| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Analysis of a Shootdown |
| Date: | Wed, 27 Aug 1997 19:12:59 +0100 |
>>>>>[TO: SIGANet Archive
We picked through the Lurker shootdown, and the Ares crew came up with
some ideas.
+++++begin video
Lynch is cleaning the bolt of the MP-5PDW that's spread out in front of
him: Lilith is writing, on old-fashioned paper and using a handsome gold
fountain pen. Arashi enters the trailer in some haste.
"Talk me through it."
"You were there-"
"Ten thousand feet too low and facing the wrong way when it all
started." She shakes her head, visibly upset, "I've traded most of my
humanity to be the fastest thing in the air, and I'm not even pointed in
the right direction until it is all over. And when I get there, I don't
see a damn thing, not even in the Valkyrie. Talk me through what
happened. Besides letting Beamish and Baker down, something's bugging
me, and I want to know what."
Lynch shrugs; reassembles the submachinegun with quick, economical
movements; and rises to his feet. "Why not?"
<sequence snipped for brevity>
The tactical plot, sketched out on a sheet of paper in several colours,
looks like a child's scrawl. Arashi rubs her eyes. "The Ghost kills
Romulus, Talley and Bellman both see it and get shots at it, but both
miss. Lynch, you saw an explosion, the right direction for the Ghost,
and the timings are all vague."
"The jamming cut out right when I saw the flash. You saw my tape, and my
headware clock's precise. Romulus had to blow up fast enough to leave no
residual fire trail, and there were no secondary explosions. A few
seconds later the AWACS sweep hits us, and Romulus has to be gone by
then or they'd have seen it: it has to have exploded, enough that AWACS
rejects the debris as clutter. A hit on the Ghost means a second
explosion, and I didn't see one. Talley and Bellman didn't: the clouds
would have been lit up, they couldn't miss it. So, nobody hit the
Ghost." Lynch pours coffee for all three.
"What's the one assumption we keep making?" asks Arashi sharply.
"That there was actually a Ghost present." replies Lilith thoughtfully.
"If there wasn't, what did Talley and Bellman shoot at?" Lynch asks.
"Okay, they're flying head-to-head. They're both looking for a Ghost.
Talley, okay, he sees a contact coming at him head-on, all he's got is a
fuzzy IRIS image, and he fires at what he thinks is a Ghost. So how come
the Bellboy doesn't mention anyone making a head-on gun pass at him?
Bellman says he engaged a target from astern. What the hell did he shoot
at? Without a Ghost, at least Bellman and maybe Talley's lying."
"And Romulus called a contact behind them. Twice." adds Lilith. "Before
it - or something - killed them."
"Lynch." Arashi circles Romulus' final position on the scrawled track.
"You're the Weasel jockey, Jason. Nearest thing to a jammer driver we've
got here. What would you do if you were flying Romulus?"
"We're not shooting at each other yet, so the Ghost is just spooking me.
I'd maintain normal flight and quietly call for help. Stops them
discovering how sensitive my tail-warning gear is." Lynch sips his
coffee. "If I really got jittery, or if someone started shooting at me,
shut down the jamming and dive for the deck. Talley's the man to ask,
he's flown Lurkers in action."
"I know that. I'm asking you anyway."
There's a knock on the door of the trailer. Lilith leans over and opens
it: Vernier sticks her head in and glances around, spotting Arashi, she
walks all the way in.
"Thought you might be here, when I didn't find you back at our trailer."
Vernier is momentarily distracted by the pile of sketches and diagrams
littering the table, but then looks up. "Hey, figured you'd want to see
this. I brought a copy of Wizer's AWACS data, and the sensor data from
the Valkyrie." She holds up a large datachip, and turns to the Lynches
who seem more than a little interested. "You guys got a computer around
here?" A silly question to ask of these two.
After plugging in her portable deck to their system, the holodisplay
unfolds, the red mist of jamming vanishing and small symbols marching
around the screen.
"How low could the AWACS see?" Arashi asks.
"Down to three thousand, for where we were." Lynch replies.
"So there's no way the Lurker could have got below the horizon between
the jamming shutdown and the first AWACS sweep."
Lynch shakes his head. "No. Romulus isn't there because it's in pieces,
and the clutter-rejection algorithms filtered it out."
"So what did you see blow up? This is you, here, coming over the top of
your Immelmann, canopy pointed right at them. You see nothing where
Romulus and the Ghost should be. Yet you're rolling level when you see a
flash, ten seconds later. What did you see explode?"
"The Ghost? Luttwidge would love that." Lilith suggests. "Talley or
Bellman got it after all."
"But look. Talley's here, and Bellman's here - Bellman's turning out
after his missile shot, and Talley is still firing his gun. Maybe Talley
hit it and Lynch saw the explosion?" Arashi is intent.
"Luttwidge will marry you and buy a full wing of Valkyries for this..."
Lynch grins, then the smile fades as if a switch was thrown. "Wait up.
If I saw the flash from seven miles out..."
"Talley can't have missed seeing it, the flame should have singed his
eyebrows. Yet he insists he saw nothing, even though it must have lit
the clouds like a flashbulb. And Bellman was staring right at it, and
saw nothing. He says." Lilith sighs. "Something is awry in the state of
Denmark."
"And this is Bellman, here. Two miles behind Romulus." Arashi continues.
"Where was he meant to be? Here, nearly fifteen miles ahead of them.
Ninety seconds flight time. Where did he _say_ he was? Here, ahead and
to the flank, still forty seconds flying. How fast did he have to fly
from where he said he was, to where AWACS saw him? The computer says
Mach 3.2, and this low even the Valkyrie can't accelerate to that speed
that quickly from a four-hundred-knot cruise. He's lying about where he
started and what he saw. Talley's lying about what he saw, too."
"Great. So they shot at each other and lied about it, and the Ghost got
away through the middle. Probably broke high while we were all looking
low." Lynch looks disgusted. "We can't even trust our own pilots now."
Vernier looks at the three pilots. "This trailer is secure, right?"
"As good as we can get it." Lilith replies. "And our best is pretty
good."
"Okay. Now this isn't exactly my area of expertise, and you guys may
have already thought of this but... how smart would you say that
Confederate AWACS is?" The Ares techician enquires.
Lynch frowns. "Very. Some extremely clever gear in there."
"If it's whited out by a jammer strobe, it parks the beam nulls on the
emitter and hunts for secondary reflections. Right?"
"Right. Does a good job of it, they've been -"
"How long to put the main lobes back on where the source was? You
wouldn't go straight back to search mode, or you're giving the jammer
your chirp and PRF for free. How many sweeps would you wait before skin-
painting the jammer itself?" Vernier is deadly serious.
"Three, four sweeps... maybe thirty seconds before it would register.
Fuck." Lynch is suddenly icily furious. "I should have thought of that."
"Romulus could have been right here. But the AWACS deliberately put it
in a blind spot, to protect itself from the jamming. If Romulus did what
you think, where would it be? Correct me if I'm wrong." Vernier programs
the computer: Arashi, Lynch and Lilith watching her calculations
intently, but saying nothing.
This time, as the ballet unfolds, you see a new contact: Romulus, diving
for sea level as it shuts its jammers down.
Sandwiched perfectly between Bellman, right on its six o'clock, and then
Talley in a head-on pass.
"And that's the explosion you saw, Lynch. There. One or the other of
them hit it. And both are lying. Why?"
+++++end video
That's a good question. We're still looking for the answer.]<<<<<
-- 1Lt L R W Lynch <19:08:42/08-27-58>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
