He ran down the list in his mind. He had his flagship, Zhendong, the only carrier that could be spared. In support, there were twenty more fighting ships, which included six in the squadron from Viet Nam. That group makes up the bulk of our destroyers, but can they fight? Those ships were all acquired from the French, and Viet Nam is an odd bridge between east and west. They maintained good relations with their old colonial masters, and now they have been wise enough to forsake their enmity with China and become our ally.
Will they fight?
We shall soon see. If not, I still have five destroyers, including two of the new Type 055’s. The rest are frigates, twelve in all, and then there are three submarines. Will it be enough? Will I have enough air cover to protect the invasion group?
There were many questions in Admiral Wu’s mind, for all of this was a great unknown. This initial mission with the Thunder Gods had been the first time any of the ships and crews under his command had been in combat. Now he was sent to engage the Royal Navy, and their reputation cast a long shadow over his thoughts, which he tried to dispel.
They are new to war here as well, he told himself. Yes, they may have experienced officers and sailors, but Great Britain has not fought naval engagements since the last war… until we faced them in Operation Wildfire. What did they do? We destroyed Malta, but for that, we have abandoned the entire North African Coalition. All our bases there were left unguarded, Oran, Algiers, Bizerte, Tunis, Sfax, Benghazi. Egypt was the only place we held firm, but that was with ground contingents and air units, not naval assets. Then the Royal Navy hounded us out of the Atlantic, and chased us from all our West African bases. The General Staff says this was all in the plan, but I think otherwise.
We could not hold….
That much is patently clear to me. We could not hold. So now I face the entire British Far East Fleet, and with the Americans dangerously close at Darwin. This will be a decisive engagement, and I must not fail. China needs a great victory here, but can I deliver it?
Air support will be a concern. Cam Rahn Bay is 600 miles from Singapore, so fighters there can only cover our initial move south. The same can be said for our forces at Miri airfield in Malaysia, also 600 miles from Singapore. I must then rely on our base at Ranai, with 30 fighters, including 18 J-20’s. To these, Zhendong adds my superb squadrons of J-31’s—25 more excellent stealthy fighters to confound the British. Let us see what they can do.
“Admiral, sir, we have picked up enemy fighters!”
“Where?”
“About 75 miles northeast of their naval forces.”
“Of course,” said Wu Jinlong. “They have carriers, and that is undoubtedly a combat air patrol. Order our J-20’s to destroy them.”
That patrol was a pair of F-35’s off the light carrier Invincible, and their first order of business that day was to get after the Chinese AEW plane, a KJ-200 orbiting about 70 miles south of the main island of Riau. Unseen by the Chinese radars, they would move into range and put a pair of meteors out after the plane, Britain’s long range lance, with a 75 mile range. Yet that flight had not seen three Chinese J-20’s off Ranai AFB, and the moment they fired they were detected. This quickly saw them come under attack by the best missiles the Chinese had, the PL-15.
In the ensuing duel, each side would lose two planes, and when two more F-35’s off the Illustrious came charging in to the fray, the missile fire coming from a different direction was enough to convince the last surviving Chinese pilot he was outgunned. The J-20 turned and went to a thousand knots, running for home, but the brief engagement had been the tripwire on the impending battle. Soon more fighters were revving up their engines on both sides, roaring off the decks of the three carriers involved.
Aboard HMS Invincible, Captain Henry Hargood was a 30 year veteran, all his time spent with the carriers. He had been among the most vocal supporters of Britain’s carrier fleet, arguing that these smaller ships could provide valuable fleet support in far off outposts where a big deck carrier was not present. He liked to think that he had a good deal to do with the fact that Illustrious and Invincible were still afloat, when Parliament had tried to sell or scrap them twice in the last ten years. He fought the good fight to save them, and now his ships had to return that favor.
“We’ve got a fairly good look at them, sir,” said his Number One, Commander Avery Russell. “This destroyer screen here is all reading as French Aquitaine Class ships.”
“The Vietnamese,” said Hargood. “So they want in on this argument as well. Where’s the Chinese carrier?”
“Here sir, about 20 miles northwest of the main island, and 40 miles behind that destroyer screen, about 180 miles out.”
“Well beyond our SSM range at the moment.”
“Except for frigates Newcastle and Sheffield, sir. They have the new American LRASM, 24 each. That’s our main punch with any range. In fact, those frigates hit harder than any of our destroyers.”
“Indeed,” said Hargood. “Might we try for an early round knockout?”
“We might, sir, but there are a lot of defending assets out there, and when those frigates have their say, then we’ll have to hold our peace until the range closes to within 100 miles.”
The Captain nodded. “At the moment, we’ve got to see if we can get air superiority out here. It’s a bit of a draw with this first butting of the heads. Let’s get more fighters up, Mister Russell.”
“Aye sir.”
Chapter 5
This was not going to be a typical carrier duel, like the many engagements that had been fought in the previous war. The planes on either side actually had very limited ability to put harm on enemy ships at sea, and in fact, most of the carrier magazines were filled with gravity bombs in various sizes, all requiring the delivering aircraft to penetrate inside 10 to 15 miles, or less. The Chinese did have an extended range 500 pound glide bomb that could be released 30 miles out against land targets, and the British had their SPEAR light attack munition, but beyond that, any strike by the aircraft aimed at ships would have to run a terrible gauntlet of SAM fire to get in close enough to drop those bombs.
So the unmanned anti-ship missiles would act in place of the fighter bombers of WWII, and their range would figure prominently in how this battle would unfold. The carriers were largely there to contest the airspace, with strike missions being a secondary role if that could be achieved. The Chinese knew this, which is why some ships were also armed with land attack cruise missiles they intended to use against enemy airfields. The six Vietnamese destroyers all carried the French SCALP, their version of the British Storm Shadow.
A little after 13:00, the air duel continued as each side got more fighters up. The Chinese threw the first punch, jabbing at the Merlin AEW Crow’s nest twice before they were able to knock it down with a J-31. This plane was then set upon by a flight of F-35’s. Two of the stealthy Falcon Eagles were knocked down, but not before the Chinese had those PL-15’s in the air. Then three J-20’s came into the fight on another vector and things really began to heat up. The planes off Invincible had a very rough go in the second round, with the entire flight of three shot down in exchange for only one Chinese J-20.