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03:00 am, Korea Standard Time
6 miles from the Sunchon Airport
Lieutenant (junior grade) Minatozaki Sana still has a hard time to believe any of this is real: a week ago, Fatty Kim III suddenly kicked his bucket (thanks to a heart surgery that went horribly wrong, according to The New York Times), then after a gigantic political struggle, her sister managed to became the one in charge. To show that she has just as much guts as the men in the Kim family, she ordered the North Korean military to blast the hell out of Seoul literally 24 hours ago, forcing both the United States Forces Korea (USFK) and United States Forces Japan (USFJ) to mobilize and teach the reigning empress of Kim Dynasty a lesson. Lucky to them, the reigning empress of the Kim dynasty launched her bombardment campaign after the ROKAF fixed their F-15Ks and F-16s, so they won’t have to fight the war entirely by themselves.
Now sitting at the back seat of the EA-18G Growler and flying at 15,000 feet, she and her pilot, Lieutenant (junior grade) Myoui Mina are going to provide electronic warfare support to a strike package of four Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets and four Air Force F-16CJ Fighting Falcons (or how most pilots call it, the Viper) to take out all of the Surface-to-Air missile (SAM) and Anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) sites of Sunchon Airport, clear a path for the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Codenamed “Operation Hell in Heaven”, the plan is very simple: after the Growler destroys the early warning radars with their AGM-88E Advanced Anti-radiation Guided Missiles (AARGM), the Super Hornets - each carrying two AGM-88Es and two CBU-103 guided cluster bombs - will go straight into the airport and take out the 8 SAM and 8 AAA sites (according to the satellite images, that is) that are protecting it.
At the very least, this is what Sana heard from the briefing. Even though she is just a lowly LTJG, she knows that no matter how much planning you do, all hell would break loose when you’re doing it for real; that kind of explains why there are four Vipers - two of carrying two AGM-88E AARGMs and two of them carrying two CBU-103s - are flying with them, when there are only 8 known SA-2 SAM sites and 8 known ZSU-57-2 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
“Hey Satang, we’re at the designated point, now do your thing and blind them.” Mina says to her EWO. To maximize the element of surprise, the strike package will fire their weapons at the very last moment.
“Roger that.” LTJG Minatozaki goes to her radar screen, and enters the two early warning radar sites to the targeting systems of the two AGM-88Es they’re carrying, then pushes the A/G weapon firing button. “Magnum.” (After the young LTJG heard that during the bombardment, quite a lot of shells ended up hitting the JYP Entertainment’s headquarters and several TWICE members were critically injured, she decided to write down “This is for the girls from TWICE” on each of the AGM-88Es before taking off.)
“Typhon 1-2, Magnum.” LTJG Myoui says on the radio.
The EWO then turns on the AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting pod. Just as she expected, the North Koreans quickly turned off their radars, hoping the anti-radiation missiles would lose track of it. Such tactics might have worked before when early anti-radiation missiles can’t “remember” where their targets are, but this is no longer the case, and the two AARGMs are still flying towards them, blowing them to ashes.
“Hey Minari, I have visual confirmation, the early warning radars are down.” LTJG Minatozaki says.
“Copy that.” LTJG Myoui switches to the radio as she climbs to 16,000 fleet, “Typhon 1-2 to Hitman 2-1, you guys can roll into the airport, we got you guys covered.” Hitman 2-1 is the callsign of the flight leader of the F/A-18Fs. Even though Typhon 1-2 is flying at the spear of the strike package, Hitman 2-1, which is flown by a Lieutenant Commander, is the actual mission commander.
“Solid copy Typhon, Hitman 2-1 to all Hitman 2s, you have your orders. Noble 4-1, tell your flight to maintain their current position.” Again, Noble 4-1 is the callsign of the flight leader of the F-16CJs.
“Roger that, Hitman. Let us know if you need help.”
The Super Hornets dive into the airport, giving the SAM operators a target they can’t resist. With their early warning radars being destroyed, the SAMs have no choice but use their own radars, which makes them easy prey to the AARGMs the Super Hornets are carrying. With the three AN/ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS) jamming pods running at top speed, the North Koreans will have a pretty hard time tracking their targets. As of the AAAs, since the ZSU-57-2 doesn’t have a fire-control radar, their only option is to spray lots of rounds to the sky, and praying they might hit something; either way, the Super Hornets also carry enough CBU-103s to take good care of them.
At this point both Mina and Sana can’t help but to suspect if this mission is perhaps way too easy. No sane pilot would want difficult missions, but it sounds implausible that the North Koreans won’t prepare a couple surprises for these American imperialists - they might be using outdated equipment, but they are anything but incompetent.
And their suspicions are perfectly well-founded. On her radar screen, Sana suddenly finds four additional SA-2 batteries searching for targets; before the SAM operators can have a firing solution, the EWO enters the signal sources of the four new SA-2s to the jammers, which then broadcast nothing but noises to them.
But the SA-2s are still tracking the Growler and the Vipers, and the SAM alarm in the Growler’s cockpit is beeping like a fire alarm and blinking like a bloody Christmas tree. “Holy shit, SA-2 at bullseye 070 at 3! Evasive maneuvers!” Sana shouts at the intercom as she instinctively pushes the radar countermeasures launching button, dropping chaffs to confuse the targeting radar.
“Typhon 1-2, defending SA-2 at bullseye 070 at 3!” Mina shouts on the radio as she climbs further to 17,000 fleet while making a hard left turn. Under most circumstances, she should descend and hope the ground clutter would make the SAM operator’s job harder, but if she descends the AAAs can definitely hit her, so she has no choice.
The battery fires a salvo of two missiles, and Mina instinctively turns further left.
“How the fuck they can still track us?! I thought we’re jamming them!” Sana shouts to her pilot through the intercom while she drops more chaffs, causing the missiles to lose track of its target. She expects the North Koreans will hide some of their SAM sites from the satellite cameras, but she never expects the SAM operators will find a way to bypass their jammers. I know I shouldn’t place so much faith in this ancient piece of technology!
“Hell would I know!” Mina switches to the radio, “Typhon 1-2, missile in the air, missile in the air! Noble 4-1, If you Air Force flyboys want to help, now it’s the time!”
“Well Typhon, those SOBs are also firing at us ! Just hold tight, we’ll get them.” Noble 4-1 replies. “All Noble 4s, this is Noble 4-1, you heard the lady!”
The four Vipers dive into the airport, yet the SAM alarm is beeping and blinking again - another SA-2 battery is firing another salvo of missiles at them.
“Damn it!” Mina makes a hard right turn and sends her greetings to the KPFAF.
“Just when would they give up?!” Sana drops another batch of chaff. Just as the two missiles miss and the SAM alarm stops, several ZSU-57-2s also start peppering autocannon rounds around the Growler. Since the maximum slant range of the shells is around 21,000-22,000 fleet, Mina chooses to climb even further to 23,000 fleet just to be sure. The LTJG knows the squadron commander will probably want to kill her for wasting so much fuel, but to her, it’s one hell of a bargain to buy your life with a couple hundred pounds of JP-5.
“Typhon 1-2 to all Noble 4s, I need those fuckin’ batteries down now, or you’re not going to have any ECM support!” Mina yells at the four F-16CJs at the top of her lungs. (In retrospect, Mina thinks this has to be the loudest moment in her life.)
“Goddamn it Typhon 1-2, you’re not the only one being shot at!” After evading two missiles from one of the SA-2 batteries, Noble 4-1 is also not in a good mood, “Noble 4-2 and 4-4, flank around the SA-2s and grab their attention, I and Noble 4-3 will take them out!” Befittingly known as "Here, kitty kitty", this tactic uses the two CBU-103-equipeed F-16CJs as bait, allowing the two AGM-88E-equipped F-16CJs to destroy the SAM sites. From a theoretical standpoint, Mina expects the four SA-2s should switch their focus to the four attacking Vipers, rather than her.
And this tactic works - sort of. While two of the SA-2s take the bait and focus on the two CBU-103-equipeed F-16CJs, two of them choose to fire another salvo at Typhon 1-2 and Noble 4-1. Then a miracle happens: when both the Growler and the Viper engage in evasive maneuvers and drop chaffs, all four missiles malfunction and fail to track the target.
Realizing this is the opportunity to end this right now, Noble 4-1 fires both of the AGM-88Es, each of them targeting a separate SA-2 battery, “Noble 4-1, Magnum!”
“Noble 4-3, Magnum!” Not wanting to stay here any longer, Noble 4-3 also fires its two AGM-88Es to take out the remaining two batteries.
Although the whole encounter only lasts for seven minutes, to Mina and Sana this has to be the longest seven minutes in their life; before the Super Hornets and Vipers took out all the SA-2s and ZSU-57-2s, they evaded at least five missiles from at least two SA-2 batteries (expending half of their chaffs in the process) as well as dodged an awful lot of autocannon rounds sprayed by the ZSU-57-2s; and they did all of that while carrying three AN/ALQ-99 TJS jamming pods, two external fuel tanks, one AIM-120D AMRAAM and one AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR targeting pod. Mina hates to say this, but she is impressed by the combat discipline and technical competence of her North Korean enemies - they didn’t surrender, they manned their SAMs and AAAs, they hid some of their SAMs from the satellite cameras, and they worked around their Electronic Countermeasures. If she has the chance to meet the SAM operators (assuming they are still alive), she will shake their hands and tell them they fought really well .
With all SAMs and AAAs destroyed, Hitman 2-1 contacts the Silver Bullet (the Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS) on the radio, “Hitman 2-1 to Silver Bullet, all threats are eliminated, and Operation Hell in Heaven can proceed to stage two.”
“Roger that Hitman 2-1, good job out there everyone.” Silver Bullet replies, “All Hitman 2s, Noble 4s and Typhon 1-2, head to rally point QUEEN and return to base.”