by Ira Tabankin
“Admiral, first of all, take care of the Lincoln, she used to me my ship.”
“Sir, I know, everyone reminds me.”
“I’d rather not say where the SSGNs are, trust me they are on an urgent mission.”
“Sir, a follow, what are our targets?”
“Anyone or anything that approaches the United States or breaches the 200 miles perimeter around your ships. If something else comes up, you’ll get an alert and new orders. I suggest each of you go to battle stations at 0300. Gentlemen, I don’t know what’s going to happen or when, I want you prepared for any contingency.”
“Sir, Nimitz here, are weapons free at 0300?”
“Your weapons are free right now if you think your command is in jeopardy, am I clear? Protect your commands.”
Each admiral signs off, leaving Admiral Zander and his chief of staff alone in the war room. Captain Meyers, the admiral’s COS, says, “Admiral look at their boats, they are lining up to shadow our carriers.”
“Captain, they will, however I think they’re going to run into a little surprise I’ve planned for them. I sent orders to the battle groups to drop the modified Captor mines in the wake of the carriers.”
“Admiral, I wasn’t aware we had any Captors left in inventory.”
“Captain, we recently rebuilt and have a number of them; we had the mark 37 torpedoes removed, we replaced them with mark 48 mod 7 new-high speed long range heavy torpedoes.”
“Yes, that’s going to come as a very nasty little surprise,”
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The Chief Judge at the World Court calls the other judges together. “I reviewed the documents presented by President Brownstone. Based on what I read, he’s not guilty; he had nothing to do with the death of President Obsma. President Reid set him up with a frivolous suit. I suggest we reach out to contact President Brownstone to inform him I’ve made my decision. However, I don’t want it to leak, I want to make President Reid work for his case. I suggest we play with Reid for wasting our time and putting on this entire circus. We almost fell for a massive PR circus that would have cost the world very dearly.”
All of the other judges agree with the Chief Judge, a couple of judges say, “Reid deserves everything he gets, my money is on him arranging to have President Obsma killed.”
“So far there’s no evidence one way or the other. I’m sure one day the evidence will see the light of day, it always does.”
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Russian General Voldodin holds a secure video conference with the commanders of the Cuban, Venezuelan and newly integrated French and German armies who will lead the attacks on the American strategic bases. All of the invading troops are positioned just inside LSA territory along the border with the USA. “Commanders of the United Nations Peace Keeping force, this day we will make the world much safer for our children’s children. We will remove nuclear weapons from the American strategic bases. The only country who’s ever used nuclear weapons is the Americans. The explosion two weeks ago showed the world the American's nuclear arsenal isn’t secure. Their weapons of mass destruction are old and unstable. We have to be very careful handling the weapons. If we’re not careful, we could take the weapons, only to have them blow up and kill us and millions of innocents. Don’t touch the weapons, we have experts on call who will handle the removal and transport of the weapons to a safe location where they will be decommissioned. Their cores of enriched materials will be separated and buried in a safe location.”
General Hernandez asks, “General, what level of resistance should we expect from the American defenders?”
“Most of their troops are spread out along the entire border with the LSA. We don’t expect heavy resistance, some to be sure, but not very heavy. The Americans don’t have the numbers to man every base. We’ll overwhelm them and take possession of their weapons and be gone before they can call in reinforcements.”
General Aguilar continues, “Sir, what about their armed population?”
“Seriously General, civilians with a couple of guns, they have no training; they have no back up, please don’t waste any time on them, your troops will quickly brush them aside. How much trouble can a handful of armed civilians cause? Is anyone else concerned about the American civilians?”
“General, I’ve traveled in America before; there are gun stores on almost every corner, we’re not going to run into a handful of armed Americans, we’re going to run into hundreds of thousands of them.”
“General Wilhelm, please, they have no training. They might get a round or two off, but against armored vehicles they have nothing that can hurt us. I understand that a few of their women are armed, you can take them for questioning if that pleases you and your men.”
The other generals all smile thinking of what pleasure may lay ahead of them.
“Kickoff is 0400, make sure you people are ready at 0300.”
“Yes sir.”
The generals left to check on their troops, they thought, the Russian general had it right, it takes more than a gun to make a soldier.
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The Washington Postal headline for the next day is “President Reid found with Kiddie Porn.” Within minutes of the headline being posted on their web site, broadcast media picks up the story rebroadcasting it around the world. Television anchors use the story as the lead story for their programs. Watching and listening to the programs was the first time most of the LSA citizens had heard about the arrest of their president. NBX airs a special report program on Reid with the headline, “Is President Reid a pedophile?” Many started to question their leadership, President Obsma was a fraud; President Reid is addicted to child pornography; some began to wonder if they’d made a mistake in leaving the USA. They answered their own questions when they reviewed what they’d left: a group of people who believed everyone was equal at the starting line, but not at the finish line where they thought it mattered the most; guns, religion, individual responsibility versus shared responsibility. Yes, they decided they’d made the right decision to start a new-progressive country; they simply picked the wrong leaders.
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0300, “General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations, all hands man your battle stations, this is not a drill, repeat this is not a drill. XO, Captain to CIC.”
Captain Richard Lee the commanding officer of the USS Hawaii, a Virginia class nuclear attack submarine had just laid down after 18 hours to catch a little rest. “Captain, XO, what’s up?”
“Captain, holding two submerged targets holding steady 20,000 yards behind the Nimitz.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Entering CIC, a seaman, announces, “Captain on the bridge.”
“XO, I have the conn.”
“Aye sir, Captain has the conn.”
“Sonar, Captain, what do you know?”
“Captain, two submerged targets, marked sierra one and two, both holding just under the layer, the tail picked them up. Plant noises mark them as Oscar class attack boats. Loaded with cruise missiles, most-likely waiting for the word to surprise the Nimitz.”
“XO, plot a course to take us deep, and pop up behind them. If we come in behind them, in their baffles they won’t hear us.”
“Aye sir.”
“Torpedo room, Captain, load tubes one through four with mark 48 warships, make ready in all aspects to fire, when loaded, open the outer doors here so they won’t hear us when we come up behind them.”
“Aye sir.”
“Combat, Captain, I want to target two mark 48s to each target.”
“Aye sir.”
“Captain, can we do that? Fire on them before they fire on us? Won’t we be starting a war?”
“XO, our orders say if we see the Russians or anyone else taking hostile action or preparing to take hostile action against our forces we are free to fire first. My orders are to protect our forces and my command. I consider those two boats lurking behind the Nimitz to be preparing to do her harm. I bet the Ni
mitz doesn’t even know they’re stalking her.”
“Aye sir.”
Twenty minutes later, the Hawaii has maneuvered into position behind the two Russian submarines. “Sonar, Captain, transit noise from both sierra one and two, they’re going shallow.”
“Roger, they’re climbing to missile launch depth. I don’t want them to get a missile off, when will we be in range to fire?”
“Sir, combat, we can fire anytime you want. We hold a solid lock on both targets. Our fish are programmed to swim out of tubes, so there’s very little noise. They are programed to come in quietly under sierra one and two, they will go active and high speed when they are two thousand yards away.”
“Good plan, make ready to launch, after the launch, eject two decoys, turn 90 degrees, and dive deep, make your depth 800 feet. At 800 feet, launch a decoy, turn 45 degrees and make your depth 500 feet.”
“Aye sir.”
“Fire one, fire two, fire three, fire four, close the outer doors, reload with mark 48s, launch decoy one and two, dive deep, down angle 15 degrees, make your course, 270 degrees. Let’s move people, I don’t want to be here when those two Russian subs hear our fish.”
The four Mark 48 Mod 7 torpedoes swim very quietly out of the Hawaii’s torpedo tubes; they travel at 30 knots under the layer invisible to the two Russian submarines, when the US torpedoes reach 2,000 yards from their targets they ping to confirm their target’s location, when they get an almost return confirming the torpedoes programming, they accelerate to 50 knots. By the time the Russian submarines realize they are in trouble, it’s all over, each of the American torpedoes strikes the Russian submarines which were in the final seconds before they launched twenty-four cruise missiles at the USS Nimitz. The Mark 48s carry a 600 pound warhead which breaks the Russian out hull apart; the torpedo’s momentum carries it into the space between the outer and inner hull, when the second warhead explodes, ripping open the thin inner hull. One hits the Russian submarine at the junction of the conning tower and the hull; the second strikes the side mounted missile tubes, which cause some of the cruise missiles to explode. Both Russian submarines are blown apart just as they realized they were under attack.
On the USS Nimitz, lookouts spot two large water plumes to their stern, the sonar operators on the Nimitz report submarine attack and breaking up noises to their stern.
The captain of the Nimitz smiles saying, “Our guardian angel, the Hawaii, just nailed two tails we didn’t even know we had. Move one of the destroyers to cover our ass.”
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“Men stand ready, we’re ten minutes to drop, we’re going to be the first troops on the ground, and we’re going down in history as the first to open the attack of the disarming of America. We’re going to be the first in the establishment of a single peaceful world. Follow me into the history books.”
Chapter 22
At 0320, each navy carrier battle fleet Admiral orders the Captor mines to be deployed behind their carrier. They are dropped in the carrier’s wake. The Admiral hopes the mines will hear and be able to stop any of the Russian wake homing torpedoes from hitting the sterns of their carriers. If they’re really lucky, Russian submarines will drive right over the mines without seeing them, causing the torpedoes to launch. A mark 48 mod 7 strike can ruin a submarine captain’s entire day. The Captors are mines that in-place of a normal high explosive warhead holds a Mark 48 ADCAP (advanced capabilities) torpedo. The mines sink to the bottom of the ocean where they wait. The mines wait until the onboard computer confirms when its Mark 48 hears a sound that matches one in the mine’s memory. The Mark 48s listen for incoming ships, submarines and torpedoes that match ones stored as threats. If a sound matches, the torpedo is launched. Once launched from a short range, nothing, except for hitting the Mark 48 with another torpedo, can stop the Mark 48 from hitting its target. The Mark 48 carries a 600 pound warhead, enough to sink anything it hits.
The Russian submarines receive their attack code at 0400. They advance towards their targets, the American Navy’s 100,000 ton displacement nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Small floating cities of 6000 people and 75 warplanes. Each carrier is surrounded by destroyers and cruisers to protect it from any attack. The Russians plan to attack the carriers with both heavy weight wake homing torpedoes and submarine-launched cruise missiles. Their war planners think the American defenses will be overwhelmed trying to defend against both attacks. The Russian attack submarines silently follow in the carrier’s wakes, unaware of the Captor mines. The mines record the Russian noise signatures; their internal computers run the sounds to see if they find a match in their target libraries. The computers inform the Captor’s firing circuits they have a valid match, one after another the Captor mines release their Mark 48 torpedoes which speed towards the incoming Russian submarines. The Mark 48s surprise the Russian submarines who didn’t expect any interference on their attack runs. The submarines can’t escape the close in torpedo attack. They have no idea where the fish came from. One moment the ocean is clear, the next American heavyweight torpedoes are homing in on them. The Mark 48s all strike their targets, sinking each of the Russian attack submarines. The Russian cruise missile submarines hover 100 feet under the surface, doors covering the missiles slide open, missile after missile is ejected by high pressure steam, once the missile breaks the ocean’s surface, it’s rocket motor ignites, pushing the missile to Mach 3, the “Sunburn” missiles fly very low over the surface of the water towards the American carriers.
The American AEGIS anti-missile system on cruisers and destroyers see the missiles breaking the surface of the water. They record where the missiles broke the surface, plot their incoming course, the American AEGIS system assigns a priority to the incoming missiles and starts launching Standard Missile (SM) 2, 3 and version 6 missiles at the incoming missiles. The SM series of missiles launch from vertical silos mounted in the ships. The missiles rise up, then tip over to fly towards the incoming missiles. In the Combat Information Center (CIC) of the carrier’s escorts, the incoming missiles are represented on large display panels as inverted red “V”s, the outgoing SM3 missiles are represented as inverted green “V”s. The captains watch the two V’s approach each other. Many of the red and green “V”s meet, both of the symbols disappearing from the displays. The SMs strike 75% of the incoming missiles. The navy escorts fire a second round of SM missiles, which strike another 80% of the remaining incoming missiles, of the 48 missiles launched at the American carriers, only 3 remain; one is lured away by chaff fired by the carrier, one is shot down by the carrier’s last ditch RAM (rolling airframe missile) short-range anti-missile missile. The last Russian Sunburn missile is only 100 yards away from the carrier when one of the carrier’s escorts places itself in between the carrier and the incoming missile. The missile strikes the destroyer in the stern, destroying the ship’s helicopter landing area and knocking out one of the destroyer’s engines, starting a fire that takes an hour to get under control. The carrier’s escorts fire ASROC rocket propelled torpedoes at the location the cruise missiles were fired. Unfortunately, the ASROC’s small 95 pound warhead isn’t large enough to kill the Russian dual hulled boats. Anti-submarine helicopters use sonar buoys and dipping active sonar to locate the Russian wounded submarines, which are trying to limp away. They are set upon by the helicopters who drop anti-submarine torpedoes that strike 75% of the wounded submarines, these second hits finish the submarines off. Eight submarines make it through the captors and ASROC attacks. These boats launch a second torpedo attack against the American ships. The Americans are streaming a device behind them called a NIXIE that simulate the sounds of the ship, these are decoys to attract the incoming Russian torpedoes. The Americans launch their own torpedoes down the bearings of the incoming Russian fish. Only one Russian torpedo strikes a US ship; she strikes and finishes off the same one hit by the cruise missiles. Of the nine American torpedoes launched, only one strikes a Russian boat who accidently turned directly into the path of the in
coming torpedo.
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The United Nations’ troops launch their attack at 0400. They plan to parachute onto various American ICBM and Navy Trident submarine bases to secure the long-range nuclear missiles. The second phase of the plan is to capture US Air Force bases that host nuclear-capable bombers. The third phase is an armored ground attack that crosses the border of the LSA/USA in five locations. The Russians planned to attack across a large number of areas to ensure the American military can’t focus their strength stopping the attack.
The people in both the USA and LSA wake up to news of the United Nations invasion. Thousands of armed citizens in the USA rush to join the battle for their homes and families, they grab their weapons and start to drive towards the sound of gunfire, clogging the roads for hours.
Part of the breakup between the LSA and USA was the agreement that the USA could keep a couple strategic bases in the LSA until they can be relocated. The USA agrees to pay the LSA rent for the space. One such base is the Trident submarine base in Washington. The base is ringed by a barbwire fence and armed guards. The base covers 7,676 acres on the Hood canal. There are eight Trident nuclear missile submarines and three Ohio class cruise missile submarines based at the Bangor base.
The paratroops silently falling through the dark sky were surprised to find the missile silos defended by dug in members of the American military and various militias. The defenders started shooting at the invaders while they were still in the air and defenseless. Many of the invaders were killed before they reached the ground, others were shot when they landed, before they could get organized and remove their parachute. The few who were able to land and put up a fight learned they had landed into a killing zone. Militias increased the numbers of defenders by a factor of five expected by the invaders. The militias are well armed and disciplined, greatly surprising the invaders who thought the armed civilians weren’t a threat.