“Sir, they’ve been attacked. They say that Chinese military forces shot at them. They have wounded inbound.”
There were almost fifteen people in the CIC, working at various stations. There was a good deal of chatter on a normal day, but as busy as today was, it was loud.
Until the COMMO made his statement. At that, heads turned, and everyone stared at him.
The captain’s face contorted. “What? I thought that they were just supposed to pick up some SEALs or something. What are you talking about? They flew to South America, for Christ’s sake. What the hell are you talking about with Chinese?”
The young communications officer shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. The transmission was garbled. They had to use a radio from one of their passengers. It was the aircrewman who sent the message.”
The captain looked at his XO, confused. “What the hell is going on, XO?”
The XO said, “Sir, I’ll have medical personnel standing by for when they get here. Do you think it would be wise for us to increase our weapons posture?”
The captain shrugged. “I mean… I don’t understand what the situation is… I’m not sure that’s needed.”
The XO said, “Sir, I recommend that we increase our weapons posture, until we know more. Perhaps we should go to general quarters, sir?” The XO looked alarmed. He scanned the room, thinking about what they needed to do.
The sonar operator had his earphones on and was staring at his screen, away from the group. He hadn’t heard the commotion. He held up his hand and said, “TAO, sonar.”
OPS was the standing tactical action officer and had taken off his headset when the captain had arrived in Combat. He didn’t hear the petty officer calling for him.
The captain waved his hand at the group, as if he was annoyed about the unwelcome news. “Fine, XO, if you want to increase our weapons posture, fine. But don’t go to GQ. That’s too much. I’ll be up on the bridge.”
“TAO, sonar!” the young enlisted man called out.
The group of senior officers turned. “What, sonar?” OPS asked.
The petty officer’s face was white. “Sir, I’m not sure, but I think…”
OPS said, “What is it?”
“Sir, I think I hear… a torpedo…”
The Chinese submarine had been following the Americans for several weeks. These attack orders had come much earlier than expected, but the captain had been told to be ready. They were constantly given times and locations of potential attacks, but the orders had never been given. Until now.
“Sir! The orders are from the South Fleet Commander. We are to execute our attack immediately of American destroyer 099 and ships in company.”
He grabbed the paper document. “You are sure?” He read it over. It was indeed time.
The Type 093 Shang-class submarine was one of the newest in China’s fleet. It was longer than a football field, displaced seven thousand tons when fully submerged, and carried a crew of one hundred and ten enlisted and twelve officers. This particular variant was the G model, which meant that it had a vertical launching system for its YJ-82 anti-ship missile.
The captain had thought those missiles a nuisance when he had watched them being loaded onto his submarine at their home port of Yulin Naval Base. There were many extra safety and security precautions that he had been responsible for once those missiles were aboard. Now, about to launch four of them, he thanked the heavens that they were aboard.
“Torpedo tubes one and two flooded and doors open, captain.”
The captain had personally checked on the accuracy of the targeting solution. While the Colombian diesel submarine was no match for them, removing it from the theater first was the best way to ensure his success.
“Explosion in the water, sir. The Colombian submarine has been hit, sir. We can hear it breaking up and sinking.”
The captain nodded. “Good. We must move quickly now.”
There were four surface targets he needed to sink. One of them was a highly formidable American Arleigh Burke — class destroyer.
A single-dimensional battlefield was much easier to fight than a multidimensional one. That was what he had learned in countless exercises off the coast of Hainan Island.
The captain pointed at his weapons control officer. “Fire torpedo from tube one. Standby on two… Fire torpedo from tube two.”
The sound of his men repeating his orders and completing their tasks echoed throughout the small space, followed by a reverberation as the torpedoes launched out of his vessel, and then the high-pitched noise of the running torpedoes, changing frequency as they increased their distance.
He looked at his missile operator. He pointed at him and nodded. “Fire missiles one, two, three, and four.”
Now he would see how good this American destroyer really was.
“TAO, sonar, torpedo in the water bearing two-six-five.”
The captain looked up from the emergency message. “What did you just say?” He looked at the sonar operator like he had two heads. They had just finished a resupply with the USNS Supply. They were closer to the Galapagos Islands than any other land mass. The most dangerous thing out here was the hippies who wanted to protect the whales and sea turtles. What the hell was this man talking about a torpedo for?
“Explosions in the water, sir,” said the sonar operator. A senior enlisted man sat down next to him and put on a headset. “More torpedo noise, sir!”
The XO was not so slow to react. He had been standing behind the captain. Now he said, “OPS, set GQ immediately. And for God’s sakes, make sure all our air defense is up and operational.”
The captain turned and looked at the XO, annoyed that he was speaking out of turn. “Come on, XO, let’s get up to the bridge.”
The alarm sounded throughout the ship. Steel-toed boots ran on deck plates as the men and women of the USS Farragut ran to their battle stations.
As they climbed up the ladder to the bridge, men were yelling and moving quickly throughout the space. The captain walked out to the bridge wing, where the officer of the deck was pointing to something and shouting.
The captain said, “All ahead flank.”
“All ahead flank.”
The captain and the XO joined the OOD on the bridge wing. “What is it?”
“Sir, we just saw what looked like a submarine explosion about six thousand yards out.”
The first indication that missiles were inbound came from the ship’s vertical launch system as it automatically fired three SM-2 surface to air missiles. Guided by the ship’s SPY-1D radar, they attempted to destroy the incoming Chinese YJ-82 anti-ship missiles.
But the YJ-82s had a very low radar cross-section and skimmed the surface of the water at only a few meters of altitude. It took only a few seconds for the YJ-82 to increase its speed to over four hundred knots. Because it was fired from a distance of only two miles, the total time of flight was just over six seconds. Barely enough time for the SM-2s to get off. Only one SM-2 found its target, exploding and sending the Chinese missile into the water.
The last line of air defense for the American destroyer was the Phalanx close-in weapons system (CWIS). The giant Gatling gun sounded like God had just zipped up an enormous zipper. The sound shocked the captain. But the CWIS did what it was intended to do, launching a barrage of armor-piercing tungsten penetrator rounds at the rate of three thousand per minute.
Unfortunately, it only was able to fire for two seconds before impact. That meant that one hundred rounds were fired at the now-nearly-supersonic Chinese anti-ship missile. Only two of the missiles were designated for the Americans. The Farragut’s SM-2 surface-to-air missile took out the first. The CWIS exploded the second. But at that range and speed, the shrapnel from the Chinese missile still traveled with an enormous amount of kinetic energy.