To some extent, the evolution of the Gator Navy to deploy and use the F-35 was a step in the right direction, but when it came to the real work, facing down these massive flotillas and fleets the Chinese sent to sea, it was the Carrier Strike Group that prevailed time and time again.
90 Chinese warships had been sunk, a staggering total that has seen their navy swept from the seas and sent into retreat to the homeland. Submarines had taken the greatest toll, sinking nearly a third of those ships, with 28 confirmed kills and HMS Anson leading the pack getting eight of those. The Siberians were in second place, with 19 ships sunk, including three carriers, and they were the overall winners for actual tonnage sunk if that mattered. Then the US carriers had put 17 ships under the sea, with Holmes on the Independence leading that group with eight kills, and the Roosevelt right behind him with seven.
The Chinese had reinforced their Indian Ocean Fleet by withdrawing from the Med, to a point where Admiral Sun Wei once had 40 warships and six submarines under his command. He reached Colombo with eight, leaving three others behind in friendly or neutral ports. That was a staggering loss of 29 ships, and all the waters they had thought to contest and control, from Aden to Karachi. They had, in turn, sunk 12 British ships and one American Destroyer, (Sherman), damaging one more, (Grant). Any way you counted it, that 29 to 13 score was a thumping defeat, and it was achieved by the Roosevelt, Independence, and a handful of lethal submarines.
No “Distributed Lethality” was involved.
The Navy had concentrated its offensive and defensive power in those Carrier Strike Groups, both the sword and shield of the USN. The carriers were every bit as effective as they had been in WWII, if not more so. One big deck supercarrier was now doing the work that whole fleets of carriers did under Halsey’s command. That roving airfield at sea, with a lethal, stealthy strike wing, was a big reason the war was now so lop-sided, with Kudos to the undersea fleet as well. That was the same carrier-sub combination that had won WWII in the Pacific Theater.
The undersea fleet of China had some success, but it was too slow to ever really threaten an American Carrier when that force was skillfully operated. The Americans stayed out in the Deep Blue, where the Chinese Fleet sailed at their own peril. From there, far from littoral waters where the diesel boats might operate, they struck at their whim with that devastating air wing, and the US conversion of the Tomahawk to the Maritime Strike Missile gave the supporting destroyers and cruisers a reach of 1500 miles on offense with that weapon. Their inventories of TACTOM’s were also hounding and pounding all the vital support bases the Chinese relied upon. The United States Navy had simply cut the so called “String of Pearls” to pieces. They had taught China the most important lesson of the war—you cannot control your maritime lines of communication.
Period.
It was a lesson that both Wu Jinlong and now Sun Wei had learned in the hardest possible way. China had counted too heavily on unproven technology with its DF-21D’s. In that duel, when Standard Missile-3 had shown itself capable of defending the fleet from ballistic missile attack, China had lost that great fearsome trump card. After that, the only way it could engage the American carriers was with the YJ-100, and there were just not enough of those missiles to do the job.
“I might have held out another few weeks at Karachi,” said Sun Wei. “I had good air cover there, though the Pakistani Air Force was useless, as was their navy.”
“Yes,” said Shen Jinlong. “You may have seen the report, but there was a flareup with India, and their navy inflicted severe losses on the Pakistani fleet.”
“So they have fled to Karachi, as I was forced to do,” said Sun Wei. “This shameful withdrawal now cedes the Persian Gulf to the West.”
“Not until they fight their way in,” said Shen Jinlong.
“They will turn to those operations directly. I have not had time to follow the news from Iraq. Can you brief me?”
“No good news there,” said the Fleet Admiral. “The Western Coalition forces have encircled Baghdad in the north, and liberated Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the south. They have even gone so far as to seize many oil fields in southern Iraq, including fields where we held the major development contracts. That prompted the Party to send the Army, and a kind of stalemate has developed. We have kept the Majnoon oil fields, and the Army is drawing up offensive plans to take back the West Qurna fields if the Americans do not withdraw from them. But that is not our concern.”
“Yes,” said Sun Wei. “It matters not how much oil we control there if we cannot also control the sea lanes between the Persian Gulf and China. As you can see, Shen Jinlong, that is a task that seems beyond our means.”
“Perhaps, but this is not yet over. Nothing is decided yet. So this is what we will do. I will have the laser turret modules you need for the Eagle God sent immediately. We will also look into installing them on other ships with the necessary space, weight, electrical power, and cooling capacity to accommodate these weapons. Our new LDH carriers, all our remaining aircraft carriers, are perfect candidates. They have the power required, and I will see that every Type 055 gets them as you advise. The Type 052D can also generate sufficient power, and we may be able to install perhaps a single laser turret on those ships.”
“While they last,” Sun Wei said darkly. “What we need is a new missile. Look at the Siberians! Where did they get that battlecruiser, and the deadly hypersonic missiles it carries?”
“That question has been on the lips of many,” said Shen Jinlong. “We can only believe that this is Soviet technology, but we have been working hard on a number of new weapons, with excellent speed and range. You will see them very soon. In the meantime, we must make the best use of the weapons we have. Now we must discuss future operations. You are correct, Sun Wei, we cannot control the sea lanes we decorated with all those distant support bases, our String of Pearls. Except at Karachi, there was never sufficient airfield capacity in and around the bases to enable them to hold out against a concerted attack. Our losses in the Gulf of Aden were most telling. You bested the British Fleet when you outnumbered them, even against their carriers, but when the tables were turned, we lost much.”
“That stone was first thrown by the Americans,” said Sun Wei. “In the first hours of the operation, when our various Task Forces were maneuvering to assemble into the main fleet, the Americans focused on the Aden group, and so weakened it that I had to retire it to replenish. As it happened, that group was never again able to rejoin the fleet, and brave Nanchang made a gallant stand at Aden, but could not hold. Once isolated like that, a task force is extremely vulnerable.”
“Well,” said Shen Jinlong, “you have two airfields at your disposal here on Sri Lanka, and we will keep them well provisioned.”
“Is this my mission? Am I to defend this island?”
“That has not been decided. The General Staff has a mind to recall your entire task force to the south China Sea.”