War with Russia

Now he was once more heading to war, this time leading an eight-aircraft sortie from 510th Fighter Squadron—the “Buzzards.” Their mission: to conduct a low-level attack against the Voronezh radar system operating from the Pionersky Radar Station at the former Dnuyavka air base in Kaliningrad. Once they’d destroyed the radars, they would head back into Poland to refuel before returning to mount a CAP, a combat air patrol, to intercept and destroy the anticipated counter-attack from Russian aircraft against the airborne operation that was to follow them.

The “Buzzards” were part of a massive multinational air armada pouring into Kaliningrad from all over Central and Western Europe. Bertinetti knew that the largest sortie, a joint US Air-Force–Navy Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, or SEAD, mission consisting of fifty aircraft, was already approaching its targets. The sortie was designed to look like a bombing raid on Kaliningrad and the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet at Baltiysk. However, it was, instead, fitted out with decoys, drones and HARMs, to overwhelm and destroy the air defenses protecting the approaches to the critical points: the Pionersky radar station and the nuclear missile sites at Yuzhny, Pravdinsk and Ozyorsk. Take them out and, in two bold strokes, Russia lost much of its offensive capability.

As he hurtled through the night above Poland at 30,000 feet and at a cruising speed of 435 knots, he felt the familiar nerves in the pit of his stomach, as the unreality and scale of what he was involved in hit him. Only that afternoon, in lovely sunshine, instead of the normal family Sunday afternoon spent by the officers’ club swimming pool, he had kissed his wife farewell at the gate of their married quarter by the air base at Aviano in northern Italy, before heading in to prepare for the mission. He might be a combat veteran with three confirmed kills—hence the three small Russian flags his ground crew had painted on the side of his F-16—but he was wise enough and modest enough to know that only luck had protected him from the insane randomness of war. And, like courage, luck was an expendable commodity.

Forcing himself to focus on his head-up display, he saw that in two minutes they’d be within the 400-kilometer range of the Russian S-400 Integrated Air Defense System.

“Don’t dwell on it,” he urged himself. “Only worry about the things you can change… and think of your guys.” He glanced to his right and there, in the darkness, just to his rear, covering his six o’clock and keeping perfect station, were the flashing anti-collision, navigation and formation lights of his wingman, Captain Mike Ryan. Sure, he’d had his baptism of fire over Lielvārde in Latvia a couple of months ago, but he was still pretty new on the squadron and needed all the reassurance he could get. On either side and to his rear, and also keeping perfect station, were the six other aircraft making up the bombing attack. All the pilots knew from the briefing that they were moments away from the death zone, and that meant they would all need the reassurance of good leadership. A quick radar transmission from Bertinetti and he knew they’d stay alert for each other and were ready for incoming SAMs.

Another look at the color flat-panel, liquid-crystal multifunction instruments and, right on time, the helmet-mounted cueing system told him that they had entered the danger area for the S-400. Automatically, the airborne radar flicked into air-ground mode to initiate simultaneous multi-target tracking by the planar antenna array installed in the aircraft’s nose.

“Won’t be long now before the radar locks onto us,” he muttered to himself, in the knowledge that the Voronezh system could track 500 aircraft simultaneously at ranges beyond 600 kilometers—in plenty of time to launch the S-400 40N6 missile with its range of 400 kilometers. At its speed of Mach 6.2, Bertinetti calculated that a missile would take just over three minutes from launch at that range to hit his sortie. And he was lead aircraft.

“Any moment now,” he muttered again, trying not to tense up and wanting to keep his hands and arms as relaxed as possible. When his radar picked up the incoming missiles, he was going to have to fly as he had never flown before if he was to be one of the aircraft that survived—if any survived—the impending carnage. The only slight consolation, he told himself as he waited for the warning from his alarm systems, was that as soon as a radar locked onto him, his HARM would fly straight back down the beam, provided he was close enough. That should mean, unless the Russians had some countermeasures he did not know about, that the following wave stood a very much better chance of getting through. And the wave after that a better chance still, until the Russian defenses were first breached and then overwhelmed.