The MiG-29 Threat
"Mahdi, you take the illumination radar."
"Copy."
"We need to get closer."
On the MPCD, the pulses from the Indian search radar abruptly vanished. The enemy had realised the two F-16s charging in were carrying something unpleasant and had shut down cleanly. Uhaq was unfazed. The missile's LOCK-ON indicator was still lit; the anti-radiation missile had memorised the emitter's position, and the major reckoned he now had roughly even odds of putting a warhead within twenty metres of the antenna at twenty kilometres' range, using strapdown INS plus GPS.1
"Launch in ten seconds," Uhaq said. He reckoned the range to the Indian position would be down to around fifteen kilometres by then, close enough to enter the MAR-1's effective low-altitude envelope.
"Fire!"
Each aircraft launched one missile, then broke away. The enemy's guidance radar kept painting both F-16s but did not fire back. The major had timed it well; they had stayed outside the SAM-6's engagement range.
"Griffin, you've struck one guidance radar. Second missile's status unconfirmed."
"Excellent. They're blind to us again. By the way, where is Black Spider?"
"Black Spider is forty kilometres behind you."
"Is Sami really that frightened of crossing the Indian border?" Uhaq said, deliberately. He knew Sami could hear him over the radio. He had already guessed the old man would not be following too closely today.
"Reset the route. We go in from the north. Mahdi, if you see the barracks or the cricket pitch first, sing out."
"Copy."
The pair pressed on toward the target. The major had abandoned the original navigation route because he saw no need for it. He soon discovered the problem. On the HDD map, his aircraft was almost overhead the target, but neither he nor his wingman could find it.
"What the hell. We'll overshoot in thirty seconds. Why haven't I seen that damned river? Maybe we're too low." The major's voice carried a note of uncertainty. By the route indicator he should be flying straight at the target, but the obvious landmarks, houses, the town, were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a consequence of his unauthorised waypoint change.
"Lead, maybe we should rejoin the original route. Easier to find the target."
"Don't be stupid. We're thin on fuel." Uhaq was unwilling to climb for a better view and unwilling to rejoin the briefed route. If he genuinely missed the barracks, he would rather drop his bombs blind and go home than loiter in Indian airspace. That was the greater risk. By his own reckoning, the Trident Squadron to the east should be reacting by now.
"Major, I see a pointed-roof building, six o'clock. No river, no cricket pitch. Maybe we should make another circuit." the wingman said.
"That's the place. Prepare to release. Master arm on."
"Griffin flight, your target position may be slightly off." the AWACS cautioned.
"No. You're mistaken. My navigation is fine."
"New report: several enemy aircraft inbound from the east, fifty-five kilometres. Probably MiG-29Bs out of Adampur."
"Copy. Tell Sami to wake up. I can't fight MiG-29s head-on. Black Spider has to cover our withdrawal."
"See, their fighters really are coming. No time. Level off, hold altitude, prepare to release." Uhaq brought the CCIP reticle onto the pointed building a few kilometres ahead. He knew he was off target: no river, no cricket pitch, which meant the unfortunate pointed building was not the barracks. It was a civilian house. That was no longer his concern.2
The reticle crept past the velocity vector mark on the HUD and slid lower. Through the canopy he could make out the dense cluster of Indian rural housing ahead. Clearly no anti-aircraft gun would fire on him today.
"Hold speed. Level flight."
"Copy."
"Release."
A dozen-odd Mk 82 bombs3 fell from the wing pylons of the two aircraft. Seconds later, the buildings below were a sea of flame.
"Strike complete. Returning to base."
The two F-16s turned west. During the turn, they detected radar pulses scanning them continuously from the east. These were from the three Trident MiG-29s bearing in, radars sweeping the retreating F-16As. The MiGs' radars struggled to discriminate moving targets from ground clutter; no track would form. With their ordnance gone, the two Pakistanis were free to use every trick available to escape.
A few minutes later, the two F-16As crossed the border at five hundred metres. The border, however, had lost any restraining force today. The three MiG-29s, without hesitation, gave chase in a tight three-ship formation.
Captain Shubh Rawal led the other two MiG-29s over the burning village. The ruins below told their own story: the enemy had bombed without aim.
"Look what these animals have done." Rawal said.
"Lead, radar can't track the two bandits. The AWACS still isn't on station."
"Forget the AWACS. We keep after them. They can't stay low forever. We kill them in ten minutes and turn straight back."
Rawal lit the afterburner and pushed his speed to a thousand kilometres per hour. He guessed the enemy were F-16s or the new Thunders. If they would not climb, he would use his speed advantage to close inside a few minutes and engage with infrared missiles.
"Lead, should we drop altitude too?"
"No. It's probably two F-16s ahead. We stay high. The moment they pull up, we lose them, and they're carrying a lighter load than we are. We can't afford it."
Captain Rawal had become, by now, the squadron's F-16 specialist.4 His standing within the air force had risen sharply, and within the Tridents he was the leading candidate to take over as commanding officer. He was a naturally careful man, alert to danger in every direction. But the warning radar of a nearby army unit in the hills had just been destroyed by the raiding F-16s, and he had no idea that four Thunders were closing on him. Group Captain Sami's flight was holding around forty kilometres at Rawal's three o'clock: a mutually blind zone. Guided from the distant AWACS, Sami was working his way into a more favourable position.
Number two's Doppler fire-control radar managed, barely, to lock an F-16 and fire an R-27. But its weak look-down velocity track could not hold a terrain-hugging target for long, and at the last moment the missile lost the return. Rawal was anxious but refused to press too hard. He ordered one MiG-29 to drop behind him, forming an asymmetric triangle: a formation that preserved defensive options. Now inside Pakistani airspace, the captain would take no liberties. He sensed that his right flank might be exposed, because the destroyed search radar had covered precisely that sector. Indian army–air force coordination was usually sound and could have plugged some of the gap the absent AWACS left, but now there was a surveillance blind spot in exactly the wrong direction.
1. Strapdown INS plus GPS: The MAR-1's primary guidance is broadband passive homing on the target emitter. The backup mode Uhaq describes is a memorised-target function: once the seeker has acquired the radar, an inertial navigation system augmented by GPS retains the last known coordinate, allowing the missile to continue after the emitter shuts down. Accuracy degrades without live homing, which is why Uhaq rates his own odds at only fifty per cent. ↩
2. The civilian release: Uhaq's deliberate release onto a target he has already identified as not the briefed barracks mirrors the Indian Air Force's drift over Lahore's residential outskirts and the mosque in Chapter 22. The author frames the two incidents as symmetrical: by Day Two, both sides are dropping munitions they cannot account for, and aircrew on both sides have stopped pretending otherwise. Uhaq's stated justification is time pressure from inbound MiG-29s, but he has already committed to the release ("that's the place, master arm on") before the AWACS relays the threat. ↩
3. Mk 82: The Mark 82 is the standard NATO-pattern 500-lb low-drag general-purpose free-fall bomb. A PAF F-16A Block 15 can carry up to a dozen on its wing stations. None of these are precision-guided; the delivery here, blind against an unidentified cluster of rural buildings, is area bombing in everything but name. ↩
4. Rawal's rise: See C20N4 for his introduction. In Chapter 23 he sat through Dr. Rani's staged interview visibly reluctant to play along, answering in monosyllables while Goyal recited his lines. Three in-story days on he is the Tridents' F-16 specialist and the leading candidate to replace the squadron's commanding officer. The novel's compressed timeline is part of the point: political theatre is already receding into the past. ↩