512- Eurofighter Chapter 1: Pavewaying For The Fjords

[Silent Hunter]

(OOC thread. Obligatory Python joke done)

1130 BST, 14 April 2014, RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, UK

The rain pattered down on the roof of the main aircrew area of 512 Squadron. Flying was somewhat restricted due to the weather, but it would clear soon and 512 was about to conduct a long-distance training mission.

The briefing room was a small room, about the size of a classroom. At the front was a large interactive whiteboard, with a projector at the front. Standing by it was the CO of 512, Wing Commander Ali Hussein.

Hussein, a medium height South Asian man with a small moustache and dark hair was holding a swagger stick. On the screen was a map of covering the area from London up to the Arctic Circle north-south and Manchester to Poland west-east.

Hussein looked at the screen and waited for the others to arrive.

[Voshkod]

Squadron Commander Lucien Guilliam stepped out of the rain. He threw a snappy salute to Hussein. "Good morning, Wing Commander! Looks like a lovely day for flying." He walked up the the front of the room, took a long look at the map. "Ah, training flights. Don't suppose the Bear is doing anything up north these days? Running some long range patrols? Might be good to get some interception practice in on the lads."

[Silent Hunter]

Hussein considered whether to shake his head, but didn't.

"Been six weeks like their last long-range bomber patrol, but the Pyotr Velikiy left Murmansk last night, along with four other ships. Followed out less than an hour later by a Borey class boomer, clearly doing a deterrent patrol".

The Pyotr Velikiy was one of the "Kirov" class cruisers. Nuclear-powered, it was one of the most powerful surface ships in the world, even without nuclear weapons on board. When both it and the SSBN had left nearly together, the Astute-class submarine in the area, stuck on who to follow, came up to periscope depth to get instructions and had to wait two hours for a decision from Whitehall. It went for the boomer and lost it when it dived.

At that point, a young black woman with a small Afro entered the room. She took a seat. Her name was Anna Tyler, but because of her chirpy attitude, she'd become known as "Kaylee".

[Voshkod]

"Well, then, I'll bring along a camera. Haven't had a chance to buzz a Kirov since '04 in the Med. The intell boys would love to have some fresh low-level shots, I'm sure."

[Silent Hunter]

Kaylee pipped in. One of her roles, as well as being the new kid, was being the go-to person on naval vessels.

"Morning, sirs", she said. "That Kirov's apparently got a new radar on board. Definitely worth a look".

She, like the others, were dressed in formal uniform.

She walked over to one side and admired the 14 scale models of the Typhoon they had. Each represented one of the fighters they had available.

[pingcode20]

Paul Redding, Flight Lieutenant, sauntered into the room fashionably punctual, as usual, removing his dripping plastic poncho and hanging it on a convenient hook before producing his beret from a pocket and shaking it out of its crumbled shape.

"Hope I'm not too late." he says, as he dons his beret.

"Morning Hussein, DC, Kaylee."

He takes a seat, and waits for the actual briefing to start.

[Silent Hunter]

Kaylee takes her seat. As the others do so, Hussein walks over to the map, draws out a remote and presses a button.

On the screen appears a diagram showing an aerial strike plan on a target in Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle.

"This is Exercise Norwegian Blue", Hussein said.

He let the groans die out.

"The Norwegians have managed to acquire, via various means, a bunch of wrecked aircraft, drug dealers' cars and a wrecked septic tank.

Deciding that recycling is easier with explosives and wanting to help their NATO allies, they called us up and arranged an air-strike exercise.

This bunch of scrap will be dotted around to become an enemy airbase- and we're going to destroy it.

It's not going to be that easy though. The Norwegians are going to put stuff up against us. I don't know fully what, but I have an idea".

He paused to gain a reaction.

(OOC: Anyone else, bar a certain pair of characters, is either here or late in IC terms)

[Voshkod]

"Very good then, Wing Commander. How many are we taking? Are we flying with any of the air defense boys, or are we rolling in hot? And remember, people, we're are flying in with weapons hot, so keep separation, and don't fly too low. Don't want to get caught in the blast."

[Silent Hunter]

"Ten of us will be going", Hussein replied, "Eight will be involved in the mission itself. All from our squadron, going in hot".

He pressed a button and showed a screen with the breakdown of the aircraft.

"The ten aircraft are in five pairs".

"Pair one will be Redding and Guillam. You have the tough job. Well, they're all tough jobs. Your primary role will be air defence of this mission. You'll be loaded up with 4 Meteors, 4 ASRAAMs and 3 drop tanks".

[pingcode20]

"No sweat, Commander." responds Paul, simply. It was fairly established by now that Paul collected up the map at the end of briefing to study it, and returned it before the mission. It'd be suspicious if he didn't do it.

"So have the vikings let on about any details, or are we just doing straight interdiction?"

Spoiler

Show

So this would be interceptor duty?

[pathfinderAP]

Flight Lieutenant Harper sat quietly and took in all the infomation,

He would have preferred a Dog fight mission (as always)
Ground attack was a different beast, needing a different skill set,

Well under the radar terrain hugging flights were a interesting challenge in itself, he was looking forward to this...

He waited for the Wing Commander to tell him about his role in the up coming mission,

[Voshkod]

Guilliam steps up to the map of the target, converting the two dimensional jumble of contour lines into a three dimensional map in his mind.

Radar here, here and here. Missiles there and there. Radar shadows here, from that mountain, and here. . . .

"Very good, sir. I think a low altitude approach, using expected radar shadows, gets us within two miles of likely radar sites. We hit them, open the western door, then smack the others while they scramble. Then the rest of the flight comes in and plasters the base."

[Silent Hunter]

(For Harper)

Spoiler

Show

More like air cover- you'll be keeping an eye out for fighters.

Hussein continued.

"There aren't actually any fighters on the base itself. They are all attack aircraft being prepped for a mission. There are, however, other fighters out there.

We intend to get everything hitting the base simultaneously, except for anti-radar, which goes first.

What will happen is Ego One, Redding and Guilliam, will act as fighter cover. You'll pop up above the mountains every so often and look for attackers.

Ego Two will take out local defence radars- plus the ones on the coast. The ALARM missiles will be simulated for this. With 12 missiles between them, it should be plenty for five radar sites. Keep two spare, Just In Case.

Ego Three have an important role. They will be equipped with Storm Shadow stand off missiles- two each, aimed at the runway and control tower. Once these are launched, remember they are sub-sonic, they join Ego One in the defensive role.

Ego Four have the tough job. They'll be carrying Paveway LGBs. The closer you get the better, but someone should designate the targets- the hangars and apron, as the other does their attack run.

Kaylee and myself will form Control. We're just observers and for tactical purposes, we're not there. We'll tell you if safety rules are being violated.

I'll get to the likely threats once I allocate roles".

He turned to Harper and his regular wingman. Or rather wingwoman. Caitlin "Sweeney" Todd. Flying Officer Todd was a relatively new member of the squadron. 5 foot 8 and from Belfast, her dark black hair was cut short and she was considered rather a good looking woman. She was a bit of a Goth, but she largely kept the black clothes for off-base.

"Mongoose, Sweeney, you get SEAD duties as Ego Two".

SEAD- Suppression of Enemy Air Defences meant they were taking out the radars.

"6 ALARMS, 4 ASRAAMs. Three drop tanks. No Meteors since there's no space for them".

[pathfinderAP]

Harper glimsped over to Sweeney to check her reaction and see if she had any questions,
"So me and Sweeney sneak in first, nap of the earth, Destroy the five radar sites, then move to a defensive postion to cover the others, right?, what approach to the targets do we take, coastal radar first, or do we come in from land, and behind, take out the other radars first then follow through to the coastals sites?,"

[Silent Hunter]

Sweeney took it calmly. She had no questions.

"You'll be slightly ahead of the others. Because of distance, it's the three on the coast, then the two on the base.

Once you've destroyed the ones on the base, you'll join Ego One and Three in support.

As you can see, we're coming in from the South-West via land and then egressing to the West and heading straight for the sea, which is much closer in that direction".

He allocated the other two roles (OOC: For later sign-ups).

"This is going to be a 2,500 mile trip, since our route is Coningsby, Norway then a longer route round to Lossiemouth".

He indicated the RAF base in Scotland.

"Because of this, we're going to need tanker support. Once we take off at 1530 Zulu, we head at 040 at high level to make rendezvous with two tankers, 200 nautical miles out. They'll have enough for all of us.

This is important- if you can't make a successful refuel, then declare unserviceable and RTB. That is an order.

Once we are 150 miles from the Norwegian coast, we go low-level and will carry on nap of the earth until we reach the target.

30 nm past the tankers is hostile airspace. There will be Norwegian fighters, probably F-16s and quite possibly Eurofighters between there and the coast".

He paused for reaction.

[Silent Hunter]

Over the North Atlantic

The squadron had been informed that it would happen, but not precisely when. The United States Air Force had decided, for training purposes and to give its allies increased power capabilities, to loan a bunch of F-15E fighter-bombers to NATO allies. Each of the carefully chosen squadrons would have one to play with and use- the latter subject to US approval.

512's F-15E was flying towards Iceland.

Piloting it was James "Knife" Kinney. A Lieutenant, the black man had just become the first US pilot to score an air-to-air kill since the Kosovo war, when he'd shot down a MiG-21 that was clearly on a mission from Cuba (rogue or not) to attack the US and had blundered into an anti-shipping exercise.

His back-seater was Sandra "Blondie" Johnson. Notable for her natural blonde hair and light skin, she was a rookie, but a combat-proven one.

They were twenty minutes away from a KC-45 refuelling.

[pathfinderAP]

30 nm past the tankers is hostile airspace. There will be Norwegian fighters, probably F-16s and quite possibly Eurofighters between there and the coast".

He paused for reaction.

Harper Smiled, this exercise just got alot more interesting...

[Voshkod]

"Wing Commander, will we have AWACS support?"

[pingcode20]

Paul just nods, heading over to the map, appraising it casually but meticulously. He was running interceptor duty today, so he mostly needed to backup DC and watch for hostiles.

[Lightning]

James Kinney is tired. He'd just flown from Southwest Asia to the United States, just yesterday. Or he thinks it is yesterday. Then orders to hop the pond to England. Then soon after take off, all hell had broken loose and he had ended up in a dog fight, which was brief but very intense. Then a RTB. He'd dropped his drop tanks after seeing a tanker go down. An single hour break and then airborne again.

There was casual conversation between Trent-43, the tanker, and the F-15E. All the while James was pumping himself up for the long refuel. Maybe he could crash afterwards with the plane on autopilot.

[Silent Hunter]

"Wing Commander, will we have AWACS support?"

"No, we won't", Hussein replied, "Once you're into hostile airspace, it's pretty much just you".

He continued.

"Once you are across the coast, you will weave your way through the mountains, at 100 feet above the ground, heading towards the targets.

Ego One will pop up to 10,000 feet every so often- you decide when- to check for enemy fighters. Do not go active radar unless you have to.

Once Ego Three is 100 nm from the target, it will launch the Storm Shadows and join Ego One.

As you approach the target, there will probably be enemy fighters- and even an AWACs".

[Silent Hunter]

Blondie was participating in the conversation with the tanker and monitoring her radar.

Suddenly, a message flashed onto the plane's Link 16 monitor:

PRIORITY 110414Z CFB NORTH BAY- NORTH WARNING SYSTEM

CONFIRMATION OF TWO BEAR HOTEL AIRCRAFT DEPARTING ENGELS AIRBASE RUSSIA STOP NOT BELIEVED HOSTILE JUST ANNOYING QRA FORCES BEING NOTIFIED STOP DO NOT PANIC DO NOT PANIC

[Voshkod]

"Excellent, sir. Always wanted to try my hand at killing an AWACS. Have some tactical ideas bouncing about to catch them by surprise."

Guilliam returned to his chair and leaned back with a smile. No matter the odds, the opportunity to fly was to be cherished.

[pingcode20]

Paul finished his scrutiny, and returned to his seat, glancing sideways over at Gulliam as he smiled.

"Careful DC, smile too wide and the top of your head's gonna fall off."

And it was time to play the waiting game.

[Silent Hunter]

"I'm interested in hearing them", Hussein replied.

Once Guilliam had explained them, he continued.

"Once you reach the target, Ego Two goes in to destroy the two radar sites- keep two missiles spare.

Ego Three (OOC: LeMalfond and the next person) and Ego One provide air support, along with Ego Two. Save your cannon for aircraft.

Ego Four then do two runs with your four Paveways each- taking turns to designate targets. Destroy- in this order, please, the two big hangars, the open apron- two for that, the ammo dumps and the fuel areas.

There will be SAMs and AAA. Aster 15 SAMs in fact. Best advice for dealing with one launching at you- don't let one launch at you. Ego Two should eliminate their capability.

The AAA is harder to determine, but appears to be a fair bit about. There appears to be Skyshield cannons there.

To avoid these, go below 15,000 feet- they can't detonate below there, but be aware of other weapons and man-launched stuff.

We're due another satellite pass in two hours, so we'll see what else is there.

Like air-to-air fire, ground-to-air will be simulated, as are the ALARM missiles".

He paused.

[pathfinderAP]

Ego Two should eliminate their capability.

Harper nodded that he understood, then got his head down to do his home work of plotting the Nav course, and the battle flight plan, with sweeny

[Lightning]

Oh, joy. Bears. Out to play. Looks like life was getting interesting. Well, at least James Kinney isn't near Russia. Well, yet. But the Bears had long legs. So, he is grateful for the heads up. Now, he just needs sleep at some point. Hopefully, he would land and find a bed. But first, he has to refuel.

[Silent Hunter]

The F-15E approached the tanker, being guided in by its lights and the two radars.

The aircraft made contact and began transferring fuel.

"Any news on those Bears?" Blondie asked.

"Still over Russia, heading North", came the reply.

At that point there was a crack. A joint burst on the boom probe of the tank and some fuel started to spray out- onto the cockpit of the F-15E.

[Lightning]

This is one of those many things you train for and hope you never have to execute. Emergency separation from a tanker. Already alert from the tanking procedure, the spray is a surprise but not a shock for James Kinney. He quickly banks right, putting his jet into a turn and dips down a bit. "Hey, Trent, I think you have something loose. The fuel is supposed to go into the fuel line, not on the wind screen." He wonders how bad this day can get.

[Silent Hunter]

Trent-43 was aware of this and had shut down the fuel pipe as soon as the F-15E had disconnected.

There was some swearing in Spanish.

"Yeah, I've noticed. Looks like this refuel is off. Sorry about that"

Blondie did a quick fuel check.

"Not enough taken on to make it to Scotland, let alone Coningsby. We're going to have to divert to Keflavik"

Although Keflavik no longer had a regular military presence- that had gone in 2006, it remained a divert point for military aircraft crossing the Atlantic, as well as a civilian hub.