The motorcade turned right off the road into a straight driveway and under an arch decorated with a lone red star in the middle. The cars were expected. Sentries saluted. The convoy drew up in front of an innocuous ferroconcrete building. The lift to the underground operations centre was waiting. President Wang stepped out onto a gallery overlooking the control room. Below him was a large, well-lit oblong room and opposite was a screen stretching almost the full length of the long wall. It displayed the southern half of China and South-East Asia to the coast of Australia in the south. From their consoles operations staff, using a computer mouse, could point and click on any highlighted object and bring up all current intelligence, including the whereabouts of political leaders. They could bring up other areas which might be involved in the theatre of war, such as troop deployments in northern India on the border with Tibet, Russian border activities, and Russian naval deployment in the northern Pacific. The disposition of the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy were shown. Red stars identified their position, next to which dialogue boxes identified the size, type, and disposition of the forces in question. The key enemy positions identified were Vietnamese, Philippine, Indonesian, Thai, Singaporean, and Malaysian air force units and warships. The state of alert of defence forces on Taiwan was being closely monitored. Agents would be updating regularly any civil disturbance in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the more unruly provinces of southern China. A special unit of analysts was watching the military movements of the larger foreign powers: the USS Nimitz carrier group, on exercises in the Sulu Sea off the west coast of the Philippines, the joint British, Australian, and New Zealand carrier group on a goodwill visit to Brunei, and American and Japanese air and naval forces in the East China Sea.
An aide to the President motioned him towards a flight of steps leading to the operations floor. As he began to climb down his presence in the room became known and a hush descended. When he reached the bottom he walked straight to a podium bedecked with the Chinese flag. An officer called the assembled officers and men to attention.
`For too long, Comrades,' the President began, `China's enemies have exploited the oil riches contained in the waters around the Nansha [Spratly] and Xisha [Paracel] Islands. Our scientists estimate that there are 10 billion tonnes of oil beneath the surface of our great southern sea. This is Chinese oil and China's 1.3 billion people need it. China is a poor, developing country and we cannot continue to import oil at the present rate demanded by the growth in our economy.
`Vietnam has illegally occupied the Nansha and Xisha Islands. Vietnam has ignored the consistent stand of the Chinese government and hindered our legitimate activities. The Chinese people love peace and do not hope for war. But the Vietnamese authorities are wrong in thinking that we are weak and easy to bully simply because we desire peace. This mission you embark upon this morning is a warning to President Tai to abandon once and for all his ambitions of swallowing up China's sacred territory.
`Comrades, these are momentous times. In a short while units of our heroic air force and navy will set out on a mission no less important than any our mighty revolutionary army has faced in the past. Success in the battle will ensure a bright future for our Party, our motherland, and our people.'
The roar of the engines from twelve Chinese Su-27 Flanker air-defence fighters crackled through Vietnamese airspace and soon the aircraft were over the coast above the target of Cam Ranh Bay. The Flankers gave protection to twenty A-7 attack aircraft, the new generation of Chinese ground-attack aircraft developed from the Russian Su-24 Fencer. They came in low on terrain-following radar. The pilots used head-up cockpit displays which showed their instruments without the need to look down. Once over the target, the Chinese unleashed a deadly cocktail of weapons on the Vietnamese defences. The weapons of choice for this operation were cluster bombs which, on release, sowed a path with smaller bomblets that had warheads for cratering concrete, delayed-action mines, and fragmentation for damaging `light structures' such as aircraft, vehicles, and personnel caught in the open. Most people woken by the noise had no time to escape before the bombs hit. Debris fell throughout Vietnam's main naval base. The mines did further damage later and delayed clearing-up operations.
As soon as the Fencers pulled up from the first attack, those with gun pods pulled round hard to strafe any undamaged elderly Vietnamese MiG-21 Fishbed fighter/ ground-attack aircraft lined up along the airstrip of the naval base. Lack of warning had prevented the Vietnamese from dispersing their aircraft to make them more difficult to attack. In less than five minutes, part of Vietnam's air-defence system lay in twisted wreckage. Many buildings and radars were damaged, and the control tower was temporarily out of action. But a heavier attack would be needed to complete the destruction. The Chinese pilots pulled away, climbing fast at over 1,000 kilometres an hour, their aircraft now light and manoeuvrable. A single message from the Chinese attack leader crossed the airwaves: `Dragon.' This told the next attack wave that the defences had been suppressed.
Immediately, there was a different kind of engine roar, the drone of twenty-four Chinese H-6 bombers pies of the Soviet Tu-16 Badger. The 2,000 kilometre radius of action with a bomb load of 5,000 kilograms was enough for the flight from Haikou airbase on southern Hainan Island. From the ground, the bomber group might have appeared unmanoeuvrable and vulnerable. They may have been subsonic but they were well protected. Pilots from twelve Shenyang J-8II Chinese-designed delta-winged interceptors guarded them. Their Russian Zhuk radar system could simultaneously track ten enemy aircraft and guide anti-aircraft missiles. They had extended their range to that of the bombers with air refuelling and ferry tanks, now jettisoned ready for combat. The tankers orbited 500 kilometres away to enable them to reach home after the attack.
The first air-to-air combat of the Dragonstrike war lasted less than thirty seconds. A J-8 pilot locked on to two elderly Vietnamese MiG-21 Fishbed fighters returning from a routine dawn patrol, and launched two missiles. The missile warning systems on the Fishbeds were old. They probably never knew what was coming towards them when the first aircraft was hit. The second aircraft was lucky at first because its missile's homer was confused by the two aircraft in formation and it passed between them. Unfortunately the formation was too close and the first aircraft, out of control, crashed into his number two and both exploded. There was only a small fireball because they were very low on fuel.
It was 0610.
The bombers approached the naval base in formations of three. They were met in the first instance by light anti-aircraft fire from two positions which had escaped the Fencer strike. Two of the escort J-8s silenced them with gunfire in short bursts. Figures running across the base, lit up by the fires, half dressed and just woken, fought back ineffectively with small-arms fire which always passed behind the targets. They were engulfed in the inferno when the bomb struck seconds later. Most died. The Chinese pilots had been given precise orders. The first H-6s finished off the work of the Fencers by turning the aircraft and their parking areas into a flaming mass of churned-up concrete and contorted metal using more cluster bombs. Aircraft fuel tanks exploded. Flames caught in the undergrowth of the dry, flat grassland around the base. The second group destroyed the command centre using conventional single-warhead bombs with radar airburst fuses to increase the area of damage on structures such as buildings. The third hit the fuel and ammunition dump with a mixture of cluster and airburst weapons. The flames caught the poor quality housing, weakened by the shock waves from the airbursts. The domestic gas pipelines were not deeply buried and they burnt, adding to the inferno. It was a catastrophe which would never have happened in a NATO military base. Cam Ranh Bay had been built by the Americans, but taken over by the Soviet Union in 1979. Survivability for a determined surprise attack had not been an issue.