.The colonel turned around the mountain at a relative height of 700 meters, roughly level with the surrounding hills, and then entered the standard visual bombing stage, simply put: dive, and then drop the bomb to escape. This method is compared with the original inertial bombing. There is not much difference, just the assistance of the touch computer.The colonel aligned the crosshairs at the slanted Mi-17 helicopter, started the calculation of the impact point, took the time to look around, and confirmed that there were no infrared missiles following behind.It was a breathless moment, the target was getting closer, and so was a steep mountain next to the target, and there was no doubt that most pilots would have dropped the bomb early; Turn on the autopilot, but Colonel Sami is an exception. The autopilot will avoid large-angle dives, and large-angle dives can improve the hit rate for aircraft without precision-guided bombs.

Soon the colonel found that the altitude of the approach was a bit high, so he lowered the dive angle to 17 degrees, almost pointing to the ground, and the slope and speed parameters calculated by the impact point changed, and then restarted. This is a In a fatal situation, it seems that there is only one way to go around again.

"Griffin team, MiG-29 has been found in the south, and R77 may be launched." The voice of the early warning aircraft sounded.

"Can these old-fashioned F16s work?" The colonel thought to himself, he thought it was necessary to let the No. 2 machine wandering nearby to support the other two F16Bs that lacked medium-range bombs.

"Abbas, you join the Griffin team and turn on the fire control radar to monitor the south."

"clear."

The thunder and lightning roared towards the ground, but the procedure for calculating the continuous impact point was still not completed.The height has been drastically reduced to 120 meters, and the Indian soldiers on the ground are clearly visible. They did not leave the wounded to escape, and some brave ones are still firing with light weapons. Obviously this is a well-trained force; the colonel knows, a second or two In a matter of minutes, I'll knock myself down to the ground, and hitting the computer in succession must be hopeless.

"It's almost there!" The colonel pressed the bomb button and pulled up the plane at the same time. When the plane finally lifted its head, it almost brushed the rotor of the M17, and the bomb exploded immediately.The colonel could see the green hatch of a blown up helicopter flying by, but he missed his own.He tried his best to pull the plane up. Several Indian soldiers stood dumbfounded on the hillside. The colonel and these infantrymen glanced at each other until the entire burning valley was thrown behind them.Just as he was about to look back, a huge R77 missile rushed out from the side of the mountain, flew past Colonel Sammy, and flew towards an F16. Before the colonel could see whose plane it was, the F16 had already exploded in the air. .

"Ah, we've lost Issa," Major Ukha shouted.

"Tell me about the situation."

"More than 4 MiG-29s ahead. More MiG-21s."

"Where did they come from?"

"As you might expect, from the east, the direction of the sun," Abbas called.

(End of this chapter)