International Incident
My goodness, there must be nearly seventy of them up in the air.
The wingman remarked as she eased her Bobcat lower in the
formation.
True enough. Theyre flying CAP, just like us. The leader
observed. Their flight of four XF-35 Bobcats was cruising at twenty
three thousand feet, two hundred miles off the coast of Riechland
and safely in SENSE territorial waters. The planes were flying
lights out, without their radar and relying on eint and an AWACS
bird fifty miles behind another ten thousand feet up. Their
Electronic Warning System had been extremely active for the past
half hour, warning the pilots of the radiated energy of hundreds of
Reichland ground and airborne search radars that were sweeping the
area, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Not that they would have must luck in finding them anyway, the
pilot noted. The XF-35 was smoothly contoured and built with
stealth in mind, with the form of every surface and system
considered to give the Bobcat as small as possible a radar
signature as possible. The idea was, that the Bobcat did not exist
to the enemy at all
until it wanted to make its presence known,
that is. Microwave radiation from the Reichland radars pounded the
sleek fighters relentlessly, and was deflected off on harmless
vectors or was absorbed through the complex dielectric composite
smart skin as was converted into electricity, ironically, to add
to the charge of the Bobcats batteries.
The Reichland forces had some stealthy or low-observable
aircraft as well, such as the F-22 raptor or the JSF ripoffs of
which designs they copied and build in their countries, poor
parodies of the original. But the Xing Shianans are still very far
ahead of the Reichens in such warfare, and their stealth aircraft
were found almost as easily.
Weve got five bogeys headed your way. The AWACS operator told
the Bobcats, They must have detected something from us.
The wing leader was not surprised, the Reichens were extremely
nervous and would investigate anything even slightly ambiguous or
analogous on their radars. They were still quite far away in terms
of ability to pick out the lights out Bobcats, but they would
have probably picked up some strange and faint readings on from the
AWACS LPI radar and had gone in to investigate.
Unfortunately they were moving out of Reichen airspace, at least in
the eyes of SENSE. Since the first Prussian-SENSE war, SENSE had
maintained that Reichland would not be able to fly any aircraft
beyond its borders, anything beyond considered SENSE international
airspace. However Reichland had never accepted that restriction and
claimed that all areas within 200 miles of its borders would be its
airspace. It was an issue that was sidelined and never gotten
around to much conclusion, being left on the political backburner
following the recent governmental changes in the Germanic states
and resulting militarism. Though neither side suspected it, this
issue would have to be decided by force. Now the five Reichen
aircraft, a flight of Su-30 high performance fighters were well
within SENSE-defined airspace and on a rapid vector of the AWACS
aircraft. But they were still technically not enemies.
Okay, Ill hail them. The wing leader said. Rest of you stay
dark. He set all his weapons controls on except for the master
arm, the weapons one step short of being ready to shoot. In
anticipation of the possibility of air to air combat maneuvering,
the computer moved the advanced ejection seat to a more crouch like
position to allow better tolerance of the gees. Lastly, he
selected the controls to turn on his radar reflectors which made
him appear on the Reichen radars. They could detect him now. The
rest of the Bobcats opened up the formation to allow flexibility in
case of trouble and the two sides blasted towards each other with a
combined closing speed of six hundred knots.
This is the 25th Black Raptors of the XSS Holtz, Reichen aircraft,
you are within SENSE international airspace, advice you reverse
your heading immediately. The Bobcat pilot called out on a general
hailing circuit. There was silence.
Repeat, Reichen aircraft, reverse heading immediately, over. The
pilot radioed. There was more silence, then a burst of static over
the radio.
It is our airspace you are in, SENSE scum! The unfamiliar voice
came in over the radio just as the EWS squawked a series of
electronic tones warning that the Su-30s had locked their radars
onto him. Another series of squawks warned him that there had been
multiple AA-12 Adders launched and headed his way.
Crap! The pilot turned the radar reflectors off, triggered the
master arm and LPI radar, and punched his plane into a vertical
climb on full power while the computer automatically dumped radar
reflecting chaff in his wake, attempted to blind and jam the
AA-12s, and dumped noisemaker decoy that mimicked the radar and
infrared signatures of the Bobcat, except much brighter and
obvious.
At the same time the Su-30 pilots cursed as the Bobcat disappeared
from their scopes, their missiles spearing into a confusing radar
picture of jamming and countermeasures. The Adders all went wild,
spearing through the Bobcat positions and beyond without hitting
anything. Communicating frantically, they punched their burners to
close to the last location of the Bobcat, hoping to get a shot with
an Infrared missile or the cannon.
But the Xing Shianan Bobcats were already far ahead of the battle
phase loop, two wingmen who had now moved to a good flanking
position easily targeted the approaching fighters with their LPI
radars and loosed three AMRAAM Bs at the incoming Reichens, the
enemy detecting them only in the brief moment they opened their bay
doors to release their weapons. It was too late. The targeted
Reichens barely had time to react before the missiles slammed into
them and blotted their planes out in the night sky in a spectacle
of burning munitions and jet fuel as they plunged downwards with
the grace of a broken leaf. Three down, two chutes.
Seeing the rapid destruction of their three wing mates, the
remaining two Reichens decided they must have come up against a
force of overwhelming numbers of undetectable Xing Shianan aircraft
approaching on they raid. They turned tail and ran for their
borders at full speed, screaming desperately for reinforcements and
warning of an impending raid. The Bobcats smashed them both out of
the sky with AIM-120 Bs where they ran. No chutes this time.
But it was not over, several flights of Reichen fighter aircraft
had been now scrambled to fend off the supposed air raid while
their entire nation was gripped in panic. They approached, then
entered SENSE airspace on full power, charging into the dark night
and hoping to get visual on the SENSE stealth aircraft so that they
can engage manually. The four Bobcats exhausted their load of
AIM-120s on them, and turned for home on super cruise, too fast for
the Reichens, now less five more aircraft and low on fuel to
pursue- not that they could detect them anyway.
The Bobcats returned to the XSS Holtz in the Sea of Fuchs twenty
minutes later, having scored ten kills for no loss. The Reichen
pilots never knew what they were fighting, nor from where the
attackers had come, for both planes and ships could not be found on
their sensors, but they knew such amazing abilities to stay hidden
and punch hard could only be the work of Xing Shianan crew and
technology.
Now in the midst of heightened tensions, there was an international
incident to throw into an already volatile mix.
