The undercurrent of the struggle, which has been surging under the Caucasus war situation, finally broke out suddenly today.

For the sake of completely different combat intentions, but they all took to the air in the same big way, and the air elites of the two major military blocs in the east and west were constantly approaching in the sky of the southern theater, and a vicious battle was just around the corner.

Looking back at the war in the southern skies, how many fierce air battles have been fought in the past week or so, neither NATO nor the Soviet Union has ever deployed so many fighters in the sky, so that the battlefield command and control systems of both sides have been overwhelmed, and they can only increase the number of early warning planes in the air, or let the fighters fight in batches and in different directions to alleviate it a little.

Commanding hundreds of fighter jets to operate on a 2,000-kilometer front at the same time is by no means an easy task.

As far as the Americans are concerned, they need to face the problem of coordination between the navy and the air force, while the Warsaw Pact group must coordinate with the air forces of several countries to act in unison.

However, unlike NATO's tactical air force, which basically changed the nature of its mission and only greatly increased its size, the Soviet Air Force, which intended to "conduct anti-radiation operations", was carried out in one force, so it was not too difficult to command; In order to deal the heaviest blow to the NATO air force in front of it, the command concentrated a large number of front-line air force fighters in the eastern part of the front, that is, the large airspace where the two sides fought for the most fierce air supremacy in order to support and cover the ground forces.

In the skies over the Caucasus land, among the warplanes dragging the smoke and cruising the sky, there was also the plane of Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher Harris of the 42nd Squadron of the 15th Fighter Wing of the US Air Force.

In such a sunny and beautiful weather, the plane was lifted into the air to carry out the same air cover mission for 10,000 years. I have accumulated enough experience and intuition in the fierce battles in the sky. Lieutenant Colonel Harris and his partner Harper Cartel still recognized early on that the atmosphere on the battlefield today was a little extraordinary.

Before taking off from Kvas Air Base on the southern shore of Lake Van Lake. The mission briefing only mentioned the plans of friendly and neighboring forces in an ominous manner, but Harris still had a faint premonition, he knew that the "Typhoon" operation had entered a critical moment, and in the face of the crazy counterattack that the Russians would inevitably have, although the combat mission sent down from above had not changed, it was impossible to say that the command was not prepared for it at all.

Hmph, but that's fine; No matter how much combat readiness there is. Anyway, the 42nd Squadron still has to do the old job of low-altitude cover.

Flying the dark gray painted F-15E to the north, the wings and fuselage pylons were covered with "Sidewinder" and "Slammer", the lieutenant colonel, who was the commander of the 42nd Squadron and also had a good chance of becoming the deputy of the wing leader, made it a little easier for himself, and instead of carrying the better-than-nothing, or rather waste-like AIM-7M "Sparrow", he changed into the standard air superiority combat configuration of four AIM-9Ls and four AIM-120Bs.

Although the F-15E "Strike Eagle" is designed to undertake high-intensity combat bombing missions, it is still too dangerous to use in the Caucasus, where enemy aircraft are fierce and dangerous, and the command has not put it into ground attack operations based on this consideration. As for the conformal fuel tanks that arrived at the Turkish base with the fighters, these "Strike Eagles" were hardly installed and now lie in the warehouse and sleep soundly. This made Lieutenant Colonel Harris feel quite unhappy, and there was nothing he could do about it for a while.

But the love xù is the love xù. When you go to the battlefield, you have to concentrate on the enemy, the AN/APG-70 radar has already detected the MiGs in the northern sky, and an astonishing number of Russians are about to rush over!

As a squadron commander, although the 42nd Squadron does not need to face the Russian fighters and seize and maintain air supremacy in the theater, but how many days of fighting have not seen such a large formation as today, seeing more and more red icons representing enemy aircraft on the multi-function display, and then exceeding the tracking and processing capabilities of the carrier aircraft, Rao is the battle-hardened Fletcher Harris couldn't help but gasp.

These Russians, are they all crazy, is this the legendary dumping of the nest?

It is not impossible to say that the Ivan will make a desperate bet at such a time of war, but for those of them who are in the line of fire, this is big bad news.

Faced with so many MiGs, the lieutenant colonel even began to wonder if the missiles of the 42 squadron were enough; But thinking like this, there was no time for people to look ahead and backward on the battlefield, so he adjusted the channel and called the "torch" to confirm that the air situation information was transmitted smoothly, and then called each aircraft on the radio in a stack, so that they could watch their own fronts and prepare to deal with a large number of Russian fighters rushing at low altitude.

Although looking at the radar scanning situation, the oncoming Russian fighters have an absolute numerical advantage, and at least 15 have been found within the 50-kilometer sector of the front, but with the good multi-target engagement capability of the AN/APG-70 radar and AIM-120B missiles, the lieutenant colonel is not afraid of Ivan's all-round charge, he decided to lead the squadron to advance to meet the enemy, launch a round of BVR salvo when the distance between the enemy and us is close to 50 kilometers, and then outflank the troops in two ways. Rush up and have a heart-to-hand melee fight with Ivan!

Under the leadership of the lieutenant colonel, the dark gray "attack eagles" turned on the afterburner and entered the climb, leaving a thick condensation trail in the Caucasus sky.

Opposite these US fighters that climbed to meet the enemy, at a distance of less than 100 kilometers, it was the fighter formation of the 390th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Frontline Air Force, whose mission was exactly the opposite of that of the Americans opposite, that is, to intercept and annihilate any invading NATO attack aircraft.

Under the pale blue sky, a total of 16 MiG-29M fighters painted in green camouflage and filled with missiles under their wings were flying at an altitude of about 1,000 meters, heading south according to the ground guidance instructions. When the N019 radar has not yet intercepted the target, the young men of the Red Air Force look left and right from time to time, maintain the formation formation, and pay attention to the movement of the radar alarm, always on guard against possible sneak attacks.

Even when the plane was flying, in addition to scanning the clear sky in all directions, the pilots would also glance at the fighter plane following the formation from time to time, and in the formation of a long green camouflage MiG plane, the long fighter plane with a white tone seemed so different.

The exaggerated livery of the red star on a white background, the number "2019" pressed on it, and then look at the code of the white twenty, this is the number one trump card of Major General Viktor Rezenov, nicknamed "Caucasian Reaper", who fought side by side once before?

Feeling that it should be the landline of the "Grim Reaper", the pilots looked curiously to the right side of the formation, but they could only see the side outline of the Su-27 fighter that looked a little strange, they only felt that this fighter was a little different from the Su-27 single-seat type they had seen before, but they couldn't tell what was the difference, probably the tail and nose were a little weird?

That's right, the one who is driving the white twenty to attack with the team is naturally Long Yun.

On this decisive day, he took off from the Stavropol base in the morning, flew 200 kilometers south, and then joined his comrades on the north side of the Elbrus Mountains, and joined the air formation composed of more than a dozen MiG-29Ms.

Time returned to the early morning, the first rays of dawn in the Caucasus were projected on the wide runway of the Stavropol base, and Long Yun, who got up early, came to the exclusive reinforced hangar and confirmed the status of the fighters with the ground crew who had been busy here for a long time.

On the decisive day of the "anti-radiation operation," as the number one trump card of the Red Air Force, he naturally had to go all out.

For today's battle, after seeing Kirilenko in the hangar and chatting a few words, Long Yun looked up at the white No. 20 bathed in the rising sun in front of him, he couldn't see the difference between his landline and the first modification, after all, the equipment of the second modification and disassembly was inside the body, and it couldn't be seen from the outside.

"So, Igor, how is the weight loss of the fighter now?"

"Not bad," the thin engineer raised his hand to hold his glasses and grinned at the number one ace in front of him, "although there is no way to weigh it, but if you calculate it, the empty weight of the white twenty is only about fourteen.6 tons." - Oh, in terms of handling, after all, you've already piloted her into the air before, and this time, with the addition of missiles, the weight is about the same, so there shouldn't be any problem. ”

"Ah, that's great!"

I patted this old friend on the shoulder happily, Long Yun only reacted in the next moment, the empty weight of the Su-27S after the second weight reduction was a few hundred kilograms less than the first weight reduction, but Kirilenko said "the weight is about the same", could it be that these weights are taken up by missiles?

Thinking of this, he hurriedly turned his head and glanced around, only to notice the R-73M missiles on the mobile trolley in the hangar, as well as the "H" missile pylons on the wooden carriage next to it; Looking back at the white twenty in front of him, he found that the pilots had already installed the pylons and were testing the compressed gas and release mechanism, Long Yun stretched out his fingers and counted them one by one, and then his eyes widened in surprise.

Unexpectedly, after using composite pylons, one Su-27 can carry so many missiles? (To be continued......)