“Just how many enemy destroyers will we be looking at, sir?”
“Fourteen, which means they outnumber us two to one in that category. The advantage we have, of course, is three carriers, and that means we’ll have to use them as strike assets, not simply for air superiority. I’ll want flights armed with both SPEAR and Storm Shadow, and at the ready.”
“Will we retain our present TF assignments, sir?” asked Grant.
“Correct,” said Wells. “I considered grouping all three carriers in one TF, but once identified, it would become the primary target, so we’ll continue to operate in separate formations as presently established. Now then, gentlemen, they’ve had a good long while to get sorted out, so this is likely to heat up soon once we come into range. We will be facing an Admiral Sun Wei, coming up through the ranks in their South Seas Command. Unfortunately, not much is known about the man, though he was a strong proponent of Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean. Now he sleeps in the bed they made.”
“Time we woke them up, sir,” said Captain Grant, always ready for a scrap at sea.
“Indeed, but let’s us be careful what we wish for here. Five years ago one might come across the occasional article in defense related sites concerning China’s slow and quiet entry into the Indian Ocean. It started with Djibouti, then Hambantoa on Sri Lanka, and look at them now. They’re even roosting out in the Seychelles at Victoria Harbor! Now we see what it was all bending towards. Here we are, with half the Royal Navy, and we’ll have to fight our way forward from this point on. Our mission is a simple one, sea control. Without it, the Yanks can’t reinforce Saudi Arabia as planned, and that situation could erupt at any time. We’ll begin by putting our land attack ordnance on the Madagascar bases to clear our left and rear as we advance. May God be with us, gentlemen, and remember, destroyers forward—frigates in the second rank.”
11:50 Local, 19 NOV 2025
Several Daring Class destroyers had been upgraded with a 32 cell Mk41 VLS section so they could carry the US made Tomahawk—a contingency made necessary by the retirement of the Harpoon. The British had considered going with the Norwegian Naval Strike Missile, which was on the Type 31 frigates, but decided to follow the American model and add Tomahawk to the bigger destroyers. Just before noon, the first TACTOM’s fired by the British began their attack run on Toamasina harbor, but results were not encouraging. It was discovered that the base was defended by batteries of HQ-9A SAM’s, and only one significant hit was scored, destroying the COMINT compound on the base. A radar station was also taken out further up the coast, but the attack was deemed marginal at best, and did not diminish the Chinese ability to use that base in the future.
As the British fleet advanced, it had been the Chinese strategy to withdraw before them, shifting air assets and any ships or boats out of harm’s way. They then left their ground garrisons in place, and their SAM batteries, and while the British had three troop carriers in the fleet, there were no immediate plans to land anything on Madagascar. Royal Marines would be tasked with landing at Victoria in the Seychelles later, seizing and securing that mid-ocean base. Trying to run the Chinese out of Madagascar, an island over 800 nautical miles long, was out of the question. As the fleet was well north of Toamasina now, the decision was made to cancel a follow up strike there, and shift assets to Andrakaka, on the northern tip of the island.
The British would throw a jab first, testing the enemy guard. They send six TACTOM’s, one after a radar station, and five aimed at the harbor to see if it was also defended by SAM batteries. This fire mission went off at 12:15 Local time, and as it turned out, the Chinese had left air assets at that base. A single J-20 was up on a recon mission, and spotted the first Tomahawk around 12:36 in the afternoon. That plane alone was enough to begin breaking up this small attack, sniping at the Tomahawks with its PL-15’s and killing two of the six missiles. The HQ-9A batteries, suspected but as yet unseen, would deal with the rest. Admiral Wells was given the report that the fire mission had gone bust, and in his mind he came to an unwelcome conclusion.
Half the bloody navy is here under my command, and I can’t take down a radar site and SAM battery. Oh, we could get serious and go in heavier, but at what cost? It would expend the last of my TACTOM’s, so perhaps I’ll use my F-35’s to try and suppress these targets. It would give the men some good experience.
It was a pointed reminder on the limits of his power, and the need for discretion in the hours ahead. These fire missions left him with 60 TACTOM’s, which he decided to hold in reserve. Admiral Wells did not know the actual missile count available to the enemy, or what ordnance the enemy ships were carrying, but the two fleets were very evenly matched, at least in overall numbers.
The British had the edge, with 232 ship killers and 60 more TACTOMS. The Chinese had 258 Ship killers, but their advantage lay in the weapons themselves. Due to the preponderance of destroyers, there were 166 of the lethal YJ-18’s with a 290 mile range, and 32 YJ-100’s with a 430 mile range. They also had a few YJ-12’s and YJ-62’s all over 200 miles in range.
That gave the Chinese 220 missiles they could throw at the British at a range of 200 miles or more. On the British side, they could only answer with 64 Multi-Mission Tomahawks and 48 LRASM’s, mostly on the Argos Fire. So for any battle fought out at the 200 mile marker, the Chinese could throw twice as many punches. The remainder of the British SSMs were all limited to about 100 miles in range.
In effect, the Chinese ships simply outgunned the Royal Navy in any ranged fight, but this is where the three carriers could act to redress that imbalance. The F-35’s could fly out 450 miles and then deliver the British SPEAR’s, a light attack weapon that could travel another 80 miles to the target. Yet to do that, they would first have to operate in the fighter role to win air superiority.
Admiral Sun Wei was a party man, staying as close to the red line as possible when it came to attitudes, beliefs, and public comments. A man of 50 years, he had witnessed the whole of China’s dramatic rise to world superpower status, most of that accomplished in the last 25 years. China did not really want to harm others, he said, but if its interests and security needs were challenged, it would fight to the last breath if necessary. It was his mantra that as long as the people of China believed the same thing, then nothing would stop China’s eventual domination of the globe in this century.
The time of America’s hegemony in world affairs is coming to a close, he said. They are turning inward, with fewer and fewer allies on the world stage, and wherever they take a backward step, we will step forward in their place. So yes, I argued mightily that China needed to be able to project power through the Malacca Strait and into the Indian Ocean.
Our workarounds where the Malacca Dilemma was concerned have helped the situation, but they could never cure it. We send ships carrying 6.2 million barrels of oil through that strait every day. The pipelines through Pakistan, and the new oil line through Burma can only make up for a third of that total. So if we must be in a position to secure and defend the Strait of Malacca from interdiction by a hostile power, then we had to have strength on either side—in the South China Sea, and also in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean.
Admiral Wu Jinlong has just delivered a heavy blow in the action off Singapore. Now I must do my part, and stop the Royal Navy from bulling their way forward here. We could not contest the waters off West Africa, but those off East Africa are well in hand. I labored ten years to see those bases built in Kenya and Tanzania, and we must hold them, as we still hold Madagascar, in spite of our strategic withdrawal from those bases.