by Andy Farman
Mig-29s had joined in the melee’ with the Sea Harriers. A few Su-27s had ditched their bomb loads at the start of the fight, the remainder kept them, using the drag of the ordnance to their advantage as they tried to come to grips with the slower Sea Harriers.
Major Lee led eight of the Flankers from the fight; their A-50 controller now had the Prince of Wales on its screens, beyond the decoying warships. A trail of smoke hung in the air above the main group of ships, marking the plummet of the AEW helicopter that had fallen to a pair of the long-range AA-11 Archer missiles.
Lt Fu Chen looked to the horizon and swallowed hard, a distinctive mushroom shaped cloud climbed toward the stratosphere. Closer to home a violent explosion caught his eye, he was not to know it but it was the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Cuchullainn, two
AS-18 missiles had escaped the Phalanx gun above her helicopter hangar and disregarded the clouds of chaff to pop up and dive down near vertically. 640kg of explosives arriving at 285 feet per second tore through the vessel that broke in two, sinking within the hour.
Ahead of Lt Fu Chen’s formation there appeared a frigate, tracers rose at them from machine guns mounted along the side, dirty grey puffs of smoke spotted the path ahead of them from its single turret mounted gun, then he was past. The aircraft split into pairs to single out ships for attention. He ducked as both aircraft to his right exploded, hit by anti-aircraft missiles. He heard Major Lee cry out on the radio and Fu Chen banked to the right as the majors aircraft slowly rolled onto its back and dived into the ocean, its cockpit shredded with the shrapnel of an air-bursting shell. Ahead of the young pilot was the British carrier, far smaller than his own ship. Selecting the FAB-100 bombs he aimed along the ships centreline and as the laser, bomb-aiming system sounded a rapid pulse in his ears, he pickled the four bombs away. He banked right; looking over his shoulder as he did so, determined to watch the fall of his bomb load. Three tall pillars of water straddled the warship and one of smoke and debris rose from its flight deck. Fu Chen was cheering aloud when something sent his aircraft pitching nose upwards and rattling his teeth as his helmeted head was hammered backwards into the seat. His left engine’s fire warning light was lit but there was no light indicating the automatic extinguisher had activated. He shut down the engine and the fire warning light flickered, and then went out.
Finding his aircraft far less responsive than was desirable, Lt Fu Chen took stock and found he had passed beyond the ships. There were no other aircraft in sight and his radio was dead, as was his systems management suite, without it he was in the dark as to what functioned and what did not. The touch-screen instrument that enabled him to see at a glance, the state of his airframe was blank. His HUD showed the current level of his fuel but it was sinking fast and he no longer had the ability see what was broken.
He completed a gentle turn for home, wondering how he was going to land the wounded machine when he got there.
To Lt Nikki Pelham, the dogfight seemed to have lasted hours’, she could not shake the pair of Sukhoi-27 fighters unaided and no one answered her calls for assistance. She had tried to extend but the furthest PLAAF fighter had locked her up and Chubby Checkernovski had thrown up in his mask once they had avoided the AA-8 Aphid that had been loosed at them. The ocean was only a thousand feet below, once less dimension available to her limited list of options. The Su-27s broke, discharging chaff and flares as they pulled high gee’s. Nikki pushed the throttles to zone 5 afterburner, determined to regain some height and banked right to engage the Flanker that had broken to the west.
“Bad guy to the east’s got a missile chasing him!” shouted Chubby. Nikki was fixed on the Flanker ahead of her and didn’t look at what the RIO was watching. She killed the afterburner and the wings swept forward to 50’ as the speed bled off. The Tomcats manoeuvre had brought them in on the Flankers port quarter and Nikki got tone from her AIM-9 Sidewinders. The PRC pilot had been attempting to catch whoever had his wingman locked up in a scissors, trying to get into a firing position behind it. The PLAAF fighters wings were swept fully forward as it banked hard, and it was the worst position he could have been in when Nikki called ‘Fox Two’, announcing she had fired a Sidewinder missile. The PLAAF pilot’s only option was to punch out flares in an attempt to decoy the heat seeking missile and continue his present manoeuvre, rolling away into a dive, but he was out of time and airspeed. The Sidewinder flew straight and true into the Su-27s port engine nacelle and Nikki rolled hard left to avoid the airborne debris.
“There’s a Harrier over there,” Chubby informed her. The sky was devoid of other aircraft as the RN Sea Harrier tucked itself in on her port wing. Glancing across she saw its hard points were bare of ordnance and a cannon shell had left a jagged hole in its starboard wing. Chubby dialled up the Prince of Wales air groups frequency, “Harrier on my wing, this is Cobra One-Six, I owe you a beer fella!”
“Roger Cobra, this is Papa Zero-Two…right now I’d settle for a place to put down, Bravo Charlie has a hole in it and is closed for business at this time.” Bravo Charlie was the Prince of Wales; apparently it had taken damage from the air raid.
“I copy that Papa, are you alone, have the rest of your guys recovered to Alpha Charlie?” Meaning her own ship, the John F Kennedy.
“Cobra, I am not sure that there are any other Papa’s remaining.” The British pilot was calm and matter of fact. Nikki suddenly realised with a start that perhaps they too may be all that remained of their squadron.
“Roger Papa, hold still while we look you over for damage, then follow us home.”
The four Spearfish torpedoes had completed their turn eleven minutes before, approaching the invisible line, somewhere along which the enemy Alpha was still heading. Hoods captain was unconsciously drumming his fingers as he leant against a bulkhead, willing at least one of the weapons to acquire the Alpha on its passive sensors. A crewman handed him a mug of tea and held up the open end of a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. Nodding his thanks the captain took one and dunked it in the tea, welcoming the distraction as he judged the right moment to remove the biscuit. Too long and the biscuit became soggy and broke off, leaving a soggy mess at the bottom of the mug.
“Still negative on all weapons, skipper,” a voice informed him. Distracted by the speaker, he removed the biscuit which bent limply where it had been immersed, he quickly tried to bite the endangered section but his teeth closed on air, the soggy section dropped back into the tea, splashing his white shirt as it did so.
“Bollocks!” he muttered.
“Run time remaining, please?” he enquired.
“Four and a half minutes on number four, skipper.” That had been the first torpedo launched, after that time the weapon would reach the end of its filament thin wire and be beyond their ability to send steering commands.
The captain took a sip of tea and came to a decision.
“What’s the heading of number four?”
“202 degrees, sir.”
He was going to take a chance and try to provoke the Russian into reacting.
“Change its heading to 340’ and go active on number four only.”
“Change heading on number four to heading of three-four-zero degrees and go active on number four only…aye sir.”
He was gambling that the Alpha would be between the furthest torpedoes heading and the second or third torpedoes out of the tubes.
“Skipper…firm fix on Sierra Two Seven, range 9250 yards, bearing 170’, heading 180’ speed…Transient! Transient!…torpedo in the water bearing 170’… Sierra Two Seven has launched along number fours bearing…skipper, number three and four have acquired, three has gone active!”
Aboard Gegarin her skipper ordered countermeasures launched and a torpedo launched along the approaching torpedoes heading, seeking the enemy submarine that had launched it. Unlike the Hood, and the rest of the world’s submarine fleets, her torpedoes were launched in a cocoon, to protect it from damage whilst a piston drove it from the tube. Th
e deeper the vessel was the more compressed air was required to launched the torpedo from the tube in the conventional manner and so the piston system allowed it to launch from great depth. Once clear the cocoon was discarded and the weapon sped on its way. Air used to launch the weapon was not vented into the sea behind the torpedo as it left the tube but was released back into the vessel’s reserve through valves.
The Alpha’s power plant drove the single screw to higher revolutions and the deck heeled over as the boat turned hard to port, only to find itself head to head with a second torpedo approaching from a different bearing altogether. More noisemakers were ejected as the Alpha reversed its turn.
Hood’s torpedo number four had been dummied by the first noisemakers, diving through the right hand counter-measure and continued to turn in an attempt to reacquire. Number three also chased a noisemaker and the Gegarin’s captain, on hearing the danger pass, ordered their turn reversed once more, ejecting another pair of noisemakers into their wake.
There were now six counter-measures mimicking the sound of a submarine at high rate of turn and two torpedoes close by, manoeuvring at 60 knots. With their own vessel now at twenty-eight knots it was impossible for the Gegarin’s sonar operators to keep track of where everything was, had they been able then her captain would not have reversed their turn that second time. With only fifteen seconds fuel remaining, torpedo number four detonated against the Alpha’s titanium bow as they met at a closing speed of 88 knots. At a depth of 1600 feet, the dynamic change in air pressure, as the bow disintegrated, ignited the air within the vessel, immolating the crew and detonating the torpedo warheads in her after torpedo room.
Hood immediately reversed course and sprinted away at flank speed for five minutes, using the reverberations as cover, putting distance between herself and the scene that would surely attract attention on the surface.
Once clear the Hood resumed her stalk of the, not too distant carrier groups which had again turned north into the wind to recover its air wings. Hood was almost abeam the lead ships.
Not a problem, thought the captain as he went about amending his original plan of attack.
Blistered paintwork, bent, twisted radio and radar masts, marred the John F Kennedy’s looks. Seawater was drenching her superstructure from sprinklers and hoses, as crewmembers in NBC clothing carried out decontamination drills. One of John F Kennedy’s UH-60 Sea Hawks had lifted off to do a damage assessment and head count, they came up three short, soon to be four.
The frigates USS Timmings and Norwich Falls were gone, disappeared without trace. The destroyer USS Timothy Hughes, had been capsized by the nuclear blast wave, all that remained visible of her was ten feet of charred stern, protruding above the waves. Soon to join them was the Ammunition ship USNS Ponder, AE-59, lying far astern, dead in the water and her superstructure engulfed in flames. Helicopters from the group shuttled the survivors to safety. The group could not expend the time in trying to save her, nor to search for survivors trapped within the hull of the Timothy Hughes.
Admiral C. Dalton, commanding the carrier group, called a meeting of the command staff. The air wing had not yet begun to recover and until new antennas had been jury rigged; the flagship was employing one of the E-2 Hawkeye’s, sat on a decontaminated area of deck as a command and control centre.
“Either way you look at it, we got our butts kicked. Coming north in the hope our satellite Intel would be restored in time to launch a strike at their carriers, the gamble didn’t come off.” He looked at his staff.
“Unless someone has a better idea, we head south at best possible speed?”
There were no dissenters.
“CAG, what state is the air wing in?”
“We lost Bobby Quinn and half of his F-14s, two F/A-18s from the Vipers and four from the Rattlers, we assume they were caught in the blast…ordnance is another issue, apart from what they bring back, and this ships magazine, that’s it. The bulk was aboard the Ponder.”
The TAO interrupted.
“It may not be quite that bad, the Brit Fleet Auxiliary has its inventory of air weapons.”
The CAG frowned.
“What about the Prince of Wales air wing, is there enough to go around?”
TAO waved a message form.
“Prince of Wales took a bomb through the flight deck, fires under control but she’s limited to VTOL operations only, as for her air wing, well……only two made it, they are in the pattern, recovering here.”
“Okay,” began the CO.
“Keep the Snakes aloft, if I were the other guy I would be recovering airframes and turning them around for a second strike so CAG, get the remainder down and get them turned around also, those that can be.” Turning to the TAO he held a finger up.
“One, replenish the groups air defence stores asap. Two, we need to join with the Prince of Wales and her ships, we are light three AEGIS capable hulls, we need to incorporate hers, the sooner the better.”
With limited communications, the USS John F Kennedy was not aware that HMS Cuchullainn had exploded and sunk, nor too that the USS Dry Springs was sinking, her stern having been blown off.
South-southeast of the island of Komandorskiye Ostrova the Mao was recovering the first of its aircraft. Stood on the bridge, Admiral Li barked a command at his air operations staff
“I want the air wing rearmed as soon as they land, I want a second strike ready as soon as the Russian’s have the post-strike reconnaissance results!” Captain Hong stood at his post quietly, confining himself to the business of running the ship.
“What…is that!” He heard the Admiral demand, pointing aft. The Bridge now had its video monitors functioning and Hong looked at the screens. A dark smoky trail, a half-mile long announced a battle-damaged aircraft on approach.
“The damaged aircraft are landing first, those with wounded aircrew have priority…” The senior air operations officer was explaining.
Cutting him short, the Admiral snapped. “Wave it off!” He rounded on the officer.
“Damaged aircraft will hinder the preparation of a second strike, make them circle…they can land later.”
The operations officer opened his mouth to protest but the Admiral had turned his back on him with the words.
“I will not have my victory jeopardised by your incompetence!”
Lt Fu Cheng had been slated number four in the landing pattern until he and the other damaged aircraft were sent into a holding pattern. One of his squadron mates had been number one in the pattern, losing blood from a thigh wound as he began his approach, Fu Chen watched as the stricken aircraft was waved off, the trail of black smoke continued over the flight deck and then on into the distance. Fu Chen called his fellow pilot over the radio but there was no reply, although he did not know if his malfunctioning radio was transmitting or not at the time.
Captain Hong kept his face impassive as he listened to the young officer calling his friend; the Bridge speaker for that squadron’s channel issued only static in reply. Captain Hong was staring in contempt at his Admirals back when the sound of the first of HMS Hood’s Spearfish announced its arrival.
Six miles ahead, a black and orange fireball arose, marking the spot where a torpedo had found a Zhuhai class frigates magazine.
“Sound of explosion at 308’, Captain!”
The captain had been watching the digital timers displaying the torpedoes run times. In a slight variation of his plan, the Spearfish had been sent curving around to attack from the northeast. The best he had hoped for was his sonar department reporting a flurry of activity as his torpedoes were detected; a hit was a bonus.
The Harpoons were programmed to fly on courses that diverged initially, before flying a zigzag route to their release points, where they would home on the largest targets whilst providing a difficult task of interception to the defenders. He called to his Number One. “Why don’t you do the honours.”
His second in command gave a nod of thanks before giving the commands to lau
nch the anti-ship missiles.
The Admiral had ordered the Mao’s speed cut to the minimum required to recover their aircraft. Captain Hong suspected it was fear rather than prudence that had instigated the order, allowing their escorts to enter the believed danger zone, where a submarine lurked ahead of them.
The first warning they had of the Harpoons approach was thump of the mortars discharging, launching their projectiles high above the ship where they burst apart scattering chaff. The Mao's command centre announced the nature of the threat moments later over the tannoy and Hong ordered the helmsman to turn hard to starboard where they would present a smaller radar profile. Only two of the air wing had been recovered, the remainder went ballistic, seeking protection in altitude from their own sides air defences rather than an unhappy collision with an inbound anti-ship missile.
Unlike the anti-ship missile attack on the Americans and British, the Russian and PRC ships did not have the luxury of several score miles in which to intercept the inbounds, Hood had launched from a mere 9 miles away.
J-Band tracking radars picked up the inbounds, feeding data to the PLAN’s Hongqi-7, air defence missile systems. Yet another stolen invention from the west, where its French inventors called it the Crotale.
Aboard the Russian ships, their Klinok, close-in SAM systems performed the same tasks.
The Harpoons solid boosters provided 660lb of thrust as the missiles bore in at Mach .9. Admiral Li was pounding his fist on the edge of the bridge wing as the leading Harpoons constant course changes steered it through the defending air defence missiles. At last, one defender intercepted it a quarter of a mile from the Mao and Li staggered back in reaction to the two warheads combined detonation. There were still three heading toward the carriers and Li brushed a signaller out of his way as he sought safety below.