Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit

by Tom Clancy

  "Well, sir, I've met some pretty bad-ass rent-a-cops."

  "I'm sure you have, Lieutenant. I'm sure you have...." The kid had grown up on the mean streets in South LA. He had probably been shoplifting from liquor stores at an age when the major was learning to tie knots in the Cub Scouts. Now he was a Marine, one of his Marines. He was pleased to have such a man under his command.

  South China Sea, 40 nm/73.2 km Northwest of Natuna Island, September 17th, 2008

  The pride of the Malaysian Navy, Sri Inderapura had been launched at San Diego, California, in 1971 as the U.S. Navy's Tank Landing Ship Spartanburg County (LST-1192). Decommissioned in 1994 due to changing doctrine and force reductions, the five-thousand-ton vessel had been snapped up enthusiastically by Malaysia as an ideal platform for transporting heavy equipment from the Peninsula to remote North Borneo. Today it was carrying a battalion of Scorpion light tanks and truck-loads of fuel and ammunition to reinforce the garrison in Brunei. The modern frigate Lekiu was providing escort, her Lynx helicopter probing a few miles ahead on anti-submarine patrol. The Americans had declared an "Exclusion Zone" around Brunei, but an ancient rule of international law decreed that a blockade was only legal if it was enforced. The five hundred soldiers and sailors aboard Sri Inderapura were the test case. The riotous abundance of marine life in these tropical waters created a cracking, hissing, cloud of confusion for Lekiu's sonar operators. They knew that Chinese, Australian, American, and Indonesian submarines were lurking about, but it was almost impossible for them to pick out any definite contacts from the biological background. It would be a political disaster to attack a neutral or "friendly" sub. They could only strain to read the flickering screens, and wait.

  For the sonar operators on board USS Jefferson City (SSN-759) 33 nm/60.4 km away, the throbbing diesels and whining turbines of the Malaysian ships rang out across the thermal layers and convergence zones like fire bells in the night. Eight weeks ago, Jefferson City had left Pearl Harbor on another routine peacetime patrol. A few days ago, the boat had been vectored into these shallow, treacherous waters to enforce the Brunei Exclusion Zone. And for the last six hours, the sonarmen had been tracking the enemy ships, refining the fire-control solution to enough decimal places to gladden the obsessive-compulsive heart of a nuclear submarine officer. The Weapons Control Officer spoke one last time to the Skipper. The captain replied, with a crisp, well-rehearsed and unmistakably clear order to fire.

  Within a few seconds, a salvo of four RGM-84 Harpoon missiles spurted from the torpedo tubes, bored their way to the surface and emerged from their launch canisters. Even at this distance Lekiu must have heard the launch transient, but it was too late for the Captain of the Sri Inderapura to do anything except sound General Quarters and deploy damage-control teams. All he could do now was pray that the stream of 20mm slugs from the Phalanx weapon system atop his bridge would intersect the flight path of at least one Harpoon in the last fraction of a second before impact. It did. Another Harpoon fell to a Seawolf missile fired at the last minute by Lekiu. The other two Harpoons struck the LST. One penetrated into the engine room before exploding, leaving the ship dead in the water. The second struck the vehicle stowage deck, starting uncontrollable fuel and ammunition fires among the combat-loaded light tanks.

  Lekiu stood by to recover survivors. By all accounts, they did a first-rate, professional job of seamanship, worthy of the traditions they had inherited from Britain's Royal Navy and their own pirate ancestors. As Sri Inderapura rolled over and settled into the muddy sediment of the seafloor, the overcrowded frigate turned back toward her home port. At almost the same time, the Australian submarine Farncomb was pumping three torpedoes into a Malaysian Ro-Ro ship, carrying vehicles and equipment for an entire brigade assigned to the defense of BSB. Malaysia would not risk any more ships to challenge the Exclusion Zone.

  BSB International Airport, September 17th, 2008

  Defense of an airfield against airborne assault was a typical Staff College tactical problem, and Major Dato Yasin, commanding the Malaysian Army's 9th Infantry Battalion, had graduated near the top of his class. First, block the runways to prevent surprise landings. It would inconvenience local commuters, but most of the transit buses from BSB were now parked in neat rows across every runway and taxiway of the huge airport complex. The major had wanted to block the runways with dumpsters and cargo containers filled with cement, but it might be necessary to clear the airfield rapidly to bring in supplies and reinforcements if the damned politicians could get the American blockade lifted for even a few days. Therefore, a captain in the transport section of the major's battalion now held the buses' ignition keys.

  Second, establish interlocking fields of fire across the runways to decimate parachutists in the critical few minutes after they hit the ground. The major had laid out a pattern of carefully camouflaged fighting positions for fire teams and heavy machine guns, with plenty of less carefully camouflaged dummy positions. The major had served with American troops in several UN peacekeeping missions, and while he had never seen "primary" high-resolution satellite imagery, the unclassified "secondary" imagery the Americans had shared with their UN allies was impressive enough. Three times a day (the times were carefully noted on the Major's desk calendar, thanks to a nice piece of work by Malaysian Military Intelligence) American reconnaissance satellites passed overhead, noting the smallest details of his preparations.

  The third principle of defense was to maintain perimeter security, and to block any move to seize the airfield from outside. Unfortunately, the perimeter of the airport was many kilometers long, and the Major had only a reinforced battalion of a thousand men. Designed and built as a conspicuous prestige display, this vast airport was really too big for the country. Still he had managed to site his heavy weapons covering anti-tank and anti-personnel minefields along the most likely approach routes.

  Fourth principle: Dispose your air-defense assets for 360deg coverage and relocate them frequently. This was easy enough. The battalion's air-defense section consisted of a few man-portable Blowpipe missiles. The divisional air defense battery had emplaced a Rapier SAM launch unit and several dummy launchers on nearby hilltops, but he knew that it had little chance of surviving the first attack.

  Finally, pray real hard. This was not part of the Staff College tactical solution, but as he faced west toward Mecca and knelt for the first of the five daily prayers, the major reflected that it was the most important step. He was a patriotic Malay and a good Muslim, and he had just noticed that the readout of his personal GPS receiver, programmed to indicate the exact bearing of the Holy City, was displaying gibberish. The Americans had begun "selective availability," the random garbling of the signals of the Global Positioning System. It did not matter. He knew where he was. If the Americans wanted this airfield badly enough, they would take it. Major Yasin had no illusions about his personal chances of survival. But that was in God's hands. Inshallah.

  Aboard USS Springfield (SSN-761) in the Andaman Sea, September 17th, 2008

  Naval tradition required waking the Captain whenever there was a significant event affecting the ship. The order over the Very Low Frequency broadcast was a simple code group of a few letters, but it meant "Come to periscope depth to receive a downlink of targeting data." That counted as a significant event, all right. Nobody in the communications section had ever seen that one, even in an exercise. It was a new capability to provide targeting data for the dozen BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles that slumbered in vertical launch tubes just behind the boat's bow section. Now, it only required a dish antenna smaller than a dinner plate poking above the waves for a few minutes, precisely aimed at a spot in the sky. From there, information could be downloaded from the Theater Mission Planning System, which provided near-real-time targeting information.

  Once the download was received and confirmed, Springfield silently nosed down to a comfortable, secure depth and the Captain asked his Weapons Control Officer to bring up a visual display of target c
oordinates and the missile flight path. The stern, unwritten rules of their nuclear fraternity required that submariners never express surprise, but none of the officers gathered around the glowing console could avoid an involuntary gasp. In two days, they were going to take out Malaysia's big air base at Kuantan on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. The missiles would fly right across the country, skimming over the tea plantations of the Cameron Highlands, to hit sheltered F/A-18s and MiG-29s from the unexpected landward side.

  Agana Harbor, Guam, September 17th, 2008

  The perfumed tropical breeze carried the scent of diesel exhaust across the bay as the four big ships raised anchor and steamed out into the Pacific. You would not call them beautiful. The great boxy hulls were piled high with containers and festooned with heavy cranes. A helicopter landing pad and an awkwardly angled folding ramp were tacked onto the stern, seemingly as an afterthought. You expect ships to be named after famous admirals or powerful politicians, but these vessels carried the names of enlisted men and junior officers who had fallen in nameless rice paddies and obscure fire bases, some four decades ago: Pfc Dewayne T. Williams, 1st Lt. Baldomero Lopez, 1st Lt. Jack Lummus, Sgt. William R. Button.

  They were no greyhounds of the sea, making 17 kt/31 kph toward their rendezvous with Marines who would fly halfway across the world to link up with the weapons, vehicles, supplies, and equipment they carried. With flat black hulls and white paint topside, they were pretty ugly ships, all things considered. But in the eyes of a logistician, the ships of Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Three (MPSRON 3) were more beautiful than any China Clipper that ever rounded Cape Horn under a full spread of canvas. Just two days behind the ships of MPSRON 3 were the ships of a similar U.S. Army unit, carrying equipment for a mountain brigade. If the U.S. could secure a lodgement ashore in Brunei, there would be a division's worth of force to back it up.

  Final Confirmation Briefing, USS Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6), South China Sea, 2000 Hours, September 18th, 2008

  Colonel Taskins plugged in her laptop and began to run though the various phases of Tropic Fury. The keys were speed and surprise. With a lot of help from the Air Force in the Philippines and on Guam and a lavish expenditure of BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, they would blind the Malaysian forces, making them unable to sense or defend against the approach of PHIBRON 11. The risks were many. The amphibious force would approach the coast of occupied Brunei with only a handful of escorts: two Aegis guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, a single Kidd-class (DDG-993) guided-missile destroyer, a pair of modernized Spruance-class (DD-963) destroyers, and three old Oliver Hazard Perry-class (FFG-7) guided-missile frigates. PHIBRON 11 itself was tiny, with only Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6), the damaged Germantown (LSD-42), and the brand-new assault ship Iwo Jima (LPD- 18). Constellation CVBG, which had been on a port visit in Australia, was steaming forward with the ships of MPSRON 3, and would join up with PHIBRON 11 the day after the invasion started (D+1). Meanwhile, fighter cover would be supplied by a reinforced detachment of AV-8B Plus Harrier IIs just flown in, as well as F-15C Eagle fighters of the 366th Wing's 390th Fighter Squadron deployed to Naval Air Station (NAS) Cubi Point near Subic Bay in the Philippines. The rest of the 366th, with support units, had deployed to the Western Pacific, and would work in relays to protect the amphibious force until the Constellation (CV-64) group arrived. The risk of attack on PHIBRON 11 was low, since it was unlikely the Malaysians would expect them so quickly. Their Navy had been driven into port, and only their Air Force was left to deal with the threat from the sea. The coming air campaign would deal with that.

  The invasion and liberation of Brunei. JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD., BY LAURA ALPHER

  Colonel Taskins continued her briefing for the assembled crowd in the officers' mess. "Folks, we're going to have to work fast, and neat. Our biggest problems are with the oil facilities on the western side of the country. This is what the Malaysians want to keep, and what we must insure that they do not destroy. North Borneo is an extremely fragile ecosystem, so a mass of burning oil wells will not do. This is why I've committed so much of the force to securing the fields. Nevertheless, we must also clear the cargo terminal in the harbor at BSB, so that follow-on forces can relieve us. Finally, we must relieve our squad at the American Embassy in BSB. General Bear tells me that he wants the gunny and his detachment taken care of, and we will do this. Is that understood?"

  A chorus of nods told her that it was.

  "All right then," she continued, "let's get the job done, take care of each other, be Marines, and go home safe. God bless you all."

  That was all they needed to hear.

  Over Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (North Borneo), 0130 Hours, September 20th, 2008

  Kota Kinabalu, the primary Malaysian air base in North Borneo, was taken seriously by Tropic Fury planners. Home base for two fighter squadrons and a gaggle of maritime patrol aircraft, it had to be neutralized. Since all of the submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles were committed against targets on the Malay Peninsula, this one would have to be done by aircraft. The U.S. Air Force drew the assignment.

  All day and most of the night, the 366th had sparred with the Malaysians, darting in and out with fighters from Cubi Point, supported by airborne tankers. It had driven the defenders at Kota Kinabalu to exhaustion, and by 0300 local time, they were near collapse. Tropic Fury's Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC), the Air Force brigadier general commanding the 366th, had planned his operations to produce this result. Make them crazy, spar with them a while, and then hit them when they're too tired to notice. Now the fakes were over, and the Sunday punch was on the way. Two F-16Cs from the 389th FS equipped with targeting pods and HARM missiles dashed in to launch their weapons at the air-traffic-control and SAM radars on the field. The two F/A-18s that lifted off were rapidly dispatched by AIM-120 AMRAAMs from a pair of escorting Eagles, and that was it. Within seconds, Kota Kinabalu was blind and helpless. Now came the heavy iron.

  Six B-1B Lancers of the 34th Bombardment Squadron had flown non-stop from Anderson AFB on Guam, carrying the ordnance that would shut down Kota Kinabalu for good. The first four came in from the north, very low over the China Sea at just over Mach 1, throwing up huge twin rooster tails of spray. At 10 nm/18.3 km from the coast, all four pulled up into zoom climbs. At the apex of the maneuver, each aircraft released twenty-four JDAMS guided bombs with hardened 2,000- 1b/909.1-kg warheads. Within seconds, every aircraft shelter, runway, taxiway, fuel tank, and weapons bunker had been hit. The last two B-1s came from inland at medium altitude, dumping a total of sixty CBU-87/89 wind-corrected cluster bombs on the base, ensuring that Kota Kinabalu would be disabled for many weeks to come.

  Around the rim of the South China Sea, similar events were taking place. On the Peninsula, every major fighter and transport air base was being hit by submarine-launched BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Aging B-52Hs from the 2nd Bombardment Wing at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, staged out of Diego Garcia, launched waves of cruise missiles, taking out communications and command centers. The ships of PHIBRON 11 and their escorts would be effectively invisible to the Malaysians, until they came within sight of land.

  25 nm/45.7 km North of the Coast of Brunei, 0200 Hours, September 20th, 2008

  The LCAC slowed to a crawl and dropped its stern ramp just long enough for six rigid raider craft to slide out onto the gentle swell. Then it turned and headed back towards Iwo Jima (LPD-18), its mother ship, over the horizon, as Marines of the 31st MEU (SOC)'s Force Reconnaissance Platoon started their specially silenced outboard motors and headed inshore toward the mangrove swamps along Brunei's western border. Before sunrise, the boats would be securely hidden and the Marines would be humping through coastal jungle toward a daytime hideout on the edge of the rain forest. At the same time, a single MV-22B Osprey from the MEU (SOC)'s ACE made a low-level approach to the coast east of Brunei. Hugging the hills and dodging in and out of lush valleys, it made five touch-and-go landings, dropping off four-man reconnaissa
nce teams. With their special observation and surveillance equipment, the teams would give Colonel Taskins continuous location and status reports on Malaysian forces in Brunei. Tomorrow night, they would all be very busy Marines.

  Seria LNG Terminal, Brunei, 0000 Hours, September 21st, 2008

  The Brunei-Shell Tankers motor vessel Bubuk was one of a handful of similar merchant ships that flew Brunei's gold, black, and white flag. Extraordinary ships they were. They displaced over 51,000 tons, and their specialized cargo was liquefied natural gas, stored at frigid temperatures in huge insulated spherical tanks that filled the spacious hulls. Crewed by expatriate British officers and Pakistani hands, a fleet of these vessels shuttled between Brunei and Japan. Bubuk was the only one that had been caught in port by the Malaysian takeover. The ship was not just an enormously valuable asset and a symbol of national sovereign; it was a floating bomb with the potential explosive force of a tactical nuke. Accidental or deliberate detonation of over 2,648,610 ft3/75,000 m3 of volatile LNG would level Seria, a town of 25,000 people, along with several billion dollars worth of capital equipment. Tropic Fury planners quickly determined that Bubuk would have to be seized and secured, very carefully. This was exactly the kind of mission that U.S. Navy SEALs trained for, dreamed about, and salivated over. PHIBRON 11's SEAL detachment, embarked aboard Iwo Jima (LPD-18), drew the assignment.