Nine F-35’s were going to be tasked for this initial strike, six with JSOW and three with the GBU-53 to lead the attack. Six more Avenger II’s would take off carrying the SLAM-ER, four missiles each. They would get into range and orbit until called. The strike would be led by six F-35’s on escort, and the Growlers would get into the game to work over the enemy electronics.
The SLAM Flight got inside 60 miles undetected and released, and the Avengers were cleared hot as they did so. The six planes carrying JSOW continued to close until they got the word.
“JSOW, JSOW, ram it home.”
“Roger that, Bertha, We are Winchester.”
Admiral Sun Wei stood on the bridge, the Flying Dragon leading the formation south. When the attack alarms rang, he heard the crews rushing, and now they would unleash the precious missiles they had labored so hard to make ready for this hour. As the HQ-10’s began to fire, he gave the order to deploy and use the new laser turrets that were now operational on his ship, and they proved to be very deadly. The smoke rose about the fleet as the missiles fired, the smell of the rocket fuel heavy in the air. Then he saw the lasers lancing through the haze, only visible because of that smoke, and soon he heard distant explosions indicating they had score kills.
All the action was inside the five mile line, and it was far more tense and exacting without the HQ-9’s able to engage out to 80 miles. Now you could both see and hear the incoming enemy missiles, and the grinding fire from the 30mm guns filled the air, the rounds streaming out to try and shred the Vampires and knock them out. They beat down the first wave, about two dozen contacts, and the lasers got four kills. Twelve more Vampires followed, the JSOW with the tandem BROACH warhead and a heavy punch. They would come in sets of two, on a front six miles wide.
Flying Dragon’s lasers flashed in anger, firing, retargeting, and firing again. While the HQ-10’s were struggling to lock on, his lasers were able to track and fire, getting an astounding ten kills as the Vampires crossed the 10 mile range marker.
“Yes!” he said. “Why did we wait so long to get those weapons on-line? They are fearsome defenders!”
He breathed in, finally seeing just a little hope that they might survive. The alarm rang yet again as the final wave approached, this time the 24 Slammers that had been brought in by the Avengers. Again, it was the incredible effectiveness of the laser turrets that decided the hour, chewing right through the small trains of missiles and damaging them enough to send them into the sea. It was an evolutionary leap in fleet defense, only installed on about a third of the Type 055’s, but this was the first time it had proven itself to be a reliable shield. Quite literally, the Slammers were defeated in a flash, the lighting swift and unerringly targeted lasers ripping the attack apart.
Two missiles got very close to the wounded Eagle God near the end of the formation, and Sun Wei held his breath when he saw Vampires close inside two miles. HQ-10’s fired, and got the last just 500 meters from the ship. The radar screens were now blank, and the bridge crew cheered in jubilation. The men had feared this might be their last battle, but they had survived.
Back aboard the Independence, Captain Holmes had been listening to his pilots during the attack, and he heard them call out the word lasers more than a few times. The Chinese had brought something to the game here that he did not expect, and swatted his ordnance down. Why weren’t they using this weapon earlier? Word came soon after.
“Strike leader to Mother. No Joy. We are RTB. Over.”
The enemy had a new magic wand.
The next surprise was the sudden appearance of J-20 fighters, picked up by the Daywatch Flight out on the right flank of the operation. They called in bogies and then engaged, with their AIM-260’s, getting a kill and driving the enemy down on the deck. The remaining five came roaring back up into the fight, closing on the Growlers and shooting one of them down, before the escort burned south to get at them with their AAMRAM’s. All six enemy fighters would be killed in that melee, proving the superiority of the US pilots, if nothing else.
When he got the report on that from Cooper, Captain Holmes knew the situation had changed. Apparently the Chinese had loaded up with fighters at Colombo, and the J-20 now had the range to get far enough out to assist their comrades on the sea. That may have been a CAP patrol, but now they would be certain to double down on that tactic, and the next time they could come in force, providing as much air cover as they could.
He liked the kill ratio in that fight, six to one, and with none of the F-35’s lost in the action. Yet he lost another Growler, and knew they would be easy targets when deployed to support a strike. In this kind of atmosphere, with 5th generation stealth fighters ruling the skies, it was a case of use them and lose them for any 4th generation fighter. Even the upgraded Eagle-X fighters had a rough time earlier out of bases in Oman.
In his mind, the strike had gone bust, and he would now have to think things over before he put together another attack. I thought I had this guy down on the mat for the final pin, he mused. Then he goes and pulls a knife on me.
He looked at his ready board and saw that he had plenty of fighters, but only four more Avengers ready now with 16 GBU-53’s each. It wouldn’t be enough, he knew. Not seeing the effectiveness of their laser defense. I’d have to bulk up again, and throw all 44 remaining Tomahawks with those 64 GBU’s and then that would leave me an empty shell with a ticket to Diego Garcia—New Jersey too. I was to operate against the enemy while preserving the striking power of this task force, and that is all I’ve got left on the deck right now. I could go to more JSOW’s, but they were swept right out of the sky in this last attack.
Damnit, he swore inwardly. I had their number, and now they may get to Colombo after all. I’ll need time to recover planes, and then another six hours to beef up the package before I could hit them again. The earliest we could rumble would be right around sunset.
And I’ll bet that cagey Admiral out there knows that….
The enemy operation ended at 10:30 on the 22nd, and Sun Wei knew he had just won priceless time here. He was now only 382 miles from Colombo, and he could shave another 150 miles off that before the enemy might be ready to strike him again. That would put him under heavy air cover, and long last.
The lasers, he thought. The lasers!
We must get those modules on each and every heavy destroyer we have. I will propose sweeping changes to standard fleet loadouts now.
This changes everything.
Chapter 29
“We’re not done,” said Captain Holmes. He adjusted his eyeglasses and looked over a clipboard, a stickler for paper based reports in the digital age. So that’s the way XO Cooper fed it to him, the whole shebang when it came to what was still in the carrier magazine.
There were things in there that they would seldom use in these long range naval duels. His wariness for committing his Growlers to anti-radiation attacks because of their vulnerability to enemy fighters had left a good deal of those munitions in stock, and they had standoff ranges at 70 miles. The Avengers could each carry four, and so he ordered five of those planes to rig out with the new advanced ant-radiation missile, the AGM-88E. Five more Avengers could carry GBU-53, (16 per plane), finishing up the inventory on that weapon. That would put 100 weapons in the air, but he had more tricks up his sleeve.