Demitorian Air Force
OPFORCE CONVEX
General Headquarters
At the nearby airport, some eight miles from the coastline, the sound of pilots calling out as defensive, and, after a few seconds, silence, was not lost on the commanders of the Demitorian forces. All six aircraft, plus their pilots, were lost in a matter of minutes, but then, something more serious developed. A little red light illuminated, and a computerized voice stated "MISSILE WARNING, MISSILE WARNING...." and it continued to repeat. This woke everyone up, and the commanders immediately drove the radar techs at both the long range radar centers and the coastline radar centers to find out exactly what is going on.
Then, the coastline radars went offline. Attempts to bring them back or contact the radar collection centers directly failed. Out of three groups of five radars, almost two groups were completely wiped out in one sweep of missile fire. Even a long range radar, seemingly impervious to attack, as was first thought, had been damaged beyond repair by a missile.
The Demitorians immediately scrambled the two F-22 squadrons they had in country, and immediately orders were sent back to Demitor itself to call up more than six squadrons worth of F-35C's. They would take almost half a day to reach Zaferlani however.
The F-22's rose into the air at full afterburner, while more than six squadrons of F-16 Fighting Falcons were moved into place from the Vymirian border to the coastline airfields as the situation got more and more desperate for the Demitorians. They soon joined in the scramble. As soon as all the fighters got to their combat altitudes, they immedarely scanned, locked onto targets that didn't match Demitorian ID's or known aircraft, and let loose with their AIM-120's and AIM-7's. The F-16's were first to let loose, freeing up the F-22's to go higher, and to look farther with their powerful radars. Seeing the contacts on their radars, the information was shared down on an open frequency to one of six PATRIOT, nine HAWK and fifteen Avenger SAM sites along the coastline. As soon as the SAM's got their targets locked, they launched, even at the maximum of their range.
Demitor was now in a full state of alert.
Meanwhile on the ground.
As the air force did it's job, the Demitorian National Army was quickly rushing troops in as fast as it could, as it was believed that the missile attacks were a precursor to a naval invasion. They had found the wreckage of the downed fighter jet, but it couldn't be identified in country, so the debris had to be flown back to Demitor for identification.
Three divisions were in the current process of transferring from defense of the Zaferlani capitol to the coastline in preparation for the invasion that was never to come. As nobody had identified the threat, the arriving troops set up in fortifications built exactly for this purpose. The troops had set up AA teams, however, in bushes and treeline around the suspected perimeter of the two still missing pilots locations, with orders to shoot anything that isn't positively identified or cleared beforehand out of the sky. They were armed with Stinger missiles, STARSTREAK truck mounted systems and technical trucks armed with 20mm cannons. These units do not have their radars on, only relying on line of sight and rudimentary radar systems placed almost three miles away from the launcher to make sure the launcher is safe for guidance and firing calculation.
The task of actually clearing the way to reach the pilots was given to the Demitorian Rangers, the special forces arm of the army. They tracked the pilots, giving the regular soldiers time to focus on the issues at hand. The Zaferlani troops were given 40 year old weapons, some basic instructions, and told not to follow their commanders orders, only the orders of the Demitorians from this point forward. Already, Bradley fighting vehicles and M1A3 Abrams tanks were making their way to the coast, and setting up, ready four anything.
It would be six hours until the forces sent to the coast actually complete entrenching and positioning.
120 NM out to sea
"Hey, what are those signatures you are getting there?" The electronic warfare officer working reading radar signatures called out to the rest of the aircraft. The rest of the crew of the P-8 Poseidon confirmed the contacts, and, instead of going visual like was standard, the P-8 called back to it's home base in Demitor, and reported the contacts. Down below, the Demitorian Navy's three ships in theater, part of a larger task force that set out over a week ago, had finally reached the entrance to the shallower parts of the sea before it reached the coast of Zaferlani. The vanguard, one cruiser and two destroyers, led up a much larger force of a carrier, four cruisers, ten destroyers, fifteen frigates, nine amphibious landing ships, and four submarines, along with over thirty transport and refueling ships.
The vanguard were almost 150nmi away from the rest of the task force, and therefore, had to make a decision then and there of whether or not to continue with the contacts being reported. As the Poseidon reported being pinged by a ship's tracking radar, and it had returned the ping with a radar sweep of it's own of more power, whoever is out there definitely knows someone is behind them.
The ships continued at half quarters, though, the crew was told to be at battle stations at all times unless they had to sleep, use the restroom, or eat, unless they provided an essential function of the ship.
Taking a risk, one of the destroyer's captains let loose a drone, with the UAV sent out ahead to scan for any threats. The ships then held position until the UAV either found something, or found nothing.
