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Chapter Text

May 24, 2026

10:00 am, Iran Standard Time

Somewhere over Tehran

“BEEP…... BEEP……” 

The alarm is ringing again.

“Damn it!” Noticing a smoke trail from a SA-21 Growler (more commonly known as the S-400 Triumph) surface-to-air missile (SAM) battalion’s 98Zh6E fire unit at 25,000 fleet, Lieutenant Min-Jeong “Winter” Kim (callsign Shark 4-4) pushes her F-35C Lightning II to the right while dropping another ALE-70(V) Radio Frequency Countermeasures (RFCM) towed decoy. Judging from the fact she still can’t locate that 92N6E “Grave Stone” engagement radar after evading three missiles from the very same fire units, Winter is confident to say that the Iranians are running their radar systems in home-on-jam mode. Lucky to her, the RFCM is also a jammer, so from a theoretical standpoint, that should be able to mislead the home-on-jam system.¹ 

Thankfully this time that Grave Stone operator also takes the bait - that missile targets the towed decoy instead and destroys it. With the imminent threat gone, Winter pushes the side-stick to the left, then returns to her original task of locating the two goddamn Grave Stones.

After spending years and years fighting a proxy war, Iran suddenly decides it’s a good idea to make it real and starts firing ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia. Being the world’s police (Winter can’t help but to point out that the US has to be the worst police officer in human history), the US deployed its military to the Middle East again . According to a spokesperson of the Central Command, they’re doing this to protect Saudi Arabia - an important US ally - from the military aggression of Iran, but to the young Lieutenant, what the US is doing is basically protecting a douchebag from another douchebag, solely because the douchebag on their side has an awful lot of oil and cash.²

Today she and her best-friend-plus-flight-leader, Lieutenant Eri “Giselle” Uchinaga (callsign Shark 4-3), are assigned to the “Operation Thunderbolt”, a joint Navy-Marine Corps-Air Force Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) operation targeting Tehran. Under the protection of two Navy EA-18G Growlers and four Air Force F-22A Raptors, thirty-two F-35s (twelve Navy F-35Cs and four Marine Corps F-35Cs, plus sixteen Air Force F-35As) will destroy all the fire units of the two SA-21 and two SA-20B Gargoyle (more commonly known as the S-300PMU-2 Favourite) battalions that formed the first line of defense, clearing a path for the ten Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles and twelve Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to take care of the rest of the SA-20B and SA-21 battalions³ , anti-aircraft guns, as well as less-advanced SAM systems like the SA-2 Guidelines (the Russians call it the S-75 Dvina) and SA-6 Gainfuls (the Russians call it the 2K12 Kub); she and Giselle are assigned to take out two of the eight fire units of the leading SA-21 battalion.⁴

Rather than using themselves as bait, this time the F-35s are using their AN/ASQ-239 Barracuda electronic warfare systems to create a couple false targets, in an attempt to bait the Iranian radar operators into switching their radars to active mode. But as it turns out, this also makes them very easy targets for the home-on-jam systems. Right now Winter is facing a dilemma - if she stops using her Barracuda to jam the Iranians, she'll have to use herself as bait (which is dangerous), but if she keeps jamming them, the Grave Stone operators will have no reason to actually use their radars in active mode.

Before Winter can make up her mind though, she notices another smoke trail - that fire unit fires a fourth missile. Just like last time, the Grave Stone still hasn’t emitted too many signals.

“Would you bastards just leave me alone?!” Winter sends her greetings to the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Defense Force, as she pushes the sidestick to the left and drops another RFCM.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, when Hermione insists on having a plan before going back to Hogwarts, Harry responds with the following: “Hermione, when have any of our plans ever actually worked? We plan, we get there, all hell breaks loose!” After she evades the fourth missile from that fire unit by dropping another RFCM, Giselle finds that line to be a horribly accurate description of her situation: originally, the plan is they will both use their Barracudas to create a couple false targets to bait the Grave Stone operator; after the operators take the bait and switch their radars to active mode, Winter will then locate the Grave Stones by tracing their radio waves back to their sources, and take them out using her AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missiles-Extended Range (AARGM-ER). After the Grave Stones are down, she will move in to destroy the rest of the fire units with the eight GBU-53/B StormBreakers she’s carrying.

Yet the reality is just like what Harry said - they plan, they get there, and all hell breaks loose. Rather than dropping her StormBreakers on the Transporter Erector Launchers (TEL), she is playing a cat-and-mouse game with a Grave Stone operator, and this time the operator is the cat.

Suddenly a familiar voice appears on the encrypted frequency, “Shark 4-4 to Shark 4-3, we need to secure⁵ our jammers, or neither of us is going back to home alive! I’m securing my jammer right now, over!” 

“Roger that 4-4, securing the jammer right now!” Giselle replies to her wingman while turning off the jammer component of her Barracuda.⁶ Of course Giselle is not happy with Winter making decisions on her own (after all, she is the flight leader), it’s not like she has too much of a choice other than to live with it.

Just as Winter predicted, when both Shark 4-3 and 4-4 turn off their jammers, the operators immediately switch the two Grave Stones to active mode, reacquire their targets, and immediately fire at her and Giselle again, forcing the two F-35Cs to engage in defensive maneuvers and drop another RFCM. Since each TEL can hold up to 16 missiles, and each of the fire units can have up to 12 TELs (although according to her pre-flight briefing, the Iranians only allocated 4 TELs for each fire unit, because they don’t have the budget to get that many TELs), this is hardly surprising.

But all of that matters little to Winter - with the Grave Stone operators finally using their radars in active mode, she can easily take them out. Directing the two AGM-88Gs to home on the radio waves emitted by the two Grave Stones, the Lieutenant then opens the weapon bays and lowers the two anti-radiation missiles. “Shark 4-4, Magnum!⁷” She pushes the air-to-ground weapon release button, firing a salvo of AARGM-ERs.

Realizing two anti-radiation missiles are flying straight at them, the two operators immediately turn off the two Grave Stones, hoping they will lose track of their targets. It’s true that such tactics will work like a charm for early anti-radiation missiles (which often only have a passive radiation homing system), but the AGM-88G also have a millimeter-wave active radar homing system and a Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation System (INS) guidance system⁸, meaning the missile can “remember” where the radar is - even if the radar is turned off.

Looking at the two AGM-88Gs dodging the missiles and autocannon rounds fired by the SA-22 Greyhounds (or as the Russians call it, the Pantsir-S1) with the AN/AAQ-40 Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS), Winter is praying for the two AARGM-ERs to hit. According to the pre-flight briefing, each of the fire units they’re targeting is also protected by four SA-22s. Considering the fact the two AARGM-ERs are still flying towards the two Grave Stones even after the Iranians turned them off, all of these events are perfectly within Winter’s expectation; should the SA-22s manage to shoot down one of the AGM-88Gs (or even worse, both), she will have to send the GPS coordinates of the two Grave Stones to Giselle.

That being said, what happens next is not something Winter would normally expect. Although she’s expecting the SA-22s will shoot down at least one of the AGM-88Gs, both of them successfully destroy the Grave Stones, which cripples the two fire units.⁹ As she witnesses how it unfolds with her EOTS, Winter can’t resist her urge to quote Mark Twain: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” 

“Shark 4-3, this is Shark 4-4, I have visual confirmation that both radars are down, and you’re cleared for phase two. Transmitting coordinates of the fire units now, over.”

Finally, some good news. Receiving the GPS coordinates of the two fire units from the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), Giselle switches to the encrypted frequency, “Roger that Shark 4-4, coordinates received, and I’m moving in for the attack. Shark 4-3 out.” For the sake of safety, Giselle turns on the EOTS to get a visual confirmation.¹⁰ Alright, looks like they’re trying to move the TELs to another location. Sorry folks, but that’s not gonna happen. 

Compared to its predecessor, the GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), a notable improvement of the StormBreaker is it has a tri-mode seeker - millimeter-wave active radar homing, semi-active laser guidance and imaging infrared homing - in addition to the GPS/INS guidance system in the original SDB. Not wanting to stay here and guide the StormBreakers with the laser designator, Giselle chooses to go with the imaging infrared homing system, and all of them will target the eight TELs.

“Shark 4-3, Rifle.¹¹” Giselle pushes the air-to-ground weapon release button, releasing the StormBreakers. She knows it’s a very strange thing to say (especially when they wanted her and Winter dead), Giselle actually wishes some of those operators will come out of this alive - being a fighter pilot, she can’t help but to respect the Iranians for their combat discipline and competence: they don’t surrender, they turn on their SAMs, and they put up a pretty good fight. Should she ever have the chance to meet those operators after the war, the Lieutenant imagines she will shake their hands and tell them they’re outstanding warriors.

As she witnesses the StormBreakers dodging the missiles and autocannon rounds fired by the SA-22s before reducing the TELs into ashes from her EOTS, Giselle says on the encrypted frequency, “Saber 1-1, Shark 4-3, I have visual confirmation on the two fire units, they are both down, over.” Saber 1-1 is the callsign of the Air Force E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft of today.

“Roger that Shark 4-3, good work. Shark 4-3 and 4-4, climb to angel¹² 30 and link up with Shark 4-1 and 4-2 at designated point ECLIPSE. We need fighter escort for the rest of the strike package, over.”

Footnotes:

1. Compared to chaffs, towed decoys also have a similar Doppler shift to the aircraft (due to their low velocity, modern radars can easily differentiate the aircraft and the chaffs by measuring the Doppler shift), meaning it’s much difficult for the radar operator to tell the difference between the two - again, from a theoretical standpoint.
2. On the other hand, as much as Winter hates to fight this stupid war for (in no particular order) Joe Biden, MBS, the Wall Street and the oil companies, she admits this fiasco has a positive side: before that, the Navy has been cutting her flight hours to the absolute minimum, for the sake of not overworking the precious engines of the F-35Cs. But thanks to the Iranians, the higher-ups throw that restriction away literally overnight; being a pilot, she always appreciates the opportunity to fly planes.
3. Before this mission, Winter asked the carrier air wing’s operations officer after the F-35s took out all of the SA-21 fire units, what would happen to the battalion’s 55K6E mobile command post, 40V6MR mobile mast system, 91N6E “Big Bird” acquisition and battle management radar and 96L6E “Cheese Board” early-warning and acquisition radar, as well as the SA-22 Greyhounds (the Russians call it the Pantsir-S1) assigned to protect the fire units; this was the answer she received.
4. Each SA-21 battalion can have up to eight 98Zh6E fire units, which consists of one 92N6E “Grave Stone” engagement radar and up to twelve 5P85SE2 Transporter Erector Launchers (TEL).
5. That’s the Navy jargon for turning off something.
6. Actually, the Barracuda is responsible for a lot of things, in addition to jamming enemy radars and radios - it’s also responsible for radar warning, targeting support, geolocation and deploying countermeasures.
7. That’s the brevity code for firing an AGM-88.
8. Expecting the operators to pull that off, Winter also entered the GPS coordinates of the two Grave Stones to her AGM-88Gs; after tracing the two Grave Stones’ radio waves back to their sources, the onboard computers automatically calculated the GPS coordinates for her.
9. Granted, the TELs are still intact, but without the engagement radar, they’re just sitting ducks. As of the SA-22s, since they’re designed for short-range air defense for the ground forces and long-range air defense systems like the SA-20s and SA-21s, they’re hardly a threat to Winter and Giselle.
10. Knowing Winter ever since her days in the Naval Academy, Giselle trusts her best friend to not send her faulty coordinates, but it’s always a good thing to double-check, right?
11. Originally the brevity code for launching a AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile, now it was used for firing any guided munition.
12. One angel equals 1,000 feet; similarly, one cherub equals 100 feet. 

Edits:

• 12:43 May 2, 2021: removed an extra "s" in "cherub"; it shouldn't be plural.
• 13:22 May 2, 2021: just some polishing on Giselle's part.
• 16:24 May 21, 2021: fixed a couple grammatical errors (who knows what takes google docs so long to remind me that), as well as adding a couple more footnotes.
• 14:38 May 22, 2021: fixed a typo; I have no idea why I always typed AAGRM when it should be AARGM……🤦
• 16:26 May 27, 2021: I just felt like Winter's part is a bit too short (not to mention it's implausible that the Iranians won't even try to shoot down the AGM-88Gs), so I extended it a bit.
• 20:39 May 27, 2021: damn, I forgot to update a whole paragraph. 🤦
• 15:17 June 5, 2021: actually, Iran doesn't operate the SA-3, so I replaced it with the SA-6. My apologies. 🙇‍♂️
• 15:43 June 5, 2021: since I'm giving the Russian designation of the SA-20, SA-21 and SA-22, I should also do the same thing for the SA-2 and SA-6. 🙂
• 16:26 June 5, 2021: added a forgotten "but".
• 16:52 and 17:18 June 5, 2021: fixed a couple grammatical errors and some polishing.
• 21:34 and 22:58 June 5, 2021: Even more polishing. I think I finally understand why nobody is writing about SEAD missions - it's really, really complicated to write. 😂😂😂
• 00:51 June 6, 2021: ditto.
• 02:15 June 6, 2021: after a quick shower, I realized there might be a contradiction between "F-35s are using their jammers" and "F-35s are using themselves as baits", so I changed it to "The F-35s are using to jammers to create a couple false targets in an attempt to bait the Iranians to switch their radars to active mode". (I have no idea why it took me a whole month to realize it either. 😅)
• 17:43, 19:38, 20:03, 21:14, 21:28 June 7, 2021: correct some of the terminologies and adjusted what Giselle destroyed with her GBU-53/Bs, so it correctly reflects the composition of a SA-21 battalion. Because of that, Winter and Giselle are not hunting down two SA-21s, but two of the fire units of a SA-21 battalion. I apologize for horribly misunderstood the composition of a SA-21 battalion. 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️ (Moral of the story: you should never trust Wikipedia too much.) Also, I added the USMC into the operation, and increased the number of F-35s to 32. ✌️
• 15:41 June 8, 2021: rewrote some of the sentences so they look less awkward, elaborate on how many SA-20 and SA-21 battalions the F-35s are facing, and added a couple more footnotes to explain some technical stuffs. For the sake of consistency, the SA-22s also fired at the GBU-53/Bs, just like the AGM-88Gs.
• 03:51 July 18, 2021: I just found out that the F-35 is using the ALE-70(V) towed decoy, not the AN/ALE-55, so it was corrected.
• 15:43 August 22, 2021: just a bit more polishing. Damn, this is so embarrassing. 🤦🤦🤦
• 14:53 August 30, 2021: even though I would like to think most of my readers can google what AWACS is, I decided to provide the full name from the beginning, because why not?
• 16:31 and 16:42 September 2, 2021: changed the number of SA-22s from one per fire unit to four, because why not?
• 13:46 September 7, 2021 and 15:45 September 13, 2021: just a bit more polishing.
• 18:44 December 22, 2021: clarify which version of the SA-20 they're dealing with.