The morning sun rises, and a new day arrives in the blink of an eye.

Time is still passing slowly; The huge wheel of war continues to turn every moment.

In the past few days, the Soviet VVS and PVO units stationed in the Caucasus have been intensively carrying out a series of operational preparations.

On the vast land of the Black Sea coast, from Odessa to Tbilisi, in the air bases, in the brightly lit reinforced hangars and maintenance workshops, ground crews are testing and modifying the electronic systems of the fighters day and night, and the technicians are upgrading the RWR system of the fighters under the leadership of engineers, integrating the signal output of the radar warning instrument with the on-board fire control system. With the comings and goings of military trains and off-road trucks, the operational reserve of R-27P/EP missiles has been gradually built up in batches, and the training of front-line pilots participating in the "anti-radiation warfare" program has also been completed one after another.

With all these preparations in place, a storm is approaching that will sweep across the Black Sea and ravage the South.

However, it was also at this time, as one of the formulators and participants of the entire battle plan, Major General Viktor Rezenov in Stavropol Air Base did not rest in the barracks and entered a waiting state of "everything is ready, only the east wind is owed", but after completing a simple flight test, he went out with the large group of aircraft of the 237th Regiment this morning and flew the white No. 20 Su-27S, which had not yet been fully tested.

To make such a hasty risky act, Long Yun naturally had some considerations of his own.

First of all, the modification of the White Twenty. It is not the same as the process of installing equipment. Dismantled on-board equipment also does not require any status checks. It will not affect the flight safety of the aircraft; And in the real world, he has also done some training and confirmed that the modified Su-27 can still be controlled by himself, so he will fly the plane straight into the air like this.

So, just like this morning, the white No. 20 Su-27S, which was obviously a little lighter but also had a lot less equipment, flew away from the Stavropol base, sandwiched between the blue-and-white camouflage Su-27 fighters that climbed south and flew south. There is no radar or EOS system, only the most basic communication and navigation equipment is retained, and even if it is a complete goodbye to over-the-horizon missiles such as the R-27; Flying blindly with its eyes closed and full of combat missiles, this fighter plane in a strange state entered a cruising state with the formation and flew towards the Transcaucasia, where the war was raging.

Mixed in the group of fighters to attack, this approach is not to find a friend to rush together, but to prevent the opponent from being guarded.

Considering the air situation in the Caucasus, so many fierce air battles in recent months, the "Caucasus Reaper", who has always been accustomed to going alone and single-handedly into the enemy formation, the lone ranger's fighting style not only deeply frightened NATO pilots. It was gradually found out by the commanders of the U.S. Central Command.

So just a few days ago, the information reported by KGB intelligence officers showed. After Viktor Rezenov's repeated single-knife meetings and frenzied slashing, NATO's air alert and battlefield control personnel have formed an irrepressible conditioned reflex; For any target on the radar screen that is a lone figure, RCS, and flight parameter suspected to be a Su-27, the commanders will enter a state of nervousness, and once the target is confirmed to be a Su-27, they will go crazy like a cat with its tail on it, they will shout loudly on the radio, and order all fighters in the nearby airspace to immediately evade and not stop for a moment.

In such a situation, it is inevitable that there will be some suspicion of startling the snake, and how can you refresh the record if the enemy is scared away?

It is precisely because of such an intelligence prompt, coupled with his own little awareness, that Long Yun is now in the flight formation of a large group of fighters, using the dispatch of his comrades as a cover to avoid being detected early by the NATO long-range warning radar on the opposite side.

Piloting a Su-27S that has no battlefield situational awareness and relies entirely on ground navigation, in order to fully avoid risks and give full play to its strengths, Long Yun set the predetermined combat altitude at a low altitude of less than 3,000 meters that is particularly dangerous and more exciting.

Unlike pure air battles that break out at an altitude of several thousand meters, battles in low-altitude airspace are intricate and extremely sinister.

Rising from Asia Minor early in the morning, with auxiliary fuel tanks under the wings and ground attack munitions, more than a dozen F-16 fighters from the 41st Squadron of the Third Fighter Wing of the Turkish Air Force flew in the gray sky that had not been lit up for a long time, and the formation altitude remained below 800 meters.

Riding in a two-seater F-16D in the formation, Turkish Air Force Major Mudal Hassan, who is in charge of battlefield command and weapons control, is now focusing on the multi-function display in front of him.

As soon as he entered the theater of operations after taking off, the air command system of the Central Command was connected to the carrier number chain, and now it was sending the target number to the "Crimea" squadron where he was located.

"'Torch' called 'Crimea' to confirm target information, and the task was to continue the attack on the enemy's defensive positions in the area south of Tskhinvali and in the 923X zone; Repeat, the target message has been sent, head to Area 923X to attack, and be careful to identify friendly units on the ground. ”

"'Crimea' received, the coordinates confirmed;

After receiving a call for support forwarded by the command center, and not knowing whether it was from a forward command station on the ground or an early warning aircraft hovering in the air, Major Hassan reminded all planes with a primitive voice call, and the tail nozzles of the F-16 fighters suddenly brightened, and the "Fighting Falcons" who turned on the afterburner further reduced their altitude and flew north along the hollows of the winding river valley.

In the process of approaching the predetermined air attack area, they did not encounter Russian ground anti-aircraft fire along the way, but the spirit of the Turkish pilots was still highly nervous, and they had to be energetic in carrying out tasks in the war-torn Caucasus; Think about those crazy MiGs, I don't know when they will rush in front of you, the "Fighting Falcon" with excellent fighting performance but full of ammunition still needs to try to avoid encountering the Russians in this situation, otherwise even if they can get out of the way, this time the strike mission will be completely ruined.

The F-16s, who kept flying at an altitude of about 200 meters and sneaked close to the northern front, have been relatively lucky, and the air situation reports sent by the AWACS aircraft show that more than a group of MiGs are operating in the nearby airspace, but they have not yet been noticed.

Flying at a low altitude and high speed in the direction of Tskhinvali, waiting for the navigation system to send out a "close to the target" prompt, the Turkish "Fighting Falcons" who turned on the afterburner along the way and maintained a dangerous low-altitude and high-speed flight quickly dispersed in formation, and several F-16Ds carrying GBU-16 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs turned off the afterburner, pulled up and climbed, and soon fell behind the other fighters who continued to sprint; A number of F-16Cs in the vanguard of the attack formation were equipped with a string of ordinary aerial bombs on the inside of the wings, and these dark gray fighters that accelerated forward quickly swept over the intended attack area, and after a rough target identification, they dropped the bombs one after another.

When attacking enemy positions with sparse anti-aircraft firepower, the Turks were quite skilled in practicing this tactic by first letting low-altitude fighters carry out a round of surprise attacks and throwing bombs to suppress bombing, and then the fighters took advantage of the chaos to hit targets with laser-guided bombs.

As a string of bombs rained down from the sky, a large area of heavy industry on the ground soon became ablaze and a cloud of blast smoke and dust; The bearded pilots, with their eyes on the front, hurriedly dropped their bombs and, according to the guidance of the ground forces, searched for solid bunkers and important fire support points to provide targets for the next few GBU-16 carriers.

As the air raids were carried out intensely, the "Fighting Falcons" painted with crescent moon white stars on their tails swayed left and right and passed through at a rapid speed between the rising smoke and the flickering tracer tracers, and one after another man-portable missiles on the ground rose into the air, dragging thin white smoke across the sky, the rumbling bomb explosions and the sound of gunfire like bursting beans were clearly heard in the cockpit, and an F-16C that had just completed bomb dropping and was turning and detaching from the slope was swept by the narrow fire dragon of the small-caliber anti-aircraft gun, and suddenly lost control and rolled in the air. In an instant, it turned into a dazzling orange fireball!

With the high-speed raid of the "Fighting Falcons", the battle in the air and on the ground has become more and more intense, and the F-16D fighters, which have climbed to an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, have made target planning according to the information obtained from the friendly plane's first flight over the battlefield, and the dark green GBU-16 laser-guided bombs have left the pylons and swooped towards the ground with a roar.

The F-16Cs of the "Crimea" squadron had already rushed back in a circle, and in the face of the chaotic situation in which friends and foes were staggered and thick smoke was rising from the position, and there was no way to distinguish friend or foe, the "Fighting Falcons" who had completed the ground attack mission did not continue to dive down and use aerial artillery fire, but further climbed and detached, accumulated altitude, and prepared to intercept the Russian fighters that might attack. (To be continued......)