Aces From Hell

Chapter 1 - Devils of Yemen

The year is 1973, Abd El Jabbar's failing health has forced him to hand over the reins of power to one of his closest supporter in the political hierarchy who goes by the name Diya Al Din who is also the head of Secret Police who knows how to run a country or at least defend his regime! It was quite predictable that he would be carrying forward the legacy of Abd El Jabbar into Yemen by further escalating the situation. With tensions between Saudi Arabia and Egypt reaching a boiling point, on 18 July 1973 Diya Al Din asked his associates in Yemen to carry out a "spectacular" attack and they carried out an IED attack on a Saudi Patrol which left 13 Saudi soldiers dead, this was a direct blow to the prestige of the Saudi regime and pride of the Al-Saud family and this was too much for them to bear. The Saudi Prince Sultan bin AdulAziz Al Saud who was the defense minister in the Royal Saudi Armed Forces ordered military action against the Egyptian backed Yemeni government by carrying out airstrikes on known military targets in Yemen on 26 July 1973!! Unfortunately due to the poor training of the Saudi Pilots, one of the Saudi planes accidentally dropped a bomb on a civilian neighborhood thus causing unintended collateral damage. 56 civilians died and the Yemini Regime showed the evidence of the destruction of the civilian neighborhood to the world as a proof of Saudi repressive measures against the Yemini civilian population! With this failed Saudi Attack on one of the military targets Diya Al Din, had enough ammunition to justify an insurgency against the Saudi Regime. But Yemen being an impoverish nation, with little to no military resources to defend themselves against the Saudi military which was funded by oil wealth, the Yemini's turned to the Egyptians for assistance but the Egyptian president Diya Al Din wasn't keen to use his military against a far superior western backed military so he contacted Lima Security for assistance in dealing with the war efforts. A deal was immediately signed by both the sides under the shroud of secrecy on the same day as the attack took place!

Flying under the cover of darkness and at low altitude to avoid being detected by the radar Storm, Vladimir and Lightning touched down at Sana Military Airbase which was relatively intact and unaffected by the Saudi Air Campaign on 29 July 1973. The 3 of them covered their planes with the required camouflage to hide them from being spotted by the prying eyes of the Saudi moles who had infiltrated the Yemini military. But it was too late, one of the Saudi moles in the ATC tower spotted the Mig-23 and Mig-25 and immediately informed his superiors in the Saudi Military of a probable counter attack by the Yemini Air Force!

The Saudi Prince upon learning of this plan immediately ordered the Royal Saudi Air Force to carry out a pre emptive strike on Sana Military Air Base. In the dead of the night on the 29th of July, 6 English Electric Lightings F.53 were scrambled from Khamis Mushait Airbase which was located just 60 miles away from the Saudi Yemini border, armed with rocket pods and 30 mm ADEN cannons raced towards Sana Airbase. Their objective was clear.

Destroy the fighter aircrafts and prevent a counter attack!

Unfortunately the F.53 were detected by the Fan-Song-C radar of the Yemeni air defence forces at a distance of 45 km from the base giving the pilots Vladimir and Lightning, just enough time to scramble their aircrafts to prevent the Saudi pre-emptive attack. Vladimir was the first to take off followed closely behind by Lightning. Lightning's primary armament being the long range AIM-7 Sparrows, preferred staying away from the fight to maintain the element and Vladimir's specialty being close range "knifefights" preferred to ride right into the storm. In order to perform dogfights, Vladimir's plane's wings were swept at 16 degrees for optimizing the low speed performance of his Mig-23M. By the time the Mig-23M was airborne the intruders were at a distance of 12 km and closing in rapidly. He decided to put is training to use and immediately decided to keep at low altitude to avoid a radar lock on by the intruders. One of the pilots none the less spotted Vladimir and decided to go after him, the Saudi pilots knew they were detected and decided to engage! The only armaments the Saudi's had for air to air considering they had come for air to ground engagements were the 30 mm ADEN cannons. This put the Saudi pilots at a grave disadvantage which they hoped to overcome using superior numbers (6:1), but Vladimir's specialty was in defending airspace and after the planes passed him, he turned sharply left and after a brief turning fight positioned himself at a favourable angle with respect to one of the Saudi Lightning F.53's and fired his K-13M from a distance of around 1200 yards. The K-13M found it's mark and the impact of the hit caused the hydraulic pumps of the Rolls Royce Avon engines to fail and sent him plummeting straight towards the earth, the pilot of the stricken aircraft desperately tried to control the aircraft but he knew all efforts were futile and the only option left was to eject and he did that just in time! Vladimir saw that and felt ecstatic over his "first kill" and decided to go after his second one. Vladimir prepared to go after the second one, the Saudi Squadron Leader who was also a part of the strike team saw the fate of the first pilot to be shot down and he knew he had ejected in hostile territory and would most definitely be captured alive.

Angered by this, he flew into rage and decided to do whatever it takes to avenge this loss but before he could do anything, Vladimir had already positioned himself for his second kill but before he could fire off his K-13M, he saw the Squadron Leader's 30 mm rounds just whiz past his plane narrowly missing it! Vladimir knew that he had to take a sharp turn but now he could not because he did not have enough airspeed to carry out his second turning maneuver to break away from the fight so he decided to use another feature of his plane and that was good acceleration, instantly he fired his afterburner and he swept his wings at 45 degrees to achieve optimal flight performance. Now Vladimir knew he was fighting a determined opponent. Vladimir reduced his altitude further to just 150 metres above the ground because he knew that the Saudi pilot wouldn't dare to go so low or so he thought. The Saudi Squadron Leader immediately decided to employ his afterburners and pursuit the Mig-23M and the other Saudi pilots decided to follow their leader. Now Vladimir was in trouble because the Lightning F.53 had better acceleration than the Mig-23M! Remembering advice from Colonel Yuri that was to never fly straight for more than 20 seconds, Vladimir immediately decided to take a sharp right turn and again repositioned his wings to 16 degrees for extra drag and sudden turning capabilities. It proved to be effective as the Saudi pilots simply shot past him so now Vladimir was comfortably at their 6'O clock and he could easily fire his K-13M at them giving them little time to react. He locked onto the first plane straight ahead and fired his K-13M, the Saudi pilot did try to take a sharp turn but under high acceleration, it simply wasn't going to happen. Within moments, the second Saudi pilot met the same fate as the first pilot. By now, the other pilots were impressed by this skill and the Squadron Leader instantly knew he wasn't fighting any pilot from the Yemini Air Force and this was someone else, could it be the Soviets he thought? All the while he was trying to figure how to line up for a perfect shot but Vladmir wasn't giving them any opportunity thanks to his rigorous training.

While the Saudi pilots were trying to maneuver to line up for a shot on Vladmir, out of the blue a missile appeared from nowhere and struck one of the Saudi planes, the Squadron Leader was simply taken aback by his third loss and before the remaining 3 pilots could make sense of the situation, a fourth plane was hit and Vladimir knew instantly it had to be Lightning! Vladimir said to himself, "Ah there you are Lightning, just in the nick of time. Now I know why they call you Lightning, you strike without any warning". Indeed Lightning had struck the Saudis without any warning. While Vladimir was also perfectly lined up for a quick accurate burst from his GP-9 23 mm cannon. The 23 mm AZP rounds streaked through the sky and instantly hit the left wing of the Lightning F.53 completely breaking it off. By now the Saudi Squadron Leader knew he was in deep trouble and being low on fuel, he decided to use his superior acceleration and raced towards the base but he knew he wouldn't make it to Khamis Mushait Airbase and knew he would have to land at one of the Forward Operating Airbases located just off the Saudi Yemini border in Al-Najran. Before entering Saudi airspace, he identified himself to the Khamis Mushait ground control that he was the sole survivor of the formation that had taken off to carry out the pre emptive strike. The people in the ATC listening to this could not simply believe their ears that the Saudi attack had been repulsed, it was a huge blow to their monumental arrogance!

The Squadron Leader upon landing was immediately taken to be interrogated and he gave a detailed account about the 2 legendary pilots who took down an entire formation and spoke of one of them as a Ghost who wasn't to been seen anywhere but was picking off on his boys and called him as Shabah(Arabic for Phantom). It was a tremendous blow to the prestige of Saudi Arabia and one they would not recover so easily from. The Saudi Prince Sultan bin Adulaziz Al Saud was furious and he ordered the Squadron Leader to be hanged. Next day, the news channels across the world broadcasted live the confession of the captured Saudi pilot regarding the pre preemptive strike on Sana military airbase. The World was shocked and awe by the Yemini response to the Saudi aggression. Thousands of people came out on the streets to celebrate their first victory in this campaign. The Egyptians were pleased with Lima Security services and their reputation skyrocketed. They thus would be is business for a long time to come!!