In front of them was another type of amphibious warfare ship, the helicopter landing ship or LPH. This was intended to do the same job as the LPD but she delivered her marines by helicopter rather than amphibious armored personnel carriers.
Finally, bringing up the rear was the fourth member of the team, the LKA supply ship. She carried the stockpiles of food, ammunition, fuel and everything else the group needed.
The four ships made a balanced combat group, capable of putting a battalion landing team anywhere it was ordered. For bigger jobs, four such groups would come together and a command group would join them to land an entire regimental combat team. If the situation really demanded it, all sixteen amphibious warfare groups and five command groups in the Atlantic fleet could concentrate on a target and put an entire division of Marines ashore.
Surrounding the amphibs, shielding them from potential attack were a group of destroyers, missile-armed with a mix of explosive and nuclear warheads in their magazines. Their nuclear-tipped Terrier missiles could devastate a target but Gunnery Sergeant Esteban Tomas knew that only his Marines could go ashore and take possession of the area. That was their job, and it was his job to see they were fit and well-trained. So...
“ Right girls. We'll run through the program again. And this time, try not to humiliate the Corps in front of the squids.”
Captain's Bridge, USS Austin LPD-4, Eastern Mediterranean “ How is Chief Williams?”
“ Not good sir. The surgeons on Westover saved his leg but he's going to be out for a more time that I care to think about.”
Chief Williams had been working on a maintenance failure on the docking well when one of the LVPTs had shifted in the heavy swell, trapping his leg between its tracks and the steel deck. Another reminder that any seaman's real enemy was the sea itself. Chief Williams was lucky, the hospital ship Westover was close at hand and he'd been helicoptered over within a few minutes and on the operating table in less than twenty. But, with the bones crushed, it would be a long time, if ever, before he went to sea again.
Another tick in a ledger that was already measureless. A ledger that grew every day, sometimes slowly, sometimes with terrifying speed. Even in peace, training accidents, human error, equipment failure just plain inexplicable bad luck took lives every day. Sometimes, Captain Pickering wondered if civilians understood that or if they just assumed being in the military was another job, just one that had better-looking uniforms and more expensive toys. What was it that British author Kipling had said “ If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full?”
And there was no way around it. The supposedly learned commentators back home were fond of saying how SAC had destroyed Germany at a cost of less than 200 men, yet they were careful not to mention the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who had died in Russia setting the stage for The Big One. Nor did they mention the tens of thousands of Navy pilots who'd died over France.
On Pickering's first ship, the Shiloh, over a thousand had died even while the atomic bombs were falling on Germany. America was free because of them all, and the butcher's bill would continue. There was a new Shiloh now, in fact she wasn't so far away. Nuclear-powered, bigger with an airgroup whose capability the old Shiloh could only have imagined. Would she die the way the old Shiloh had died, gutted by fires?
“ We're in luck sir. I talked with BuPers and managed to get us a new Senior Chief. A good man, one of the very best according to my man in the Bureau. Seems to have served on every ship in the fleet and been everywhere a US warship has dropped anchor. They say he was Senior Chief on Old Ironsides herself and whipped John Paul Jones into shape.”
Captain Pickering was beginning to get a terrible sense of impending doom.
“ In fact, Sir, he's an old shipmate of yours. You served together on the old Shiloh.” “ 1
Pickering felt the sense of impending doom thicken into a solid fog of certainty. With almost supernaturally perfectly timing, a well-remembered voice echoed around the superstructure.
“ YOU, you there with the paintbrush. You some sort of DEMOCRAT or something? The people in their benighted stupidity may have put a damnable DEMOCRAT into the White House but the Navy is still the Navy. It’s up to us to keep things running until sanity returns. CHIP before you paint. Chip that rust off, wire brush the area to bare metal then red lead prime and paint. You put paint on top of rust and it'll be off faster than a DEMOCRAT chasing a bribe.”
The door opened and the figure Pickering had last seen when they were plucked off the burning wreck of Shiloh entered. “ Permission to enter the Bridge Sir. Reporting for Duty, Senior Chief P.... Captain Pickering Sir. It’s good to see you again Sir.”
Physically, Captain Pickering was standing in the middle of his Bridge, returning the textbook salute with one of his own. Mentally, he was hiding behind the Pelorus. “ Senior Chief, welcome on board. I see you have mellowed with the passing years.”
Woomera Test Range, Australia
Hangar Alpha was sealed and guarded. Two long limousines were already parked outside and a third was pulling alongside. Sir Martyn Sharpe went to meet the new arrival with barely suppressed delight. The escort opened the back door and a familiar figure slipped smoothly out.
“ Madam, it is, once more, a very great pleasure to see you.”
“ Sir Martyn, thank you. It has been too long since I last enjoyed the pleasure of your company. I am sad to say that the problems in the Philippines are proving most intractable. The tactics we have employed successfully elsewhere are not effective in the face of the enemy and the operational environment we have in Mindanao. But, let us not speak of such things. Today is a day of achievement, a day for pride and rejoicing.”
The dignitaries entered Hangar Alpha. Inside, there was a shrouded shape, obviously an aircraft but its details hidden. The VIPs took their seats and the lights dimmed. Smoke started to rise in front of the shrouded shape, colored by spotlights playing upon it. Wagner's “ Ride of the Valkyrie” started playing. Then, the Program Manager's voice came over the loudspeaker system.
“ My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored Guests. Ten years ago, Great Britain started a new program, one intended to return the country to the forefront of aviation technology. Alas, this program was doomed to failure. Less than three years after its inception, that program was canceled by the British Defense Minister Mr. Duncan Sandys, who recognized that the cost of its development was far beyond Britain's means.
“ Indeed maintaining a military aircraft industry at all was too much for the country and, except for a few minor programs it was wound up in favor of the civilian aviation sector. The British engineers and designers went abroad, to Canada and to here. With them, they brought knowledge of the planned British aircraft. We purchased the details that we needed and, in 1960, we restarted the program as a Triple Alliance joint venture. My friends, this was a program managers' dream. Australian brains, Indian workers and Thai money.”
Sir Martyn smiled, he knew the second half of the joke. A program managers' hell; Indian brains, Thai workers and Australian money. It was true too. Indian industry lacked advanced technology skills but its people were renowned for their ability to get jobs done by sheer hard work. On the other hand, the Australians had acquired a reservoir of high-technology, not least from Europeans who wanted to emigrate somewhere with better prospects. The problem was that their financial resources were very limited, Australia had spent most of the 1950s in a deep economic depression and was only just coming out of it. The Thais had all the money now, their banking and investment position saw to that, but their workers were notorious for seeing hard labor as something to be studiously avoided. Put together in the right way, the results could be astounding. As they'd been this time. The program manager had stopped speaking, the music swelled to its crescendo and then.