Or at least the chance for it.
CAG beat his deadline by five minutes. I don't know how he accomplished it ― and I guess I don't really want to know. The shortcuts alone would have terrified me.
The deck was packed, as full as I'd ever seen it. Every aircraft that could fly was manned, with engines turning or crews doing preflight. The SAR helos were already turning on their spots, blasting the deck with incredible down-drafts from the rotors. They would go first, in order to be on station in case an emergency occurred during catapult operations.
After that, the E-2C Hawkeye would launch, accompanied by a pair of fighters. Once he was airborne, my radar coverage extended to well over the land mass. More importantly, he could provide direct control of all the fighters on station, vectoring them off to intercept inbound bogies or vampires as necessary, Maybe the AWACS radar coverage is better over land, but there's nothing that can beat an E-2 controlling an air battle.
After that would come our main strike assets. Tomcats loaded with five-hundred- and one-thousand-pound bombs, along with a couple of Sidewinders tucked in for good luck on their wing tips. Then the Hornets, those thirsty little bastards, would want to get airborne, then immediately take on fuel. Their carrying capability was more limited. Each one carried two one-thousand-pound bombs, but Strike had designated most of them for air-to-air combat roles. Given their performance characteristics against the MiG-29, that was the best choice for what I hoped would be a quick strike, burn to the ground, and back out again.
I'd asked the Air Force for tanker assets, and they were scrambling to get a couple of KC-135s and KC-10s in the area, but I didn't think they'd make it in time. The Air Force has been always oddly reluctant to commit tanker assets to a battle on short notice, preferring instead at least a couple of days of planning, polite requests, and other butt-kissing to get them on station. While the massive KC-10 could out-refuel anything I had on board, it had a couple of disadvantages as well. First, it carried a minimal crew ― no navigator, just pilots and a boom operator. Their entire flight program was loaded into the computer, supported by redundant backup SINS systems. The Air Force always swore to me that there was no chance ― none ― of all their independent backup systems going down at once.
Don't count on it.
Under grueling conditions, things go wrong. Additionally, call me old-fashioned, but I at least like to have one person on board every aircraft who has a clue as to where they are. Computers are great, and they've certainly revolutionized warfare, but there's no substitute for a guy with a compass, a piece of string, and a damn good set of charts. Unfortunately, practical real-world experience has proven this point over and over.
A KC-135 might be a smaller aircraft, with less refueling capability, but it would still be a massive advantage over our own organic tanker assets. But they were still a day away, staging out of Japan, and Japan was none too happy about it. Massive diplomatic battles were being fought over whether or not Japan would grant us landing rights, overflight rights, or anything else having to do with the suddenly sprouting war against their neighbors.
In theory, the tankers could support our squadron from Hawaii, or even some other Asian nation. In practice, however, the long flight time, crew fatigue, and the ever-changing tactical picture would often render it difficult for a KC-135 to be present in-theater. Besides that, if they did get in trouble, they had to have somewhere to bingo. It wasn't like I could take him on my deck, not even with the barricade nets strung across the flight deck.
There were more people on deck than aircraft. Yellow-shirted handlers directed the flow of traffic. The brown shirts were plane captains, each either standing next to their aircraft and preflighting with the aircrew or carefully watching the fuselage for signs of problems as engines spooled up. Most of the purple shirts ― aviation fuel technicians ― and red shirts ― weapons ― were already well clear, having worked at a breakneck pace during the last one hour and fifty-five minutes to arm and feed the hungry beasts already growling on the deck.
Six decks directly below me, in the Handler's Office, there was one lieutenant commander who was responsible for all the movement of aircraft across the deck. He had a scale mock-up of the ship, along with accompanying wooden overhead silhouettes of each aircraft. I had no idea how he'd managed to get so many aircraft packed so tightly on the deck. I'd never seen that full complement readying for launch, but somehow he had.
Finally, the last helo bobbled unsteadily into the air and veered away from the ship. Seconds later, the Air Boss called a green deck for fixed-wing aircraft. Just as he'd finished giving the order, the first set of fighters were shot off the forward and waist cats simultaneously.
From the tower, I could see the waist-cat aircraft launch sagging a bit as it lifted off, but still always in view.
Once all the aircraft were off the deck, there was no point in remaining in Pri-Fly. It stayed fully manned, of course, as it did whenever we had aircraft up. The vagaries of combat are too unpredictable ― hell, of carrier aviation in general. If an aircraft suffered a serious equipment failure or mechanical problem of some sort, they needed a green deck ― now. There wasn't time for them to wait around while we manned up.
But you couldn't fight a war from Pri-Fly. The aircraft I just had launched were now black smudges on the horizon, then not even that. I needed real-time information, the big picture, and I wouldn't get it here. And not just over radio circuits.
Six decks back down, then forward to CVIC. The sailor at the security door buzzed me in as soon as he saw me. I stopped long enough at the large coffeepot just inside the hatch to grab a quick mug, then ambled on back to SCIF. "You've got connectivity?" I asked Lab Rat as I slumped into the chair next to his.
He pointed up at the monitors, a slight smile on his face. "As good as we've ever had it, Admiral. The next best thing to being there."
Some of the technological advances in war-fighting are almost out of Star Trek. This was one of them.
For years, we've had the ability to mount a photo-reconnaissance pod underneath an aircraft and use it to obtain real-time BDA ― Battle Damage Assessment. The big drawback was always that we couldn't put weapons on the TARPS bird, and we had to wait for it to come back to the carrier, download the film, and then have it developed. It was still light-years better than anything else we had. We've never been able to rely solely on pilot reports of their own performance on bombing runs.
Not that they lie. It's just that they tend to be a little overly optimistic about the damage they've inflicted during a bombing run.
TARPS gave us the capability to conduct real BDA, albeit after the fact. Still, it was invaluable in deciding whether or not we needed to go back and bomb a target again or whether we'd taken it out the first time.
J-TARPS took the whole thing one step further. The J stood for joint, which meant that the system was capable of being deployed on aircraft in all the services, not just the Navy. Another part of the modern trend, developing technology that's not uniquely service-bred, that can be exported and used by your sister services.
There was one other thing about J-TARPS ― it was realtime. In addition to the photographic capabilities of the pod mounted on the beast's underbelly, there was one little section that contained a high-data-rate transmitter. Now, instead of waiting for the film, we saw what the pod saw ― real-time as it happened. The pilot could switch between a regular video display, a low-light one, and infrared. While the pilot couldn't monitor the data in the cockpit, he could respond to requests from the carrier to change displays. I had no doubt that in the next generation of J-TARPS technology, that limitation would be overcome as well.
SCIF ― Specially Compartmented Information ― was the most highly classified space on the ship. Into it was fed the most esoteric and high-tech data we had, in addition to the normal slew of incredibly sensitive message traffic. Reports from informants, human sources on the ground, and stuff so highly classified that they'll barely tell me
where it comes from. But it's like any intel ― it can be wrong or incomplete at times. That's why we'll never take the man out of the loop. Somebody's got to decide what's nonsense and what's ground truth.
This room had been configured as a new experiment, one that would allow me to monitor and direct the battle from here. It sounded like a good idea, but there was a danger too, the tendency to micromanage. It had already gotten us in trouble when the same technology allowed the pundits in D.C. direct control of an arsenal ship's weapons, and I was determined not to make the same mistakes they'd made. The same mistakes that had been made in Vietnam the first time ― micromanagement of targeting choices by politicians.
"Who's who?" I asked.
Lab Rat pointed to the monitor on the far left of the room. "That's the lead ― from there, I have 'em up in order of egress."
"All Tomcats?"
Lab Rat nodded. "Strike wanted all the hard points on the Hornets devoted to weapons. I don't think it'll make a difference."
I grunted, not sure I liked that. Since when did Hornets have priority over Tomcats in an air battle.
Since MiGs turned out to be the target, one part of my mind suggested. Don't go getting parochial about this ― you know they're right.
"The satellite imagery is over on that wall," Lab Rat continued, pointing off to the right. A large-screen display dominated that wall, an overhead view of the area from a geosynchronous satellite. It was currently in photo mode, but it also could toggle into infrared if needed.
On the far-left screen, from the TARPS camera on the lead Strike aircraft, the coast of Vietnam was materializing out of the haze. Dark, jagged along the coast, a few dreary brown areas of civilization carved out of the lush terrain. It was like being there, like flying over it myself, except that my view was not obstructed by my own aircraft. A stunning picture, one only occasionally shot through with static.
The screens to the right of it, the two others, still displayed just ocean. Just at the edge of the horizon, I could see the coastline starting to come into view.
"Wow." It was all I could manage.
Lab Rat looked smug. "We're pretty pleased with it," he said off-handedly, as though he alone were responsible for the entire project. I let him enjoy his triumph, as a partial mitigation of the terrible embarrassment he felt over the SAM sites.
The lead was feet dry now, the radio call coming over one speaker as the camera showed the aircraft transitioning to over land. The other cameras were now showing the coastline, only minutes away from going feet dry themselves.
The primary target was the covert airfield that satellites had just revealed hidden deep in the jungle. It was the same one from which the last, aborted strike had deployed, and from what we could tell, most of the aircraft had returned to that airfield after withdrawing from the air battle. My intention was to strike a quick, retaliatory blow aimed primarily at the airfield and its aircraft that had attacked us. No civilian population centers, no other targets, other than a secondary airfield we'd just discovered north of that.
The strike was divided into two missions, one heading for the main field, the other briefed to pull north to the secondary airfield. Depending on the results I saw via J-TARPS, I would be able to vector the second flight in to restrike the primary airfield or allow them to continue on to their northern airfield mission.
The trees loomed closer now, and I could make out individual trees and foliage. The aircraft were down on the deck, coming in low and fast. Precision bombing at its best, with the results highly dependent on individual pilot skills. But the airfield was a good target, one that would be easy to pick out. And it was big enough that we should be able to neutralize most of its capabilities even if we didn't nail every square inch of it. Of course, it was the aircraft I was really concerned about. Airfields can be fixed quickly, with the combination of quick-set concrete and temporary steel airfield mats. But aircraft ― and the people that flew them ― weren't quite as expendable.
The airfield was coming into view now, a dull, silvery stripe against the green of the jungle. There were maybe ten aircraft parked along it, wings folded, ancillary equipment swarming around. One main building spouted flames and smoke, an indication that the EA-6B Prowler HARM missiles had found at least one antenna radiating. Good ― maybe we'd caught them by surprise. One of the first things any enemy does when an inbound strike is detected is shut down all electromagnetic radiation to avoid the HARM missiles.
If they'd had any doubts about it before, they now knew we were coming. The detail was amazing ― I could pick out technicians running across the airfield, yellow gear called huffers that provided compressed air for quick engine starts next to some of the aircraft, and even one pilot slamming down a canopy. Faces were turned up to look toward me.
The picture shuddered violently. The radio circuit revealed why ― the lead Tomcat had just lofted his five-hundred-pound dumb bombs at the airfield, and pulled into a hard turn to clear the area. The clearance maneuver was designed to not only get him away from the explosions that would soon occur, but also to clear the path for the incoming flights.
The J-TARPS camera was stabilized to remain locked on the designated point as long as possible, but the pilot quickly outstripped its capabilities. He pulled back, and the picture of the airfield was replaced with the immenseness of the jungle again.
I switched my gaze to the second camera. He was just coming up on the airfield, and concrete and smoke splattered up from the runway where the lead's bombs had hit. There were more people now running, scampering toward the illusory safety of the main building as the strike force pressed on in.
Smoke was obscuring the picture, and would complicate the targeting picture. As it wafted across the screen, blocking out part of my picture, I realized that something was bothering me. I turned to Lab Rat. "Where are the rest of the aircraft?"
He frowned, a worried look on his face. "We counted twelve on the deck. There were more than that in the air last time ― definitely more."
"Revetments?" I suggested.
He sat still for a moment, his face expressionless. "Maybe," he admitted finally. "But we saw no indication of it on the satellite pictures. Usually there are mounds, some sort of clearly definable entrance to them. But not here."
"Then where are they?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. But at least we'll get the ones that are out there now. Twelve aircraft have got to be a significant blow to their capabilities."
I didn't want to decimate the Vietnamese air-combat capabilities, not just hurt them a little, force them to slow down. I wanted complete and utter destruction, smoking black holes in the ground where aircraft, fuel dumps, and spare parts inventory had been. Scorched earth as vengeance for my people ― nothing else would suffice.
But if the aircraft were in revetments, we had a problem. Concrete reinforced structures buried under the earth were a tough target. It took a lot of firepower to damage them, much less destroy them. Weaponeering can do it if you know that's the problem, using some special high-penetration bombs designed to take on hardened targets, but that wasn't what our weapons load carried. Big old plain fat dumb bombs, that was it.
Now the second aircraft was dropping its bombs, and I studied the picture being transmitted back carefully, searching for some indication of where the aircraft might be. Jungle, just jungle surrounded the entire airfield. It was unusually flat for that part of the country, probably the reason they'd built the base there. "Switch to infrared on number three," I said.
Lab Rat relayed my order to the Tactical Action Officer in the Combat Direction Center, who had his Operations Specialist pass it on to the pilot. The picture flickered, then dissolved into the black-and-white display of the infrared.
"See anything?" I asked Lab Rat. He motioned to the Intelligence Specialist standing slightly behind him, an expert in photographic imagery. The man stepped up beside the monitor.
"These heat sources appear to be from the bombs, Admiral,"
he said, pointing out two or three bright white flares on the screen. "Smoke may cool the picture off a little bit, but it can't disguise the main heat source. These appear to be pretty much in the area where the aircraft were parked."
"What else?" I asked.
He studied the picture for a moment, then continued. "Here's the main building ― see, those heat sources come from the gear in there as much as the people. And a couple smaller spots ― probably yellow gear. Maybe some secondary fires."
"So what would the revetments look like?" I asked.
"Tough to say, Admiral. There are ways to design the exhaust systems to conceal a heat signature ― just like we do with our Stealth birds, cooling the exhaust down so it's not distinguishable from the ambient atmosphere. However," he continued, seeing my doubtful look, "I doubt that the Vietnamese are that sophisticated. If they're not obviously visible from the photo display, then they're camouflaged in some way, although we can make some logical assumptions about their location. First, they need to be near the airfield ― or if not, there's gotta be a well-marked path from the revetments to the airfield."
"Could they be built into the side of the mountains?"
He shook his head. "I doubt it. I've read some science-fiction books about aircraft landing in concealed mountain caverns, but that's not a strong probability. No, if they're there, I'm betting that they're near this airfield." He pointed in an area ringing the airfield, now splotched with bright heat sources indicating fires.
"Maybe ― what about there?" I said, pointing at a small spike of peaks off to one side.
"I was just looking at that." He squinted, stepped back a few feet to get a bigger overall picture, then nodded. "If the revetments are in the area at all, that would be my bet." He shot a sly, sideways glance at me. "If you ever get tired of being an admiral, I could use a good photo interpreter."
I laughed, more at the shocked, outraged expression on Lab Rat's face than anything else. I like an enlisted man that has enough balls to treat an admiral like a human being. "I'll consider it," I said. "After this raid is over."
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