It was an excellent idea, and so he ordered the field at Dar es Salam to send one fighter due east, and another to move to Narinda Bay and see if the condition of that airfield permitted a landing. The first would get to a position 250 miles northeast of his fleet when it came under attack by enemy fighters and was destroyed. It was a callous thing to do, ordering that lone pilot out into harm’s way like that, but it had at least given the Admiral some clue. The British had to be operating further east of the point of that interception, though he was still in the dark as to exactly where.
This British Admiral learns quickly, he thought. He is staying far from our East African bases, denying me air cover and useful reconnaissance. Finding his ships may not be easy this time, as the YJ-18 is somewhat particular on downrange ambiguity when it comes to targeting. I cannot kill what I cannot see, but I must assume the enemy is already one step ahead, and knows exactly where I am….
Chapter 12
The Admiral was struggling to forge the first link in his kill chain, find the enemy, and the loss of his J-10 told him this battle may not be easy. At 12:45, radar reports began to slowly get traces of enemy ship contacts. They had a lot of uncertainty, but over the next few minutes, those rectangles compressed to a point some 330 miles due east of his position. He could see two British helicopters were up, one very near the surface contact group, and another midway between his ships and the enemy. In his mind, he could hear the blacksmith hammering on that first link. Now was the time to test those contacts, and see if he could get a target solution with a long range YJ-100.
Sun Wei waited, and finally locked on, sending two YJ-100’s off the Type 055 destroyer Nanchang. If he at least got them close to the target, the screening ships would have to respond, which meant they would go to active radars. That could help him further refine his contacts. At 500 miles an hour, his missiles would be 15 minutes getting to the enemy, but Sun Wei was a very patient man.
As it happened, the two F-35’s on radar picket had gone bingo fuel, and were already heading back to the carrier. So when the Merlin AEW helo picked up those two Vampires, Admiral Wells also collected some good intelligence. The enemy had turned on a heading of 90 degrees, and now he had fired two missiles…. So he at least had the scent, and was probably trying to flush out the quarry with this small jab. He would order Captain Kemp to send up the next two F-35’s and deal with the missiles before they got close.
Flight Whalesign 3 was up a minute later, and winging its way west. It took three Meteors, but the two planes dispatched those YJ-100’s easily enough, spoiling Admiral Sun Wei’s plan.
Frustrated, the Admiral signaled Dar es Salam to send two J-20s and a KJ-200 AEW plane. That at least had the range to get out here, and it could post itself right behind his ships, well within their protective SAM envelope. With drop tanks, those J-20’s could also reach his fleet, then he would be prepared to order them to use their radars to nail down the enemy location, and this time, if the F-35’s interfered, his Falcon Eagles could fight. He ordered his fleet to come ten degrees right, and all ahead full.
Admiral Wells now contemplated his options. With every fighter still armed for air superiority and missile defense, he had no air strike card to play at this hour. But he had three ships that could fight at this range, which was just under 300 nautical miles. He knew his enemy would soon be coming into range with all their YJ-18’s, and seeing that they had increased speed to 25 knots made him feel like a horde of enemy cavalry had just gone from a canter to the gallop. The only thing preventing them from firing now, he knew, was that they may not be able to get good target locks this far out.
But I can fire with Daring, Dragon, and Argos Fire. I could put 45 Sea Hawks into the sky, our handle for these newly acquired American missiles. And Argos Fire could put 40 Long Range ASM’s out there, another gift from the Yanks. Thank God someone is building missiles with the range to actually strike an enemy. Yet as before, this would be my only long range throw. Should I pile on, and try for a few kills to shift the odds my way before they can counterattack?
He simply had to try.
A barrage of 33 Sea Hawks veiled the seas with smoke as they began launching from the two destroyers. Half way through their flight track, Argos Fire would put 20 LRASM’s out after them. They had the targets fixed on radar from two F-35’s and the Merlin helo. At 15:10 the alarms were sounding on the Chinese warships as the first group of Tomahawks started training in. Jammers on all twelve ships began wailing, and the fire control computers started processing target locks.
With three Type 55 destroyers, and five Type 052D’s, the Chinese fleet was a very powerful surface action group, with tremendous air defensive capability in all the HQ-9’s those ships were carrying. For the next ten minutes they engaged the Vampires, slowly chewing them up. In two instances, it came to close range missiles and guns, but the defense prevailed. Sinking a ship in a force that well protected was no easy task. Wells had to throw more than half his total long range missile inventory, and still came up empty.
“Backstand, Whalerider 3. Looks like they have a KJ-200 coming up behind the sea toads. Over.”
“Roger Whalerider. Standby.”
Just after the standing F-35 patrol reported that AEW plane arriving, things got wild. The two J-20s Admiral Sun Wei had ordered also arrived, one to the north of the Chinese fleet, an done to the south. They continued east, widely separated by over 100 miles, and the northern plane was planning to shoot down the only enemy aircraft they could see, the Merlin AEW helo. What they could not see were the two F-35’s in the Whalerider picket, which each put Meteors in the sky after that bogie.
When they fired, the Chinese planes finally saw them on radar, and the northern plane engaged, while the southern plane stayed the course east, activating its long range radars that could finger the seas 200 miles out. Admiral Sun Wei was now inside 300 nautical miles, spoiling to counterattack, and he was counting on that single plane to paint his targets.
The British saw only the northern bogie, but when it was identified as a J-20, it was enough to prompt an immediate scramble order from both Victorious and Prince of Wales. The flights had been spotted on deck, ready to go, and the pilots were giving the deck crews thumbs up as their engines revved. Sundog flight would again take to the skies off Prince of Wales, and Skybolt flight off Victorious, each with six planes. They would race west, the mission being fleet defense, because Admiral Wells smelled an attack coming. That lone J-20 in the north was 185 miles out, but it could have seen the fleet easily on radar. He had to assume that his position was now known to the enemy, and that it might be solid enough to prosecute. The northern bogie was found and destroyed by those meteors, and seconds later, they saw the other J-20 on radar.
“Gentlemen,” said Wells to the bridge crew. “We’ve been found. The fleet will prepare to repel enemy attack—battle stations all around.”