Mercenary’s War
Chapter 1146 - 1146 One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Nine The Return Date is Set

1146: Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Nine: The Return Date is Set 1146: Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Nine: The Return Date is Set Escaping through the air might sound simple, but in modern warfare, being formidable doesn’t guarantee invincibility; before bullets, everyone is equal.

The Northwest Wind Air Defense Missile, although also touted as a portable missile, is not just a mere missile, but can form a unit of an air defense system.

The land-based Northwest Wind Missile alone has three modes: a two-person set up with a tripod as a portable air defense system, the same Northwest Wind Air Defense Missile mounted on a vehicle equipped with a search radar can detect aerial targets from several kilometers away.

It’s capable of shooting down not just planes but also cruise missiles.

Then there’s the ground-based air defense version, which uses a large radar for even longer-range searches, while a smaller radar has a shorter range.

However, the notion of helicopters attempting to charge past a missile position before being detected by search radar is impossible.

The portable Northwest Wind can detect and attack targets up to six thousand kilometers away, and with a search radar, it can detect high-altitude targets tens of kilometers away, low-altitude targets up to ten kilometers away, and ultra-low-altitude targets five kilometers away, such as a flying object at fifteen meters high.

Then, after detection by the search radar, all one has to do is wait for the aircraft to enter the missile’s range to engage.

To support the Syrian Rebel Army, France has really spent a lot of money; even the cheapest portable system costs over one hundred thousand US dollars per set.

And what’s fatal is that France provided not only portable systems for free but also two sets of vehicle-mounted air defense missile systems, both of which are in Aleppo.

Do you know how much a complete set of vehicle-mounted air defense systems equipped with search radar and laser rangefinders costs?

At the internal purchasing price for the French military, it’s eight million dollars per set, no bargaining.

The information Gao Yang received is as reliable as it gets.

The missiles that make him reluctant to board any aircraft were exactly those that Polovich’s former subordinates resold to the Rebel Army surrounding Aleppo Prison.

So it’s not that Gao Yang is timid, but under the conditions of modern warfare, you have to believe in and respect science.

After all, France is one of the world’s five major powers, and the Northwest Wind missile system is also their mainstay light air defense weapon.

It’s not to be taken lightly.

Moreover, the Northwest Wind missile system is currently the world sales champion among portable air defense missiles, having defeated renowned products like America’s Stinger, United Kingdom’s Starstreak, and Russia’s Igla.

If it weren’t for fear of the Rebel Army’s anti-aircraft missiles, Gao Yang would have run away long ago.

Of course, the Northwest Wind missile is not without its weaknesses.

If one can fly at an ultra-low altitude, allowing the missile’s infrared seeker head to be unable to lock on, then it’s possible to safely break through the Northwest Wind Air Defense Missile’s net.

However, this ultra-low altitude flight is truly ultra-low, since the lowest operational altitude for the Northwest Wind is fifteen meters.

To ensure safety, one must fly below this height.

What’s the concept of fifteen meters?

Below one hundred meters is considered ultra-low altitude.

To lower the altitude to below fifteen meters is virtually skimming the ground.

In other words, a moment of distraction and even a telephone pole could knock down a helicopter.

The ground’s elevation isn’t constant; there are buildings, mounds, hills, iron towers, power lines, and flagpoles.

Ultra-low altitude flying, below fifteen meters, is not that easy even in daylight.

Just think about it, whether in movies or on TV, how often do you see helicopters flying ultra-low?

They might fly very low during takeoff and landing, but once airborne, where do you see them flying close to the ground?

Unless it’s over water or grassland where the terrain is simple, who dares to fly at an altitude below fifteen meters?

Even movies wouldn’t dare to shoot such scenes.

Why is America’s Longbow Apache attack helicopter so formidable?

It’s because a millimeter-wave radar named Longbow is mounted on the top of the helicopter, which allows it to search for and attack targets hiding below tree-top height.

It can conduct ultra-low altitude breakthroughs while the radar of others still hasn’t detected it, simply appearing out of nowhere.

America is the leading military power in the world; what it can do, Russia may not necessarily be able to do, and Syria certainly can’t.

And what the Longbow Apache can do, the Mi-24 simply cannot.

The Longbow Apache is capable of nocturnal flights and combat, while the older versions of Syria’s Mi-24 are far behind — flying from one place to another at night is possible, but combat is just a dream.

Without night vision systems and good radars, it’s like being blind.

How can one engage in combat?

Gao Yang and his team purchased night vision devices and retrofitted two Mi-24s, which is crucial because after the retrofit, the Mi-24s gained basic night combat capabilities.

However, to undertake night ultra-low altitude flight, the limited modifications made to the Mi-24 are somewhat inadequate.

The Apache Helicopter comes equipped with a terrain-following automatic system and a terrain-following radar, while the Mi-24 has none of these…

What is a terrain-following radar?

A terrain-following radar automatically detects changes in the terrain, then alerts the pilot.

For example, if a tree suddenly appears ahead that could hit the helicopter, the terrain-following system will notify the pilot, allowing them to maneuver around it.

The Mi-24 that Gao Yang could use only had one night vision device to assist with nighttime flying, and even that assistance was limited.

The infrared night vision device, inherently, could not cover a wide field of view, and during ultra-low-altitude flying, because of the altitude, the onboard night vision device could only see a very small angle directly in front.

This image was then displayed on a small screen, and even if there were obstacles, it was a question whether they could be detected in time on the screen.

Controlling the aircraft while staring at the screen was even less efficient than using a helmet-mounted night vision device.

Wearing a helmet-mounted night vision device didn’t mean you could see as if it were daytime.

First of all, there was limited distance, and after all, it was an electronic re-imaging device, it couldn’t possibly be as clear as the naked eye sees during the day.

For infantry, it’s fine, but for pilots flying at ultra-low-altitudes at high speeds, if a helmet-mounted night vision device shows a utility pole one hundred meters away, how much time does the pilot have from spotting it to maneuvering the aircraft out of the way?

With a flight speed of one hundred kilometers per hour, which is twenty-eight meters per second, from detection to the need to evade, the pilot has only a little over three seconds.

And from the pilot’s perspective, everything is passing by at super high speed.

Whether the utility pole can be detected in time is hard to say, so you can imagine how difficult and dangerous this is.

The dangers of ultra-low-altitude night flights are by no means less than flying at high altitudes during the day, braving the threat of the Northwest Wind air defense system.

If one wants to enhance safety, the pilot piloting the Mi-24 must be the very best.

Ordinary people wouldn’t dare to fly like this, and it must be two exceptionally skilled pilots.

The weapons officer must closely watch the screen of the onboard night vision system and quickly warn of any dangers, while the pilot with the helmet-mounted night vision device must fly visually at night.

These two must be in perfect coordination with each other to possibly complete the mission.

Of course, doing one’s homework before flying, like flying from familiar routes, using the shortest distance to fly over the enemy’s head, and knowing obstacles along the flight path can also reduce some risks.

Now, the four pilots sourced by Polovich have already arrived in Damascus.

Gao Yang just received notification.

However, they need at least two to three days to study the flight charts, planning out the safest flight path and firmly memorizing it before they can come to pick them up.

The preparatory work before the flight can only be done by those pilots themselves.

Gao Yang won’t be able to help with that, but from Aleppo Airport, two pilots familiar with the situation have been dispatched to Damascus Airport to help Polovich’s Russian pilots to draw up a flight route.

For a seemingly trivial evacuation, the manpower and resources expended are truly not small.

Insiders see the intricacies, while outsiders enjoy the spectacle.

To those uninformed, it just looks like a helicopter flew over and picked up the people, all done.

But those who understand the difficulty know how difficult this seemingly simple flight is and how skilled the pilots have to be.

Gao Yang did not really understand this intricately, barely knowing the general idea.

If he had not learned to fly, had not studied in Israel the usage of helicopters in ultra-low-altitude surprise attacks, and not gained an understanding, he would also think helicopter evacuation was just about flying over and that’s it.

The older one gets in this arena, the more cautious one becomes.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” reflects the same truth.

Not knowing the dangers, perhaps Gao Yang would have long ordered helicopters to come and pick him up to leave.

But it was because he knew the risks that Gao Yang, although anxious in confinement and unable to see any hope of leaving, was willing to make a decision to break out only under acceptable risk conditions.

The closer the day of departure, the more complex Gao Yang’s feelings became, both looking forward to leaving and worried about being shot down mid-air.

But overall, he was happy because, after all, he was about to leave.

Gao Yang had too many things waiting for him to do, but he has already decided: after leaving Aleppo Prison, he would do three major things first.

The first thing would be to eat, to feast grandly for a meal.

The second thing is to feast grandly for another meal.

The third major thing is to feast grandly yet another meal.

For more than a month and a half, Gao Yang really had not had a full meal, not a single one.

Every day, apart from two palm-sized flatbreads, that was it, nothing else.

The fresh meat delivered to the prison was finished in one meal, then for over a month, he was just chewing on flatbreads.

There was one airdrop of canned meat, and the ten people of Satan happily shared two cans of meat as if it were New Year’s.

During those three years wandering in Africa as a Wild Man, Gao Yang had never had it so hard.

Although it alternated between hunger and satiation, there were still more times of being full.

Unlike these month and a half days of only eating flatbreads and enduring hunger, so, the one major thing Gao Yang set for himself was to go eat; to leave the prison and indulge first to make up for lost time.

The day has already been set.

On the 7th of February, during the day, two Mi-24s will take off from Damascus to reach Aleppo.

Then, after maintenance and refueling at Aleppo Airport and adjusting everything to the optimal state, on the morning of February 8th, at three o’clock, the helicopters will land inside Aleppo Prison to pick up Gao Yang and the others.

Today, it’s February 6th.

(To be continued.

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