The Enterprise must die.
Chapter 6
The first inkling that an enemy attack was pending came from the west, when DDG McClaws detected bogeys at angels 36 near the east coast of Borneo. Six planes were seen on radar, the small flight of Flying Leopards out of Miri on the west coast of that big island. Enterprise launched six F-35’s and sent them west to investigate, and six more moved up into the ready CAP positions.
With the main body of the Chinese fleet now 395 miles to the northeast, the Enterprise had been planning a midnight launch for its first naval strike operation. The anger and frustration over what had happened at the Northern Star had prompted Wu Jinlong to counterattack immediately. The small Miri package waited for the unseen six J-20’s ahead of it to paint their targets with radar, then they selected one ship, and fired their YJ-12’s.
This small strike package had been timed to get the Enterprise to look over its shoulder to the west, while the much larger strikes would be coming from the east. The deception worked, for a moment.
“Sir, this is a strike. I now read 12 inbound, Vampires, bearing two-eight-zero at 180 nautical miles.”
“Weapons free,” said Admiral Cook. “Signal prepare to repulse enemy missile attack.”
It was at that moment that more radar contacts appeared to the northeast, passing very near the outlying presence of the AEW plane that had been circling in that area for some hours.
“What do we have, Mister Kane?”
“Sir, I read two squadrons of J-15’s, 24 planes in all.”
“Well I’ll be…” said Cook. “These guys have beaten us to the draw. We were all locked and loaded for a midnight rush, and they sneak this business in at 22:00. Very well, launch ready CAP and vector them east. What’s in the bank on air to air?”
Lt. Pete Kane was officer of the watch, feeding the flag bridge reports from the radar teams and other ship stations, and relaying the Admiral’s orders.
“Sir, we have seven more Panthers moving to the Ready CAP position behind your last launch order, and then the six Super Toms are rigged for BARCAP. Forward Eagle now reports new contacts just off the coast of Mindanao, ten JH-7B’s. Another ten following that group, about 40 miles behind.”
They heard the first roar of defensive fire off CG-21 Class cruiser Atlanta, off the port bow of Enterprise . The newly refurbished cruiser Ticonderoga was off the starboard bow, the first in her class, made all shiny and new. DDG Breckinridge was picketing to the west, and off to the east, where the enemy was thicker, were destroyers, Longstreet, and John Bell Hood. McLaws was in the carrier’s wake, and the Admiral had two other more distant pickets, the Siberian ships, cruising about 25 miles to the southeast.
At 22:16 they saw SM-6 get the first kill on a Vampire, and Talon-6, the F-35’s that had vectored out that way, began to engage with their missiles. They were able to easily defeat the twelve Vampires, and then started in on the six J-20’s that had been paining the TF with its radars. In a swirling fighter duel, the more experienced American pilots prevailed, shooting down four J-20’s but sadly losing one of their brothers in the counter fire of PL-15’s
Now the reports came in fast. Three separate groups of enemy fighters were reported to the northeast, J-20’s and J-31’s. John Bell Hood had the new Spy-6 AMDR Radars, and they were damn good, able to make those detections over 100 miles out. Admiral Cook went over to take a look at the radar screen himself, and he could see what the enemy was doing.
“They’re making a fighter sweep forward of their strike packages, and they’re using the combined radars of all those fighters to fix our location. Not bad…” The Admiral called things as he saw them.
He gave grudging respect to his enemy now. He had pulled his pistol and got off the first shot, and Cook had little doubt that there were also cruise missiles out there vectoring in. The sound of more missiles rising from the Task Force vibrated the windows on the bridge, and they could see the water glowing with the fire of the rocket motors.
The leading group of ten Flying Leopards out of Davao now reached their release point and put 24 YJ-12’s in the air, all aimed at the Enterprise . A fast missile, they would fly at 1450 knots all the way to the target.
“Mister Kane, get the BARCAP up next, two groups of three.”
“Aye sir.”
Karpov had been watching the battle with white-knuckled interest since it began. He was amazed at the American Standard Missile-6. Their ships had radars that were far superior to his own systems, and they were locking on to the Vampires at range, and reaching out 130 miles or more with SM-6 to kill them. Anything that survived was game for legions of ESSM’s, the Enhanced Sea Sparrows that were deadly accurate. His own Fregat system had not seen the Chinese J-31’s, but the American radars found them, and they shot down quite a few that strayed too close to the carrier in an attempt to fix its position on radar.
At one point, with a long stream of YJ-100’s bearing down on Enterprise , he told Samsonov to engage them with his Gargoyles. There was no way he was going to just sit there and watch. In time the missiles stopped firing. The heavy white smoke from their exhaust slowly dissipated on the wind, and an uneasy calm settled over the sea. He watched while US fighters that had been up on various missions began to que up for landing. Battle damage assessment was next, the BDA finding that none of the American ships had suffered a hit. The defending missiles were just too good.
He looked out to see that Kursk was nowhere to be found, but Rodenko quickly reassured him that the destroyer had just maneuvered southeast when the fighting began, and it was now heading their way again, just beyond the horizon.
“Samsonov, how are we doing on the missile count?”
“That was a drain on our 48N6 cells, sir. We used about half our inventory, with 48 remaining. But we still have 90 missile in the 9M96 system.”
“Good enough,” said Karpov. He never felt comfortable with anything under 100 SAM’s under the decks. That seemed to be the minimum count a ship the size of Kirov needed, because it was often the target of the enemy’s ire.
“We should expect to see the Enterprise launch their counterattack soon. So stand ready. Comrade Samsonov, we may soon have what the Americans call a little Moonlight Madness at sea.”
The last of the planes that had scrambled in defense of the fleet had landed just before midnight, and as the hour slipped into the new day, the American strike took off as scheduled. Twelve F-35’s were carrying a new high speed attack missile, the HAWC, the Hypersonic Air Breathing Weapon Concept, capable of speeds between 1400 and 1600 knots. Yet it’s range was limited in these early models, and it could only reach out 135 miles from its release point.
The twelve Avengers would split their mission between the LRASM and GBU-53. The former had marvelous range at 500 miles, but it was relatively slow ay 600 knots. The GBU’s, an old standby for saturation attacks, required the Avengers to get inside 60 miles. The flight of six planes would bring 96 of those to the attack, if they could get in that close without being seen and engaged by enemy CAP. Six Growlers, two jamming and four with SEAD munitions were also in the attack, but there were only six F-35’s ready at that hour for the escort, leaving one ready plane on the deck. Everything else was now rearming.