Arrrghhhh !! My back is all wet against my ejection seat, i have this feeling of fear in my guts and at the same time i am pissed off. I am upside down and i am pulling G’s to get the airplane down, once the nose is pointing down around 30 degrees i now roll the airplane upright and then i pull again. I wait a few seconds and i am looking outside, it is pitch dark, i am breathing heavily, and there they come again, red and yellow explosions fill the sky around me, again i am jinking my way out of the hornet nest. My biggest fear is to get hit by a shell and that i have to eject over North Korea, while i count on my jinking to get away i glance at my HSD page, due to the jinking i am not steering to where i am supposed to steer anymore. After what seems to be an eternity the explosions seem to have gotten les and less. Small drops of sweat are rolling down my face and with the back of my glove i try to whipe my face clean, i exhale and at the same time i turn towards steerpoint 5, it is 3:50 AM and i am flying above North Korea.
Mission planning early this afternoon took us hours to complete. Two KF-16’s armed with 2x Spice 2000 bombs each will enter North Korea and strike the command post. They will be escorted by four F-22 Raptors that will be flying high and ahead of the two vipers. Before the strike package enters North Korea, SEAD flights will clear the way along the intended flight route. In order to move all the assets in and out of North Korea, 3 corridors will be established, one ingress corridor and two egress corridors. Airspeed and altitutes within those corridors have to be respected. Fighters providing CAP along those corridors will interrogate every flight going in into North Korea and every flight coming back to South Korea. Along the DMZ, a flight of growlers will provide for electronic support, jamming on certain frequencies in order to disrupt communications along front line defense units of the North Korean Army. To dispatch and complete the electronic picture, an RC-135 along with an E-3 and E-8 will be patrolling south of the DMZ. In case of shot down, SAR helo units are being forward deployed to forward operating bases along the DMZ. A total of 30 aircraft of various types will be mobilized in order for the 4 SPICE bombs to hit their intended targets.
I am cruising at 23 000 feet and maintaining 350 KTS, this is the speed and altitude i have to maintain in the ingress corridor. Trough my NVG’s i am trying to see if i can spot the fighters providing CAP along the corridor, i can see them on my FCR but i have no visual on them. As we approach the ingress point into North Korea i am proceeding to do my Fence In checks, TACAN is coming OFF, Transponder to STBY, thus it will still interrogate but not answer. Lights are coming OFF, countermeasures are checked and set the proper way, fuel croscheck between my wingman and me and a quick run trough my settings for the SPICE bomb.
The Corridors
As soon as we cross into North Korea i make a turn to the North West, on my HSD, trough the datalink i can see the 4 raptors ahead of us. Everything is quiet,for now. The tactical frequency comes alive with Awacs giving out bullseye information on two groups separated in azimuth and from the distances he is giving out they are 80 Nm away from me. I can see the raptors turning towards the threat, on my RWR i can see nothing that looks like the radar signature of a fighter. I ask for a picture with AWACS and his answer is letting me know that one of the groups is flanking me. Recent intel has shown that the North Korean’s have dispatched MIG-29’s and MIG-23’s at Wonsan AB, could that be them ? I am now turning towards Wonsan to face the threat that is rapidly closing in, 50 Nm now, on my FCR i can see multiple returns, i go trough an IFF scan and some of them don’t give the proper code 4 return. I lock one of the targets up and call for an identification with my asigned controller, he confirms that my contact is a friendly, i reconfirm with him and again he says it is a friendly. Now there is another radar return next to that one that pops up and while i soft lock it up i get an 23 signature on my RWR, the AWACS controller confirms me that that one is hostile and obviously he is hot. I am at 29 000 feet and he is at 19 000 feet, i feel like i need to monitor the picture and thus i send my wingmen to get the MIG-23. I make a turn to the right to make an offset, this brings me now to the southeast, and in the dark of the night i can see my number two shooting his missile, a couple of seconds later he riples a second one. While in the turn to the south east i proceed to gimbal the target my wingman is shooting at, i have him soft locked, this is when another contact shows up this time at 12 000 feet and he is turning cold. On my left, a fireball gets my attention, i really hope this is the MIG-23 my wingmen was targeting, i am reassured to see him on datalink. Awacs is confirming that i have another MIG-23 locked up, i break the lock but i keep chasing him down, this is no bringing me to the northeast towards Wonsan.Sometimes when you break the lock they turn around and then they enter the RTR launch zone of the AIM-120 but not this time, he keeps running. A quick look at my HSD and i decide to turn back on course, by now the raptors are going to take care of it. All of this has taken me off of my initial course and while i head for my waypoint AWACS tells me that there is a single group to the west at 25 000 feet and that they are hot. The North Korean MIG-29’s are armed with R-27’s, he has to maintain the lock for the missile to hit me, technically all i need to do is break the lock or fire an Amraam and force him to break the lock to defend my missile and thus he won’t be able to support his missile. Now i feel hot and i am all sweaty, my Wingman has only two AIm-9’s left, i am going to be the shooter this time. On my radar scope i can see the two contacts, and one of them is coming straight at me while the other one is in trail. I lock up the first one and as i do so my RWR tells me that there is a MIG-29 in front of me, that should be him, an IFF scan gives no mode 4 answer and AWACS confirms he is hostile and that his identity is a MIG-29. The range carret is coming down the AIM-120 DLZ very fast, this guy is full burner head on, closure speed is just exploding, at 20 NM i smash the red pickle button and i crank right, on my RWR the missile launch warning lights up, i am now jamming and spitting out chaffs, i maneuver hard to brake the lock. My wingman goes trough with the chase and while i am now looking down at North Korea trough my head up display on my HSD i can see that number two has locked the trailer guy. Before i can say anything for him to cease engagment he yells out a FOX3 and at that moment i really hope that there is no AA-11 flying towards him and that my AIM-120 made a hit. A couple of seconds later, AWACS calls for a clean picture and my wingie is still alive. Not really the tactic i planned for but he is on steroids tonight. In the fight he had to drop his SPICE bombs. Two SPICE bombs will still do.
All this happened in the span of 15 minutes, the MIG-23’s, the MIG-29’s and now i am defending AAA, yes because all of this brought me right on top of a city that has AAA and they are trying very hard to kill me. They probably saw the plume of my burner when i was speeding up to give the AIM-120 more kinetic energy. They also probaly saw the two fireballs and got the info that two MIGs went down. I clean my face with the back of my glove and i am heading towards steerpoint 5. While the raptors were chasing the last MIG-23 i had to deal with the MIG-29’s and now i can see on the HSD that they are getting in position for the CAP, but something is wrong on the datalink i only count 3 raptors.
The HQ command post is defended by the latest of North Koreas air defense system, the NK-06, which is the North korean version of the Russian S-300. Inside of the WEZ of the NK-06, the North Koreans have placed several SA-17 and 11 units and a shit load of AAA. To complete the picture you have anything from SA-9 to SA-15 just waiting for one of us to make the mistake. Not tonight, i am now heading towards my target. The 15 minutes of hype have left me all pumped up and awake and more than ever do i want to drop my bombs and get the hell out of here. My fuel gauges are not looking like they should,2000 pounds less than what i actually wanted them to show, but i can still make it if i climb and then if i get back home at 34 000 feet. The block 52 is a beast and i won’t have any problem climbing up there once the bombs are gone. But with a quick calculation i figure out that i won’t have fuel for any extras while egressing and i am going to land with 1800 lbs of fuel in the tanks.
On my HSD, i have a circle representing the WEZ of my SPICE 2000 bomb, wind is blowing from the north at 79 knots, tailwind on the way back is always good, but if i shoot where i was supposed to, that wind may kill the energy my glide bomb will have. looking at the wez circle, if i fly 15 nm to the north of where i wanted to drop initially i can profit of the tail wind and i will be closer to the target. I check one last time the GPS status and the validity of my GPS crypto key, everything is optimal. Two succesive “TUMBS” and a confirmation on the SMS page are confirming me that the bombs are gone. I now roll inverted and i pull sharply down and away from the NK-06 supposed engagment zone. I was at the limit and just as i laucnhed i got a short signture of the NK-06 on my RWR.
The flight back to south Korea will be done a 34 500 feet and as we are cruising at MACH 0.91 i can see a string of explosion trailing me, AAA. Anger management fire, but no chance to get me at those speeds, well in theory.
Jackal flight heading back to South korea
Debrief will show that i shot down one MIG-29, that my wingmen got one MIG-23 and one MIG-29. The NK-06 never fired at us.