"This is a war between silicon wafers and steel."

Controlling an F-15E "Attack Eagle" that was entering the side rotation and the nose pointed to the northeast, the overload value was maintained at the safe upper limit in the case of heavy loads, listening to the "Didi" sound of the radar alarm instrument in the cabin, Li Gejian, who was pressed on the seat by centrifugal force, stared at several other F-15Cs 100 meters away, but accidentally remembered this sentence.

"Silicon wafers and steel", a metaphor to describe the Gulf War almost 30 years ago, is really apt when used on today's sky battlefield.

Holding the joystick with one hand, while concentrating on the landline, the other hand keeps clicking on the touch screen, the green diffraction head-up display is a slow-rolling heading indication, the horizontal line is tilted about 35 degrees, and the small triangle of the RWR warning position prompt is constantly flashing on and off, which is consistent with the rapid but not harsh radar warning sound in the cockpit, this qiē is so familiar to the eyes of young people, almost with their eyes closed, they can operate like flying.

Yes, the landline is still the "Blue Arrow", but the partner is not there for the time being, and the ALSA fighter formation that I participated in today is also performing a different mission from every "air law enforcement" in the past.

Looking back at the previous interception operations, or even the "misfire" with the Liberal fighters, the young man who had several crashes in his hands was of course excited, but now what made his heart beat faster should still be the personal feeling of being completely immersed in the battle - it is no longer a high-mobility competition, nor is it no longer a competition on a narrow road, although the ALSA dispatched in formation is only a third-generation heavy fighter, it will soon make the opponent understand. Air combat is not a game of military chess. Relying solely on some technological superiority in weapons, or even generational differences. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will be able to win.

Compared with "steel", does "silicon wafer" win in one fell swoop in terms of hardness?

Of course not, however, the multinational force, armed with information technology, still relied on air force to blow up Saddam Hussein, who was empty of a torrent of steel, and this in itself does not mean that "silicon chips" are necessarily stronger than "steel", but in other words, it is not only weapons that determine the outcome of the victory, but also technological progress. It is not necessarily just about the evolution of spears and shields.

With such a dialectical idea, the piloting plane and his comrades accelerated all the way up and far away from the over-the-horizon missiles that had been fired, the F-15 formation, which avoided frontal engagement, made a detour around the southern boundary of the no-fly zone, and the high-speed warhawks with great afterburner soared all the way through the clear sky above 10,000 meters, which not only attracted most of the attention of the Syrians, but also gradually exposed the reckless FSA fighters from the fog of radar stealth.

Once a trail is visible, even if the positioning accuracy is far from enough to launch a missile, the rhythm and rules of the battle will change imperceptibly.

On the duststorm-ridden land of the Middle East, the altitude of 10,000 meters is still clear and windless, and the gray-white air-to-air missiles with dissipated tailflames suddenly appear in the pilot's sight, and then turn to fall and disappear without a trace; Fly over distances of tens of kilometers. Attacking the supersonic detachment of the "Eagle" against the trend, the difficulty of this task is still a little too high. "Slammer", who barely climbed to catch up, didn't even get close to his target, ran out of energy, and fell crookedly all the way.

Successfully evading a wave of missile offensives, but then facing the fierce pursuit of the YF-23 fleet, the ALSA fleet seems to have lost its position and air situation at the same time, and is scurrying around in the field of vision of the "ghosts" of the Syrians.

However, the FSA pilots may feel this way, but the young people of the Arab League Defense Air Force are not at all alarmed.

In the 10,000-meter clear sky where the air was thin, one after another "eagles" maintaining a formation formation were rapidly flying away from their original tracks, continuing to maintain a distance of about 20 kilometers from the Liberal Party fighters. Although almost none of the F-15s can intercept the menacing "ghosts" with their own radar due to the limitations of the nose pointing and radar detection capabilities, with the perfect airborne jù chain and the battlefield situation analysis system of the rear E-3C early warning aircraft, the multi-function display and HUD (Head_Up_Display, head-up display) in front of the ALSA pilot are still full of a large piece of air information.

Where are you now, who are the friendly fighters around you, and where are the enemy planes now, what are the position parameters and velocity vectors?

The number of these qiē that can be detected by airborne radar or early warning aircraft is now turned into an invisible electromagnetic signal that is disseminated in the air, from the "eagle" with a sparse configuration to the "watchtower" patrolling in the rear, and then to the ground command center with powerful processing power, one by one instructions are speeding at the speed of light on the digital chain.

However, with the support of the integrated system, no matter what the airborne radar discovers at the first time, the number will be immediately chained to the "watchtower" early warning aircraft, and if necessary, it will be further fed to the ground command center, and after real-time processing by large computers, the number of data will be sorted out after battlefield situation analysis and enemy situation prediction. Virtually no delay is down-chain to the processing system of every F-15 fighter jet in the air.

Such a networked battlefield control system has extremely powerful processing power and a vast flow of data, but for every fighter in it, it is easy to integrate into it and get information.

Before the next chain of air information, the central computer will automatically screen a certain "Eagle" according to its current position and surrounding air conditions, and eliminate all the information of enemy aircraft that are still far away or do not pose a threat for the time being, and the rest of the information will be marked with priority, and then transmitted to the front-line fighters in real time for their use.

In this case, even if the "ghost" is fighting against radar stealth, the enemy aircraft that the AN/APY-1C radar can see is equivalent to every F-15 that is in the air; Not only that, although ALSA's F-15 fleet has not undergone a system-wide upgrade, cannot use the AIM-120D "Super_Slammer" that has already arrived, and is not yet able to implement stronger tactics such as network guidance and silent attacks, but in the face of a large number of Liberal fighters that are aggressive, lack coordination, and lack of understanding of the laws and systems of next-generation air combat and air combat, a wave of counterattacks with a one-way transparent situation is enough.

With the support of the integrated combat system, the ALSA "Eagle", which is full of fuel and missiles, is not in a hurry to fight hard with the opponent, but soars into the sky with good high-speed flight characteristics and powerful thrust F100-PW series engines, and frequently implements supersonic maneuvers that change direction It turned into a huge boiling soup pot, and the warplanes that chased back and forth but could barely encounter them flew up and down in the thin air like floating leaves.

On one side, ALSA is chasing after ALSA, who is eager to kill and staring at the sight, and on the other side, the Syrians are leisurely strolling and calmly maneuvering with the support of the system.

Rhythm, the rhythm of the battle, once you lose the initiative and are led by the nose by the opponent, can you still expect to win anything?

In the clear sky, the YF-23 "Ghost", which has strong power and plenty of ammunition, rushed to kill, and saw a looming ALSA fighter roaming in the sky, but no matter how hard the FSA pilots worked, they launched a castrated "Slammer", and the fire control system clearly gave a hint of "allow the launch", but the probability of killing was only a little bit no matter how you look at it, and then it was thrown away by the cunning enemy.

The crowd rushed into the no-fly zone, and originally planned to fight a tough battle with the "Middle East Chengguan," which was bound to meet them head-on, but in the end, they played hide and seek against the vast background of the dust storm with the Arab League fighters, which seemed to be everywhere and seemed to have no traces, as if the futile feeling of a punch on cotton had made the Liberals angry and irritable, and the channels of the "ghost" fighters were filled with anxious communication calls for a while, and all of them had only one content -- that is, how to coordinate with each other and give full play to their numerical superiority to gather and annihilate their opponents!

"Mahail, you and the second and third planes immediately turn right and keep an eye on the target in front of you!"

"Call 'Medina', call 'Medina', immediately move closer to me, turn on active strobe jamming, I seem to be targeted by two 'vultures'!"

"Hey, Kusay, why are you lagging behind! You idiot, don't you know I don't have a 'Slime' anymore? ”

"Report to Major, I—I've already finished the 'Slime'......"

The pre-war training was not perfect, and there was no consideration for how to deal with integrated operations, and the Syrian Liberals were completely chaotic and shouting in the cockpit, trying to cooperate with each other to strangle their opponents; However, "cooperating with each other" is easy to say, but in the ever-changing sky battlefield, who can always keep a cool head and give full play to the overall judgment and situational insight that only exist on paper?

Among the Syrian rebels who control a large population, the Liberal pilots who can join the FSA battle sequence and control the "ghosts" in the sky are not a bunch of straw bales, they have performed well in the battle against SRAF and even NATA, and even achieved an overwhelming advantage over Damascus at one point. (To be continued......)