Those off Illustrious carried on, firing four Meteors at a pair of J-31’s only to see them all evaded, the enemy planes turning and then firing an angry quiver of PL-15’s in reprisal. Both sides were stealthy, but the missiles were, in the end, better than the planes if a decent target lock could be resolved.
Captain Hargood was becoming concerned. He was now down to just six ready fighters, but gave orders to send up another flight of three. This time, they linked up with three planes off Illustrious, and the British tried a new tactic. The Chinese fighters were stealthy enough that the F-35’s had to go to active radar to engage and get locks, but that allowed other enemy planes, as yet unseen, to then rush in and counterattack. This time the British flights of three each detached a single fighter, which veered off and then went to active radar to find the enemy. Once acquired, this information was immediately shared with the remaining F-35’s, which could then stalk them with radars passive while still getting target locks from the scouting plane.
The result was three quick kills on a flight of J-20’s, evening the score for the lopsided duel fought ten minutes earlier. The tactic worked so well, that the British swept the board, getting those three J-20’s and another three J-31’s without losing a single plane. As the wind began to smear the missile trails, the fighters, low on darts, began to break off and return to their bases. Then, at 14:30, the battle suddenly took a different turn. The forward screen of six Vietnamese destroyers all began to fire….
The British radar screens suddenly displayed a wide front of contacts, like a great storm building beyond the horizon. That was quite literally true, for all six Vietnamese destroyers were equipped with the French SCALP attack cruise missile, a weapon that was, in fact, identical to the British Storm Shadow. In the heat of that moment, it was first assumed that this was a big cruise missile attack aimed at the ships, so the Captains ordered weapons free, and the British defensive SAM’s charged out to give battle.
As the storm front swept over the fleet, it was soon determined that they were not the targets. About 40 enemy missiles had been tracked, all on different attack vectors instead of the normal missile trains as they made their approach. This made the defense more difficult, because the SAM fire could not be concentrated at a single point. So Asters and Sea Darts were flying everywhere, and their contrails painted a wild pasta plate in the blue sky as the speedy SAM’s chased the stealthy cruise missiles across a front that was over 60 miles wide. In the end, only 18 SCALP’s got through, continuing their sedate course towards Singapore.
“Bloody Storm Shadows,” said Captain Hargood. “They’re going to try a repeat performance on Singapore, just like they did at Malta.”
“Ironic, sir, isn’t it? Here we are fighting off our own missiles.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here and let them fire at will. Let’s get after them. Order the fleet to engage with ordnance in range.”
“Aye sir.”
The alarms sounded, decks clearing for SSM fire, and soon the British were sending a mix of Harpoons, Naval Strike Missiles, and LRASM’s back at the enemy destroyers. As they began to fire, the SCALP attack had finally reached its target on Singapore, not the harbor, but the big airfield at Changi East. The eighteen missiles came in low, with penetrating BROACH warheads to get through hardened targets and smash runways and tarmacs. Several planes hosted in open parking were hit, most notably the two big Poseidon P-8 ASW patrol planes, which went up in spectacular explosions. An F-35, a Typhoon, and a Wildcat helo were also smashed, and the attack left fires all over the airfield, including the main control tower, which had taken a severe direct hit.
Yet the British counterstrike was out to even the score. Their SSM’s surged in, closing the 60 mile range to the nearest enemy ships in little time. The strike would result in two good hits, one missile plowing into the destroyer Mekong, which would sink that ship within minutes, and another striking DDG Hai Phong. The three ships in the second line of that formation, Saigon, Da Nang, and Hanoi, now fired off the last of their SSM’s, a salvo of 16 Exocets aimed at TF Illustrious. This attack was now supported by fire from the distant island of Riau, where the Chinese had deployed batteries of SSM with the YJ-12, a high speed demon that had been copied from a Soviet air launched cruise missile that had crashed in the first Sino-Siberian war. Then it was adapted for land and sea based usage.
Captain Snow on Illustrious had been overseeing the launch of another four F-35’s when the missile warning sounded. It was time for the Asters again, and they began to leap off the forward decks, engaging the incoming strike in a tense battle that rolled inside the five mile range mark before it was finally defeated. HMS Invincible, cruising about 15 miles to the southeast with her escorts, also joined in that action.
“Sir,” came the warning. “A second group of Exocets just broke the horizon. Invincible is already targeting.”
“Let’s get to it,” said Snow. He had been relying on the air defense destroyer Lookout, a Flight II Daring Class ship, but now learned they had just expended the last of their SAM ordnance repelling those Exocets. The defense was now going to be up to the Sea Ceptors on the frigates, which had a 15 mile range.
The Captain watched as five Asters came up from the southeast to get the first four missiles in that attack, not knowing that they were the last available to destroyer Loyal in the Invincible group. The long engagement against those 40 SCALP/Storm Shadows had been very costly in terms of the SAM count. As the last Exocet was blasted from the sky in a bright yellow ball of fire, the alarms wailed again. Another train of missiles had just broken the horizon, only these were coming much faster, at 1450 knots as opposed to the slow approach of the Exocets.
The YJ-12’s were burning their way in, right down on the water at 30 feet elevation. Targeting radars and computers on every ship grappled with them for a good firing solution, and then the Captain saw the Type 23 Class frigate Portland begin to fire its Sea Ceptors. There was no longer any fire coming from the southeast, and Snow instinctively realized they didn’t have the range—the Asters were all gone….
The new Type 23B Trinidad and the Type 26 Sheffield now joined the action, as the first of the enemy missiles penetrated inside the two mile mark. They got the first two, but the third missile broke through and came lancing into Illustrious, which was the primary target of this attack. There came a tremendous explosion, the ship shuddering with the terrible impact. Three fully fueled and armed F-35’s, a Merlin, and two Wildcats were on the flight deck, and the resulting shrapnel and shock tore at them, igniting a major fire on deck. One F-35 blew up, the fire engulfing the entire plane. A horrified flight service crewman on deck saw the pilot thrown from the wrecked fighter, his body devoured by flames. But the missile had come in so low that it tore into the ship’s guts, opening the hull to the sea, and severe flooding was underway at the same time.
In they came, nine more sea demons at breakneck speed. The Sea Ceptors and guns got three, and chaff spoofed a fourth, but the next missile struck Illustrious again, dooming the light carrier to a fiery death. Captain Snow was thrown to the deck with that second hit, which came in just below the island. Fire raged up, the bridge windows shattered, and heavy black smoke rolled in.