Just after 18:00, the alarms jangled again, and the Admiral rushed to the tactical display to see more enemy missiles heading his way. More Tomahawks, he thought. How many? We may have the HQ-9’s to stop them now, but then what?
That proved to be true, for it seemed a small package of only about 36 enemy missiles. Just sent to annoy us, he thought, but looking at his SAM count told the real tale. He had 41 HQ-9’s left when that attack ended.
As if in reprisal, the 16 YJ-18’s that had locked on to DDG Buckner earlier were now closing on the place they expected that target to be. The three ships in the SAG were having trouble targeting the Sizzlers, and it was DDG Sheridan with the Independence who saw and fired on them first, some 80 miles to the east. They would not have much work to do. The target lock could not be held by the Chinese destroyers who sent the Sizzlers here, and so the first eight missiles executed a turn, fired up their rocket motors, and began to sprint… Unfortunately, that turn had taken them away from Buckner, and they were streaking off over an empty sea, totally lost. The next group would do the very same thing, and Captain Hap Turner just stood on the bridge of the New Jersey, grinning from ear to ear. There went 16 valuable missiles, off into the night to become nothing more than junk on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
The Admiral took the news of that failed attack with stoic resignation. The YJ-18 is a killer, he thought, but only when it knows exactly where to go. Down range ambiguity of even two miles can result in costly failures like this. It was our inability to actually have a real time radar fix on the enemy ships that caused this. Yet I have no AEW assets or even fighters to dash in and get me that information. I can rely only on the latest satellite feeds, which age second by second. If we could have better positioned our submarines before attempting this withdrawal, it might have helped, but they are too slow, and that could have taken days. So I elected to try and surprise the Americans by leaving Karachi last night, and here we are, under constant attack as our SAM’s dwindle away.
I am weary, and in need of sleep, but now I must be strong. If we succeed, it will be spoken of as one of the greatest sea romps since the last great war. Let us write this history our way….
Captain Holmes had other ideas about how this mission would be written up in the history books. He had kept the pressure on all day, with an air strike and two SSM strikes using Tomahawks, all against the same target, the main body where the better Type 055 destroyers held forth. He wanted to break the enemy’s main offensive and defensive strength, which resided in those ships, and by his count, he did not think they had anything more they could use to hurt him. His strike group had beaten off at least 100 cruise missiles, the long range YJ-100’s, and he knew those were only typically carried on the Type 055’s.
Now he was rigging out his wing for another strike. The enemy had no air cover, and they were now very vulnerable after fending off his three attacks. So in about three hours he would begin spotting planes again for a little midnight madness.
“Mister Cooper,” he called to his XO. “What’s our count on available Tomahawks?”
“We still have 68 MMT’s, sir. The rest are TacToms.”
“That’s a good throw. Did New Jersey update on the network yet?”
“Yes sir. They have 86, mostly on the battleship.”
“Excellent. You know, if we threw in an attack of that size, I don’t think they could stop it now. But I want our air wing to get at these guys. They’re hungry. So let’s pester them with half our present loadout on the MMT’s. When we’re done, New Jersey can do the same. I want to keep them under heavy pressure between now and midnight.”
As the clock swept through 20:00, the Chinese screen was the first to detect the Tomahawks. 30 had been sent, but one group of six had vectored close to that screen, which had been maneuvering to rejoin the main body. That served as a warning that another attack was coming in, and the alert jangled the nerves of the crews yet again. The intruding Vampires had ventured inside the 21 mile range of the HQ-16’s, so the DDG screen engaged. They sent six SAM’s out, but only got two kills, and saw the Tomahawks making an evasive maneuver, much to their surprise. Before they could lock on and fire again, the Vampires had slipped beyond range.
As they began to reach the main body, now 36 miles to the northeast, HQ’9’s came out to greet them. Over the next 15 minutes, the Vampires came in twos and threes, and some got close enough to require three missiles fired before they were killed. No hits were scored, but the attack left only three HQ-9’s and 20 HQ-16’s in the VLS bays. After that, it would be up to the short range HQ-10, a last ditch defender inside the five mile range marker. Enemy missiles that got that close were very dangerous, with a strong chance of scoring hits.
That attack concluded, the New Jersey Group would now throw another 30 missiles, and look to get even for the loss of DDG Sherman. They would approach in a fairly tight group, with the course plotted to avoid the screening group. The first Vampires were picked up at 21:10 as they passed through the 20 mile range mark, and 30 seconds later the last three HQ-9’s went out into the fray. As Sun Wei watched them go, rising from the forward deck of the Dragon God, he realized that he should have left all his YJ-100’s at Karachi, and simply filled his VLS Bays with SAM’s, but it was too late for second thoughts now.
Those last three missiles got just one kill, and now the frigate Weifang began firing its eight remaining HQ-16’s. FFG Nantong joined in, the missiles soaring over the destroyers and heading out towards the horizon. Explosions glowed in the sky, and the sound of thunder rolled back at then Chinese ships. Soon the Vampires broke through the five mile marker, and DDG Chaoyong now began firing a hissing stream of HQ-10’s. All but one missile in the first two trains was killed, but a leaker was boring in on DDG Feilong, the Flying Dragon.
Captain Chen Wang had reported his ship was now depleted of all SAM’s. The once powerful super destroyer was now weaker than an old frigate from the 1980’s. All it had left were its ASROC’s and Gatling guns, which began to rattle out a stream of fire at the last Vampire. Two precious laser turrets sat inoperative, because the power couplings had not been finished.
The guns scored the kill, but then over a dozen more Vampires appeared from the southeast. Longshen and Yingshen, the other two Type 055’s, still had HQ-10’s and they began to fire. They were barely enough to stop that attack, and as the smoke began to clear in a light breeze over the fleet, Admiral Sun Wei knew the desperate hours had come upon them. The next attack would see death and destruction delivered to his proud fleet. Yet for now, he had work to do.
“Signal all ships reporting SAM depletion to take stations to port side and aft of the main body,” he said.
Those that still had weapons would now stand in the front rank.
Chapter 27
Help was coming, the Seafire Class destroyers in the screening group that had not yet been attacked. Six in that class and one frigate were rushing to the scene on an intercept heading, and together they would combine to add 184 HQ-16’s to the defense. That would extend the SAM shield to at least 20 miles, and Sun Wei hoped that might buy the fleet several hours before things got worse.
In the meantime, far to the north, The Indian Navy was given a most unexpected order. There had been ongoing “incidents” along the line in the Punjab, with exchanges of artillery fire, and even air strikes delivered on both sides. India was weary of the constant antagonism of the Pakistani Government, and now New Delhi saw the injudicious sortie by the Pakistani Karachi Command as a perfect means of punishing them.