One salient fact remains—they could not defeat me, nor could they force my withdrawal further north towards the Arabian Sea as was undoubtedly their plan. So as long as my fleet remains here, the sea lanes to the Middle East are closed. The only route they have now is through the Pacific, and that will likely be the focus of future operations here. Yes, soon the Americans will appear, and then we fight the real battle for control of these waters. I must be ready, and with everything we have.
When Admiral Wells was informed that the Chinese fleet had turned away south, he breathed a sigh of relief. They must be low on fuel and munitions, he thought, and they are a long way from home, as we are. Yet this is far from over. They are heading to Madagascar, and that alone is revealing of their intentions. They want to get into port, refuel, and sortie again as soon as possible. I was remiss in not making sure that port at Andrakaka was destroyed. We focused on the airfield, but not the port, and that was a mistake. Tomorrow will be a day of rest for all sides in this dirty business, but soon we will meet them again, and we are much weaker now than when we sailed so proudly from Port Simon at Cape Town.
The losses hurt—a carrier, three destroyers, four frigates, and one very valuable submarine. Yes, the news on Howe was most discouraging. I’ll be writing and signing letters home from now until New Year’s. This is one of the hardest blows the Royal Navy has ever taken. We lost 13 ships in the Battle of Medway in 1667’s, and ten ships off Toulon in 1744. Here I’ve gone and lost nine… Whale Island may very well want my head on a platter when they hear about this. But I must look to the days ahead, as my great Grandfather would have done.
What to do?
First things first. I must get the fleet provisioned, and now that we have taken the harbor and airfield at Victoria, I can put in a request for an emergency airlift here from our bastion at Diego Garcia. It’s a long thousand mile journey there that I can ill afford at the moment. I must remain here, keeping my enemy close, instead of my friends, and anything they could lift out here would be most welcome.
Victorious has six older Sea Harriers, and I’ll transfer those to the airfield at Victoria. They should not be bothered by enemy fighters out here, and they can use their short range missiles for defensive purposes in the event the enemy sends cruise missiles against this base. I’ll post a Merlin Crow there as well, and we’ll leave the other helos for the Commandos. I think it wise that I also leave a pair of F-35’s. They make superb radar pickets, and if the enemy comes this way, I plan on using them to good effect.
As for the fleet, we will reorganize. I’ll want Victorious right off my starboard side. We will no longer operate as separate task forces. The remaining frigates will form an inner ring, tasked primarily with carrier defense, such as they might provide. The destroyers form the outer defense ring, and god be with them. Anything they fail to knock down may well blow right through the frigates, but it will at least be tried by their guns before it can get to a carrier. I’ll still have five destroyers and five frigates. The carriers can fly 32 fighters, so we’re still in this fight, one way or another.
Oh yes… Anson is still out there somewhere, a ghost in the stream. Sir Francis has done his job well, and knowing he’s out there is good for morale. Given all this, how should we proceed? The original plan of clearing the Chinese from their East African bases has simply gone down with all our ships. The enemy was much stronger than we realized, and we had deficiencies that the navy has overlooked for years. I think I must strongly recommend that we completely overhaul our frigates. As presently designed, they are useless. Reliance on the old Type 42’s is also questionable. The Sea Dart is obsolete, and cannot perform against the threats we now face. All we are doing with those ships is putting good men and women in harm’s way.
So by now I should be well on my way to Diego Garcia, but any move there will leave a strong enemy fleet sitting astride my communications back to Cape Town, and closing the sea lanes I was sent here to open. Now I have but two viable options. I could sail west, threatening the Chinese bases in East Africa, which is one of my principle objectives. That would draw the enemy fleet north from Madagascar to oppose me, but it would also allow them to use whatever air power they have in east Africa.
I don’t like it.
Option two is to head due south and throw down the gauntlet again against this Chinese Admiral. I would stay well east of Madagascar, which then takes their East African air power out of the fight. I suppose they might try hopping it over to the island, which means I would need my Tomahawks to finish the job on those bases. Yes, that sounds like my best play. It’s either that, or I must fall back on Diego Garcia, which any sane man would do after the beating we just took. But no, I won’t slink off and lick my wounds. Very well, I will inform Whale Island as to my intentions, and unless I get countervailing orders, we move as soon as we have provisioned.
They were as ready as they could be. The emergency airlift from Diego Garcia to Victoria had brought in much needed supplies, and they helped themselves to diesel fuel in Port Victoria. Now it was time to move south and find the Chinese Fleet. It was a very big ocean, and the Merlin Crowsnest AEW Helo had but a 200 mile radar range, so Wells decided to use his F-35’s to form a forward radar picket as before. His first order of business was making sure the Chinese could not ferry air assets to the other bases in Madagascar, and for this he planned another surprise Tomahawk strike. With a 1600 mile range, they could fly paths to avoid the suspected position of the enemy fleet, and then turn to strike the bases from an unexpected direction. It would keep them well out of range of the enemy SAM’s, but the only rub was that the actual position of the Chinese fleet was as yet unknown.
DDG Daring had 16 TACTOM’s, and frigate Birmingham was an experimental configuration of a type 23 for land attack, carrying 24 more TACTOM’s in a Mark 41 VLS Bay. That put 40 arrows in the quiver of Admiral Wells, and he started using them at 06:00. Some would inadvertently fly paths that took them too close to the Chinese, and would fall victims to their HQ-9’s, but this only served to clue Wells as to the location of the enemy ships.
Only two were shot down, revealing the enemy position, and nine more swept south then cut across the wide rugged island of Madagascar heading for Narinda Bay on the east coast. They were completely undetected, hugging the terrain as they came in, and began striking targets all over that airfield. The communications jamming station the Chinese had set up was destroyed, and the aircraft hangars damaged and set on fire, destroying two rare J-11 fighters and a Z-8 helicopter. Four missiles targeting the west coast base of Toamasina hit the runway access points and naval docks. When it was over, nothing could fly from either airfield, and Madagascar was neutralized as an operating base for the foreseeable future.
So the second round has begun, thought Admiral Sun Wei. They have tested me, and most likely localized my position when we took down those two cruise missiles. And they are once again attempting to ruin our bases on Madagascar. My problem now is that I do not know where they are. I have two submarines picketed 125 miles to the north, but they report nothing. The base at Andrakaka is still not functional, and so I can only wait for satellite reports.
Yet there is one thing more I might do… Our planes in East Africa are 700 miles away now, but what if I called for a J-10 to mount nothing but reserve fuel, as if for a ferry operation. It could come out here, and linger for some time, using its radars like an AEW plan to help me locate the British fleet.