04/25/1992
The slowly changing course settled at the "two hundred and seventy" mark, exactly to the West. The plane was descending. Now the altitude was sixteen thousand five hundred. Judging by the pitch, the commander decided to fly quite low over the city, and at supersonic speed.
Volkov continued to monitor the screen of the radio reconnaissance system. Half an hour ago, a single signal from the BUK search radar was observed, but now it had disappeared. Three air groups were approaching the city from three different directions. Group "A", which included ten Su-24s supported by the same number of MiG-29s, was coming from the south and was closest to the target area.
Here, in the rear, on its own territory, unlike the real situation of a military conflict, there was not the slightest hint of electronic warfare activity, so the data transmission system could regularly exchange coordinates of its sides, eliminating the need to use its own radar. Nevertheless, Volkov decided to "light up" the city and switched on the station.
A black and white picture of the terrain below appeared on the screen, resembling some kind of X-ray. After some short manipulations, the contours of the city blocks appeared. A row of power transmission towers crossing the river to the east glowed somewhat brighter than the rest. The metal structures of the industrial area also reflected well.
The city was now less than thirty kilometers away. At a speed that was currently two point one tenth of a Mach, this was less than a minute of flight. The earth looked like a continuous ocean of white translucent haze. From above it was blinding. Down there, one must assume, there was a viscous gloom with a blurred sun barely visible through the veil.
The altitude passed the ten thousand mark and continued to fall. A couple of times there was a vibration - the ascending currents made themselves known. Then the plane broke into a strip of high clouds, from which it emerged a few seconds later. Gradually, as they flew, a picture of a city spread out over a plain with a zigzagging river opened up in the layers of smog. The speed dropped to one point six tenths of Mach. The cone of the shock wave shimmered and trembled behind them. The city blocks were approaching. Volkov glanced at the radar screen, switching it to maximum range and orienting the antenna itself level with the horizon. Two hundred kilometers to the west hung the AN-124s, which had entered the barrage mode. The plane stopped descending and the pitch angle went up. Now they were racing over the geographic center of the city - a small river flowing into the main river flashed below. Further on were the pipes and cooling towers of the industrial hub, after which the fields began. Above the fields, the altitude according to the radio altimeter rose from the minimum to five thousand. At the time of the pass, it seemed to go under the seven hundred meter mark. This was quite a noticeable, albeit short-term stress for the glider, which could easily handle a speed of one kilometer per second at altitudes of thirty kilometers, but was not designed for supersonic passages. Now it, this stress, was left behind. One could only guess at the impression of the city residents, although over time, of course, there would be television interviews and memories and even fiction.
The engines switched to afterburner, pulling the plane into its native element - the cloudy heights, where the sky is bluer than blue, and the earth now looks like a white ocean. Group "B", coming from the northeast, reported opening fire. The tail radar actually saw that a group of small unidentified targets was moving at a speed of two and a half machs and was now heading for the city. These were missiles.
Meanwhile, the commander began to perform a turn with a gain in altitude. He commented on the attack with choice obscenities - this was not surprising. The West's insidious prank and the blatant, truly psychiatric naivety of the population eventually led to friendly fire. The missiles flew over city blocks and went somewhere to the south. There, judging by the photo reconnaissance data, a rebel field camp was deployed. Their southern group.
Then a voice came over the radio channel, "525th", the second MiG-131, reporting that it was observing a rebel Mi-24 that had landed on the roof of a nine-story building. The most interesting thing was that "525th" decided to repeat the maneuver and flew over the city, but unlike them, from "561st", it flew at low altitude at an altitude of about a hundred meters.
Meanwhile, the plane, now flying at a bank of forty-five degrees, began to descend. The speed went up from one point two tenths. Again, the immersion in the shroud, which began at six thousand, began. This time the passage was to take place to the southwest of the city, where there was a group of rebels.
The first to spot the targets was the optical station, which could see well in the long-wave infrared range. To Volkov's surprise, all five of the damaged aircraft were standing almost in a row, as if on parade. The distance between them, of course, was incomparable to any kind of formation - they were separated by hundreds of meters, but it was absolutely clear that more or less trained officers, whose goal was to ensure a functioning air defense, would not place the aircraft like that. This suggested some kind of collusion between the rebels and the attacking side, which could not but please. Shaking the area with a shock wave, the aircraft again rushed upward.