Over the coastline of China, from Songcheng to Fuzhou to Chinmen, a mixture of Su-27s, MiG17s, MiG19s, and MiG-21s flew in thirteen different holding patterns. Inland, aerial tankers and AWACS aircraft circled in oblong patterns. Far below and out to sea, the entire length of the Taiwan Strait was packed with Chinese destroyers, frigates, landing craft, and support vessels.
Without warning, China launched an opening salvo of short-and medium-range missiles from ships and shore installations. The missiles were aimed at two main southern Taiwanese ports and a dozen military facilities. Seconds later, scores of Chinese missiles were launched at military airfields and naval installations on Taiwan.
Two missiles went off course with disastrous results. One hit a parked China Airlines 747 at the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, setting off a series of explosions that destroyed three other jumbo jets. The other wayward missile slammed into the famous Grand Hotel, one of Taipei's most luxurious, killing eleven people and injuring sixteen.
The missile barrage triggered a number of simultaneous responses from both adversaries. Taiwanese fighter planes engaged the Chinese Sukhois and MiGs while the U.S. F-14s and F-18s attacked the various warships, including the patrol boats and numerous landing craft. Other carrier attack aircraft went after shore-based mobile missile launchers and airfields supporting the military.
United States ships, submarines, and bombers launched a total of 136 Tomahawk missiles at preselected targets along the coastline. The massive attack destroyed much of China's reserve missiles, supplies, and airplanes, and damaged many airfields, port facilities, fuel caches, and other military installations.
High above the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, B-52 and B-1 B bombers, escorted by air force fighters, dropped nonlethal, air-launched weapons with very accurate inertial navigation systems. The bombs were programmed to descend on Beijing and Shanghai power grids and transformer yards, where they would scatter reels of flexible wire in the air. The specially treated wire would unwind and drape like huge spiderwebs over high-voltage lines, shorting them out and causing large explosions of sparks and flash fires.
The resulting power surges would cause power-plant circuit breakers to pop, shutting off the distribution of electricity to disrupt military communication systems and delay command decisions to air-defense centers and the entire command-and-control network. Without electricity, the military computers would become worthless — masses of useless wires, metal, and plastic. The PLA commanders on the edge of the sword would be left totally in the dark.
While the scenes over the strait and in Beijing and Shanghai were very chaotic, the surface ships were in another dimension. The officers and sailors monitoring information systems in the combat direction center aboard Theodore Roosevelt were strained to the limit. Like shipmates on other combatants, everyone in CDC was suffering from some degree of information overload. Missiles were flying in every direction as alarms sounded and people shouted orders.
Separated by the length of the Taiwan Strait, the surviving pair of Russian-made Sovremmennyy-class guided-missile destroyers fired supersonic sea-skimming missiles at Roosevelt and Kitty Hawk. The Russian antiship cruise missiles, NATO-code-named Sunburn, approached the mammoth carriers at twice the speed of sound.
Kitty Hawk's powerful CIWS defensive system opened fire, spewing 20mm shells made of depleted uranium at the SS-N-22 missiles. The Phalanx close-in weapons system combined a six-barrel Gatling gun with search-and-tracking radar to provide surface ships with terminal defense against weapons that had penetrated other fleet defense systems.
With a range of 6,000 yards and a muzzle velocity of 3,650 feet per second, the CIWS put up a fence of steel between the carrier and the incoming targets. Howling at 4,500 rounds per minute, the Gatling gun pulverized the two missiles, sending harmless debris floating into the sea.
Roosevelt wasn't as fortunate. Her CIWS system destroyed one of the Sunburns and then malfunctioned for a few seconds, allowing the second nuclear-tipped missile to breach the steel curtain.
The missile impacted the starboard bow thirty feet below the flight deck, shaking the mighty carrier like a rowboat. The horrendous, blinding explosion ripped through the forward end of the ship, destroying the bow catapults and leaving a gaping hole in the hull.
Quick reactions by the captain and crew saved the supercarrier from sinking, but she would be out of action for an extended yard period in the United States. Between the ship's crew and the air wing personnel, 239 officers and sailors would not see another sunrise.
The attack submarine Louisville had been stalking one of the Sovremmennyy-class destroyers while Helena pursued the sister ship, the Fu Zhou. In a matter of seconds after the Chinese ships attacked the carriers, the submarines fired torpedoes at the destroyers. Both Chinese men-of-war were on the bottom of the strait eighteen minutes after Roosevelt was heavily damaged.
In all, after seventy-eight minutes of hard-fought battles and tumultuous confusion, the People's Liberation Army and Navy had lost nine warships, including five destroyers, Xian, Luhu, Jinan, Zhuhai, and Kaifeng, four of itsfiangwei-class frigates, six Houku-class missile boats, and three guided-missile patrol craft. The PLAN had also lost eight submarines, including two Mings and one Kilo, fourteen assorted patrol boats, and twenty-seven of their seventy-nine amphibious landing craft. Many other vessels were damaged to the point of being dead in the water.
Taiwanese losses included a Kidd-class guided-missile destroyer, the Knox-class frigates Yi Yang and Ning Yang, the La Fayette-class frigates Cheung Ho and Cheung Ping, three Kuang Hua-III patrol craft, the Hsin Chiang, Tan Chiang, and Jing Chiang, and four Kuang Hua-VI guided-missile patrol vessels. Various smaller boats were sunk or extensively damaged.
United States Navy losses included the frigate Rodney M. Davis and the destroyer Hayler. Besides Roosevelt, the cruiser Cowpens was severely damaged, as was the destroyer Fife. The American submarines came through the clash without any damage.
Not counting the Roosevelt tragedy, the loss of life had climbed to 93 with 176 injured, many seriously. The most serious cases were being flown to Okinawa for treatment or sent to Japan or Hawaii for specialized care and rehabilitation.
The heavy and sustained antiaircraft fire, surface-to-air missiles (SAMS), and air-to-air missiles took a big toll on both sides. Chinese losses were staggering, due primarily to the inability of the outdated MiGs to compete with the state-of-the-art fighters flown by the United States and Taiwan.
It was evident that the Chinese pilots didn't have the skill and/or training to hold their own in the myriad aerial engagements over the strait and mainland China. In another aerial clash near Quemoy Island, the PLA Air Force lost a tanker plane and a four-engine Shaanxi Y-8 surveillance aircraft.
The United States lost five F/A-18 Hornets and three F-14 Tomcats. All but two of the aviators and RIOs were rescued. Seven other planes, including three from Roosevelt, limped back to Kitty Hawk with varying degrees of damage. One Tomcat crash-landed on the carrier and was quickly shoved over the side after the crew exited the wreckage. The deckhands had to quickly make room for other damaged planes to land.
The U.S. Air Force lost two F-15s, one F-16, and one F-117. The Taiwanese saw their aerial losses climb to a total of eleven F-5s, six Mirage 2000s, and three F-16s. Captain Chang Dhao-ming, a gifted Mirage pilot from the 42d Squadron, 499th Wing, at Hsinchu Air Base, shot down three Chinese aircraft.
By late afternoon, there were still sporadic clashes from one end of the debris-strewn strait to the other. However, it was painfully obvious to the Chinese leaders that the attempt to take Taiwan by force had been ill conceived and foolhardy.