Either the Chinese were screwing up, or the intelligence was flawed.
The strategy room’s huge tabletop was covered with a large-scale chart of the Lushun/Penglai Gap. Northern Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan held a long pole in his hand, the end of the instrument shaped like a hoe, used for moving small ship models on the table. He had arranged a fleet of destroyers and frigates to the west of the gap, the ships organized in a forward deployed mobile force, a hunter-killer group. In the northern Bohai Haixia Strait, at the channel entrance, a large force of attack vessels was stationed. The zone in between the forward force and the channel entrance force was filled with the symbols of helicopters and Yak-36A VTOL planes.
Leader Tien Tse-Min stared at the chart from its west end.
“Give me the pointer,” he said, reaching for Chu’s implement.
“Sir, this is the way the fleet should be deployed,” Chu protested, but handed over the hoe anyway.
Tien pulled all the ships and aircraft to a corner of the table, and began setting them up his way. When he had finished, Chu nearly felt sick. Instead of having a forward-deployed force searching in the east corner of the bay at the approaches to the gap, Tien had arranged most of the destroyers and frigates at the entrance and exit of the smaller channel to the south, the Strait of Miaodao. The surface forces had been relegated to the positions of sentries, gate guards. He had put a token surface force at the throat of the wider Bohai Haixia Strait, at the exit of which the Shaoguan was positioned.
“The submarines,” Tien went on, “will transit through the southern strait, here at Miaodao. They may execute a feint to the north but they will be headed through the southern channel. I have arranged a gate-keeper force here at the entrance, another here at the exit. The center throat of the channel will be mined with acoustic and contact mines. Fast patrol boats will be stationed on either side of the mined area. And to ensure that the Americans are not tempted to change their plans and go through the northern passage at Haixia I have stationed an impressive though small force at the midpoint of the channel, with the Shaoguan at the exit of the channel.”
Chu almost laughed. It was obvious to him that Tien was placing himself out of the combat zone by ordering the aircraft carrier to the farthest point from the anticipated action in the southern passage.
“Sir, the Americans will transit through the north channel, not the south. The Strait of Miaodao is much too tight, only a kilometer wide at the throat. They will have no room to maneuver there.”
“Yes. That is why they will go to the southern passage. Since it is tight they will assume we will neglect it. But I am not assuming, Chu. My intelligence people assure me they will go to the southern passage.”
“Please, tell me how they know that, sir. We have not even been able to track the subs after they left Tianjin. One aircraft was blown up trying to follow up a possible detection. An enemy radio transmission turned out to be a false alarm. So how do you know where the Americans will go?”
“I know the mind of the American commander like my own.”
“Because you interrogated him?” He didn’t say “tortured.”
“And, sir, we know nothing of the mind of the commander of the rescue sub.”
“Or commanders, Chu. There are more than one, which is another reason we will use a gate-keeper force instead of a mobile force.”
“Sir, grouping a task force together like this in restricted waters is like lining them up in a shooting gallery.”
“No. If the Americans shoot they give away their location. When and if that happens we launch the helicopters and Yaks from the Shaoguan and together with the missiles and depth charges and torpedoes of the main and auxiliary forces we will prevail.”
Chu reluctantly nodded, seeing that even though the plan was flawed, it just might barely suffice.
“Can we at least strengthen the northern task force, just in case?” Chu calculated, betting that Tien was a coward. “That would better protect this vessel in case of an ambitious, suicidal American escape plan.”
“Yes, yes, I believe you are right about that. Perhaps a few more destroyers and frigates.”
“And this zone to the west of the northern task force — it should be patrolled by helicopters continuously. Similarly for the sea to the east, between the task force and us.”
“No,” Tien said quickly. “The area to the west is a free-fire zone for Silex rocket-launched depth bombs. If there are friendly aircraft there the Udaloy destroyers cannot launch the rocket units. And we will need to keep our aircraft in a state of readiness onboard Shaoguan, so that they will have sufficient fuel when the Americans disclose their position, which will be when they fire on the southwest gate-guard task force.”
Chu sighed, realizing Tien was using the aircraft to protect the carrier, and thereby his own hide. But then, Chu thought, what benefit would come from exposing his own son to the murderous weapons of the rescue submarine, the one that could reach up into the sky and shoot down helicopters? Again he remembered a promise to the boy’s mother that he would never allow his own son to come to needless harm.
“Very well. Leader Tien. I will deploy the fleet as you have ordered.”
“No need, Fleet Commander. I have already given the orders, the fleet is already deployed.”
Chu stared at Tien, who only smiled pleasantly.
“Well, men, what’s it look like?” Pacino asked the four senior officers bent over the stateroom’s conference table.
Keebes stood up and pointed to the chart. Instead of being covered with grease-pencil marks it was crowded with pieces from a Monopoly game. Rows of red houses and green hotels were arranged in lines, and the tin battleship and dog and iron board pieces were put in places deemed significant.
“Sir, I took the liberty of raiding Captain Duckett’s game cabinet. He used to like Monopoly. Anyway, the dog game piece is us, you know, dog for Seawolf. The battleship is the Chinese aircraft carrier, the iron is the Tampa, since it has no weapons it’s dead iron. The hotels are major combatants, the Udaloys, the Luhus. The houses are the other destroyers and frigates. Thumbtacks are choppers, paper clips are VTOL jets, and the Han and Ming subs are dice. We ran out of stuff, so where we wanted to indicate mines we just spit on the table.”
Pacino smiled.
“Go on, XO.”
“Well, sir, we put a force of destroyers and frigates out here, in the approaches to the bay, sort of a mobile search-and-destroy outfit. Then we put a bunch of choppers out there to search in open water, some over the channels. We’re assuming the northern passage is the exit point, and we put sentry task forces at the entrance and exit, including the carrier at the exit. Just a token force here in the southern passage at Miaodao, couple PT boats, a few choppers. Jets patrolling here, rotating back to the carrier in sections to get refueled. It’s leakproof, sir. You’ll never get out of this.”
Keebes must have listened to his last sentence, because his light tone vanished.
Pacino examined the chart for a long time, nodding.
“That’s pretty much how I saw it,” he said.
“So how do we get out, Skipper? And what did we tell Tampa?”
“You guys won’t believe this,” Pacino said, glancing at the intelligence message on the clipboard. He began pulling off hotels, game pieces, thumbtacks and paper clips.
“The main entrance to the northern passage at Bohai Haixia is wide open. Nothing there for twenty five miles. Then a small surface force patrolling at the throat of the channel. Two Udaloys, four Ludas, a few fast frigates. Then nothing all the way to the carrier, which is here, only five miles from international waters.