by Stuart Slade
“She is indeed. The British have come a long way in a few years.”
“And soon they will be tested, yes?” Sazuko blinked. “Oh, it must come. If the Argentines are deterred by our little show here, then they will have to turn on the British to satisfy the expectations they have raised in their own people. And if they are not, and war starts, then they will attack the British as a natural extension of that war. Either way, in a few weeks, the British will have to fight and then we will see how well they have rebuilt themselves.”
Themselves; not their navy. Karposi noted the expression carefully. For all his apparent openness and joviality, the Japanese skipper would not be here if he wasn’t both absolutely trusted and the very cream of the crop. He was right too, what was on test here was more than the ability of the Royal Navy to fight. It was the willingness of the British to do so. They’d had plenty of good ships in 1940 as well, but Halifax had done for them then. Was there a Halifax in the wings today?
“At least they have one advantage.” Sazuko was almost laughing. “At least their ships are all Navy. There is an agreement in our country that the long-range bombers and cruise missiles are Navy but the ballistic missiles belong to the Army. So, on our ballistic missile submarines, we run the ship but the missile compartment amidships is run by the Army. The Army actually puts armed guards on the hatches leading from our part of the ship to theirs and our sailors need special passes to cross through those hatches. That is why our ballistic missile submarines have long tubes that join the weapons and command sections forward and the machinery section aft. Just so our sailors do not have to pass through Army country. Madness.”
Now why did he tell me that? Karposi thought while he filed away the information for transmission back to the Naval Intelligence Department. Always remember the first rule. When given information, ask why the person giving it away is doing so. He is never doing it in your interests, always in his.
“Thank heavens we never had that problem.” Karposi’s voice was devout. “We scrapped our ballistic missile submarine designs the day President LeMay cancelled all the strategic missile programs. If it fights at sea, it’s Navy. If it fights on land, it’s Army. If it’s Strategic, it’s Air Force. All nice and simple. And, since we don’t do fighting on land, the Army keeps out of everybody’s way.”
Karposi, Sazuko and several other Navy officers who had been politely listening to the conversation on behalf of their naval intelligence services all burst out laughing. “But Monsieur Captain,” the Captain of a French corvette anchored in the auxiliary port a mile or two down the way contained his laughter for a second, “is not the Air Force just long range artillery for the Army? After all, in Algeria, the Valkyries saved our Army from destruction by the Blackpox Plague.”
There was a split second of uneasy silence as people remembered the terror of Blackpox and the bombing that had wiped out the factories that gave it birth. They also noted a French officer giving credit to the Americans for their action. It was of such little things that shifts in international politics were made. There were eleven navies whose intelligence operations would be receiving confidential reports on tonight’s party and every one of them would mention that small but significant statement - as the French officer who had made it had known they would. Then the silence was broken by the sight of an Australian officer dancing past with a gloriously beautiful Chilean woman whose evening dress was the height of Rome fashion.
“I hope he’s aware of the custom out here that flirting is one thing, but attempting anything more serious is tantamount to a proposal of marriage?” The Captain of HMS Vanguard had just joined the group.
“If he isn’t, he’ll soon find out.” Karposi mentally shrugged his shoulders. The complications of a run ashore didn’t just end with making contact reports on interesting conversations and, anyway, the officer didn’t come from his ship.
Conference Room, White House, Washington D.C.
“Hours, Sir; not days. Our satellite imagery and our reconnaissance flights show the Argentine units are moving to their jump-off positions. Their Air Force units are also readying. My guess is dawn tomorrow.”
“So the naval demonstration didn’t deter them.” President Regan sounded disappointed. “I really had hopes that might work. We even had the Chipanese taking part. Lord knows why, but they came on-board.”
“Because this is a war that nobody wants, Sir. It has the potential to cause entirely disproportionate damage, especially if the Argentines go nuclear, and it won’t do anybody, even Argentina, any good at all. The Chipanese are just as keen to see things kept peaceful as anybody else; a message that got sent to us via the back door before we started arranging things.” The Seer hesitated slightly; he was keen not to mention which back door had been used primarily because he still didn’t quite know what to make of it himself. “Anyway, I wouldn’t write the exercise off as a failure. In fact, it’s done a lot of good, Sir. Quite apart from the various navies getting to know each other a little better, it also showed the Argentines that they are truly on their own. Their nerves must have been shaken by that. When we make an example of the first forces to get in our way, it’ll be much more effective.”
“Perhaps there is something in this international cooperation business after all.” Reagan didn’t really believe that but he was interested to see what his National Security Advisor would say in return.
“Oh there is, Sir, As long as we’re in charge. The problem comes when everybody at the top thinks they are either running things or have an equal say in running them. Then everybody talks and nothing gets done. Then while that circus is going on, somebody picks them off one by one.”
“Tomorrow at dawn. A traditional time.”
“With good reason, although I prefer three in the morning myself. Dawn is so traditional that people tend to have alerts then. They’ll probably be slipping their path finder units over the border a bit earlier. But, their main thrust will be in daylight, either at dawn or a couple of hours later. That can work as well. People go on alert at dawn but then relax when nothing happens. Then, in the first early brightness of morning when everything seems cheerful, they get the hammer dropped on them. One thing we do know, Sir; their objective is annexation. They’re going for broke, grab the whole country.”
An aide quietly entered and gave a message to the President who read it and passed it to The Seer. “I think that makes it final.”
The Seer read the note quickly. “Cruiser Pueyrredon, assault cruiser Almirante Brown and two destroyers heading south towards the Beagle Channel. The assault cruiser is carrying Argentine Marines. That does make it final, Sir. The grab’s starting.”
“We can’t allow it to succeed. And we will not. We have a strike plan I assume?”
“Of course, Sir. 35th and 448th Bomb Groups. Both B-70 formations.”
“Order them to full readiness.”
CHAPTER FIVE ENHANCED DETERRENCE
Captain’s Cabin, HMAS Rotorua, Puerto de Valparaiso, Chile “Are we ready to move?”
“Yes Sir. Donks are warmed up, batteries are fully charged, everybody is on board. We can be under way in five minutes.”
Beecham nodded. An alert had come through during the night; a war-warning. He happened to know that all the other ships in port had received similar warnings from their governments. During the time this international naval display had been in progress, an efficient unofficial communications system had grown up.
“Good. Now we can deal with this.” He fingered the card in his hand and read it again. “The Veracruz Family invite the officers and men of HMAS Rotorua to attend the wedding of their daughter Emilia Consuelez to Lieutenant Graeme Gavin.”
He looked balefully at his Navigating Officer. “Well Lieutenant, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Sir, I haven’t proposed, honestly.”
“Gavin, you got the briefing before you went ashore. Chilean girls flirt with their male acquaintances and their men are expected
to flirt back. It is a pleasant pastime that means nothing. However, anything more than flirting starts to have meaning. Petting is a declaration of serious intent; attempted seduction is a proposal of marriage. If the girl allows the seduction to succeed, she’s accepted your proposal. Which is, I understand, the situation here.”
“But Sir, it was just a run ashore.”
“You may call it a run ashore Gavin. Here, when a man seduces a woman and doesn’t follow through, it’s called ‘ruining a virgin’ and it’s taken very seriously. Even in our country, not so very long ago Gavin, an officer who was accused of such an offense would find himself being given a bottle of whisky and a revolver with one bullet in the cylinder. Avoiding disgrace to the ship or regiment, you see. In some countries, the brothers of the wronged woman might kill her to save the family honor. Here in Chile, they are much more civilized than that. Her brothers will kill the man who seduced her instead. So, what do you propose to do?”
Gavin gulped and looked desperate. It was, Beecham thought, not a productive course of action.
“Sir, we’ll be setting sail soon.”
“We will. However, that won’t solve the problem. The Veracruz family are very rich, very powerful, very influential. By the way, I went to see the pater familias as soon as this card arrived. A most pleasant, extremely reasonable man who is deeply fond of his daughter and, by the way, actually quite approves of you. In his eyes, his daughter has made a very good catch. I have also spoken with the young lady in question and there is no doubt she is deeply fond of you. I might say that you appear to have made a good catch as well, one that will be of great help to you in your future career. If you live to have one.”
Gavin gulped. Then he started to think a little more clearly. Emilia was indeed beautiful, wealthy and he was aware that she did love him. In fact, he was suddenly sure of the fact that he was inordinately fond of her himself. “But Sir, we’re due to set sail and if we go down south, you’ll need me.”
“Well, that’s an odd thing. We are indeed going south, to the Antarctic in fact, to see how this class of submarine performs in extreme cold and very rough weather. Based on those trials, a Chilean Navy order may well be forthcoming. However, due to the navigational problems down there, we will be embarking a Chilean Navy navigating officer. In making those arrangements, I met with our naval attaché here and it appears he needs an assistant and the post has been approved by Canberra. It’s yours for the asking. It would mean a two-year tour of duty in Santiago, of course.”
Gavin made up his mind. He suddenly realized that fortunate was actually smiling on him, although she was, perhaps, hiding the smile behind a tactful hand. “Sir, that would be a wonderful start to my marriage. How do I go about this?”
“You have to go and see the pater familias, Ernesto Veracruz and ask for his daughter’s hand but that’s a formality. Her family will take it from there. He’s expecting you at 10:30. And Graeme, if I may say so, you have made a very wise decision.” Beecham was about to say more, but he was interrupted by sirens wailing on shore and from the Sacramento.
F13F-4 Tomcat Kittykat, Flight Deck, USS North Dakota CVN-79, 250 miles West of Chile
“All Raptor aircraft, ready for launch.” The message was a little superfluous; the red flare arching skywards from the bridge had made the fact quite clear, but it never hurt to be sure. Ahead of Kittykat, the long slot of the catapult was already leaking steam as it built up power to hurl the fighter airborne. Captain Paul Flower advanced the throttles, watching the needles on his instrument panel edge up towards the red zones as his twin J-93 engines built up power. Each of the four catapults on the North Dakota had a Tomcat sitting on it. Far away to port, almost over the horizon, the Ohio had the same number of fighters ready to go. In total, the eight fighters made up Raptor Flight. It was the fast-response group that would take action if Argentina actually decided to go through with its assault. Each aircraft carried four nuclear-tipped AIM-54C Phoenix missiles, two conventional warhead AIM-54Bs backed up by four heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders. Between them, the eight fighters could take on a fair-sized air force all by themselves.
Ahead of him, the launch captain lifted his green flag up high, signaling that launch was imminent. He spiraled it above his head to ensure that Kittykat had her engines pooled up to full, then dropped it. Flower felt the slam in his back as the catapult kicked in. His aircraft was hurled down the forward flight deck towards the bows that seemed terrifyingly close. Kittykat dipped as she left the catapult track. She briefly dropped below the level of North Dakota’s flight deck before soaring skywards, accelerating quickly as her nose lifted towards the dawn sky. Flower angled his fighter around until he could see North Dakota underneath him. Her deck lights were still twinkling in the dawn nautical twilight.
Kittykat swept her wings back a little to match the increasing speed of her climb. For a moment, Flower regretted the loss of his beloved F9U Rosie. Even with only one engine, she had climb and turn rates that put Kittykat to shame. He held speed at Mach 0.7 with a 15 degree climb, watching the altimeter spiraling upwards as the other seven members of Raptor flight joined him. When he hit 25,000 feet, he leveled off and added throttle, accelerating his fighter up to Mach 1.25. That would carry him upwards to the next staging point at 45,000 feet. There, he would level off again and accelerate to Mach 2.5 before the final climb to 70,000 feet and Mach 3.2.
By the time Kittykat had completed her climb, North Dakota was far behind her. Her AWG-9 radar was scanning for the inbound Argentine formation that had started the alert. The eight aircraft of Raptor Flight were spread out in a long line, each barely visible from the next. The days when aircraft had flown in close formations were long gone. The nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles in Kittykat’s belly that had seen to that. It was the same way that nuclear-tipped anti-ship missiles had finished off traditional navy formations. An amateur might have expected to see the two American carriers inside a ring of escorts just like the publicity pictures showed. That was a formation that was only used for publicity shots though.
“Got them, Raptor-One.” Raptor-Seven called in the radar sighting. The bearing and range information followed quickly. There were two Argentine formations inbound; one heading for the military airfields around Santiago, the other for the naval base at Puerto de Valparaiso.
Flower accelerated slightly and his formation swung so that they were on an intercept course with the Argentine aircraft. The Tomcats were almost 30,000 feet higher than they were and were moving two whole Mach numbers faster. “Raptor Two, Three and Four, join me taking the southerly group. Raptor Five, Six, Seven and Eight take the north formation. Each Raptor aircraft fire two conventional AIM-54B. Say again, AIM-54 Bravo. Fire on my command. Acknowledge.”
The acknowledgements came in. Flower designated the center of the hostile formation as his center of aim and selected his pair of AIM-54Bs. Behind him, he felt the whir and vibration as the triple revolving racks rotated to that the missiles he had selected were in position to fire. “All Raptor aircraft. Open fire.”
The sixteen AIM-54Bs fired almost simultaneously. Flower saw them split into two groups as they hurtled out in front of the Tomcats and started to climb upwards. They’d arch upwards, climbing to almost 125,000 feet before turning down and diving on their prey underneath. Even at Mach 6, it would take almost two and a half minutes for them to cover the distance to their targets. Flower watched with almost grim amusement as the Argentine aircraft, they were probably Macchi Ciclones, he thought, swept onwards. Then, suddenly, the Argentine pilots realized what was happening. Probably their radar warners had picked up the AIM-54 homing heads switching on. The neat formations shattered in panic as the pilots scattered to avoid what they assumed was a salvo of nuclear-tipped missiles descending on them.
There is only one defense against a nuclear initiation. Don’t be there when it happens. The Argentine strike pilots swerved away, attempting to get as far away from the inbound missiles as they could in
the few seconds possible. They were helped by one thing, the AIM-54 Phoenix was a large and clumsy missile. It was a modified and much-improved version of the older AIM-47 Falcon, but it was too fast and too large to be very agile. In fairness, it had never needed to be particularly maneuverable; it was designed to deliver a nuclear warhead that spread destruction over a wide area. In a way it had brought about its own obsolescence; its warhead had made formations of aircraft a means of multiplying kills from a single shot. These days, pilots flew far enough apart to give them a chance of escaping the missile’s fire. There was a new missile coming, the AIM-120 Harpy that was much smaller, much more maneuverable and longer ranged but it wasn’t available yet.
For all that, the AIM-54Bs did well. As the Argentine pilots headed away from the kill zone, jettisoning their bombs in a frantic effort to survive, the Phoenix missiles dived on them and blotted seven of them from the sky. The other nine missed their targets, thrown off by jamming and last-minute maneuvers that took years off the airframe life of the Ciclones. The pilots of those aircraft saw the conventional explosions and heaved sighs of relief. Then, they headed for home. With their bombs gone, there was no point in continuing the mission. Their part of this attack had failed.
High overhead, Flower looked down on the retreating Argentine formation and reduced speed. His Tomcats held station about eighty miles behind and 30,000 feet above the surviving bombers. His Raptor Flight aircraft kept the Ciclones illuminated with their radars, just to keep them honest Flower thought, but there is no doubt, they are heading home.
“Raptor-Five here. They’re going home, Raptor-One. Sensible fellows.”
“Affirmative Raptor-Five. All Raptor Aircraft, hold station on them. Let’s be gentlemen and see our guests safely home.
Sail, HMAS Rotorua, Puerto de Valparaiso, Chile
Captain Beecham had made it to the conning position on the sail of Rotorua in record time. He made it fast enough to see the rails of the Talos launcher on the fantail of Sacramento slam to horizontal. Then two of the long blue missiles slid out from their hangar under the flight deck onto the launch rails. Within seconds, the loaded launcher was rotating skywards and turning to the engagement arc. Beecham swept his binoculars along the length of the cruiser. The Terrier launchers forward were also loaded and waiting.