Episode 18

Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri

509^th Bomb Wing

“Looks like a JDAM.”

“No, it’s a JDAM-ER, look at the wing package underneath.”

The object in question was strapped to a weapons cart which was currently under the “Spirit of Florida” otherwise known by the “Tail Number” of 92-0700.  Of course, B-2s didn’t have tails, but tradition died hard in the USAF.  The sad thing about the B-2 program was that there were so few in active service that they all had names.  With only 20 in active inventory, the 19 aircraft of the 509^th were the only combat capable B-2s in the entire USAF.  With all the news reports about the war with China, the B-2 had been suspiciously silent.   Unlike the BUFFs, the B-2s had remained at home in their shelters at Whiteman for the duration of the crisis.  Until now.

The Chief Master Sergeant (or “Chief”) noticed the two airmen speculating over the ordinance going up into the B-2’s bomb bay.  “Gents, that ain’t no JDAM.  That there is a Flounder.”

The older airman was suitably impressed.  “A flounder, no way!”

The youngest member of the group, an airman, didn’t know if he was being made fun of by his slightly older companion (airman first class) or by the titanically older Chief.  “No, really Chief, what is it?”

The older enlisted had some mercy for the young airman.  He had a son about that age.  “Kid, that there is Quickstrike ER, otherwise known as a Flounder.  Basically, you take your humble Mark 80 dumb bomb, you add your QuickStrike aerial mine kit and then strap on a JDAM ER guidance package.  Viola!  A precision aerial delivery vehicle for sea mines!”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

The next voice was a full on command voice.   “Chief, we good to go?”

The Chief gave the wing commander a lazy salute.  “Yes sir, we will be locked and loaded in twenty minutes.  Wing scheduled to rotate in one hour.”

“Very good Chief, carry on.”

Major Weatherly hid a grin behind his hand.  He had some memory of being eighteen but it seemed another age.  With all the preparations for taking the wing to war, he needed something to distract him from the grim business at hand.  The two young airmen made him think of his own sons and wonder about the world he was going to leave them.

For the past five days, he had been planning the strike for “downtown” or mainland China.  Taking a bomb wing anywhere close to mainland China was not a safe or intelligent thing to do, but it was exactly what the B-2 was designed for.  Penetrating very complex, integrated air defense systems was the reason why the B-2 was created and it was the best platform on the planet for doing that.  For the past few years, the wing had been involved in bombing terrorists or third world countries which is roughly equivalent to towing a boat with your Ferrari.

Despite the B-2’s origins as a deep strike nuclear platform, the real sweet spot for the B-2 was actually deep penetration precision strike.  Being able to take the aircraft deep into enemy territory meant that the planes of the 509^th could go where they wanted and do what they wanted with relative impunity.  In reality, the delivery of nuclear weapons wasn’t a precision game.  Get within a few thousand meters and you are just fine.  An ICBM could deliver a nuclear weapon with much greater precision than was really needed.  Plus or minus half a mile just wasn’t an issue when you were delivering a forty kiloton warhead.  Getting in close with a precise surgical strike, that was a different matter.  A B-2 could drop a JDAM on a specific vehicle or into a specific window in the middle of Beijing.  Or that was the theory anyway.  Nobody had ever attempted to penetrate an air defense network as complex or as sophisticated as the one guarding mainland China.  Until today.

Today, the mission was something only the B-2 could do.  Penetrate deep into Chinese radar coverage and deliver a spread of precision munitions.  In this case, the munitions in question were aerial mines.  Traditionally, mine-laying from aircraft had been a very dicey business.  The traditional way of doing it was to fly very low and very slow in a precise pattern to deliver the mines where you wanted them.  The US Navy had attempted to do just that during the Gulf War with P-3 Orions and had lost one and almost lost several more.  The effort was abandoned due to the dangers involved.  That was against an Iraqi air defense that was very hyped at the time, but ultimately proved less than a challenge for the USAF.  Against China, a similar raid would have been suicide.

The Quickstrike program had originally been designed to allow the Air Force to use a standard bomb platform and add a mine package on the outside.  The bombs would then sink to the bottom and use sensors to explode when ships passed overhead.  Unlike the contact mines of world war two, these mines were very difficult to detect and very deadly.  Until the introduction of the new JDAM ER package, the mines had been very powerful but difficult to deliver, and thus, only used once in actual combat.  The key advance had been when the JDAM ER guidance package, which was also designed to use a standard Mk 80 series dumb bomb was added to the QuickStrike mine package.  The JDAM ER package was basically a set of stubby wings and a guidance package that allow the bomb to fly its self to a very precise set of coordinates.  This meant that for the first time, aerial mines could be delivered from standoff ranges with a very high degree of precision.

With a range of over 6,000 miles, the B-2 would fly non-stop from their base in Missouri, launch their weapons off the coast of China and return to the United States with only four in-flight refuelings.  They could make it round trip without refueling from Guam, but it had been decided to hold the B-2 fleet back inside the USA in case of an attack on Guam by China.   The crews had trained for this and some of them had performed similar missions over Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Weatherly had met a few F-117 pilots who were veterans of Desert Storm.  Originally, there had been some doubt about the original stealth bomber’s ability to penetrate into the advanced anti-aircraft network of Iraq.  Later, it had been realized that only a very lucky shot could endanger the F-117, but at the time, going “downtown” to Baghdad was a very ballsy thing to do.  The pilots Weatherly had talked to used the phrase “pucker factor” when flying into the SAM and AAA infested environs of Baghdad that first night.  However, not one F-117 was lost over Iraq during the entire conflict.  He sincerely hoped his upcoming mission would be similarly uneventful.

As he walked into the squadron briefing room, the men and women waiting for him surged to their feet.  “As you were.”  The command crews settled down into their seats.  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you have been wondering when it would be our turn to get into the war.  This mission is our turn.  The mission for tonight is to deliver a crippling blow to the People’s Liberation Army Navy.  If those Army assholes can have a Navy, then the US Air Force can take them out.”  There were polite chuckles at the weak attempt at humor.  “As you know, the mission tonight is to block the harbor approaches of the three main PLAN harbors, here, here and here.”  Using a laser pointer, he indicated the strike targets for the mining mission.  “While none of us have had a practice run with the new Flounders, we have all dropped JDAMs and the protocols are exactly the same.  In the end, this thing is just a JDAM ER going for a little swim.”  This time the chuckles were genuine.  Weatherly was warming to his lecture topic and his audience was paying rapt attention.  As if their very lives depended on it.  Which, it was fair to say, they did.