There is an old saying: if you want peace, prepare for war. The militaries on all sides futzed about, building ships and planes, seeing them retire and be replaced by new ones, and many never fired a shot in anger. No one really knew what a modern war would be like, or how their weapons might perform in actual combat. During the Falkland’s War, the British had to ask the US for stocks of Sidewinder missiles to survive. Here they were begging them for the Enhanced Sea Sparrows to save their frigates, because the Sea Ceptor could not catch or kill missiles that could travel at 1900 knots as they attacked. The British knew those enemy missiles were out there, but no one had ever seen them in action, so they deployed Sea Ceptor anyway. Now they paid the price.
What the Chinese had done was to look at the cards being held by their potential enemies, and then trump them with the weapons they would deploy. Until the US began to retool Tomahawks to make the MMT’s, the longest range surface warfare missile the West had was the Harpoon or Exocet at 75 to 100 miles in range. Strangely, even the new Naval Strike Missile could only reach out 100 miles. China decided it could fight in a circle between 200 and 400 miles out, and it proved that when engaging and clearly defeating the Royal Navy as it was configured before the war.
Here, the story was completely different. The US big deck carrier was unhinging all Admiral Sun Wei’s plans, and he had no means of adequately countering it. The bulk of his power resided in those deadly YJ-18’s with a 290 mile range, and Captain Simpson would never allow his carrier to sail inside that range. So Sun Wei had no more than 100 cruise missiles that could reach the carrier, the YJ-100’s, but they would not be enough to break through the concentric circles of defense around that target. The big deck carrier was again proving that it was the master of this battlefield, attacking with impunity, while remaining largely invulnerable to counterattack. The Dragon fire was hot for those it could catch, but the Eagle soared high above, ruling the skies, and it was utterly fearless.
Just before dawn on the 2nd of December, the pilots were getting their briefing. When ordered, the British planes would form up and fly with the Americans, or rather just behind them, so that both planes could time their weapons release simultaneously. Another big attack was in the offing. By 05:30, the Chinese Fleet was about 80 miles south of Salaha Harbor, and six Strike Raptors were again ready at Thumrait, each carrying 24 GBU-53’s. Those would be added to the two F-35 squadrons, another 24 planes each carrying eight GBU-53’s. Together those 30 aircraft could put 336 bombs in the sky, coming from both the north and south in a terrible pincer of flying steel and explosives.
Given that kind of saturation, Admiral Wells had every confidence his boys were going to start getting some payback for the pounding they had taken from the Chinese YJ-18’s. Ships were going to be hit today, he thought, and they were going to die.
Part XI
Carrier Killer
“I am not a killer. I just win—thoroughly. After all, winning isn't everything but wanting to win is.”
Chapter 31
Admiral Sun Wei was in a foul mood. The weight of the losses he had already sustained lay heavy upon him, and the battle was clearly not going as he had planned.
Our air assets are far too thin. They have been flaying us with their air power, and we have no credible defense beyond our SAM’s when their bombs come in hordes. Did I make a mistake in taking the fleet so far out into the Indian Ocean? Perhaps I should have just sat off the coast near our airfields in Yemen, using our SAM’s to help defend them. Then we could have moved up the coast of Oman, destroying all their bases as we went. With hindsight, this is what I should have done, but nothing can be done about it now. I still have 28 ships, and eight more at Aden. This is still a powerful fleet.
The alarms suddenly blared out a warning. They were under attack, yet there had been no sign of enemy planes. This was maddening, he thought. The enemy flies like vagrant spirits, unseen, unheard, until they strike like demons.
“Battle stations!” he yelled. “Prepare to repel incoming strike.”
“Dawnrider, this is Bertha, you are cleared hot on assigned targets.”
“Roger that, Big Bertha. Going hot now.”
“Whalesign, Bertha, Mark your targets. Cleared hot.”
“Roger Bertha, Whalesign engaging now. Over.”
The attack would come in two stages, because the GBU’s fell faster than the British SPEAR, which came at only 400 knots. The Chinese formation was like a great lambchop on the sea, and the tail end of the bone was the Gwadar Group, eight ships that were the focus of both F-35 squadrons. So 96 bombs would come in the first wave, pulling so many SAM’s from the VLS bays, that every last HQ-9 in the task force was expended, and the entire group had no more than 24 short range HQ-10’s left. Only one ship had taken a serious hit, the frigate Liuzhou, which was now on fire. DDG Zhengzhou also took a hit, but no systems were damaged. Yet now the entire task force was very vulnerable, and 96 British SPEAR’s were coming in that second wave. The bill they had been sent out to get paid was only seconds away from a very hard settlement, or so they hoped.
DDG Zhengzhou was soon ripped from one end to another with a series of flashing hits, and it was not going to survive. The ship that had started its war in Algiers would die here. Captain Yu Han’s squadron flagship Chilong, the Fire Dragon, was battered to a hulk, and the first ship to sink. Liuzhou took additional systems damage, but had no flooding, and was still limping north. Amazingly, all remaining ships were unscathed.
The attack did far less damage that had been expected. Even the GBU clusters from the Strike Raptors were roundly defeated, and one plane had been unable to release. In the Flag Group, the Admiral saw DDG Naning struck forward, a blow that destroyed its deck gun, but his five destroyers had put up terrible defensive fire, and survived.
As the enemy planes broke off and turned for home, he began issuing orders to reorganize the fleet. Instead of five task forces, he regrouped to three. His Flag Group of five took the vanguard, and behind him, seven ships formed the Chihai or Red Sea Group. The last TF was the Arabian Sea Group, with nine ships, northeast of his Flag. That made 21 warships, with frigate Liuzhou and three oilers detached, and two destroyers sunk.
The attack that Captain Simpson had sent out as a haymaker had not scored the knockout blow he was hoping for. Now it seemed there would be little he could do to save Salaha if the enemy was going there to use their deck guns as he believed.
Now Admiral Sun Wei was going to throw his strategic punch at the enemy. As his fleet approached the coast, he gave orders for the other two task forces to turn northeast, heading up the Omani coast. He would continue on alone with the five destroyers in his flag group, thinking their deck guns would be sufficient to destroy the naval dock. By 09:00 on the 2nd of December, he was coming into range. Since DDG Naning had lost its deck gun, he had four 130mm guns he could use to bombard the docks. It would be the first offensive use of naval deck guns in the war. All this time, they had sat mute, showing how naval combat had now left the big guns behind, relying almost entirely on missiles in 2025.