They run when we charge, he thought, which is why I have every confidence I can drive them out of the Celebes Sea. Yes, they will try to stay 300 miles out to cut my offensive capability in half. But I have planes, too, and I intend to charge.
The Admiral was going to need every missile he could deploy, and then some. The Devil behind him was very strong, as we have seen, and it was picking up a couple hobgoblins as it came. The seven ship Australian Task Force, designated SAG South, was moving up to rendezvous with SAG Guam. That made for a strong 12 ship screen that could operate forward of Carrier Strike Group Washington, and they added more offensive and defensive clout to the US Pacific Fleet.
In the Celebes Sea, Admiral Cook’s SAG Enterprise had seven ships, with 400 ESSM’s, 168 SM-6, and 48 SM-2. Against ballistic missile threats they had 70 SM-3, and the close in circle around Enterprise had 42 RIM-116C’s. The US Navy on this Meridian was loaded for bear. Offensively, Admiral Cook could throw 152 MMT’s at enemy ships and another 96 TacToms could be used against Davao. There was also that formidable strike wing aboard Enterprise , with an array of SSMs and glide bombs that could ruin the enemy’s day. Beyond that, he had a pair of Virginia Class subs in front of him, and then there was Kirov, Kursk and Kazan.
That was the tale of the tape as the two fleets now prepared to square off. The Devil in the Celebes Sea was nothing to trifle with, but that was what Admiral Wu Jinlong had decided to do….
Chapter 5
“Gentlemen, this Admiral Wu out there just took another swipe at all our Pacific island bases,” said Admiral Cook, looking squared away and solid as a rock. “But it’s my pleasure to say he didn’t lay a finger on us. The big Chinese bombers retired to Clark, and they can thank Uncle Sam that base is even there. Now we’re going after them. For the next 16 to 18 hours, those bombers will be nice fat geese on the ground, getting a belly full of anything else they may have to throw at us. Well, we have bombers too. Anderson is lining up a bomber strike to see if we can make them pay some rent out there. In the meantime, the Chinese fleet has turned southwest. They may be headed back to Davao, or they may be headed our way. In either case, we’re going to be ready for them.”
Cook exuded confidence, and the ribbons on his chest were a good reason for it. Enterprise had a long war history behind it, even though this was just the latest ship to bear that name and carry that tradition forward. In that observation alone, lay the essence of the difference between the PLAN and the USN. The Chinese had a lot of shiny new ships to float, but there had been a USS Enterprise , in one form or another, patrolling the waters of the Pacific for the last 85 years. The Chinese Navy was professional, competent, but largely without experience. The United States, flanked by two great oceans, had been a sea faring nation from its early days, and the US Navy was haunted by Old Salts, gritty Master Chiefs, and men and women who knew damn well what they were about, and then some.
That difference contributed mightily to the fact that while 67 Chinese ships were on the bottom of the world’s oceans and seas, not one US surface ship had joined them. As Admiral Cook saw things, they were beating the PLAN from pillar to post, and he was ready for the next round.
“So here’s what we’re going to do,” said Cook, pointing at the wall map with a laser marker. “I’m taking Enterprise out here to get us a little sea room. We’ll be over one of the world’s deep ocean basins, over 16,000 feet. If they come west for us, by the time they reach this archipelago starting with Sangihe Island, they’ll be in strike range, and that’s where we hit them. They fight close to supporting land bases, and for them, that’s what this operation is all about. They went after our island bases, and failed. Now we’re going to take down the bases they set up out here to try and support this power projection into the Celebes Sea. I’m going to start nipping at known enemy radar, SAM and SSM sites, and then we’re going to dump some of those 96 TacToms in the VLS Bays on this base up here—Zamboanga.”
Cook pointed out the location, at the very tip of the Western ‘Elephant’s Trunk’ of Mindanao.
“That base is an important stepping stone for them. They’ve been moving ordnance and supplies overland by rail to Cam Ranh Bay, then out to sea from there to these reef island bases in the South China Sea. They then transit the Palawan gap into the Sulu Sea bound for Zamboanga. That port and airfield also receive air lifted supplies. It’s vital to their continued support of Davao, so we’re going to clip it, and good. Intel expects they may have as many as two full J-20 squadrons there, so they’ll make a fight of it. That’s a fight I intend to win.”
That got a round of applause from the officers and airmen assembled in the big hangar deck, and the Admiral cocked his head to one side, nodding.
“Alright,” he continued, “the bad guys are about 180 miles from that trip line archipelago I pointed out, and by the last estimate, they were at 25 knots. So that means we get ready to rumble in about seven hours. Get with your strike leaders and mission planners and chew the fat. I want every flight in this operation on mission and razor sharp. Now… In the course of these operations, this task force will maneuver to maintain a range of 300 or more miles from the enemy. That winnows down their offensive punch a good deal. They’ll try to get closer, but I won’t let them. If that means I take us back down through the Makassar Strait, so be it, but don’t think for one minute that they will ever have us on the run. That’s bullshit. Maneuver is what naval operations are all about. You position yourself where you can hurt the other guy without taking hits yourself. That’s exactly what this strike group will do. So get to it, plan it well, and while you’re at it, get some chow and a little shut eye if you have the time. Don’t worry, I’ll wake you.” He smiled.
Where were the Americans?
That was the question that vexed Wu Jinlong that hour. All three enemy task groups had fallen off his radar screens, and at that hour, he had no idea where they were at all. Frustrated, he sent orders to Zamboanga AFB to get two J-20’s out on a deep recon mission south towards the Makassar Strait. In about 40 minutes Yaogan-20A was scheduled to have eyes on the Celebes Sea. The optical satellite Jilin-01-10 would report in about an hour, and in two and a half hours, he would hear from Yaogan-30. After that, it would be another six hours before Yaogan-13 would be overhead.
We did not think this through, before the war, he thought. We should have prepositioned satellites in geostationary orbits over areas where we intended extensive operations. I suppose we can thank our lucky stars that there has been no satellite war. We did not start one here, because we knew how important these eyes in space would be to us. Thus far, that truce has held, as we threatened to take down all their GPS satellites if they attacked our surveillance network. What would I do without them?
Time to get the new KJ-600 up.
That was the latest carrier based Chinese AEW plane, with radar that could peer out 350 miles. That plane gave him the first hammer on the metal of his kill chain. He did not see the American carrier, but he saw their AEW plane, which usually operated between 100 and 200 miles from its home fleet.
So they remain where I suspected they would be, he thought, probably somewhere here, north of the Makassar Strait. Are they attempting to cut me off from the South China Sea? Most likely.