Hunter Killer: The War with China: The Battle for the Central Pacific

by David Poyer

From the slanted-out windows of the bridge he looked down on his high-value units moored along Romeo and Sierra wharves. The ROK destroyers and frigates had cast off from their mooring buoys in the basin and steamed out one by one. From an unfamiliar harbor, darkened, radars off, but without so much as a scrape or a single radioed order. Jung ran a tight organization.… Getting under way now, the larger U.S. ships would pass the sub piers, empty except for the moored bulk of the tender—the only remaining submarine tender in the Pacific, now—and transit the northern exit, which was barely three hundred yards wide. A hard port turn would take them out of the basin into the outer harbor. They’d still be sheltered then, barriered by a jetty to the north and the peninsula to the south. The harbor security team had a sonar watch set there, to guard against any special forces swimmers, SDVs, or autonomous penetrators.

  The next bottleneck was the harbor exit itself, to the west. Once past that they’d be in open sea. An ideal spot for an attacker to lurk, so he’d asked Jung to detail two of the more sonar-capable frigates to scrub the area down. He hoped this, along with McClung’s sweeping the channel out last night and drones extending persistent surveillance out a hundred miles, could get them clear without much danger.

  Once out there, though, it would be an open question who would be the hunter and who the hunted.

  Captain Graciadei materialized at his elbow. She was in blue coveralls, with the cowl-like flash hood pushed back. “Admiral. Good morning, and we’re ready for sea.”

  Dan tapped a salute back. “Morning, Sandy. What’s the latest on that elevator?”

  “Up and operating.” Accompanied by a wink. “Too bad we couldn’t get the F-35s offloaded.”

  “Yeah, that was unfortunate.” A complicated game played around 0300, when Dan’s request to leave the fighters aboard had come back approved by Fleet but denied by MARFORPAC. PaCom could have resolved the issue but hadn’t responded, and Colonel Eller had been caught in the middle. The solution was a “transient electrical casualty” to the single elevator capable of moving the fighters to pier level for debark. With it out of action, Dan had had no choice but to “reluctantly” order them left aboard. The colonel was off the hook, and they had organic air cover.

  “Yes, unfortunate,” she echoed, then got businesslike again. “We’ll go to general quarters shortly. Will you be here or in Flag?”

  “I’ll start the transit up here.”

  “Would you like flash gear, Admiral?”

  “Uh, I guess so,” he said, grimacing. The hot, heavy cowl, thick gloves, and flak vest were de rigueur for bridge personnel at GQ. But scuttlebutt traveled fast. If he held himself above the rules, it gave everyone else an excuse too. “If you’ll hand me that helmet?”

  * * *

  OVER the next half hour they cast off, one by one, to avoid mutual interference. Kristensen left first, followed by Green Bay, then Earhart. ESM reported low-power radars. Dan had no problem with that. Commercial fishing boats used them, and so did pleasure craft. Although, from the empty piers at the marina, most of those had left for points east. He leaned on the starboard wing, glassing each ship as it passed. Each rendered honors, and he saluted back, though he wasn’t actually sure they could see him.

  The officer of the deck stepped up to Graciadei. “Ma’am, ready to get under way.” He followed it with a litany: engine status, steering, radars.

  The CO turned to Dan. “Admiral—”

  “Copy all, Captain. Cast off when you’re ready.”

  A boatswain bent to the 1MC, setting his pipe to his lips. “Under way. Shift colors.” Graciadei stood centerline as the OOD twisted Hornet away from the pier against a pinning wind. Light stanchions began to walk past them on the port side.

  “Cap’n,” said a familiar voice. An acned face presented a covered dish. “Thought you’d be down in that Plot Room. So it might be cold. Bacon, eggs, coffee.”

  “Thanks, Longley.” Dan took the plate more out of duty than hunger, but got down some toast and eggs before setting it on an angle iron below the window.

  He joined the navigator beside the nav plot. Green Bay was exiting the outer harbor. Earhart, their loggie ship, was dead ahead, beginning her turn. A bell jangled and Hornet gathered speed. The pilothouse was silent, other than murmured commands as the OOD centered her on the narrow exit ahead. Earhart’s gray bulky profile lengthened as she turned, presenting her port side and putting on speed as she entered the outer harbor and lined up to transit the Apra entrance.

  The bridge-to-bridge crackled abruptly. “Matador, this is War Drums. Suggest you search bearing two-nine-five true. Over.”

  Dan stopped his hand in midgrab. Cheryl was “Matador,” Savo Island, now. His own call sign was “Barbarian.” “War Drums” was Min Jun Jung, reporting something one of his screen units had observed. But what? He crossed to the piloting radar, but it showed nothing amiss.

  “This is Matador. Searching that bearing. Over.” Beth Terranova’s voice; she was one of the petty officers Dan had recommended for promotion.

  Savo was five miles outside the harbor exit and slightly to the south, set to tuck in as shotgun when Hornet emerged. From there she would open the range to seventy-five miles, close by modern standards, up-axis toward the threat. The cruiser would be at general quarters with umbilicals in, ready to turn keys and engage.

  He wished he was back aboard her. A ship that could strike back, not the slow, fat target USS Hornet presented at the moment.

  The 21MC console lit. “Bridge, Combat: we have Savo Island going out to Guam airfield, to us, to all force units and the THAAD battery: Multiple incomers, bearing 290 to 297, correlates with intermediate-range ballistic missiles entering terminal phase descent.”

  Dan jerked the binoculars to his face. Green Bay was exiting the outer harbor, but only just. Pinned between jetty and peninsula, she had zero maneuvering room. Earhart was in a slightly better position. But just at this moment Hornet, her stem just entering the three-hundred-yard-wide passage from the inner basin, had the least maneuverability of all. He gripped the binoculars more tightly, searching for something, anything, he could do … but came up with nothing.

  He’d made his plan, and set his pieces on the board as effectively as he could.

  Now it was the other side’s move.

  As if detecting his thoughts, the VHF radio sparked to life. “Vampire, Vampire, Vampire. Multiple incomers. Two gaggles, gaggle one bearing two-eight-five, range three-seven miles, gaggle two bearing roughly two-five-five to two-six zero, twenty miles.”

  Vampires were sub-launched cruise missiles.

  It was a coordinated attack.

  His first responsibility: Keep Higher informed. He seized the red phone and reported the incomers to Fleet. Type, numbers, and suspected targets, which were of course both the task group and the base. Fleet rogered tersely.

  He signed off, resocketed the phone, and looked around, feeling helpless. Yes, he commanded the task group, but Savo, as his air warfare commander, controlled its defense. He grunted, cursing the lack of over-the-horizon reconnaissance. He’d been hoping to vanish in the vast Pacific, but the enemy had somehow known to strike precisely when the highest-value unit would be least able to defend itself. Which had to mean either better recon than the Allies possessed, or a spy ashore.

  Still, he had a few cards left. McClung, Kristensen, Sejong the Great, Jung’s flagship, and Savo were all capable antiair units. They should be able to knock down most of the incomers. At least if everything worked, and until their magazines went empty … He snapped to the Air Control circuit but only heard a couple of transmissions. “This is Matador. Going hot.”

  “This is Turtleship. All units, batteries released.” Then rapid, peremptory Korean as the ROKN units pulled in, interlocking defenses like a phalanx’s shields.

  Graciadei pressed the key on the 21MC. “Weps, CO: RAM, Sea Whiz, batteries released.” Hornet’s weapons were relatively short-range: the rolling-airframe missiles first, then,
as a last resort, the radar-guided, self-laid 20mm guns forward and aft. In terms of self-defense, that was all she had.

  Dan took a last look around, then pivoted. The boatswain slammed the door open, and Dan slid down two ladders, spun, and pelted aft.

  Flag Plot was manned, but not with many folks he recognized. His new staff, and there’d been no time to get to know them. The space was Spartan, with dated-looking comms except for two huge vertical displays, nearly deck to overhead, positioned to his left. Their fused picture integrated the Aegis inputs of the entire task force with geo and some intel information. The near-complete absence of weapon control or sensor consoles was disturbing. He swung up into his elevated command chair as a dark-haired lieutenant and a blond chief turned in their seats. “Admiral,” Amarpeet Singhe said.

  “Amy. Donnie. What’ve we got?”

  The radio remote overhead spoke in Cheryl Staurulakis’s flat tones: “All stations command net, this is Matador. Taking tracks 0001, 0002, 0003 with Standard.”

  Wenck said rapidly, holding a headset to his ears, “Three incoming DF-4s or -5s. The Terror says impact point overlay dead on the central harbor.”

  DF-4s and -5s were ballistic missiles. “Nuclear, Chief?”

  “No way to tell, Dan.”

  “Chief, you need to—”

  “Sorry, I meant Admiral.” Wenck shoved a blond forelock out of his eyes. “They’re nuclear capable. What they put on there, we got no way of knowing. Oh, wait … second wave. Three more. No, four more. No, hell, five. May be others behind them.”

  Dan’s heart sank. Savo had only five rounds capable of intercepting something coming in from that altitude, at that speed. He felt even less confident as Singhe added, “Following them in: two groups of high-speed skimmers. Correlates with CM-708, C-801 seeker heads.”

  “Can you spoof them…”

  She frowned. “Sir?”

  “Shit, never mind. I keep thinking we’re aboard Savo.”

  And there they were on the display, the red carets of hostile cruise missiles. Over a dozen, along two axes of attack. The ballistic warheads were only seconds out now. Lagging them, but more numerous, were the CM-708s, Tomahawk clones, and the shorter-range C-801s. He leaned in his chair as the tracks jumped forward, hesitated, jumped again. Aimed, so far as he could judge, directly for where Green Bay’s and Hornet’s screws churned green water, desperately but all too slowly thrusting them toward the open sea.

  Singhe said, “More pop-ups. Another eight 801s, one minute behind the first salvo.”

  He took one deep slow breath, then another, trying to ignore the cold sweat that broke over his back. Panicking wouldn’t help.

  “Savo reports Standard launch,” one of the other staffers said.

  Christ, he felt so damned helpless.… He sucked air, watching the blue carets of the Standard Block 4s separate from the cruiser and accelerate outward. The space leaned. A pencil rolled, dove off a table, rolled away down the deck. He glanced at the rudder-angle indicator and gyrocompass repeater. The rudder was hard left. A vibration tremored through the massive hull around them. Graciadei was pushing them through the turn. Cramming on power, trying to get them hauled around and out to sea before the warheads arrived.

  The carets, jumping ahead every half second, told him they weren’t going to make it. “All hands, flash gear,” he called. Though most of the staff were already in it, sleeves rolled down, socks over pant legs, with flash hoods and gloves. They didn’t have flak jackets down here, apparently.

  “We’re still in TF-wide EMCON,” Singhe reminded him.

  “Thanks, Amy. Get all our radars up,” Dan snapped. “They obviously know we’re here. And pass to Savo—never mind.” He reached for the red phone. “All units Horde, this is Barbarian. EMCON lifted for entire force. Stay alert for more attacks in the ten- to twenty-mile range.” If those low gaggles were from subs, there could be yet another salvo from even closer in. The Chinese had a capsulized, shorter-range missile, not really equivalent to the U.S. Harpoon, but closer to it than anything else in the inventory.

  Okay, Lenson, try to think.… This was a carefully planned attack. All three waves of missiles—ballistic, turbojet cruise, and short-range rockets—had been fired on schedule for a simultaneous TOT, time on target. Arriving too close together to shoot down, fox, chaff, spoof, or jam them all.

  Thus overwhelming his defenses with a massive bludgeoning. Exactly the way that in 1942, Admiral Mikawa’s cruisers had overwhelmed Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes—timing their attack so that torpedoes and shells arrived at the same moment—in the Battle of Savo Island.

  “Barbarian, this is Vandal. I have targeting on archers.” Simultaneously with the voice report, a contact bloomed to the northwest. The red semicircle of a submarine.

  Dudley called from a desk just below him, “Admiral, we want to counterfire?”

  Dan studied the display. He’d positioned Sejong, Jung’s flagship, to the north, with her supporting destroyers. Savo was closest to the harbor exit, with the Burkes out to the west. “Affirmative. Move both DDGs out to the northwest. Get their helos in the air, if they’re not already. Proceed with caution. Counterfire Harpoon and get the helos out there with torpedoes as soon as firing platforms are detected. Break up their fire control solutions, at least. Pull Savo back—no, wait—better leave her free to maneuver to optimize intercept geometry.”

  “Stand by for intercept, Meteor Alfa,” Wenck announced. He was hunched into headphones, intent on what Dan presumed was the Aegis coordination net. The stream of digital data over the net, computer to computer, was driving the battle now. No longer did the brawn of burly ammunition loaders and the sharp eyes of gunnery officers determine victory or defeat. Networked algorithms would fight this battle at speeds no human could match.

  It was a war of microseconds, fought by millions of lines of code.

  He yearned after the second-by-second updates he’d gotten on Savo. God, he hated being a spectator. Which more and more, apparently, one became as one ascended in rank. Now, the only indication of victory or defeat was when a contact winked out on the display, silently as a dying firefly

  Just then, one did. “Meteor Alfa, successful intercept,” Wenck called. “Stand by for Meteor Bravo, Meteor Charlie, Meteor Delta.”

  Over the next few seconds, though, Bravo and Charlie penetrated successfully. Dan pounded his seat rest, cursing. The Block 4 had tested at only a 50 percent kill rate, true. But to actually see it happening … to watch the blinking red symbols emerge from their near collisions with their blue interceptors … and arrow in, toward the blue cross-in-circle that meant Own Ship …

  The command space fell silent as the leading warhead, pulsing brightly, flashed down the final miles to impact.

  * * *

  FIVE minutes later, the battle was half over.

  Savo had taken down three out of ten ballistic missiles. Two of those remaining had been intercepted by the shorter-range endoatmospheric interceptors of the Army THAAD battery at the airfield. Of the five left, two had detonated cratering munitions across the main runway. The other three hit hangars, maintenance buildings, and fuel storage with heavy warheads. The feed from Hornet’s flight-deck cameras showed heavy, slow columns of black smoke boiling the blue air, and the black specks of helicopters airlifting the wounded out to hospitals elsewhere on the island. On the western horizon lighter smoke, mixing to a faint brownish tinge, marked the residua of high explosives, rocket boosters, and chaff mortars. A streak of fire bored toward Earhart. The ship heeled, attempting to evade, but the flying flame curved to follow. At the last second it climbed, pitched over, and plunged into her side like a dagger. Half a second later, a red-orange lily of fire and smoke bloomed.

  “McClung reports hit by debris,” Dudley called.

  “Damage report, ASAP,” Dan said. “How are the Koreans doing?”

  “Stand by … one hit on a frigate. Set it on fire. But they report most of the missiles passed them by
. Seem to be targeted on the main body.”

  Hornet, Green Bay, and Earhart. The carrier was leaning into another hard turn. A drumming thud carried through the steel. Fired in clusters, the decoy mortars would present the incoming cruises with thousands of radar-confusing dipoles and infrared-bright flares.

  Singhe called, “Admiral, I’m tracking these missiles passing south of us. They’re heading for … stand by … looks like, for the THAAD battery and base radar. Targeting air warning, suppressing air defenses.”

  Dan and Dudley exchanged glances. “Let’s get the F-35s up.” Dan picked up the phone to the bridge. A short discussion with Graciadei ended with her telling him she’d already given that order. He said, “Good, you’re thinking ahead. Only question is, what’s the threat axis?”

  “We don’t have anything from our air search … nothing from screen units.”

  “Savo’s going to be keyholed, looking for more ballistic incomers.” He checked the screen. McClung was farthest out, but she’d been hit. So it was Kristensen’s ball. “Birkenstock, this is Barbarian, over.”

  “Birkenstock, over.”

  “Keep your eyes peeled for hostile air. Maybe from … shit, could be from any point of the compass. Can you get your helo up at angels ten? See if there’s anything coming over the horizon.” Lacking air surveillance or satellites, a helo with a decent radar at high altitude would give the best coverage he could expect. He squeegeed sweat off his forehead. Once the F-35s were up, he’d have only an hour before they bingoed. If he sent them the wrong way, the force could end up without cover in the face of a major strike.

  The kind of wrong guess that had cost the Japanese four carriers at Midway.

  A deep bass thrum overhead. The 20mm CIWS, firing a storm of depleted-uranium projectiles to tear apart an incoming weapon.

  Kristensen rogered. Dan socketed a sweat-dampened handset and checked the large-screen fusion again. The waves of cruise missiles were passing. Yeah, continuing on to Guam, now behind and south of Hornet.

  “Barbarian, this is Birkenstock, over.”