Harada’s time in training with the US Navy had seen him pick up a lot of the typical slang bantered about by their sailors. Now he looked to his radar station. “What was that contact, Lieutenant?”
“Had to be a missile sir. I’m figuring it was a P-900.”
“Get a line on its angle of approach?”
“Aye sir, just a few seconds, but it traces out to our estimated position based on SIGINT data.”
“Good enough. So who are they shooting at, and why all the way on the other side of the damn island?”
“Sir, that’s right at the Lazarus ferry crossing site,” said Michi Ikida, the ship’s navigator.
“So there must be an operation underway there,” said Fukada. They’d want that ferry site to establish communications with the mainland. It’s also the choke point on the strait. They can set up artillery there and then control access to the mouth of the Amur River from the south. How do you want to play this, Captain?”
“I don’t see anything we can do for that situation at the moment. Our watch is out here on the Sea of Okhotsk. The Siberians know that we’ll reinforce from Hokkaido, but they don’t seem too awfuly concerned about it.”
“They’ve accepted that in lieu of getting their own troops ashore in the north.”
“It sure seems that way. Well, once they are ashore, and well established, then they’ll push south. That’s when this Mizuchi comes south right along with them, and the fur starts flying. So this is my plan.”
He walked over toward the navigation station, looking over the map on Ikida’s screen. “We’ll move here,” he said, pointing to the long spit of land that framed the eastern edge of Taraika Bay. “We’ll take up station just west of that isthmus. We’ll know they are coming, but they won’t expect us here. Hovering west of that long isthmus gives us a little screen from their Fregat system. We stay silent, EMCON Alpha. But my bet is we’ll hear them coming like a bull in a China closet. They’ll be radiating, just like they are now, and when they get close, we get our friends to attack with any land based air power they have on lower Sakhalin. During that attack, we pop up a Sea King, and fix their location. Kurita must have his carrier based aircraft ready and also vectoring in on them at this time. With any luck they’ll just think it’s another plane. Then we throw everything we have at them, all eight Type 1 SSMs, and we keep our fingers crossed. Comments?”
“An excellent plan,” said Fukada. “But I have the icing for the cake. If we have them inside 50 klicks at that time, then we should use the deck gun as well. If not, then we should definitely use the rail gun.”
“The rail gun? It was meant for missile and aircraft threats.”
“True enough, but it can also lob that projectile out 200 Kilometers at Mach 7—and they can’t stop it. If we get a hit, it might be the equivalent of a 90mm gun for the damage it could do. There’s no explosive power, but it will damn well ruin any system it might hit on that Russian ship.”
“Very well, I’ll consider that. Anyone else? Mister Honjo, you’ve got the CIC. Any thoughts?”
“Just give me a target, sir. But I agree with what the XO says. If we go offensive, then we throw anything we have that might put damage on that ship.”
“Alright. Where do we want Kurita in all of this?” The Captain waited, but as expected, Fukada was first to answer.
“He’ll want to be aggressive once cut loose from that convoy escort. Those troops should be ashore by tomorrow morning. He’ll come looking for trouble after that.”
“Think we can dissuade him?”
“Why should we?”
“You want to expose those ships to a Moskit II barrage?”
“The more targets Kirov has to worry about, the better. I’d say we should let him sortie up the east coast as a fast surface action threat. Let Kirov take their shots, and then we can go after his SSMs—assuming they survive what we just discussed when we bushwhack them.”
“And the carriers?”
“They shouldn’t be anywhere near the action. I’d make a strong request that they operate from the lower Tatar Strait. Sakhalin Island will shield them from possible detection, but when they launch, those strike waves should fly due east, then turn northeast to overfly our position. They’ll have plenty of range. If they fly direct to the target, they’ll give away their bearing.”
“I agree, and I’ll see if I can make it so. Let’s just hope the Japanese cooperate. They can have a mind of their own, and as far as they are concerned, we’re just an auxiliary screening unit attached to Kurita’s group.”
“Well we need to get a handle on this. The way you have it planned, we might have a good chance to saturate Kirov’s defense. Maybe at least one of our missiles will get through. This is going to be interesting.”
“It’s going to be dangerous. Don’t anyone forget that. This is no drill, because if they get one missile through….” He didn’t have to finish.
Rodenko was the first to go to Karpov with the oddities discovered by Nikolin. The Admiral had been very pleased with operations now underway in North Sakhalin. He had dealt with that pesky Japanese destroyer, and his brother self concluded the seizure of the ferry site at Lazarus. Now he had the choke point on the Tatar Strait, and could position shore batteries there to prevent any further incursion by Japanese surface ships in the waters north of that point. This was important, because the next division he planned to sealift would go directly to the Amur River delta, where he would begin a buildup of forces there to secure that region and prepare for the drive that might eventually take him to Vladivostok.
On Sakhalin itself, he secured Okha, and then his tough Siberian troops quickly pushed south towards the oil fields. A battalion of the 25th Karafuto Brigade had been holding out there, with engineers trying to set charges. The fast moving Siberians stormed into the region, pushing swiftly through their resistance and securing the fields. Some sustained damage, but that did not matter. The oil was there, and it could not be destroyed. Karpov had what he wanted, and by May 22nd he had control of the top third of Sakhalin Island, as far south as Lazarev.
For their part, Kurita’s first objective in getting troops from the 7th Division from Sapporo to the lowermost Ezu Province on Karafuto had gone off unchallenged. Karpov, with limited sealift, deemed it essential that Kirov stand off Okha Harbor and protect those landings. If that meant he would permit the Japanese to reinforce from the south, so be it. His real intention at this stage was securing that valuable terrain, for there were airfields there that he could trade with the Americans like pearls for supplies and equipment.
The Admiral had been warned by Fedorov that the Japanese would have to respond to his incursions, but Karpov felt he could deal with them easily enough. “If they attempt to interfere with my landings, they will regret it,” he said. “At the moment, there isn’t even a whisper of protest from the Japanese Navy. Perhaps they’ve learned to fear and respect me, as they should.”
“Sir,” said Rodenko, “speaking of whispers. Nikolin and I have been trying to run down the source of some odd signals activity down south.”
“Explain.”
“Well sir, Nikolin thought he was hearing some high speed frequency hopping. That would be the kind of thing we might do in sending signals to friendly units with our equipment. But he thinks he located that traffic well south, so it wasn’t any activity from our sets in the airship fleet.”