Admiral Sun Wei knew he was still in grave danger and more ships could be added to that list before he reached Colombo. The fleet was largely SAM depleted. Only two Seafire Class destroyers still had any missile defense, Haifeng and Haiying, and between them they mustered only 27 HQ-10’s. The only thing he could do was station them starboard of the main body, and press on. If the enemy still had weapons to fling at him, he knew he was going to lose more ships and men, but he had one last option.
At Karachi, the Type 055 Class destroyers had moved one of their helicopters to other ships to make room in the hangar for crates of reserve ordnance. In the heat of battle, it could not be touched, and was left sitting there, somewhat of a liability if the ship was ever hit aft. That is undoubtedly what helped kill the Dragon God, he thought. That explosion AFT was much too robust from a GBU bomb hit, which is what first damaged the ship and cut its speed. Yet Eagle God and Flying Dragon might attempt to reload their twin external HQ-10 mounts, which held 24 missiles each.
The seas are calm, thought Sun Wei, and I do not think the enemy could strike us now for another five or six hours. We are desperate, so this simply must be attempted. Those were small, easily handled missiles, just six feet in length and weighing only 44 pounds. As for the long range HQ-9’s, they weighed 1.4 tons each, and measured 22 feet in length. Missiles that large and heavy needed special dock-side handling equipment to manage them, and had to be vertically loaded with a crane, so it was impossible to replenish them at sea.
He gave the order that all engineers were to move to at least reload the HQ-10 systems, and even summoned techs from other ships to assist. Anything would help, perhaps enough to survive one more attack, and he might save many lives. So in those last hours of darkness, the engineers worked feverishly, opening crates and moving ordnance.
DDG Yingshen had taken moderate damage, but had most systems still working. The Eagle God reported they could move 48 HQ-10s to the external deck mounts. The Flying Dragon, where the Admiral now set his flag, was in better shape, and they would also uncrate and mount 48 HQ-10’s. This ship has also received two of the new laser turrets, but work on the power couplings was not finished. So the engineers made that a top priority to get the ship some additional defensive capability. The two remaining Type 052D class destroyers, Chaoyong and Naning, reported they could each replenish their HQ-10’s in the external canisters.
Eagle God was limping and could only make 20 knots, and as the Admiral was not willing to abandon that ship, the TF set its speed to match that. Seafire class Haihuo was down to 8 knots, and that ship was detached to fare for itself. It would attempt to negotiate entry to an Indian port, if that could possibly be arranged. India had not declared for the Western Alliance, and they had harbored a damaged US destroyer, so they agreed to take this one Chinese ship as a good faith gesture, and possibly to ease tensions with China if they could.
Aboard the Independence, XO Cooper also had some bad news to give Captain Holmes. “Sir,” he began, “we’re running out of stones to throw. I can get you five planes rigged with Slammers, but that will be the last of those missiles. LRASM is depleted, and then anything else we throw will have to be the GBU-53. There’s enough for one Squadron, and after that, we’re out of business, unless you want to move to JSOW. The soonest we could go with any of that would be 08:00.”
“What do we look like with the Tomahawks?” asked the Captain.
“We have 61 TacToms and 44 MMT’s, and that includes everything the New Jersey Group has.”
“Better have Hap Turner’s ships join us then. We’ll operate together as one group now. SAM Inventory?”
“Not a problem sir. That would give us 88 SM-6 and just over 600 ESSM’s. We’re well defended.”
“Good. Very well, Mister Cooper. Get that message to Turner. I’ll be in my ready room.”
The Captain would mull his situation over for the next five hours, and also request any order or feedback from OMCOM. In effect, the carrier now had the means of making just one normal strike, with a follow up using JSOW.
Those bombs hit hard, he thought. The AGM-154C JSOW had a thousand pound two stage armor penetrating warhead that could tear a ship apart. They were ship wreckers to be sure, but the planes delivering them needed to be inside 45 miles. I don’t think that would be a problem now. We didn’t see a single HQ-9 come at us during that last attack, so I’m betting they ran dry on those. They won’t have anything else that could get beyond 20 miles.
He smiled.
I have the means, he knew. I can tear what’s left of that fleet apart, ship by ship. The only reason I hesitate at all is that it will leave this carrier toothless after I’m done. I’ll have to retire to Diego Garcia for full replenishment.
He got on the secure data inventory system and looked up Diego Garcia. They had enough in the nest to get him squared away, but after that, even that arsenal would have to await the next convoy from the states. They had been throwing a lot of lead around out there, and the weapons were expensive monsters that were in limited supply. There had been just enough delivered to Salaha in the 1st USMC convoy to replenish Roosevelt, and Diego Garcia had only one typical carrier magazine load remaining for his use.
I’ll let OMCOM make the call, he thought, and slept on it. At 08:00 he had his answer. He was ordered to use his own prudent judgment and continue to put harm on the enemy while preserving as much of his Strike Group’s combat power as possible. OMCOM had punted.
After a well-deserved breakfast in the wardroom, the Captain looked over his ready board and made a decision. Then he went up to the bridge to watch the Hawkeye rotation and morning CAP deployment. At a little after 09:00, he would send his order to the Air Boss, and then he got on the ship’s intercom.
“All hands, this is the Captain. We’ve been out here after these guys for the last week, and now we got them on the run. If we wait for them to gain the safety of a friendly port, then we’re going to have to do this all over again to wear them down for the count. I know we’re going to put men in the sea now, and sink ships, and believe me, I take no pleasure in that. But that’s what we’re here for, and we’re going to do our job and finish the mission. Until and unless they end this, and we reach a diplomatic solution, then it’s on us to do our very best to prevail. Strike groups, man your planes, and go get ‘em. That is all.”
As he hung up the handset, he could hear cheers throughout the ship. The crew was fired up, and ready to finish the job. At 09:15 that morning the first flights of assigned strike planes began taking off.
The previous night, Captain Holmes had thought about what his XO said, knowing he had some heavy metal in that JSOW ordnance. So he had sent down the word that he wanted two flights of three to carry that weapon in close, believing they would not be facing a heavy SAM threat now.