The autumn sunlight dimly illuminated the cabin through the tinted windows and did not create any inconvenience for watching what was on one of the large TVs installed at the top of the cabin.
The screen flashed frames from the next of the countless issues of "soldier's day", or, as it was translated from English into Russian, "one day of a soldier". This time it was something about aviation. It soon became clear that they were talking about large bombers, the ones that flew on ocean raids from continent to continent.
There was nothing else to do at the moment, so Dragovich threw his head back and concentrated his attention on the screen.
"In raids like that, we don't fly over highways," the American pilot explained from the screen, "we fly in groups, one towards the other, from continent to continent. In the raid we're going to tell you about, we took off from Anchorage and two hours and thirty minutes later we were already landing in Australia. When I say that we fly in groups, it's quite arbitrary - the interval is one and a half to two thousand miles.
A map appeared on the screen with a route that ran across the ocean from the northern United States to Australia. Flaxen-Haired fell silent and, like Dragovich, concentrated his attention on the screen.
"Powerful machines!" he finally said.
"A kilometer per second," Dragovich agreed.
- More. A kilometer per second is three six hundred, and here it's four five hundred and something. Large aircraft use kilometers per hour, not knots, - at that time the screen showed a picture from one of the bomber's displays.
- The most unpleasant thing is when the enemy launches something after us, - the American continued his story, - I mean not so much missiles as hypersonic drones. We bypass the air defense radii, and with a sufficient margin in range, but the drones that they launch are capable of flying for almost an hour. In essence, this is a hypersonic fighter that they can send one way. Such a thing can come from a remote sector, hang on your tail and chase you for half an hour, while it will slowly but surely catch up with you, and when it gets closer, it may not hit you like a missile, but launch a couple of its own missiles from a distance of several miles, and only then finish you off with its own hit. In that raid, two of these were sent after one of us, after "vampire 2-5". A picture of a dark purple sky and white, as if in fog, earth appeared on the screen. In the middle of the display field, against the background of the lilac sky, two marks hung clearly above the horizon.
- That's how they looked in the field of view of the tail radar of the "vampire 2-5", the bomber they intended to hit - the presenter's voice sounded.
Whatever you say, even in the seventh year of the War, such films-reports were not uninteresting to watch.
- If the shuttles hadn't been screwed up, then everything would have gone differently now, - said Flaxen-Haired.
- Now it doesn't really matter, - answered Dragovich, - the rocket launch sites have long been built.
- Those were the old Plane shuttles, - Flaxen-Haired perked up, - I just don't understand why they bother with these raids on Mach 4 planes and brag about it, when there were Mach 20 planes, or whatever the speed for orbit is... V-shuttles hang around somewhere in orbit and chase satellites, but there were really cool planes that could easily fly twice as fast as these raiders, and then step on the gas and go into space.
- Each of our machines has an arsenal of A-A missiles on board, - the pilot's voice was heard, - these are AIM-240 and heavy GBA AAM sys.260. "Two hundred forties" are the ones you can see in the arsenals of fighters. In their, fighters', classification, they are also designated as long-range heavy missiles. "Two hundred sixties" are already too big for a regular fighter.
- "Two hundred and forties" can be launched by an aircraft at a target that is pursuing it - in other words, they will perform a turn on their own, but in this case they will lose some of their energy, - the pilot continued his story, - We are talking about the engine energy, which in the case of a straight-line flight would go to gaining the maximum possible speed and jumping into the stratosphere, perhaps even much higher than the level at which the target is flying. At distances close to the maximum, this is the optimal trajectory - in this case, the missile attacks the target, coming from above. It is much easier to go downhill than uphill. Believe me, this works the same way with a missile.
After the missile performs a six-hour turn, it will still remain a dangerous threat to any aircraft flying at a speed below Mach 3, in other words, to any fighter, long-range air Kom.batt aircraft or light raider. Drones fly at speeds above Mach 5, so the described undertaking of intercepting even one such drone in the rear hemisphere will have a low chance of success. Fortunately, our tactics can solve this annoying problem - the guys in the plane that the two "@enemy" bandits were chasing only needed to keep the throttle up and keep their radar on the bastards. The rest was up to us, since we were flying towards them. We could have attacked our pursuers with our AIM-240s, and we would have done so, if we hadn't had our "two hundred and sixties".
If we had to wait a few minutes for the distance between us and the drones to shorten before opening fire with the "240s", then we could launch the "260s" much earlier. Our radar in both cases would be the tail radar of the "Vampire 2-5". And it was.
- This is what AAM-260 missile launches look like, - the presenter announced. The screen flashed footage of bomb bays opening, silhouettes of various heavy aircraft and thick white smoke trails in the almost black sky.
Then another pilot appeared and began to tell how everything happened from his point of view - it turned out to be the pilot of the plane that was attacked.
- In general, when you launch missiles at a speed of two and a half thousand knots, it looks and feels quite unusual - the first pilot who appeared again continued, - At first you hear the mechanization of the plane, then you feel a slight jolt and nothing more, no rumble.
At this point, the missile falls away from the plane and only there turns on its engine. But even then you won't hear anything - it has to go a little ahead and cover you with its sound wave cone - only then you hear its roar, though it quickly dies down.
When we launched the first missile, the distance between us and the target was one thousand one hundred miles. A short time later, when our "two hundred sixties" were halfway, we launched a couple more "two hundred forties", but there was nothing left for them. Both GBA AAM sys.260 missiles hit their targets.
- Shi-e-e, - Flaxen-Haired drawled in a low voice, - Can you imagine how much one such "two hundred forty" costs.
- Probably two hundred forty and that's it, - Dragovich grinned.
- Yeah, - Flaxen-Haired agreed, - but what?
- The plane they were saving from drones costs more. Plus these guys fly with pilots.
- That's also true, - Flaxen-Haired answered after a moment's thought.
All this time the tram was traveling along an overpass that ran approximately at the level of the third floors of the city buildings. The houses were untouched - despite the fact that fierce battles had once been fought in the eastern part of the city. About a kilometer later the overpass turned right, cutting off the corner above the intersection and passing right above the courtyard of some administrative building.
The tracks jumped over a small river, and before that over a ditch along which the railroad ran. Here, after the river, maybe even after the ditch, the wilds with abandoned industrial buildings began. The horizon, its western part, was covered with a strip of black clouds, as if a real storm was approaching, however, according to Flaxen-H, such dark clouds were common in these parts in the fall and were not harbingers of a storm. - I think, - the pilot's voice came from the screen, - you can't wait to see the results of our work that day - here they are.
A picture appeared on the screen with a view from a small side window with thick glass. Outside the window, a white foggy horizon line with cottony cumulus clouds floated somewhere tens of kilometers away. The sky was blue-black. In some ways, it resembled the radar picture shown earlier, but here the colors were much richer.
Suddenly, a small white spot appeared in the center of the picture, and the whole picture darkened at once. The spot quickly grew into a neat white ball hanging above the horizon. Some of the cumulus clouds dissolved into thin air one after another.
- I, and not only I, always try to capture this, - the pilot explained meanwhile. He turned out not to be a pilot, but an operator responsible for weapons and missile launches.
- Ordinary video cameras of optical systems, - he continued, - of course record this and much more, but I like to shoot from my place - it allows, as it seems to me, to preserve and convey the atmosphere of our work, the atmosphere of my workplace. I specially removed the filter from the window - the optical valve plate is attached on top, but most likely it would have darkened.
As they later explained, this megaton explosion occurred at a distance of three hundred nautical miles and disabled elements of the SAM/MDS network, that is, the enemy's air defense/missile defense. It also "fatally damaged," as they sometimes said, two destroyers and destroyed the air communications node that distributed the enemy's UCE, that is, the enemy's "interlink." For such a powerful charge, this was nothing, but it was a common occurrence. And yet, at one time, they intended to strike cities with such warheads.
- A couple of weeks ago, they reported that the missile defense system was breached in the Philippine Sea, - Flaxen-Haired said, - it looks like this is the incident they are talking about.