The Bear comes west: Kitchens on the rails, Phalanx on the rails 2d51c42

A turboprop contact, bearing 270, a hundred ten miles out, Angels 27 — and she is not out there to take pictures. The Tu-95MS Bear-H joins the sim: four NK-12 contra-props on a 35° swept wing, a glazed bombardier nose, twin guns in the tail barbette, red stars on the fin. She is in the gallery, the print bay, and the store — and she is the centerpiece of the two hardest sorties in the campaign:

1. M14 BEAR HUNT (80/100). One Bear, two Flankers riding shot — rated 75, aces, cleared for every maneuver in the library. She trucks for her launch point fifty miles off the boat; an expert pilot runs her down and kills the archer with the arrows still on the rails.
2. If the arrows fly. Two AS-4 Kitchens, eighteen seconds apart, steering for the moving carrier the whole way in. You and Viper Two hunt them — and if one leaks past, the escorts’ Phalanx CIWS is the last wall of lead: mounts pick the closest missile inside 3.8 km, walk tracers onto it, kill odds climbing steeply as the range closes. One Kitchen amidships and the sortie is over.
3. M15 BEAR PAK (95/100). The demonstration team: two Bears on two axes, four Flankers rated 92, eight killers in the air at once. Bring everything the school taught you. This one is the final exam.