93rd Bomb Squadron, US Air Force Reserve (USAF-R)
Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana
Many years ago, when Major Tinney had decided to join the Reserves after his regular service had ended, the USAF-R was considered a bit of a country club. You would occasionally head out to the base, perhaps fly a few hours to maintain your type rating and then you would play golf on the base course and go home. Those days were long gone.
As a B-52 pilot, Major Tinney had flown almost ten times as many combat sorties as a reservist than he ever did as an “active duty” pilot flying B-1’s and then later the iconic B-2. The “BUFF” was older than his father, who ironically enough also flew B-52’s. In his father’s day, the B-52 was used to “carpet bomb” the Viet Cong in an ultimately fruitless attempt to bomb them into the stone age. Today, the B-52 was a gigantic missile and bomb truck. As often used to attack a single person or a single truck as to unload a full bomb bay into a massive target like a factory or a tank formation. During the war in Afghanistan, Tinney had orbited for hours over his assigned sector, waiting for fire missions that sometimes didn’t come. In effect a Close Air Support platform, the B-52 could deliver a JDAM or similar munition on order from a Forward Air Controller and stay on scene for hours as opposed to loitering times measured in minutes for fighter aircraft.
Today, the mission was about to change again. Armed with an underwing AN/ASQ-236 Dragon’s Eye and a full load of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) was about to become a very potent anti-shipping and maritime strike platform. While in theory the P-8 was supposed to fill this role, the reality was that the P-8 was designed more for maritime patrol than maritime strike. A full squadron of B-52’s armed for maritime strike operations could take down an entire flotilla of ships and clear a passage for a Navy task force with a striking power that couldn’t be matched by a dozen P-8’s. With a 150 mile range, the AGM-84 was a standoff weapon which suited the B-52 perfectly. There was no way the B-52 would survive an intense anti-aircraft missile salvo from a Chinese formation but with the Harpoon, there was no need. At that range, it would be very difficult for the Chinese to effectively engage the BUFFs. They could fire their weapons and withdraw before they could be effectively engaged. Their high cruising altitude both increased the range of their Dragon’s Eye radar and the effective range of the Harpoons. While some missiles would be jammed and some intercepted, they only needed one hit to take out a frigate or a destroyer. A full salvo from the squadron would number over one hundred missiles. At the same time, the long range and high altitude made any anti-aircraft missile shot by the Chinese quite difficult. Ironically, using a strategic bomber as a maritime strike platform was a page out of the old Soviet Union’s playbook. This was extremely similar to the way the Tu-95 Bear was supposed to attack the US Navy in the Atlantic if World War III had ever happened. Although, in their case, the high performance of the F-14 Tomcat made a high altitude attack suicidal and they had switched to very long range cruise missiles fired at low altitude from supersonic aircraft.
Unfortunately for them, the Chinese didn’t have carriers. Yet. Based on the frenzied pace of their naval aviation efforts, they agreed that this was a fatal gap in their current order of battle.
Today, the 93rd would mount up, mate with their embedded tanker support and fly nonstop to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Two C-5’s full of Harpoon Anti-Ship missiles were already en-route. Tinney had no idea why command thought that many missiles were required but he certainly knew what to do with them.
What he didn’t know was that the US was dangerously short of Harpoons. Most of the more modern Block II missiles were already deployed on US Navy surface ships. Boeing was ramping up production and running three shifts at their production facility but in the short term, the Air Force was limited to older units which had been stored by the Navy pending dis-assembly. Never the less, it was a potent weapon and any Chinese Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ship that wandered into range would be having a very bad day indeed. Well, he thought, if the Chinese Army could have a Navy than it made sense that the Air Force would take on Maritime Strike. All they needed now was the Coast Guard to start launching satellites.
“Chief!”
“Yes sir!”
“Ready to turn and burn?”
“Yes sir! Good to go!”
“OK, get on the horn, get the ops shack to start the BUFFs rotating.”
While the Chief Master Sergeant got that running, he turned to his second in command, Lieutenant Williams. “Ever been to Clark, John?”
“No sir.”
“Yeah, me neither. Got turned over to the locals before I graduated from the academy. My old man was stationed there during Vietnam though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. Flying BUFFs.”
“That’s ironic, sir.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“This is gonna be way more fun than flying your old BONE, sir.”
“Son, if we were flying my BONE, we’d be there by now.”
“Well, I hope the locals can cook. We’ll be eating their chow for at least the next six weeks.”
“Oh, you’ll love it. Haven’t I ever made my mom’s Chicken Adobo for you? Her mom lived about six miles from Clark before she moved to Oklahoma to live with my mom and dad.”
“Old home week?”
“Yeah, something like that.”