by Jeff Edwards
5. (UNCL) MOVE FAST. STRIKE FAST. STRIKE WELL. GOOD LUCK AND GOOD HUNTING! ADMIRAL STANFORD SENDS.
//011027Z DEC//
//FLASH//FLASH//FLASH//
//RBT 2034539//
//SECRET//
//SSSSSSSSSS//
Bowie finished reading the message, and passed it to Commander Silva.
She had only read the first few lines when a sharp electronic klaxon came blasting out of the ship’s 1-MC speakers.
The alarm was quickly replaced by the amplified voice of the Officer of the Deck. “General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations. Set Material Condition Zebra throughout the ship. Commanding officer, your presence is requested in Combat Information Center.”
Captain Bowie was out of his chair and headed for the door before the GQ alarm cut in again. “Coming, Kat? Looks like it’s going to hit the fan a little sooner than I thought.”
CHAPTER 42
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From:
Sent: Monday, December 1, 5:34 PM
To:
Subject: Poker
My Dearest Beth,
I have to tell you that I’m still pretty screwed up over what happened to Poker. I mean, one second, he was right there on my starboard wing, and the next second his 18 was going down in flames.
I can’t even understand how it happened. He was a good pilot. A great pilot. For all my bragging, he was a hell of a lot better than me. But he’s dead now, and somehow I’m still alive.
I wish I could take back all the stupid shit I said to him. His first two initials were O. W., and I used to tell everybody that they stood for Orville Wright. All I ever talked about was how ancient he was, and how it was time for him to get his crotchety old ass into a retirement home, and make room for some real pilots.
Poker was a good guy. A good officer, and a good man. He looked out for his people. He looked out for me. He taught me, and guided me, and kept me out of trouble. I would have never gotten my night landing quals if Poker hadn’t been covering my six.
How did I thank him? I sat back like an idiot while those Chinese fuckers blew him right out of the sky. Now he’s gone, and I’ll never be able to tell him how much he meant to me.
I’m sorry. I know I keep droning on and on about this, but it’s killing me. Everybody keeps treating me like some kind of badass because I shot down two J-15s, and blasted the shit out of another one. But if I’m such a badass, where the hell was I when Poker needed me?
I’m back in the patrol rotation, but I’m not sure I should be. What kind of a wingman lets his lead go down in flames? What if it happens again? What if I’m some kind of jinx, and anybody who flies with me gets iced?
I don’t know, Beth. I don’t know anything anymore. I wish I could talk to you right now. I wish I could hear your voice, and talk this through with you until it starts to make some kind of sense.
I wish…
Hang on. The GQ alarm is going off. Got to get to my battle station.
Love you!
More later,
Rob
LT(jg) Robert J. Monkman
VFA-228 Marauders
USS Midway (CVN-82)
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CHAPTER 43
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
BAY OF BENGAL
MONDAY; 01 DECEMBER
1734 hours (5:34 PM)
TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’
The Tactical Action Officer pointed to the Aegis display screens. “Raid warning, Captain. Twenty Bogies coming in high from the southwest. No modes, no codes, no IFF. Threat axis is about two-one-four. Looks like they’re lining up for an air strike against the Midway.”
Bowie nodded. “What does Hawkeye say?”
“Hawkeye concurs that this is a probable strike against the carrier, sir. They’re vectoring in three flights of Combat Air Patrol for mop up work, in case any leakers get past us.”
Bowie looked at the cluster of hostile air symbols. Twenty red inverted v-shapes were moving toward the Towers, and toward the aircraft carrier on the other side of the destroyer’s protective missile envelope.
It took him a couple of seconds to realize that something didn’t look quite right about the geometry of target motion playing out on the big display screen. The hostile air symbols were approaching steadily, but the rate of closure didn’t seem high enough.
“How fast are those Bogies moving?” he asked.
The TAO checked a digital readout on his console. “Airspeed around four hundred knots.”
Bowie frowned. “Four hundred knots? That’s a little slow for a strike approach, isn’t it?”
“It’s definitely not typical,” the TAO said. “But we’ve never actually seen the Chinese navy carry out a strike mission against a carrier. Nobody knows exactly what their tactical doctrine looks like for this kind of thing.”
“You’re right about that,” Commander Silva said quietly, “but four hundred knots is still awfully damned slow for a strike approach.”
Before the TAO could respond, a report came over the tactical net from the Electronics Warfare module. “TAO—EW. The Bogies just lit up! I am tracking twenty—that is two-zero—active X-band emitters. Pulse-doppler signature indicates KLJ-10 fire control radars. First cut looks like Chinese J-10 strike fighters.”
The TAO keyed his microphone. “EW—TAO. Copy all. Stand by on jamming and chaff.”
He released the mike button and turned to his commanding officer. “Captain, request batteries released on inbound Bogies.”
Bowie hesitated. Something wasn’t quite right about the way the Bogies were acting. The EW emissions and angle of approach added up to a large raid of strike fighters from the Chinese aircraft carrier, but the relatively low airspeed of the raid was puzzling.
Two-thirds the speed of sound wasn’t exactly poking along, but the J-10 was capable of better than Mach 2. Why weren’t they taking advantage of the aircraft’s speed? It didn’t make sense.
Or rather, it didn’t make sense to Bowie. It obviously made sense to whoever had planned the raid. There was definitely a reason for the departure from accepted aerial tactics. Of course, there was little or no chance that Bowie was going to spontaneously guess what that reason might be within the next few seconds. Low airspeed or not, the hostile planes were heading toward the American aircraft carrier. It was up to the Towers to ensure that they never got close enough to launch their missiles at the Midway.
That made the decision a no-brainer. Bowie made eye contact with his TAO. “Do it,” he said. “You have batteries released.”
The Tactical Action Officer keyed the net again immediately. “Weapons Control—TAO. Engage air tracks Zero Zero One through Zero Two Zero with missiles.”
“TAO—Weapons Control. Engage air tracks Zero Zero One through Zero Two Zero with missiles, aye. Stand by…”
A series of rapid shudders propagated down the length of the warship’s hull, accompanied by a sequence of muffled roars as nearly two dozen SM-3 missiles streaked into the sky.
The Weapons Officer’s voice came over the net. “TAO—Weapons Control. Twenty birds away. No apparent casualties.”
They appeared on the Aegis display within a couple of seconds: the blue shapes of twenty friendly missile symbols, closing rapidly on the hostile air symbols.
Bowie watched the converging symbology for several heartbeats before he reached for a communications headset and punched into the ship’s 1-MC system. When he spoke, his voice came from every speaker within the skin of the ship.
“All hands, this is the Captain. We’re currently launching missiles against a large raid of hostile aircraft. This is the real thing, people. This is what you’ve been training for, and I know you’re ready. Stay sharp. Stay tough. And be prepared for anything.”
He released the mike button and spoke under his breath. “Good luck. To all of us.
”
Xianglong:
With its top-mounted jet engine and v-configured tail wings, the Xianglong Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was similar in appearance to the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk that had drawn so much media attention during U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But despite its physical resemblance to the American UAV, the capabilities of the Xianglong were still largely a mystery to the analysts and engineers of the United States.
Its name could be translated loosely into English as ‘flying lizard,’ but the UAV’s builders preferred the more auspicious translation of ‘soaring dragon.’
Western analysts were correct in believing that the Xianglong’s primary purpose was long-range, high-altitude strategic reconnaissance. But the mission modules currently attached to the UAV’s wings had a quite different purpose.
The module under the port wing was an electronic blip enhancer, designed to amplify and retransmit incoming radar signals, to make the 7.5 ton UAV seem much larger to enemy sensors. For this mission the drone’s apparent radar cross-section had been effectively doubled, giving the slender Xianglong a radar profile that closely mimicked the 16 ton airframe of a Chinese J-10 fighter.
The module under the starboard wing was a microwave transmitter, and it was busily broadcasting X-band signals that were virtually indistinguishable from the pulse-doppler emissions of the Chengdu KLJ-10 fire control radar carried by J-10 aircraft.
The decoy modules and electronic emulators of the deceptive mission package did an extraordinary job of simulating a J-10 fighter jet. The primary flaw in the deception was the drone’s lack of speed.
The jet-powered Xianglong was one of the fastest UAVs on the planet, more than 100 knots faster than the American MQ-9 Reaper. But—as impressive as the Xianglong’s top speed was for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle—it was not fast enough to accurately simulate the airspeed of a real J-10.
The Soaring Dragon was not perfect bait, but it was very good bait, and its lack of absolute perfection was offset by numbers. The UAV was not operating alone. It was surrounded by nineteen other drones of the exact same design and capability. Their collective spoofery was intended to make them such attractive targets that minor details like airspeed would be overlooked.
And the deceptive mission packages had not yet exhausted all the tactical cheats at their disposal. They still had a few tricks left to play.
USS Towers:
“TAO—Air, Bogies are launching chaff and going evasive!”
“TAO, aye!”
The maneuvers were quickly visible on the Aegis display screens, as the enemy aircraft dodged and weaved to avoid the missiles bearing down on them.
Bowie’s eyes stayed locked on the dancing blue and red symbols. It still didn’t feel right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the problem, but he couldn’t shake the idea that there was something wrong with the way the Bogies were maneuvering.
Then, it hit him. He tapped the TAO on the shoulder. “Check their airspeed now. How fast are the Bogies moving?”
The Tactical Action Officer punched a quick series of keys on his console. “Looks like… about four hundred knots. Give or take.”
The TAO looked up at his commanding officer. “That’s not right…”
“No,” Bowie said. “It isn’t. Those Bogies are jinking and jiving like crazy, but not a single one of them has kicked in the afterburners to get away from our missiles.”
“They’re some kind of decoys,” the TAO said.
Bowie nodded. “They’ve got to be.”
He reached into the overhead, jerked the red handset of the Navy Red terminal out of its cradle, and shoved it against his right ear. He keyed the mike, and waited a half-second for the crypto burst—a rapid string of warbling tones that the UHF transmitter used to synchronize its encryption signal with the secure communications satellite. “Alpha Whiskey, this is Towers. Hostile strike raid from my bearing two-one-four, is evaluated as a ruse. I say again, Bogies bearing two-one-four are probable decoys! My unit will continue to engage and monitor, but expect additional attacks from other vectors, over!”
The Air Warfare Coordinator on the aircraft carrier responded within ten seconds. “Towers, this is Alpha Whiskey. Roger all, and concur. We have rapid pop-ups on multiple inbound Vipers, threat axis zero-seven-five. Keep your head down. Alpha Whiskey, out!”
Vipers (mid-flight):
They came in very low, and very fast—forty 3M-54E2 anti-ship missiles, flying three and a half meters above the waves at Mach 0.8.
By official NATO designation, they belonged to the family of SSN-27 cruise missiles lumped together under the code name Sizzler. The Chinese variants of this missile class had been alternately over-hyped and under-hyped by the U.S. Department of Defense for more than a decade.
The western press had taken to referring to the 3M-54E2 as China’s Carrier Killer. That assertion had never been demonstrated under battle conditions. Until now.
Each missile had its radar seeker turned off during this phase of its trajectory, following a pre-programmed flight path, adjusted by periodic updates from the Beidou navigation positioning satellites that comprised China’s indigenous version of the Global Positioning System.
The missiles were flying blind, but their nose-on radar cross-sections were relatively low. Coupled with their lack of active emissions and wave-hugging flight profiles, this made them difficult to detect and track.
That would change in a few hundred milliseconds, when the missiles would all energize their target acquisition radars at the same instant. All forty missiles would instantly become visible to the sensors of the American ships and aircraft, but the missiles would compensate for the lack of stealth by accelerating to Mach 2.2 for the terminal phase of the attack.
This supersonic ‘sprint’ would give potential interceptors only seconds to identify the threat and react. Theoretically, the window of opportunity for defensive engagement would be too narrow for the target ship to exploit.
That theory was about to be tested.
USS Towers:
The drama played itself out on the tactical display screens in two acts, separated by both time and distance. To the southwest, the First Act had nearly resolved itself. Evasive maneuvering aside, the ship’s SM-3 missiles were shredding the inbound Bogies, which—Bowie was now certain—must be decoys.
The Second Act was playing out to the east. Forty hostile missile symbols had appeared, and were closing on the Midway at incredible speed.
Two elements of Combat Air Patrol were vectoring in to intercept the Vipers, but—like everyone else in the strike group—they’d been caught looking the wrong way. Even on afterburner, by the time the F/A-18s arrived on station, the engagement would be over.
The Midway had air defenses of her own: a pair of Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, a trio of Sea Sparrow missile launchers, and four Close-In Weapon Systems—the 20mm defensive Gatling guns known to the fleet as Phalanx. The carrier could protect herself against a reasonable number of subsonic cruise missiles. But the number of inbound Vipers was not at all reasonable, and they were moving at supersonic speeds.
The only thing between the carrier and destruction was the USS Frank W. Fenno, the Arliegh-Burke class guided missile destroyer assigned to the eastern perimeter of the strike group’s screen.
As Bowie and his CIC crew watched the tactical displays, the Fenno began launching clouds of SM-3 missiles. The friendly missile symbols overlapped and obscured each other for several seconds, and then they began to diverge as the interceptor missiles homed in on individual targets.
They were too many to count visually in the limited time before intercept, but the Aegis tracking software provided the total. Eighty missiles. The Frank W. Fenno was following a shoot-shoot-look-shoot doctrine. Fire two missiles at each incoming Viper, scan with radar to see how many have been destroyed, and then fire again at any Vipers that survived the first salvo.
Bowie’s first instinct was to call that a mistake
, but maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t know the other destroyer’s exact weapons load out, but it probably wasn’t much different from what the Towers was carrying. The Fenno had something like ninety SM-3s aboard, give or take a few for minor variations in mission loads. Which meant that the Fenno’s skipper had just launched about ninety percent of his SAMs in his initial salvo. Ordinarily not the kind of choice that a smart destroyer captain would make. But the Vipers were coming in too fast. The Fenno wasn’t going to get off a second salvo. Whatever they missed the first time around, was going to hit the carrier.
Bowie slammed the Navy Red handset back into its cradle. “Goddamn it! Is there any way we can help the Fenno intercept those Vipers?”
The Tactical Action Officer shook his head. “Not a chance, Captain. Even if we had a clear field of fire, they’re too far away. By the time our birds get over there, it’ll be too late.”
“There’s nothing you can do right now,” Silva said softly.
Bowie turned, and she was standing at his elbow. He exhaled heavily. “I know. But I don’t have to like it.”
He turned his eyes back to the Aegis display screens. “Damn it!” he said. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
The engagement unfolded on the big displays. Two friendly missile symbols converged on a hostile missile symbol as the first of Fenno’s interceptors destroyed their assigned Viper. Then the interplay of tactical symbols seemed to shift into overdrive, red and blue icons stuttering, intersecting, vanishing, and rearranging themselves in indecipherable patterns.
When it was over, nine hostile missiles remained on the screen, streaking toward the bright blue circle that represented the American aircraft carrier.
USS Midway:
Admiral Zimmerman gripped the arms of his chair and watched the onrushing missile symbols on the large-screen tactical displays. He had already double-checked his seat belt. He had no intention of getting tossed around Flag Plot like a rag doll when those damned missiles hit.