ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold Read Online Free Page A

merciless as its liquid cousin, smashing into the following G3 ground attack aircraft.  The cockpits of the grandsons of the famous A10 were wreathed in smoke from shorting circuitry.
     
    ‘What the fucks going on back there?’  Demanded the pilot of Red one.
    His flight engineer in flinched and jerked his hands away from the sparks that flew from his consoles.  ‘Bastards, they must have something new.  I’ve damn near lost everything back here.’
    ‘Switch to back up systems.’
    ‘I did, they’re shot to shit as well.’
    ‘What have we got left?’
    ‘Cannons on manual aim and flares.’
    ‘At least we can still defend ourselves, Red Two what’s your situation?’
    ‘Same as yours, leader.’
    ‘Red Three?’
    ‘Ditto.’
    ‘Blue section sound off; Blue One?’
    ‘We’re in the same boat, over.’
    ‘Blue Two?’
    ‘The same, over.’
    ‘Blue Three?’
    He was greeted by silence.  ‘Blue Three, respond over; Blue Three.’  An edge was creeping into the leader’s voice.
    ‘I’ve got something Red Leader; I’m trying to clarify it now, over.’
    ‘Roger Blue Three; try and make it snappy, over.’
    ‘Wilco Red Leader.’  The flight engineer in Blue 3 had a circuit board out and was arcing circuits with a spare piece of wire and his metal squadron insignia.  He found the two circuits he wanted and cross-fed the power into them, the results weren’t great, but the vague picture on his radar screen was enough to give a brief warning.  ‘Red One this is Blue Three, we’ve lost all our hardware and have twelve incoming, ten miles out nine, eight, seven, Shit I’ve lost it.’
    It was enough.  ‘Break, Break, Break.’  Red One screamed into his mike.  Red section went right, blue left.  Six throttles slammed home in unison, clouds of chaff and burning flares filled the sky in an instant.
     
    Derek was grinning into his mike, ‘All incoming has been defeated enemy detection and acquisition gear in-operative, you can light up your attack computer now Don.’
    ‘Roger, well done Derek, now let’s see what the nasty’s are up to.’  Don watched the antics of the enemy ground fighters on his radar, then scanned earth and sky; a thin layer of cloud at twenty thousand seemed their best approach.  ‘Let’s get into that cloud George and see if we can get round behind them; I’ll go right you go left.’
    ‘Roger that Don.’  Braking right and left, both aircraft raced for the cloud cover.
     
    In a race against death both sections broke for the other’s chaff clouds, firing more chaff and flares on the way.  Missiles streaked across the sky in hot pursuit.  One hit a flare and exploded, taking its partner with it.  Others confused flew through the chaff clouds, shut their motors off, and gently glided towards the ground.  Red One banked hard right and a missile flashed past his tail, as it tried to follow he slapped down his air brakes and turned sharply inside it.  His wingman overshot and the missile reacquired him.  He pulled back desperately on the stick but was too late, there was a brilliant flash of light and Red Two began to fall from the sky. 
     
    Red Three successfully decoyed a missile into a flare cluster and raced up to join his leader.  Blue Three never stood a chance, two missiles had locked on to his intermittent radar emissions, there was an almost simultaneous double flash of light, and then he too slid gracefully from the Combat arena.
     
    Blue One and Blue Two split left and right, firing flare clusters.  Blue One cut his engines and threw her into a spin, the desperate manoeuvre worked.  Blue Two panicked and hit his afterburners to get away.  It was a mistake, the last missile receiving such a strong signal homed in, seconds later, he too fell away
     
    Don watched the melee on radar as they passed overhead.  As soon as the three remaining aircraft had resumed their original heading, he gave the order to attack.  They flicked over onto