Vessels moored in harbor: 9 battleships, 3 class B cruisers, 3 seaplane tenders, 17 destroyers.
In the foothills of Aiea, not far from where Yoshikawa stood while surveying Pearl Harbor, is Camp H. M. Smith, home to the United States Pacific Command. Within Camp Smith, accessing satellite surveillance is the Cruise Missile Support Activity, Pacific, providing precision targeting, route planning, and strike management for Tomahawk cruise missile missions. Today, in the early morning hours, the men and women at their workstations were busy reviewing the product of their reconnaissance.
Red icons had populated their displays, and each mission planner, assigned a small section of Iran’s southern coast, was busy transmitting GPS coordinates. Thirty minutes earlier, three guided missile submarines, each loaded with a full complement of 154 Tomahawk missiles, had launched a fraction of their ordnance. However, the eighty missiles had been launched without destination coordinates. The missiles were circling just above the surface of the Arabian Sea, not far from the Iranian coast, waiting.
The Tomahawk missiles fired by the three guided missile submarines were Block IV Tactical Tomahawks, or TacToms, which could loiter after launch, doing doughnuts in the air while awaiting targeting information. Although Tomahawk missiles were extremely accurate, it took hours for launch orders to be generated, transmitted, and loaded aboard older variants prior to firing. During that time, enemy units could reposition, resulting in the Tomahawk destroying a vacant building or deserted patch of dirt. The TacTom missile overcame this deficit, already launched and loitering nearby while it waited for its final GPS coordinate, reducing the time between target identification and ordnance-on-target from hours to mere minutes.
The Tomahawk mission planners were busy sending coordinates of the Russian missile batteries that had fired on the incoming waves of F/A-18 fighters, which had been used as bait. They worked quickly, hoping each TacTom reached its target before the missile battery repositioned. For those that moved or hadn’t opened fire yet, the mission planners had several hundred more TacToms at their disposal.
71
MOSCOW
President Yuri Kalinin, accompanied by General Sergei Andropov, his chief of the general staff and senior military advisor, traveled briskly down the corridor, entering the Operations Center in the Kremlin basement. There was an eerie silence within, as the men and women monitored the red and blue symbols on their screens, with blue ones appearing at a steady rate while red ones disappeared.
The Operations Officer on duty greeted President Kalinin, then briefed him on America’s assault on Russian forces. The runways and hangars of every Iranian base housing Russian tactical aircraft had been destroyed, and they’d lost two-thirds of their mobile missile batteries on the Iranian coast.
He concluded with, “The United States prepared well for this attack and their intentions are clear. They aim to destroy our ability to blockade the Persian Gulf.” He added, “The main battle is about to begin. The American air wings will engage our surface ships, and Admiral Shimko has ordered our submarines to sink the American carriers.”
Kalinin could barely contain his fury, both at the United States and at his senior military aide. General Andropov had assured him there would be no war between Russia and the United States. Their blackmail plan, placing a stranglehold on Western Europe’s natural resources, would restrain them. His thoughts shifted to his discussion with Christine O’Connor on the Kremlin Senate balcony, where he’d explained that Americans didn’t understand Russians. Now, it was painfully clear that Russians didn’t understand Americans either. They were cutting the throats of their allies; Kalinin would destroy their oil and natural gas pipelines and their economies would sputter, throwing their countries into chaos.
Perhaps the Americans didn’t believe him and were calling his bluff. He turned to his chief of the general staff.
“Destroy several pipelines and pumping stations, including America’s Alaskan oil pipeline. That should get their attention.”
72
GULF OF OMAN
Twenty minutes earlier, as a wave of Russian missiles surged from the Iranian coast, Houston and the other F/A-18 pilots had turned tail and run, increasing speed as they dropped close to the ocean waves. The tactic worked well. They had outrun the first barrage of missiles while the TacToms destroyed two-thirds of the Russian missile launchers. Another wave of Tactical Tomahawks was inbound, with mission planners in Hawaii assigning their targets as more Russian missile batteries revealed their locations.
With the majority of the shore-based missile batteries destroyed, Houston and the other pilots turned back toward the Russian surface ships. However, over one hundred Russian aircraft lay ahead, forming a protective ring just beyond the range of the F/A-18s’ anti-ship missiles. This time, however, Houston and his fellow pilots weren’t going to run.
Truman’s first cycle of aircraft slowed and the other three cycles pulled alongside, forming a two-level front of seventy-two F/A-18s interspersed with eight electronic jamming Growlers. The Super Hornets needed to get close enough to the Russian surface combatants to launch their AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. With only nineteen surface combatants to destroy, Houston’s fighter was loaded with a single Harpoon, with the other ten hardpoints carrying anti-air missiles. Making it through the Russian fighters was the challenge.
When the Russian aircraft were within range of his radar-homing AMRAAM anti-air missiles, Houston and the other F/A-18 pilots fired a two-missile volley, knowing the Russian pilots were doing the same, like two armies of archers shooting guided arrows at each other. Houston watched his missiles close on the Russian jets while his Radar Warning Receiver alerted, displaying incoming air-to-air missiles. He fired a second volley, keeping two AMRAAMs and four Sidewinder infrared-seeking missiles in reserve.
The Russians also fired a second volley, and as the first wave of missiles closed on the F/A-18 formation, Houston focused on avoiding them. He was fortunate, flying beside one of the EA-18G Growlers. As the missiles approached, his Radar Warning Receiver indicated the missiles had failed to lock on to his aircraft. The Growler’s electronic jamming worked well. Just in case, Houston broke left as other Super Hornets took evasive action. As the first wave of missiles passed by, pinpricks of light illuminated the darkness. After checking his radar display, Houston determined they’d lost six aircraft.
The next wave of missiles approached quickly, and Houston’s Radar Warning Receiver told him the missiles had radar-seeking heads and that at least one had locked on to his aircraft. Right before the missile arrived, Houston dispensed a burst of chaff, then broke right. His jet veered out of the way as the missile headed toward the chaff, attracted by the cloud of aluminum-coated glass fibers.
After verifying the missile continued straight ahead instead of turning back toward his aircraft, Houston examined his display again. Another five aircraft lost. Still, there were sixty-one Super Hornets remaining, and a quick scan told Houston their AMRAAM missiles had performed well, destroying twenty-two Russian fighters. The odds were starting to even, but Houston and his fellow pilots were still outnumbered.
The two formations of aircraft closed on each other, and had it been daylight, they’d have been within visual range. Houston had several targets to choose from, and after identifying a gap he’d try to slip through, he targeted the two nearest fighters with his remaining AMRAAM missiles. Houston kicked in his afterburners, increasing speed.