Noise Jamming
The numerical advantage was a product of Bifrata's caution. He had originally planned for a third of the package, six aircraft, to escort, which had looked sufficient. At the last moment he had reduced the number of bomb-carriers and increased the escort to ten. The Su-30MKI was no longer just the air force's pride. It had become almost a national myth of invincibility. The young guns of the Eagle Squadron, riding the aircraft's reputation, had become idols among the young; with help from the television networks, queues had formed outside air force recruiting offices. Even New Delhi schoolchildren knew India had an aircraft that could not be touched. A few days earlier, Defence Minister Singh had telephoned the Air Chief Marshal: politically speaking, it would be best if not a single Su-30 were lost. A tall order, since even in peacetime crashes happened. But Bifrata had decided to handle every Su-30 with care and ensure none was downed.
Sami now caught the Indians shifting radar mode into single-target tracking, and the Indian formation had taken roughly a thousand metres of altitude advantage on him. He at once ordered the package to split into two divisions and roll into descending turns; he wanted, on their displays, to look like a panicked rout. In the AWACS, Major General Islam was anxious for him. Using Sami as bait was not what Islam had wanted; the old man was the most precious card in the Pakistan Air Force. But old Sami had insisted on going up himself, and there was nothing to be done.
The Indians still did not fire. They did, however, accelerate. Sami's sudden break under their nose, plus the messy formation eight Pakistani aircraft were now flying, had pulled them in.
"Abbas. Take Two flight toward Gujranwala. I'll go for Islamabad. Get there fast. We rejoin shortly." Sami called.1
"Copy, boss."
Two flights of Thunders broke into high-AOA turns. The Lions' lock solutions, painstakingly built up moments earlier, fell apart. Several Su-30s had in fact had their R-77s in a launch-permitted state, the pilots one final voice confirmation away from the AWACS. The split sent them into doubt. Following south (toward Gujranwala) ran them straight into the assembly area of the Pakistan Army's XXX Corps,2 which would have heavy organic AAA.
"Lions, recommend you pursue the northern flight. The jammer will cross the border shortly. Half an hour ago they launched out of Attock. AAA in that sector is weak. You should be able to ride them all down over Attock."
"Lions copy." Deputy Squadron Leader Sahili3 answered with hesitation. A difficult moment for him. By the brief, he had discretion to continue or to peel half the squadron back. The pips representing the bandits were dancing across his HUD and the range was steadily closing. By the AWACS report, no serious AAA remained in this sector, evident from the small count of medium-range warning radars in operation, most of which were concentrated in other distant sectors. Pakistan might have a few electro-optical tracking systems on the ground that did not need radar, capable of cuing a French Crotale4 or a Chinese Fei Meng,5 but the cloud was low today and the rain was steady. Reliant on those systems alone, the short-range missile threat reduced to negligible.
"Lions, accelerate the pursuit. Hold altitude. We need a lock inside one minute." Sahili said. The pursuit had the texture of an exercise: the bandits running flat out and trying to break the track, his flight pinned to their tails. The feeling relaxed him a touch. The squadron had not seen real combat. Up to now he had been telling himself, every minute, that he was deep in enemy territory.
The trailing EW aircraft pushed across the border at 400 kph. Its own jamming output was so vast that its own communications were affected; the link to the AWACS could not be held continuously. By the brief, it kept the strike package at a fixed distance and trailed behind. As a stand-off platform, that was a precarious position. Even though every radar antenna around it was being saturated with noise, even though the Lions were entirely lost inside the jamming, only the EW platform itself was visible on the Pakistani ground radar screens. Its pilot decided not to push too far in. Pending further instruction, he would simply cut figures-of-eight near the border.6 The conservative behaviour made Islam and Sami's plan workable. The reason they had hidden the warning radars 200 kilometres due west: at that range a brief illuminate cycle still maintained a decent burn-through distance. The Chinese technical advisors in Pakistan were working from a conservative jamming-to-signal-ratio threshold for radar-on time, with help from the AWACS. Right now, 32 missiles in the hills had their noses up, waiting. The Lions were drifting out of the jammer's 120-kilometre absolute protection bubble. The duration of the shoot remained the controller's hard problem. Move slowly, and the jammer 200 kilometres back could still detect the emission in time and find a deception against the frequency-agile radar. Nobody yet knew what that latency was. Only this engagement would tell.
Ten Su-30s, in a staggered formation, went after the running Thunders. Sahili wanted his teammates to find the shortest path to a lock. The forward flight of Thunders was clearly slippery. They were defeating radar tracks effectively at 40 kilometres, as if specifically trained for it. The Lions' pilots became impatient.
"Lions lead, monopulse fire-control radar in your area." the AWACS warned. On the data link, Sahili saw a suspect emitter 50 kilometres northeast: probably a Crotale ground launcher. His altitude was over 4,000 metres. He was not greatly concerned. If, after fifteen minutes inside enemy territory, not one ground radar had appeared, that would have been suspicious. Neither he nor his AWACS controller had thought there might be an actual trap ahead.
"Lions lead, new emitter. C-band."
Sahili glanced down at the display. This might be one of the AESA radars the Air Chief Marshal had assured them did not exist in this sector, and it was only 25 kilometres out. Enough to push a cold sweat through the deputy squadron leader. Fortunately the radar was still in scan mode.
"Kushan, fire your anti-radiation missile."7
"Copy."
One Su-30 in the formation turned at once toward the suspect radar. Fifteen seconds of flight to reach launch. If the riposte succeeded, Islam's long-laid counter-strike would be heavily blunted.
1. Abbas's role: Flight Lieutenant Abbas, Sami's wingman from Chapter 45 and earlier, takes Two flight south. Sami's bisection of the package is the standard counter against an AESA's track-while-scan: forcing the Indian fire-control loop to choose a half, while the other half slips through the discriminator. ↩
2. Pakistan Army XXX Corps: The Chinese 第30集团军 ("30th Army Group") corresponds in Pakistan Army order of battle to XXX Corps, headquartered at Gujranwala. The corps is one of the two principal striking commands on the central front and represents the kind of dense organic AAA that would deter a Su-30 follow-on south. ↩
3. Deputy Squadron Leader Sahili: New character; deputy commanding officer of No. 31 "Lion" Squadron, leading the air-to-air escort flight. The Chinese alternates between 萨希利 and 萨希尔 within this chapter pair; treat as authorial slip and use Sahili throughout. ↩
4. Crotale (响尾蛇导弹): The French Thomson-CSF Crotale short-range surface-to-air missile system. The Chinese 响尾蛇 ("rattlesnake") in this context refers to the Crotale in Pakistani service, not the American AIM-9 Sidewinder which shares the same Chinese name in some contexts. The Pakistan Army acquired Crotale from the late 1970s onward and uses it for point defence of high-value installations. ↩
5. Fei Meng (飞蠓导弹): A short-range Chinese surface-to-air system. The Chinese name (literally "flying midge") corresponds to one of the QW or FN-series man-portable / vehicle-mounted systems China has marketed for export, broadly comparable in performance to the early-generation Stinger or the Russian Igla. The reading here is uncertain; the system is named in passing and does not return. ↩
6. The 120-kilometre protection bubble: An indicative figure for the effective range over which a barrage jammer at the relevant power output and altitude can saturate ground radars to non-detection. Inside that distance, the Lions are invisible to the Pakistani search radars; outside it, they can be tracked through the noise floor. By the time Sahili's flight registers the new C-band emitter, they have crossed out of the bubble and are visible to the FD-2000 search radar's burn-through. The arithmetic is the entire point of Sami's "lure them west" plan. ↩
7. Lieutenant Kushan: A Lions pilot tasked with the anti-radiation strike. The Kh-58 (Kh-31P in some IAF Su-30MKI configurations) is launched at the Pakistani fire-control radar over the next chapter; the engagement's outcome is detailed in Chapter 63. ↩