Sky Masters

by Dale Brown

  to begin their assault. The assault group was split into two groups,

  each led by a People's Liberation Army Navy destroyer. North of Samar

  International Airport in Bangoy Bay was the destroyer Dalian, with six

  patrol boats as escorts, in overall command of five ex-United States

  LST- I -class tank-landing ships, each with two hundred and fifty

  People's Liberation Army Marines, ten light tanks, and twenty armored

  personnel carriers; and four Yukan- class landing ships, each with over

  four hundred Marines and one thousand tons of cargo and equipment. Each

  amphibious assault ship had several smaller landing craft that would

  each drop thirty Marine engineers ashore to clear wires or traps and

  soften up beach defenses; then the landing ships themselves would drive

  to shore, beach themselves, and disgorge their fighting men in massive

  waves. Helicopters from the Yukan-class ships would then begin to drop

  Marines and artillery pieces nearby, and the whole company would fan out

  across the countryside, secure the coastal inlands north of the airport,

  then drive south. The main attack force was four miles south of Davao,

  in Davao Gulf itself. Led by the destroyer Yinchuan, its amphibious

  assault force had ten LST-I-class tank-landing ships and eight

  Yukan-class landing ships, plus numerous smaller landing craft,

  minesweepers, and support ships. This group had the responsibility of

  securing the highlands west of Davao, encircling the city itself, and

  then linking up with the northern group to help secure the airport. By

  0135 hours, two hours ahead of schedule, the two Ludaclass destroyers

  had moved to within eight miles of the landing area and opened up with

  their I 30-millimeter cannons, peppering the beach and treelines near

  the intended landing zones with one round every second per vessel. The

  rounds were of all different types-most were standard shells weighing

  fifty pounds and carrying eight pounds of high-explosives, but some were

  shells that carried infrared sensors that horned in on heat sources such

  as vehicles or machine gun nests, incendiary warheads that spattered

  napalm to set buildings or heavy brush afire, or bomblets that spread

  out over a wide area to increase the destruction of each shell.

  Helicopters with infrared spotting scopes were used to spot targets for

  some of the guns, but mostly the Chinese were content to bombard the

  area without regard to specific targets. The destroyer Yinchuan turned

  a few of its rounds on the area surrounding Samar International Airport,

  hoping to scatter some of the defenders that were certainly waiting for

  the Chinese to come ashore. After twenty minutes of continuous

  bombardment, the Chinese assault ships began launching wave after wave

  of small landing craft with Marine engineers and security guards to

  clear a way for the assault ships to beach themselves. The gunfire from

  the destroyers became much more selective, targeting and hitting a few

  large-caliber shore-gun emplacements to provide covering fire for the

  landing craft. While raking the shore with 37- and 25-millimeter

  gunfire, the landing craft dropped some frogmen overboard to search for

  water traps or mines, while the others went ashore to begin hunting for

  minefields and to suppress heavy gun emplacements on shore. Except for

  a few widely scattered mines, they encountered almost no resistance. It

  took the first waves of landing craft less than ten minutes to reach the

  beach. After twenty-five minutes of bombardment, each 1 30-millimeter

  gun on the destroyers had expended one-third of the rated life for its

  barrels, so the heavy shelling ceased and the search began for attacks

  against the landing craft. They found a few snipers and encountered

  light resistance from hit-and run grenade attacks, but the Chinese

  Marines sustained only a few casualties. "Sir, report from Rear Admiral

  Yanlai, " Captain Sun Ji Guoming, the chief of staff for Admiral Yin Po

  L'un's flag staff, said. "The amphibious assault has gone better than he

  expected. The first landing craft are ashore with few casualties; the

  second wave will land in a few minutes. No heavy resistance is being

  encountered from Samar's forces." A tremendous weight seemed to be

  lifted from Admiral Yin's shoulders. Ever since Captain Sun and a few

  of his other advisers had recommended against Marine landing until the

  American Air Battle Force was dealt with, he had been worried that his

  decision to proceed with the assault was a bad one-now it seemed to be

  remarkably prescient. "Does Admiral Yanlai have any suggestions?"

  "No, sir, " Sun replied. "He is proceeding with the planned operation."

  "The plan supposed Samar's usual stiff guerrilla resistance to the

  landing forces, " Yin said. "Samar has obviously fled. It is time to

  step up the attack-with the American force nearby, it is essential.

  Order Admiral Yanlai to land the LSTs and troop-landing ships after the

  second wave of Marines ashore." The flag staff turned toward Yin in

  complete shock, and Captain Sun could not help but blink at his

  commanding officer in surprise. "But. . . sir, in only two

  landing-craft waves, we have less than three hundred troops ashore, and

  most of those are lightly armed engineers and Marines. They don't have

  the equipment or strength to conduct a thorough search and destroy

  operation. In daylight hours they can hardly proceed faster than a

  half-mile inland-at night they may be on the beach for hours, easily

  until daylight. They have not even begun to probe the area for

  resistance. It would be madn- I beg your pardon, sir, in my opinion it

  would be unwise to send in the large landing ships until we can be sure

  the area is free of resistance." Captain Sun sustained Yin's furious

  glare with uneasy fear. He had come very close to total insubordination

  by calling Yin's order "madness, " and only Sun's long-standing relation

  ship with Yin, as well as the fact that they were in the middle of a

  war, prevented hiln from being dismissed right then and there. "As you

  were, Captain, " Yin growled. "Our plans and normal operating

  procedures are based on the level of resistance and the greatest threat

  facing our forces. The resistance so far is low, and the threat from

  American bombers is very high. Those ships are vulnerable. The more

  men we can get off those ships and safely on land, the better. Order

  the landing ships ashore immediately." By using a Mode Two interrogator,

  which broadcast a short, coded signal to other American aircraft in the

  area commanding the other aircraft's beacons to emit a short

  identification signal in reply, Patrick McLanahan could discover where

  other aircraft in the strike force were located and display it on the

  God's-eye view on his Super Multi Function Display-in turn, this would

  be transmitted to the EB-52C escorts in the other strike packages so

  they could update their situational displays. The data would also be

  transmitted via NIRTSat communications satellites to the Joint Task

  Force commander on Guam and to the National Military Command Center at

  the Pentagon. The Mode Two tol
d a horrifying story-they had already lost

  one B-52 and one B-2, and they were still hundreds of miles from the

  Chinese amphibious assault force. McLanahan found his throat dry and

  his forehead hot and moist, and he found he could not control the slight

  trembling in his fingers-the trembling of real fear. He felt alone up

  here, and he felt as if every enemy vessel on that SMFD could see him

  and was waiting to kill him. After spending weeks with these men at the

  Strategic Warfare Center-swapping stories, techniques, and complaints;

  mission planning and debriefing until late at night at the 0-Club or at

  the Black Hills Saloon until being tossed out; and learning how to fight

  as a unit instead of as lone penetrators-it was as if a bit of his own

  soul had disappeared with each missing icon on that screen. They were

  dead, quickly and suddenly-and the toughest part of the mission was

  still ahead. The faces of the crew dogs that manned the missing bombers

  floated unbidden before his eyes, and burning drips of sweat that rolled

  into his eyes couldn't blur those horrible images. Patrick had seen

  combat, had seen men close to him die, but this was harder than he ever

  imagined. All those faces, all those names-this morning they were all

  together, and now they were never coming back. Just like that... "What

  do you got, Patrick?" McLanahan shook himself out of reverie and focused

  his eyes past the ghostly faces he saw in the SMFD and concentrated

  again on the situation. The faces did not haunt himthey seemed to help

  him, seemed to encourage him to continue... "Patrick.. Patrick looked

  over at Cobb and nodded. "I'm all right, Henry.. ." Cobb had glanced

  at his partner briefly, waiting to see if he would get back into the

  fight, before resuming his usual stone-still stance. The faces had moved

  away from the SMFD-they felt as if they were looking over his shoulder

  now, marveling at the technology McLanahan commanded and waiting for him

  to continue the fight-and that made him feel much better. "We are twenty

  miles from the coastline near Kiaponga, " Patrick said. "The B-52s

  behind us are joining up with Carter's EB-52. There's a destroyer

  battle group in the mouth of the Davao Gulf, and I think Carter and his

  B-52s from the south group are going after it. The number-two east

  strike group will follow-they're all intact with all six B-52s."

  "Where are the Tomahawks?" Cobb asked. McLanahan touched an icon on

  his SMFD, and several blinking objects and a short data list appeared on

  the God's-eye view. The Tomahawk cruise missiles could be interrogated

  just like a manned aircraft. "About ten miles ahead of the B-52s and

  not far behind us. We'll go feet-dry, turn west, and let the Tomahawks

  go past us as they head inland; when they get ahead of us, we'll head

  north and proceed to our targets." McLanahan studied the display for a

  moment, then ceased his Mode-2 interrogations-even though the Mode-2

  signals were encoded and transmitted in very short bursts, the enemy

  could still track an aircraft from them. "Looks like about half the

  Tomahawks are still with us."

  "Good, " Cobb said. "I'd just as soon let those puppies beat the bushes

  for us. ABOARD THE DESTROYER HONG LUNG The grease-board plotting

  technician drew a line from a frigate icon near the mouth of Davao Gulf

  to near the tiny village of Kiaponga. Out of all the other dots,

  circles, icons, and lines on the board, that one line commanded Admiral

  Yin's attention. "What is that?" he asked. "Sir, frigate Xiamen

  reports a weak UHF signal along this bearing, " the situation officer

  replied. "Several microburst transmissions. Computer projection calling

  it a possible aircraft, airspeed eight hundred kilometers per hour,

  heading northwest." Yin seemed to be transfixed by this line. "Any

  primary radar target? Altitude readout?"

  "No, sir." "Do they have an analysis of the signal itself?"

  "Not yet, sir." Captain Sun was completely perplexed-a destroyer and a

  frigate were coming under attack, but Yin was wondering about a

  microburst radio transmission. "Sir, Jinan is under attack by antiship

  missiles again-he cannot hold out much longer. We must assist him. I

  recommend ordering him to withdraw to the west so we can provide

  surface-to-air missile coverage for him. And we should head farther to

  the northeast to provide similar coverage for Xiamen-he is tracking

  numerous Tomahawk cruise missiles heading in his direction as well as

  the B-52 bombers... "I want to know what that signal was, Captain."

  "Very well, sir, " Sun replied. "And as for Jinan and Xiamen... ?"

  "Steer Hong Lung northeast to cover Davao Gulf as much as possible,

  but/inan will hold its position, " Yin said with a hint of exasperation

  in his voice. "They have almost as much fire power as we do, and they

  have more escorts. I will not allow my ship commanders to start running

  all over the Celebes Sea at the first sign of trouble. I also want a

  report on our fighter coverage-I have not seen one fighter on that board

  since the first group of J-7s and Q-5s were engaged." A few moments

  later a new manual plotting technician took over on the vertical-plot

  greaseboard, and he began filling in icons for a group of fighters just

  west of Mount Apo. "Sir, fighter groups fourteen, with six total

  Jianjiji-7 fighters, and composite fighter-attack group two, with three

  Qiangjiji-5 fighters and three A-5K fighter-bombers, are thirty-seven

  kilometers west of Mount Apo, " Captain Sun reported. "They will be on

  station over Davao Gulf in three minutes." Yin slammed a fist down on

  the table before him and hissed, "That is not good enough! We're

  supposed to have a hundred fighters available to us on this operation,

  and there are only twelve? I had better see two more groups airborne

  immediately. I want all available J-7 and Q-5 fighters airborne

  immediately to attack the inbound bombers. "It will be done immediately,

  sir... but I must remind you that it leaves no Q-5 fighters available

  for close air support for our Marines, " Sun said. "The Q-5 and the A-5

  are the only planes we have that can aerial refuel. Also, few of these

  aircraft are equipped for night combat "We will have no Marines to

  provide close air support for if we do not stop these bombers!" Yin

  shouted. "Launch all available fighters now! And I want two fighters

  dispatched to search along the projected trackline of that microburst

  transmission. I want nothing to get past our defenses and strike our

  Marines... nothing!" The updated NIRTSat data feed came in just as Cobb

  and McLanahan's B-2 crossed the coastline south of Kiaponga. Cobb had

  reactivated the terrain-comparison COLA computer, and they were snaking

  just two hundred feet above the lush coastal hills and valleys of the

  Sarangani Peninsula of southern Mindanao. On his Super Multi Function

  Display, McLanahan could see the updated positions of three Tomahawk

  cruise missiles that were to go in ahead of his B-2 Black Knight bomber;

  the computer used the missile's last reported heading and speed, along

  with a knowledge of the missile's pre-programmed f
light plan, to

  estimate the missile's position. "We'll be ready for a turn in about

  sixty seconds, " McLanahan told Cobb. The aircraft commander clicked

  his mike in response. The terrain sloped up steeply from the eastern

  cliffs facing the Celebes Sea in the Glan River Valley; the valley was

  at least six miles wide and did not rise as steeply on the west side.

  "Stay on the west slope of the coastal hills, on the 'military crest, '"

  McLanahan said. "It's not the best place to be, but it's better than

  getting trapped down in the valley. The hills should shield us from the

  warships off the coast as well." Another double click in response as

  Cobb banked the B-2 gently right and began flying north-northeast along

  the western side of the coastal hills, not flying too high but not

  diving too deeply into the valley. McLanahan expanded his SMFD out to

  sixty miles' range. At the top of the north-up display was their

  primary target, the radar site on Mount Apo. A yellow-colored dome

  surrounded the point, representing the range of the Chinese radar site

  operating there-that was their target. The edge of the yellow dome did

  not quite touch the B-2 icon-not because they were out of the radar's

  range, but because the energy levels being recorded from the radar were

  less than those required to get a radar return off the stealth bomber.

  From that radar site the Chinese could vector in fighters against every

  American bomber in the strike package. McLanahan immediately designated

  the top of the mountain as the target for two SLAM missiles, programming

  in evasive turnpoints and data-link activation points and checking the

  Global Position System satellite signal for good navigational data feed

  to the missiles. He had to program in a terminal "pop-up" maneuver for

  the missiles in order to hit the radar domes from above rather than from

  the side. The one deficiency with the SLAM missile system over land was

  that the aircraft that was to steer the missile onto its target needed

  to have a clear line-of-sight radio signal between the two-that meant

  climbing away from the radar-clutter sanctu ary of the terrain, which

  could expose the launch aircraft to enemy radar. The navigation-missile