Blood of War rdr-4

by Larry Bond

  During which he would be sure to mention the SEAL team members he had rescued, the Chinese ships he had bluffed away from the coast, and the civilian craft he had protected.

  Throw a typhoon into the mix, and all in all it hadn’t been a bad little cruise around Southeast Asia’s hot little tourist spot.

  But what would really cap it off would be sinking Wen Jiabo, something he was expressly prohibited from doing.

  Unless they fired on him.

  “Captain, that frigate is changing course,” said his executive officer Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Li, who was in the ship’s combat center. “Looks like she’s moving to engage the Vietnamese coastal patrol.”

  “Hmmph.”

  The frigate was some twelve miles to the north, heading west in the direction of Vietnam. The Vietnamese coastal patrol was HQ-372, a Russian-built Tarantul I missile boat that carried four P-15M surface-to-surface missiles. Known in the West as the SS-N-2C Styx, the missiles were technically obsolete but not inconsequential weapons. The frigate’s own missiles were much more modern.

  “He’s going to fire,” predicted Silas. “Is the Vietnamese doing anything?”

  “Negative. Not sure he even knows he’s there.”

  “He knows,” said Silas. The Vietnamese vessel’s radar was powerful enough to spot the Chinese ship on its own, and its sensors could also detect the Chinese radar transmissions. The Chinese were not being subtle. But even if the Vietnamese boat hadn’t seen the Chinese ships on its own, the U.S. was supplying Vietnam with intelligence regarding the disposition of Chinese forces. That was why the Vietnamese craft was there: to shadow the Chinese warships.

  Silas put his binoculars down and walked over to the bridge’s combat display. The display plotted the positions not only of the Chinese and Vietnamese ships, but everything else within several hundred miles. The information was gleaned from the Navy’s satellite surveillance system as well as McCampbell’s own sensors.

  The Chinese were testing him, Silas realized. The Chinese commander wanted to know what Silas was going to do.

  Interesting.

  The frigate continued to separate from the cruiser. It was roughly thirty miles from the Vietnamese craft, well within the range of its missiles.

  “No reaction from the Vietnamese yet,” said Li. “His radar is active,” she added.

  Silas considered whether he might make a feint toward the frigate, just to see what the Chinese commander would do. But his orders from Fleet specifically precluded any interference if the two navies fought, so what was the sense? If he moved in and the Chinese vessel fired, it would look as if he had shied from a fight.

  And what did it look like now?

  The frigate soon made the matter moot. Now at twenty-five nautical miles from HQ-372, the Chinese Type 54A turned so that it had the Vietnamese ship forty-five degrees off its bow. If Silas had had any doubt whatsoever what was going on, the maneuver would have vanquished it.

  McCampbell’s crew was poised at battle stations and prepared in case the frigate — or the cruiser for that matter — decided to turn its weapons on them. The sensors aboard the destroyer could tell when it was being specifically targeted by the Chinese, and while there was always some slight possibility of error, at this point it was clear that they were not the intended victim.

  Silas warned his crew to be ready anyway.

  “Commander Li — reaction from the Vietnamese?” asked Silas.

  “Negative. Does he think it’s a bluff?”

  Silas considered the possibility that the Vietnamese skipper couldn’t see the maneuvers, or didn’t know how to interpret them. But it was more likely he was under orders to avoid an engagement if at all possible, and was hoping that the frigate was simply trying to egg him on.

  Silas was more curious about the Chinese. The cruiser was maintaining its position, moving northward roughly in parallel with McCambell.

  We’re two boxers, watching each other from the corners of the ring, thought Silas.

  “Watch them,” said Silas.

  “Affirmative.”

  The frigate had boosted its speed to about fifteen knots. Extrapolating from what he had seen the Chinese do earlier, Silas predicted that they would slow almost to a stop to fire. He mentally imagined what was going on aboard the frigate — he saw himself standing on the cramped bridge, plotting his position and then ordering the engine room to cut back power.

  “He’s launching!” said Li. “The Chinese frigate has launched two Ying Ji eighty-threes. Target is the Vietnamese missile boat.”

  Silas looked up at the sea in the direction of the frigate, even though they were too far for him to see it or even its missile. He imagined everything that would be happening aboard the ship.

  “Not heading for us,” repeated Li.

  “Steady.”

  The two Chinese missiles climbed from their launchers, rising above the waves. With delta-shaped wings fore and aft, they were relatively small missiles — not necessarily a disadvantage in a naval engagement, where agility and accuracy could more than compensate for a few hundred pounds of explosives. As the rocket booster fell off, their small turbojet engines would kick on and the missiles would drop suddenly, skimming across the wavetops at some 594 knots. If they performed well, they would stay within five to ten meters of the surface, and strike home within two and a half minutes.

  Silas went back to the plot to see what was going on. Both the cruiser and the frigate remained on their course.

  “Missiles,” said Li. “The Vietnamese are launching.”

  Roughly thirty seconds had passed since the Chinese launch — a long, long time, Silas thought to himself.

  They saw the launch with their eyes. They were ready but they had to process it mentally.

  The Vietnamese antiship missiles climbed skyward. Unlike the cruise missiles the Chinese fired, the Styx trudged up to three hundred meters altitude and stayed there, arcing in the direction of their target.

  The higher you are, the easier it is to see and shoot you, Silas thought.

  And now things got interesting. The Chinese frigate, seeing it had been fired on — a quicker reaction than the Vietnamese, Silas noted — began dishing HQ-16s into the air. Directed by a Type 354 radar (called Front Dome by NATO), the HQ-16s were antiair weapons, able to strike a wide range of antiship missiles and cruise missiles in flight.

  “Five, six missiles launched,” said Li. The frigate’s forty-five degree angle to the incoming weapons allowed it to bring three of its four directors into action, putting two HQ-16s on each incoming Styx.

  So the Chinese commander had seen two steps ahead. Could he see further?

  “Be alert!” said Silas, as much to himself as to the others on the bridge.

  By now, the Vietnamese ship had turned sharply to put the incoming missiles on its quarter. Her engines up full, she threw chaff into the air, a countermeasure designed to fool the radar guiding the Chinese missiles.

  The sky between the two enemy ships lit with balls of lightning as HQ-16s reached the Styx. A necklace of flash and fire strung out above the ocean, bits of detonated missile and burnt metal raining down.

  “Two Styx down,” reported Li. “Two missiles in-bound to frigate.”

  Only a fifty percent kill rate, noted Silas. Far less than he would prepare for.

  The Chinese frigate’s 76 mm gun began firing. It had about as much chance of hitting the incoming Styx as a sailor with a revolver, but there was no shame in trying. Chaff bloomed from the frigate as well.

  But the real defense was its missile system. Six more HQ-16s launched in rapid succession. The sheer number of missiles was impressive, even if the results were not. One set of missiles struck home, destroying one of the Vietnamese weapons. The last Styx flew on.

  Meanwhile, the Vietnamese ship maneuvered desperately, employing all of its countermeasures against the two YJ-83s, which were now furrowing in. The AK-630 30 mm guns aft fired furiously at the enemy, spewing two
bright lines at the missiles’ flight path.

  It was useless. The first Chinese missile struck the Tarantul on her starboard side just below the superstructure. One hundred and sixty-five kilograms of high explosive ripped a large hole in the craft. There were immediate secondary explosions, 76 mm and 30 mm ammo prickling into fire.

  Then the second missile hit. The Vietnamese patrol craft disintegrated into a debris field, its outlines highlighted by a slick of burning oil.

  For a moment, Silas thought the Vietnamese ship might get some measure of revenge, as its last missile remained in the air, streaking past the furling missile trails and flailing close-in gunfire. But it had been thoroughly confused by the Jiangkai’s jammers and chaff — it passed nearly a mile astern, cratering into the ocean in a last gesture of futility.

  Silas expected the frigate to make another attack — there were small vessels nearby the ship he had just sunk. But the Chinese captain seemed content with what he had already done; perhaps he was listening to the radio calls as McCampbell was.

  Silas pondered the next problem: if the Vietnamese put out an SOS, should he respond?

  He was duty-bound as a mariner to do so. Yet that might be considered an act of war by the Chinese, and therefore contrary to his own orders.

  An interesting dilemma. But one he didn’t have to face: the two small Vietnamese craft responding to the sinking spoke only to themselves.

  “Frigate is heading back toward the cruiser,” reported Li.

  Probably gloating the whole way, thought Silas.

  25

  Near the border of Vietnam and China

  “That’s absolutely a spearhead of an armored division,” said Zeus. He tapped his finger on the laptop screen. “That’s how they move.”

  Trung stood next to him in the truck he used as a mobile office, staring at the laptop. The vehicle was an old deuce and half, with the canvas back replaced by wood; from the outside it looked like something a town might use to collect leaves or other debris.

  Zeus’s feelings about the Vietnamese general were jumbled. He was angry that Trung had tried to keep him from Anna. Yet he wanted to help him and his country. Partly because he wanted to free Anna, and partly because having fought the Chinese he wanted to defeat them utterly. There was rage and revenge and anger, the professionalism of a soldier — a dozen emotions, all tied in a knot.

  Could Trung have had Anna released if he wanted? If he had, would Zeus have stayed?

  He looked at the laptop, trying to focus.

  “If we block this road here, they have to come through this highway,” said Zeus. “The entire column will be restricted. We have a landslide right on this stretch of road. They have to form a column, and the way their infantry is situated, the armor will be in the lead. Then we split the armor down here with an ambush. We isolate the lead element, making it easier to attack. It’s exactly what I did to the east. The Chinese will stop and regroup.”

  Trung put his hands on the desk that filled nearly half of the rear of the truck. He gazed at the map on the wall opposite him; it was a map made from satellite images of the topography, blown up several times and taped painstakingly together to show the area where they were attacking.

  Zeus followed his gaze, then looked around the interior of the truck. Even for the Vietnamese, the setting was austere. A pair of old ammo boxes held some supplies. A rifle and a pistol in webbing sat beneath the desk — the general’s personal weapons. There was an extra magazine taped to the one loaded in the rifle, and a grenade was clipped onto the belt.

  Zeus had more data on the Chinese push that he couldn’t share. He was sure the unit was a full armored division not just because of the way it was traveling, but because of “SIGINT”—signal intelligence gathered by snooping spy satellites. The satellite picked off pieces of routine communication between the units. Decrypted and analyzed, these provided a picture of what was happening that was even more comprehensive than the satellite images.

  The Chinese had taken one of their reserve tank divisions, the 12th Armored, and sent it down the road in what looked like the start of the boldest advance into Vietnamese territory yet. The Chinese commander had identified a weak spot between the Vietnamese formations and was clearly aiming to shoot through the gap. Two infantry divisions were following, though as usual for the Chinese, they were making relatively slow progress.

  On paper, a full armored division contained as many as 240 tanks divided among three regiments. Like many Chinese units, the division heading south was considerably smaller than it should have been, with only about a hundred and eighty tanks. These were about equally divided between Type 96 main battle tanks and older Type 85s, with a handful of brand new Type 98s thrown into the mix. The unit also traveled with mechanized infantry and a support unit of antiaircraft missiles. It was the mechanized infantry that Zeus’s plan aimed to separate from the tank; the armor would be much more vulnerable without the foot soldiers around it.

  Still, the vanguard might contain as many as forty Type 96s. The lead regiment was strung out in about a two-mile long convoy, hurtling directly for Malipo.

  “Your plan is of course good,” said Trung. “But to get my men in place to block the road — it would be very difficult.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” said Zeus.

  “What do you mean? Another guerilla raid?”

  “No,” said Zeus.

  “How?”

  “I can’t go into it at the moment.” He was thinking of a Tomahawk strike similar to the one that had been launched against the dams early in the war. He’d have to arrange it with Washington.

  Trung looked at the map. He pointed to the spot where the ambush was to take place. It was a sharp switchback in the hills, a difficult place for the Chinese to defend. The image blurred as he pressed his finger against the plastic screen, flashing as if the computer itself were calculating the odds for or against success.

  “To get to this point…” The general’s voice trailed off, but what he meant was clear — it was impossible.

  “It’s only six kilometers beyond where you were going to stage your troops,” said Zeus.

  “But a half day ahead of that schedule. And the terrain is very difficult — to get that far, that fast. I do not know that it can be done.”

  Trung took his finger away from the screen. He looked up at the large map, staring intently.

  “You can do it,” said Zeus. “You have to. Because there’s no way what you have here can deal with that size of a force. And you have to keep them out of Malipo. We need the airport.”

  “Why?” asked Trung.

  “To hit Kunming,” said Zeus. “We’re going to take out the Chinese group commander.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. It’ll stop their advance.”

  “It is two hundred and sixty kilometers away.”

  “A little more,” acknowledged Zeus. “Closer to three hundred.”

  “So this was your plan all along.”

  “No. I only thought of it later.”

  A slight smile curled at the edges of Trung’s lips, the sort of smile a parent might have when catching a child’s white lie. Except that Zeus hadn’t lied.

  “The idea came up after the plan to take Malipo had been mapped,” said Zeus. “The U.S. — we’re not making an attack officially. It’s a long shot. Just a very long shot.”

  Trung looked at the map. Zeus thought again of Anna, this time not as a prisoner, but as she had been in the first night they were together.

  It was a spell, the sort of thing he had never experienced, never thought possible. Such an attraction.

  “They’ll expect an ambush there,” said Trung finally. “It would be the most logical place. Better to break them in two here, as they pass near this mine. We would attack first from the low ground here. They would naturally retreat toward this end, the high ground, and then we could surprise them.”

  Zeus went over to the map, where the topography was ea
sier to see. The mine Trung was talking about was a strip mine nearly three-quarters of a kilometer long, another quarter wide. An ambush there would have some advantages — the Vietnamese could use the high ground better, and they could swing their tanks in from the north. But it was also closer to the city, and because the mine itself was relatively flat, the individual tanks would have more room to maneuver once they got past the road.

  “These are bridges, are they not?” asked Trung, pointing to the road. “We eliminate them as the battle starts. The armor is isolated because of your diversion.

  “Our tanks attack from the side and hold the attention of the Chinese,” continued Trung. “As the Chinese maneuver, they are struck from this point. Our antitank units attack them.”

  “The problem is the number of Chinese tanks,” said Zeus. “After the initial skirmish, a strong second wave will wipe you out.”

  “We will take the city at the same time, and withdraw to it,” said Trung, speaking as if he hadn’t heard Zeus’s objections. “The Chinese will then have a choice — retreat and go back to the west, attacking in that direction south, or battling us in their city. Malipo will be destroyed — they will pay a heavy price.”

  Zeus saw how Trung was fitting things together, thinking beyond the ambush. He wanted the Chinese to commit to an attack along the highway at Malipo. The idea wasn’t that he thought the Chinese would be more vulnerable to the Vietnamese there; it was that it would take them longer to go down into Vietnamese territory, especially once their noses were bloodied in the city.

  Would that work?

  Perhaps in conjunction with the attack at Kunming. With the army group commander out of the picture, it would be more difficult for the divisions to coordinate. They would have Malipo as a goal — take back the Chinese city — and then the tendency would be to stop.

  A truly smart commander would bypass the city entirely after the ambush, simply plunging south in the direction the Vietnamese had come. But Trung had the Chinese gauged fairly well — certainly they would want to take back their territory.