The Chinese had lost 25 ships to torpedoes, and they in turn had sunk six Royal Navy and Singapore Navy ships with their own subs. The only SSM that got close to achieving anything like that was the Chinese YJ-18, which had savaged the Royal Navy and Singapore fleets with 17 kills. Third in line were Kirov’s Zircons, which had sunk 14 ships, including three carriers, and with far fewer missiles than the YJ-18. That said torpedoes were still the king of the seas, with the highest kill percentage and the more ships sunk than any other weapon.
The two US subs were going to try to extend that reign as they closed on the enemy ships. They would sprint to the ten mile mark, then drift and shoot.
The last of the F-35’s carrying HAWC’s was spotted and ready at 08:15, and a full squadron of 12 planes would take off to join a dozen Avengers already circling overhead. The forward escort of four F-35’s had already seen and engaged an enemy fighter that had been getting nosey. It took a number of attempts, and an evasive run to avoid four PL-15’s, but they got the lone J-20 that had been snooping on the fleet.
As they formed up and started north, the pilots could see that a group of Avengers were already cleared hot and firing their LRASM’s. The missile had a 500 mile range, so it was take off, fire, and land for those six planes, and it sent 24 missiles after the enemy carrier.
No report had been made by radar of any incoming Vampires, and no flights of enemy planes had been detected, but Admiral Wu had his own inner radar, and his hackles were raised, knowing danger was at hand. He could sense it, feel it, something close, something far.
He was very correct.
The US air strike was already underway, with some missiles already fired, and the two US subs were bracketing the Chinese fleet on two sides. Flight V Virginia Class boat Franklin would be the first to fire, sending three torpedoes at the heart of the fleet, which had been cruising at 326 degrees northwest. This sent them into an evasive turn away from the sub, and to a new heading of about 45 degrees northeast—directly into the path of the Chancellorsville. She was still some 17 miles off, coming at 30 knots, and her Captain was keeping his cool. He waited until the enemy had churned to within nine miles, then slowed to five knots and fired a spread of four torpedoes.
The effect these sudden attacks had on the formation was jarring. FFG Weifang bravely broke formation, accelerated to its top speed, and charged at the suspected location of the first sub, willing to sacrifice the ship and crew just to put pressure on the attacking enemy submarine if it could. It threw an ASROC YU-7 out, which plopped into the water eight miles ahead, but found no targets.
Two helicopters took off from destroyers and fluttered away at low altitude after Franklin, thudding out to the position where the torpedoes had been detected. But that contact was already twelve minutes old, and in that time the sub had been maneuvering away from its firing point at 20 knots, and was at least four miles away. That wasn’t good enough for what the Chinese helos were carrying. The single YU-7 torpedo on a Chinese X-9C helo had a two mile standard range, and a kinematic range of just 4 miles. It had to be damn near spot on when launched to have any chance of getting a hit.
The Z-9 reached the point where they thought to find the American sub, then hovered to deploy their dipping sonar. They had gone slightly beyond the contact point, and got lucky. There was an almost immediate contact, and the excited pilots pulled up to get moving on that target. At that moment, something streaked in from the south west, jogged left, and bored right in on the helo, blasting it from the sky.
The US Escort-2 had been dueling with the J-31’s, found a hole in their defense, and unleashed several AIM-260 missiles at the helos. The Z-18 off the Moon God was the first to be knocked down, and now, just as that Z-9 was ready to pounce on Franklin, another missile saved the hour.
Chaos swept through the fleet like a storm. Seven ships behind Taifeng had been scattered in all directions by the torpedo attack, then the first of the LRASM’s started to come in at the front of the herd, all bearing down on the carrier. The big ship had been screened, and maneuvered successfully to get out of harm’s way, but the lances Franklin had fired were now locking on to alternate targets and still chasing them down, all while that spread of four torpedoes fired by Chancellorsville was sweeping in from the east.
SAM’s started leaping off the decks to get after the LRASM’s, and deck mounted lasers were flashing like lightning from the newer Type 055 destroyers. In the midst of this, one of the torpedoes fired by Franklin found the Vietnamese destroyer Haiphong and sent up a wall of white water and black smoke when it exploded. The ship was so badly hit that it was dead in the water a minute later, with fire and flooding amidships, and a broken back. The second torpedo circled and struck the wrecked ship again, sending what was left of it on a steep ride to the sea floor, over 16,000 feet below.
The third of Franklin’s fish then turned, detected the fuming wake of another ship, and surged towards DDG Saigon, just as a torpedo off the Chancellorsville found the frigate Yulin. A second struck DDG Yueshen, the Moon God. A third hit DDG Xining, a Type 052D Class ship. The American subs were simply devouring the confused and scattered southern end of the enemy formation. For good measure, Franklin put two more torpedoes in the water to get after the bold frigate Weifang that was tormenting it, wanting to shake that terrier off its tail.
In reprisal, the frigate fired its last two ASROC YU-7’s, and now it was up to the torpedoes. The ASROC’s plopped into the sea just 750 meters from the American sub, and began to look for their quarry, even while the two Mark 48’s locked on to the frigate and started their terminal run to the target. The ship would not survive, but the submarine would race away at 32 knots, quickly getting outside the shore ranged YU-7’s. Franklin slipped away, avoiding the threat until the enemy torpedoes lost energy and sunk into the depths below.
Wu Jinlong fled northwest, every ship ordered to make its best speed. Yet when he looked over his shoulder, he could see the smoke and fire of five stricken comrades burning on the sea, each and every one devoured by the terrible effectiveness of the torpedoes that were fired at them.
Yet the torment wasn’t over. Admiral Cook had also ordered another volley of MMT Tomahawks timed to follow up his air delivered ordnance, and now those missiles started tracking in. Type 052D Class destroyer Yinchuan was the first to detect them, and started firing its remaining HQ-9’s. As that battle began, Admiral Wu took some heart out on the weather deck, when he looked up high in the sky and saw the contrails of two formations of aircraft. The Flying Leopards were coming….
They rose in two groups of ten planes each, the JH-7B Fighters known as the Flying Leopards at Davao. Each plane carried a pair of YJ-12 cruise missiles, with fast turbojet engines that would push them at 1600 knots for 215 miles. That was bringing 40 missiles to the attack, and now Wu Jinlong knew he had to augment this with any cruise missiles that still had the range. He ordered all his gods and warriors with the YJ-100 to fire half their remaining inventory, which would send another 48 missiles southwest after the Americans. It was a desperate counterattack, but there was nothing else to be done. Orders were sent to a pair of J-20’s orbiting over Borneo to dash on the American carrier and paint it with radar.