Monroe Doctrine

by James Rosone

  During the next four hours, all the plans were laid out in detail. Dinner was brought in, but they were all too excited to eat. Lee wrote twenty-five pages of notes and marked up his entire briefing packet as well. He was giddy with excitement over the plan he and his new ship would be a part of in this coming conflict, confident the Americans would see them as equals, or they would crush them.

  Admiral Zhang of the Northern Fleet gave all the naval officers new patrol orders for special exercises down in the South China Sea. The objective of the Type 95s was to sink the Arsenal ships, which would be acting as American carriers. The objective of the Type 60s and assigned Type 52 and 55 Destroyers was to hunt and kill the Type 95s.

  For the exercise, everyone would be firing inert torpedoes with no explosive warheads, but everything else on the torpedoes would acquire and home as if they were the real thing. They would even impact against the sides of the vessels, letting the defender know they were hit.

  The meeting continued until the sun rose the next day. While Lee’s body was exhausted, his mind was on fire. When he retrieved his belongings from the locker on the ground floor, he felt like it had been months since he’d placed them there. It had been less than seventeen hours.

  Leaving the building, Lee saw Dr. Xi Zemin getting into his car. The man turned toward him and bowed his head slightly. Lee returned the gesture. A minute later, the staff car that had brought him to this secret facility pulled up and the original driver appeared. As his driver opened his door, he heard someone calling his name. Turning, he saw it was Captain Chen of the Changzheng 32 and Senior Captain Liu of the Dingyuan IV. He motioned for his driver to wait as he walked to his comrades. Lee came to attention and saluted Senior Captain Liu.

  “Sir, what can I do for you?” Lee asked.

  “I came to wish you both good fortunes. The Type 60 is a most formidable warship,” said Captain Liu.

  “To you as well, sir. Have you ever conducted a war game with inert munitions?” asked Lee.

  Liu answered, “No, but I suppose it will do all of our crews good to feel that pressure before we have to learn the hard lessons of war.”

  The men stood for a moment, pondering that thought, the gravity of it making them all ever more exhausted. War was coming and they understood their role as the very tip of China’s spear. Liu grunted in acknowledgment and walked away. Lee and Chen watched him go. Chen patted Lee on the shoulder and departed as he saw Admiral Wei approach Captain Lee.

  When Admiral Wei walked up to Lee, he came to attention and snapped a crisp salute. Wei waved it off as if swatting at a fly.

  “Walk with me, Captain,” Wei directed as he signaled for Lee’s driver to continue to hang tight.

  “Yes, sir.” Lee obeyed and fell in step to the admiral’s left.

  “You have one week to prepare your submarine and your crew. You may tell your officers as much as you like about what is coming. I want you to know something, though.” Wei took several more steps in silence. Lee could sense he was contemplating whether he should tell him some big secret. Finally, Wei stopped and faced Lee.

  “Lee, what happens in the next several months will determine the fate of China and the world. I picked you because I see the fire in you,” Wei said sternly.

  “Thank you, sir, I understand,” answered Lee.

  “No, you don’t!” Wei hissed softly so only the two of them could hear.

  Lee saw venom in his face for a moment, and then it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He relaxed and inhaled deeply before he spoke again. “This Jade Dragon AI… it frightens me,” Wei said firmly but quietly. “It… it is too accurate. Jade Dragon already provided the predictive analysis for your war games. It knows everything about every man on every ship and submarine involved. It processed over a thousand scenarios and made its prediction. The Party is extremely interested to see how it plays out. I know you to be an aggressive and competent captain. I need you to follow your instincts, not doctrine. Fight like an American, a German, a Brit, or a French captain. Learn what your submarine can do, find its limits and then push it past them. Win! Do you understand?”

  Lee didn’t know how to respond. He knew that Wei was trying to say what he could not say out loud. Lee had to figure out what that was. He looked into the old admiral’s eyes for a long moment and nodded.

  Wei turned and walked away, leaving Lee standing there with his thoughts. Then Lee put his sunglasses on and walked back to his waiting driver. He had a flight to catch to get back to his submarine. He had a week to prepare his crew and learn how to use this new weapon. And he had to figure out what the hell Wei had meant.

  *******

  Ten Days Later

  South China Sea

  Changzheng 30

  Captain Lee sat in the wardroom sipping his tea, looking at each of his officers as they digested what he had told them. For the last hour, he had briefed them on the tactical scenarios their new boat might encounter. To hammer home the importance of the coming exercise and how revolutionary their new ship and task force would be, he’d shared with them his classified briefing packet from his meeting in JBCC.

  Like him, they had snickered at the Panamax until they had seen the stills of its three hundred and fifty VLS tubes launching a barrage of cruise missiles. Their snide comments had ended when they’d realized how big of an impact a merchant raider like this could have.

  His XO had been the most astute when he had correctly surmised that the Type 60 battle cruisers would become the workhorse of the navy. If they were able to master the coordination between the Type 95As subs, Type 55s destroyers, and Type 60s battle cruisers, they could make quick work of the American Pacific Fleet. The trick now was honing the skills required to carry out a multidomain battle like the Americans had mastered since the days of World War II.

  With the Changzheng underway, Captain Lee made it a point to gather his officers together daily to spend at least an hour going over tactics and how to best use their new weapons against their most likely adversaries. Lee impressed upon them that these new warships would be able to do what the Japanese could not in the last Great War—beat the Americans should it ever come to that.

  Standing, Captain Lee asked again, “What is the primary objective of this war game scenario?”

  The weapons officer replied, “Sink the American carrier.”

  Lee nodded in approval. “Exactly. Now, how will we do that?”

  This time it was a different weapons officer who answered, “We will slip past the carrier’s screening force and sink them with our new torpedoes.”

  Lee smiled. “Yes. But how will we slip past its escorts?”

  “Well, we know what kind of escorts the ship will have. We plan around its capabilities and we find the weak link,” one of the navigation officers offered.

  “That’s right,” Lee said with a nod. “The cargo ship will act as the American carrier. It will be protected by the new battle cruiser and our destroyers. These combatants will be hunting us as much as we’ll be hunting them. I will need each of you to stay on your toes. You will need to be ready to adapt and change at a moment’s notice.”

  The officers in the wardroom nodded, serious looks on their faces.

  Lee went over the rules of the exercise again, making sure they fully knew what would be expected of them. This would be a test of the Type 60s and 55s to see how well they worked together, both in protecting a high-value asset and in hunting a simulated American sub.

  The war game would play out identically with the other ship captains, with one Type 95 going up against the one Type 60 and three destroyers. One of the subs would remain in reserve, loitering in each war game patrol box, collecting acoustic data and recording the simulated battles as they played out. All the data being generated from this exercise would be fed into Jade Dragon for further analysis. Lee suspected the secondary mission of the second Changzheng was to see if the surface combatants could detect it amid the underwater noise of the battle.


  The most problematic restriction to this exercise was the limitation on their use of anti-air missiles. This limitation meant the antisubmarine warfare or ASW helicopters would have a decidedly one-sided advantage. One of Lee’s officers had an idea on how to mitigate it, at least until they managed to get into their patrol box for the exercise.

  “Conn, sonar.”

  The captain grabbed the mic, “Sonar, Conn, what do you have for us?” he asked, hoping that they had a target.

  “Conn, we’ve detected a large ship approaching. We’re classifying it as a tanker.”

  “Sonar, that’s a good copy. We’ll take it from here.”

  The captain ordered the ship to settle in beneath the large vessel and matched its speed. They would use the cover of this ship to get in position.

  Once they reached the edge of the war game box, Lee deployed some of his acoustic decoys in a diagonal line. They were programmed to travel at two knots with passive sonars activated. The acoustic signature of the simulated carrier was preprogrammed into their targeting systems. If the decoys detected the dipping sonar of an ASW helicopter’s sonobuoys, then the decoys would emit the same signature as the Changzheng and accelerate to fifteen knots.

  If the ASW helicopters took the bait and chased them down, the decoys would increase their speed and make various course and depth corrections to lose the ASW helicopters. Lee believed this would draw the destroyers away from the carrier long enough for him to get his own ship in range to fire a salvo of torpedoes and then go deep and sprint for open water. At the designated ENDEX time, they would go to periscope depth, send their all-clear message and declare victory.

  Captain Lee recalled an American saying as he thought about what victory would look like: “Murphy gets a vote, and if it can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible time.”

  Walking onto the Conn, Lee asked, “Officer of the Watch, report ship status.”

  “Captain, ship is rigged for ultraquiet, surface contacts remaining on reported bearings.”

  “Very well. Maintain current speed and heading,” replied Lee.

  “Maintain current speed and heading—yes, Captain.”

  The submarine had continued their stealthy advance into the patrol box at three knots for the last seven days while maintaining a depth of three hundred feet. The Changzheng became a black hole in the water. They successfully identified and tracked the battle cruiser and three destroyers escorting their intended prey.

  The simulated carrier was eighteen thousand yards off their bow. There appeared to be two Type 55 destroyers leading the way, while a third destroyer was positioned to her rear. The Type 60 was to her port with her sonar actively pinging. It didn’t take long before they detected the ASW helos circling with dipping sonars on a direct heading. Between the Type 60 and Captain Lee’s submarine were two of his decoys and two Te-3 rocket-propelled mines directly in the path of the Type 60. Lee would use the decoys to lure the ASW helicopters away from the ships, then lose the mines and fire two torpedoes at the Type 60.

  Turning to his weapons officer, Lee ordered, “Weps, fire four YU-9 torpedoes with a programmed track to travel straight at the carrier in passive mode.”

  “Aye, Captain. Four torpedoes to be fired at the carrier in passive mode,” repeated the weapons officer.

  “Once those torpedoes acquire the carrier, keep them in passive mode until they’re within one thousand yards. Then have them go active,” Captain Lee added.

  Traveling at sixty-nine knots, the YU-9s would reach the ship in a spread roughly one hundred meters apart, converging on the target in twenty-six seconds. This would leave the simulated carrier virtually no time to maneuver or evade the incoming torpedoes.

  When the battle cruiser detected Lee’s decoys and began engaging them, Captain Lee would have the decoys lead the escorts further away from the carrier. He’d then fire a spread of inert YU-9 torpedoes with their guide wires cut. The torpedoes would then go to active and acquire the ship in wake-homing mode along projected bearings.

  While the Type 60 tried to evade the torpedoes, Captain Lee believed they would cross into the acoustic acquisition range of the Te-3 mines they had laid earlier. Then, as the battle cruiser had to contend with the mines and the torpedoes, Lee would fire three more torpedoes at the destroyers before they had a chance to react to his first attack.

  At a depth of six hundred feet, Lee would send the command to the torpedoes to go to active homing for the destroyers. At this point, he’d cut the wires and send them to terminal attack speed. While the three ships dealt with the torpedoes, he would go silent and deep as he cruised to open water and safety.

  At least, that was the plan. Now it was a waiting game. The submarine was at zero bubble and moving with the ocean current. At current closing speed, the primary target would be within range of his torpedoes in thirty-five minutes.

  *******

  South China Sea

  Dingyuan III

  Senior Captain Chin sat on the bridge, reading the ship’s status report. He had hunted the Changzheng for days, and despite having the most advanced destroyer in naval history, he could not find her. He had read as much as he could on Captain Lee. He wanted to know everything there was to know about him: how he operated, and how he’d handled himself in previous exercises.

  Chin felt this exercise was a real opportunity for his men to train against what was being hailed as the most advanced submarine in the world. If they could acquit themselves well in this exercise, then chances were, they’d do well against an American submarine or ship.

  Chin would admit privately that he hated hunting submarines. The damn things were hard to find unless the captain made a mistake. What Chin and his ASW helos had to do now was force Captain Lee to make an error. When that happened, they’d be ready to pounce.

  The Dingyuan pressed her ASW helos hard. He knew the aircrews were exhausted, but he was determined to find the submarine and force her to make a move against the target ship. He instructed the captains of the destroyers to maintain a tight rotation on their ASW helos. He wanted them dropping sonobuoys along their advance in the hopes that they could catch the submarine approaching for an attack, either from the front or from behind.

  So far, this had proven futile. There was no indicator of the submarine’s presence. They had patrolled in their box for ten long and stressful days of hunting without so much as a trace of them. All his division heads drilled their sailors daily, but the monotony caused slips in efficiency.

  Chin looked at his nearly empty cup of tea. As he rose to refill it, a communications technician told the Officer of the Watch that the ASW helicopter on station had detected cavitation in the water. Chin took a breath to catch himself. His excitement nearly got the better of him—the hunt was finally on.

  The energy on this ship changed immediately as his crew began preparations for the simulated battle to come. The klaxon for action stations blared throughout the ship and the second ASW helo crew ran to their aircraft, ready to join the hunt from the sky. His sonar officer confirmed the cavitation. He reported the distance and bearing to contact. Chin ordered an immediate course change to close in on the contact bearing, and he increased the ship’s speed to thirty knots. He wanted to get into an attack position as soon as possible. It was time to bring this war game to a close and claim his victory.

  *******

  South China Sea

  Changzheng 30

  “Captain, Sonar. Decoy has made initial cavitation. Dingyuan adjusted course to match bearing and increased speed,” the sonar operator conveyed to Captain Lee.

  “Sonar, Captain. Very well,” Captain Lee confirmed.

  Lee picked up his commander’s tablet and swiped to get to his weapons status screen. He ordered his weapons officer to activate the mines and fire the YU-9 torpedo salvo along the bearing of the Arsenal ship. In anticipation of the attack, all tubes had been loaded, outer doors opened, and firing solutions and tracks preprogrammed into the weapons.


  When the moment came, Lee did not hesitate as he gave the order to fire the torpedoes. When he did, he hit the digital stopwatch on the screen that was dedicated to the torpedoes. His weapons officer acknowledged the mines were activated. Even in the Conn, they could feel the torpedoes leave the tubes as the ship shuddered briefly.

  Lee ordered a speed increase to fifteen knots along the bearing of the Arsenal ship and the empty tubes reloaded. The command was acknowledged as the submarine increased speed.

  “Conn, sonar. Torpedoes are proceeding along assigned bearing in passive mode at ten knots,” an officer reported.

  “Very well,” Lee acknowledged. He looked at his tablet and swiped to the weapons tracking screen that was synched with the ship’s targeting computer. Checking the estimated time to active homing and terminal attack run, he thought about what Admiral Wei had said to him. I need you to follow your instincts, not doctrine.

  He looked at the tracks of the torpedoes, then thought about what Admiral Wei had said again. He thought about PLAN doctrine, then he thought about what an American, British, or French captain would be thinking in this very situation.

  Lee commanded, “Weapons, Captain. Change course on torpedo three. Steer the weapon toward the Type 60, cut wires and go to active homing, and prosecute it as Master 1. Reprogram the remaining torpedoes to track the Arsenal ship on known bearing passive acquisition until they are within one thousand yards, then cut wires and let them go. Designate Arsenal ship Master 2.”

  There was only a moment of hesitation before his order was echoed and carried out.

  *******

  South China Sea

  Dingyuan III

  Captain Chin was feeling confident; he believed Captain Lee had made a mistake. He and his crew positioned themselves to pounce. Chin issued another speed increase and was about to launch a spread of torpedoes along the bearing of the cavitation the Changzheng was traveling along. But before he could issue the command, his sonar operator beat him to the call.