IX
The Israeli raid had actually caught the Iranians completely by surprise. No sooner had Deputy Secretary Ali Bagheri been assassinated than the very next day, Israeli war planes took out their nuclear facilities at Arak, Esfahan, Natanz and Qom/Fordow. In spite of Netanyahu’s warnings and all of the talk in the international community about keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Iranian political leaders never really believed Israel would attack, especially acting alone. As a result, the Iranians were caught more than a little off guard. Not so, the Americans. Stonewall Jackson’s call to Jim Carmichael had enabled the Pentagon to put the Fifth Fleet on alert that the Israelis would be attacking. Admittedly, the alert only gave the navy a couple hours’ notice, but it was enough for the fleet to get out of harm’s way and increase their patrols.
No sooner had the dust settled at Natanz than the orbiting E-2D Hawkeye radar planes from the USS George Washington picked up a number of Iranian F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats taking off from several airbases in the region. They also detected a lot of surface activity around known — and suspected — missile battery sites. Washington’s CAG already had all but one of his squadrons in the air and the last one would be airborne within five minutes. The Hawkeyes — the eyes of the fleet — were already directing the first two squadrons of F-18’s to the missile batteries that had been detected; the rest of the squadrons would handle the incoming fighters. Washington’s Aegis missile equipped battle group would concentrate on any missiles they managed to launch — but if any of the missile batteries fired the suspected Sunburns, the Fifth Fleet could be in a world of hurt. They needed to take out these missile batteries right away.
The Hawkeyes focused on the missiles first; the planes came second. The airborne battle control officer aboard one of the Hawkeyes vectored in the first of the two squadrons at the land based missiles as soon as they received a launch indication; they were too late to take out those missiles which had already been fired but they could take out the launchers and any missiles stockpiled adjacent to their respective launch sites — and these were eliminated in seconds. The Iranian Phantoms and Tomcats — both of which had been retrofitted to carry the Sunburn missile: the F-4 Phantoms could carry two while the Tomcats only one — received the attention of three Hornet squadrons while the Washington was still shooting off the last of the Hornets. Both the Phantoms and the Tomcats were early versions of much older American Navy and Air Force fighters; consequently, defeating these posed very little problem for the Hornet pilots. However, the first salvo of the Sunburn missiles posed an acute problem for the Washington and its battle group.
“Vampire! Vampire! In bound missile attack! Commander, we have forty-eight incoming missiles, range 115 miles, bearing 010 to 015, speed Mach 3.4.”
“Ok, Wick, let ‘er go,” Commander Andrew Jones said to his radarman, Petty Officer Robert Wickersham, referring to let the computers governing the powerful Aegis class cruiser to go into a fully automatic mode.
Commander Jones served as the Force Anti-Air War Coordinator (AAWC) aboard the Aegis cruiser USS Chancellorsville. The Force Tactical Action Officer (TAO), who technically commanded the aerial battle, served aboard the Washington, but as the ranking anti-air warfare officer aboard the Aegis cruiser, Jones essentially controlled the air battle. In addition, the Chancellorsville had recently received the upgraded Baseline 9 version of the Aegis missile system which networked the entire fleet defense so the defense of the entire fleet could be controlled by one ship — in this case, his ship.
“Yes sir, missiles away!” replied Wickersham, and with that, the Chancellorsville and her sister ship, the USS Antietam, went into a fully automatic mode and began launching their SM-6 surface to air missiles (SAMs). The first salvo consisted of forty-eight SAMs launched from each ship for a total of ninety-six missiles — the two ships would average four missiles fired every second — truly an impressive display — but it still took twenty-four precious seconds to fire the entire first volley. In that time span, the incoming missiles had a fifteen mile spread from those targeted at the beginning of the volley to those at the very end of the first salvo.
“Hit!” yelled out Wickersham, “another hit! and another! Miss, hit, another miss….”
“Sir, range is now fifty-two miles, thirty missiles remaining; launching a second salvo, now,” reported Wickersham rather apprehensively.
“Keep it going, Wick, let her go.”
“Hit! hit! and another,… miss!.. damn, another miss….”
“Range is now twenty-four miles, nineteen missiles remaining! Launching a third salvo, now!”
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus!” Wickersham heard someone pray in the background.
The third salvo of the SM-6 missiles did not fare as well; for some reason, the accuracy of the Standard missiles suffered at the much closer range.
“Range is now 19,000 meters, sir! Fifteen missiles still in bound,” Wickersham called out, sweating profusely, his uniform now thoroughly soaked. “RAMs away!” he announced, referring to the Rolling Airframe Missiles aboard the Washington and two of her destroyer escorts.
“ECM, where are we?” Jones asked his electronic counter measures officer, with a remarkably controlled voice thought Wickersham. Jones knew he was down to about nineteen seconds before the first missile hit one of their ships.
“Almost ready….”
“We’re running out of time.”
“Hit!.. hit!.. miss!.. another miss!.. hit!…”
“Sir, range is now seven thousand meters; seven missiles remaining, sir!”
At this range, all the fleet really had left were the Phalanx CIWS — Close in Weapons System — which amounted to a radar guided Gatling gun firing depleted uranium slugs — and her electronic counter measures. The use of the CIWS truly amounted to knife-fighting range at the speed with which these incoming missiles traveled — approximately one thousand meters per second! At that speed, even if the CIWS hit every one of the remaining missiles, the kinetic energy of the missile could seriously damage or even sink a destroyer. The HMS Sheffield, which had been hit by an Exocet missile in the Falklands war, had suffered all of its damage simply from the kinetic energy of the missile as the warhead had actually failed to detonate. Ironically, the electronic countermeasures aboard the Chancellorsville were very similar to the countermeasures the Israelis used to shut down the Iranian air defense network as they attacked their nuclear sites. The Sunburn missile uses an active radar guidance system — which means it transmits its own signal and is guided by the radar returns it receives. The electronic warfare computers aboard the Chancellorsville had never encountered this missile so it had taken about 165 seconds — seemingly an eternity for the powerful computers aboard the cruiser — to locate the frequency used by the missiles’ guidance system.