Bravo One had just nailed the position of the nearest Chinese Surface Action Group, now about 415 miles away. The fix was good enough to go to the Tomahawks, and the weapon’s officers were already assigning targets to the escorts. Destroyers Hooker, Reynolds, and Ward would get the fire orders, each targeting three destroyer contacts in the eight ship formation. The three US ships were carrying identical loadouts, and for surface action they had 24 MMT’s and another 24 of the newer LRASM, the only three destroyers carrying those in this task force.
The targets were all ships of Admiral Sun Wei’s victorious group, now called the Dragon Gods after the Admiral’s Flagship, Longshen. They had won what history would call the Battle off Seychelles, even though those islands had been occupied by the British. Now he was first on the firing line again, having been appointed to overall command of the Indo-Arabian Theater.
The American plan was to lead with the missile strike, and follow with an air strike off the Big Stick. Simpson was going to throw a heavy punch, looking for an early round knockout. He would send 12 F-35’s with the Small Diameter Bomb, eight in each weapons bay. Twelve more Tomcats would fly on the flanks, six with slammers and six with the LRASM.
The Alarms on the Chinese ships sounded at 21:45 when the first two Vampires were seen on radar, just ten miles out. Because they were clocked at 600 knots, the Chinese knew they were not Tomahawks, and suspected that they were the new, more stealthy American cruise missile. How else could they get so close before being detected.
The formation was moving due east, with DDG Nanchang as the group leader, a Type 055 heavy destroyer. It opened fire first, along with DDG Kaifeng. There were six destroyers and two frigates in this group, and just over the horizon to the north, three more destroyers cruised with Admiral Sun Wei in his flagship. The first two HQ-9’s missed. The next two missed, and then the Chinese loaded up and finally brought down those two missiles inside three miles. Just as they died, the Tomahawks were seen crossing the 20 mile range marker, and orders were given for all ships to go weapons free.
At 21:54 the alarm sounded again and the next wave came in. It was destroyer Nanchang that held the fort, pouring out a lethal stream of HQ-9’s. The ship began the action with 53 in her VLS bays after taking pot shots at the TACTOM’s earlier, and ended it with 28, but the Vampires were defeated. The smoke had barely cleared when the first inklings of the air strike began to register on radar.
The Tomcat flights had been in range for some time, just waiting for the F-35’s to come up and find their release point. They began climbing to 50,000 feet, to give the GBU-53’s the best glide range possible. Meanwhile, the flight of four escorting F-35’s were painting the targets with radar to keep a firm lock, and sharing that data with all the other planes. Then the Growlers started earning their name with offensive ECM.
“Stick, Tomboy one. Slamming away.”
“Roger that.”
“Tomboy two is Winchester.”
“Roger, Tomboys. RTB. Over.”
Now the twelve F-35’s went to military speed, hastening forward to reach that sixty mile range marker. All that extra speed would be imparted to the bombs they would release, which made the GBU-53 a silent killer, with very little in the way of a radar or infrared signature. When it came to bomb design, no one could match the US, which had a dizzying array of ordnance for all occasions.
Now the Panthers were ready to rumble, and the Chinese would soon see two tight clouds appear as if from thin air on their radar screens. No whisper of the planes that had delivered those bombs was detected. The Tomcats released and turned for home, and there was not a single defensive missile able to reach or touch any of the US fighters. Unlike the British carriers, which really had nothing in the way of standoff ordnance except the Brimstone, Roosevelt had muscle.
Those 96 GBU-53’s were going to draw over 100 missiles from the enemy if they were to be defeated, and that was going to deplete many ships by the time the Slammers and LRASM’s arrived behind them. Every ship was firing, a waterfall of blue on the screens as the SAM’s raced out into that target cloud, like barracudas knifing through a school of fish.
Between all eight ships, the defensive fire was good enough to stop the GBU’s but at great cost in ordnance. Formation leader Nanchang was down to 17 HQ-9’s. No other ship had that long range missile left, and DDG Kaifeng was completely depleted. Admiral Sun Wei did not yet see them on his radar screens, but another 24 missiles were still inbound, the SLAM-ER’s and LRASM’s off the Super Tomcats. At 22:10, they were finally detected 30 miles out, and Nanchang began to fire the last of its HQ-9’s. They would get eight of the twelve Slammers, and then the ships had to sit there and wait for the remaining Vampires to get real close. Nanchang had 47 HQ-10’s, but they had a four mile range.
The only other ship that had anything better was the frigate Huanggang, which had six HQ-16’s that could range out 21 miles. So the tense wait was on as the Vampires closed on the task force. There would be little time for those short range missiles to find targets inside the four mile range marker. About 18 miles out, Huanggang fired, getting three of the four Slammers with the help of Nanchang’s HQ-10’s. The last went for DDG Kaifeng, without any missiles left, but the 30mm guns saved the ship from harm.
That was the easy part. The LRASM’s were more stealthy, and twelve more were still on their way in. Aware of the danger, Admiral Sun Wei now ordered his flag group of three destroyers to turn and hasten south at flank speed, and also ordered the main body to swing north. He was riding to the rescue in case more Vampires were out there, and all electronic jammers were wailing in their wake.
At 22:20, the LRASM’s were finally detected, pursuing the Chinese ships at 600 knots. As he watched on radar, he could only think of how he had sent his missiles out after the retreating British ships, picking off one frigate after another as they tried to escape his steely reach.
They were coming in pairs, as fired by each of the Tomcats, and trailing the formation, DDG Haian was the first to challenge them with its short range HQ-10’s. It got the first missile, but saw the second surge through its gunfire to strike the ship with a rending explosion, low on the waterline. The hull was fatally opened to the sea, and a catastrophic flooding was underway in seconds. Reeling with that hit, Haian continued to fire its HQ-10’s bravely defending its comrades as its speed fell off and it began to wallow. Its 24 YJ-18’s were now out of the fight, and Admiral Sun Wei knew that entire screen of eight ships would have to be detached to seek a friendly port to rearm with SAMs.