Able Fire: The Next War - 2025 and Beyond

Chapter 25

Admiral Arun Sing, Chief of the Naval Staff in the Indian Navy, had a problem, and it was growing more urgent by the minute. India could not fail to notice the major sortie now underway by the Chinese naval forces that had been operating from Karachi. In spite of the fact that Pakistan was a hostile foe, India had been reluctant to join the war, and for obvious reasons. Yet its geographic position, jutting deep into the ocean that was named after that vast subcontinent, was conspiring to draw India into the conflict. When the fighting was far to the southwest, or off near the Red Sea, the pressure was minimal, but when it centered on Sri Lanka for a time, the hatbands were thick around the map table watching that conflict closely.

Unwilling to lose its valuable base at Colombo, China had taken the bold step of sending airborne troops to Sri Lanka, and they had literally commandeered the harbor in the northeast quadrant of the island at Trincomalee, and the nearby airfield, aptly named “China Bay.” Beijing had doubled down in its gamble to control Sri Lanka, and now it was spinning the roulette wheel of fate yet again.

When intelligence came in the night of January 20 that the Chinese fleet had sortied and was moving south off the Indian coast, eyebrows were raised in New Delhi. What was going on here? To make matters worse, the heart of Pakistan’s Navy at Karachi had also sortied behind the Chinese fleet. In the past, they had always stayed in littoral waters north of the actual border zone, which was only about 110 miles from Karachi. This time they were heading southeast, well beyond their waters, and something had to be done.

The Indian Navy had dispatched the diesel-electric submarine Kalvari to investigate, and now the Pakistani fleet was getting very close to that boat, so a decision had to be made. Should the submarine move inshore within India’s territorial waters, or stay where it was, about 100 miles off the Indian coast? A proud nation, with a substantial navy, India was not in the mood to find itself bullied or threatened by anyone, least of all the Pakistanis.

The second choice was more dangerous, and it would rely on the inherent stealth of the submarine to avoid detection and report on what the Paks were up to. Yet there was always a chance that the sub would be found, or even attacked, which would take an already tense international situation and twist the rope to the breaking point. The Navy’s first instinct was to reinforce the sub patrol, and a second boat, Chakra, was vectored towards Kalvari that hour. Indian ships at Mumbai were put on notice to get up steam, and the oil was burning late in the Naval General Staff headquarters.

India had watched the Chinese fleet pass uneventfully, for it was well out to sea. But here, one Pakistani task force was skirting the 30 mile limit line, and a heated discussion was held to determine whether the Indian fleet should show the flag. The Chinese were still close by, some argued. What if the fleet did sortie, and got into a scrap or confrontation with the Pakistani Navy? Would the Chinese weigh in, or leave it as a private fight between the two old enemies?

Others argued that the Pakistani ships could be trying to position themselves to screen the Chinese fleet from any interference as they passed. In either case, India didn’t like these unruly visitors off her coast, and she had the Navy to do something about it.

New Delhi did not think Beijing wanted trouble, for the two countries already shared a disputed border zone. Western powers had been pressing India to join their alliance, but thus far, New Delhi had maintained neutrality in the war. But they were not about to tolerate a deliberate provocation by Pakistan. The military was put on high alert, and eventually, the Navy was ordered to make a show of force from Mumbai. India had 27 warships at that major western port, and that is exactly what they would do.

Admiral Sun Wei had been given his marching orders, and he left Karachi with 17 ships on the night of the 20th of January, leaving a token force of two older destroyers behind. Nearly 20 hours later he was well south, passing the Indian port of Mumbai, about 130 miles off the coast. He was giving the Indian Government no reason to be concerned, the proverbial “wide berth” as he headed south, but the move being made by the Pakistani Fleet would certainly be provocative. It was meant to draw the attention of the Indian Navy north, and not west as the Chinese passed Mumbai, and it had exactly the desired effect, risky as it was.

As a precaution, a quiet diplomatic message was sent to New Delhi explaining that the Chinese had no hostile intention, and were merely redeploying their fleet to Sri Lanka. This left India in a difficult position. China wanted no trouble, but would they support the Pakistani Fleet is it came to blows? The notion that they were now taking their war to Sri Lanka was also unwelcome.

Admiral Sun Wei knew those yarrow sticks would have to fall where they may. His primary concern was the American Navy, a force that would certainly be hostile, and one he knew he had to reckon with. At that hour, satellite recon imaging placed the Americans about 360 miles to the southwest, and he knew they would certainly not come any closer. In fact, they could be launching strike planes at me now, he thought, considering his options.

I have taken the last of the YJ-100’s stored at Karachi, and now my destroyers are carrying 110 of those beasts. They will most likely be the only weapons I can use against this Carrier Strike Group, and I doubt I will be able to hurt them, even with that many missiles. The War Gods are still at Hyderabad, but they would have to fly within 215 miles of the American carrier to release their YJ-12’s, and that will expose them to grave danger from the enemy fighters. The Air Force will not permit it, and those bombers will be recalled to China.

So this is a run through the gauntlet. They will strike with aircraft, and then Tomahawks, and we are weaker now than we might be near Karachi, as I have no air defense here at all. The last of the J-20’s wagged their wings and turned for home an hour ago. Now we are on our own.

He knew, in the long run, that the fleet’s chances of survival were only as good as the SAM count. He had divided his ships into two groups, with the main body of ten ships having all his better destroyers. Together they could muster about 420 HQ-9’s. The remaining seven ships formed an outer screen, about 14 miles off his starboard side, out near the horizon. They were the lighter destroyers, and had 192 HQ-16 SAM’s as their best defense.

So let it begin, he thought. The Americans are in range of my YJ-100’s now. Should I strike with everything, or just labor to keep them on the defensive and buy time?

“Signal the screen,” he ordered. “They are to alter course to 185 degrees south, and attempt to close inside 300 miles at 30 knots. The main body will now execute Plan Warhorse.”

That was his first strike order with the YJ-100’s, and each destroyer had been assigned targets and given instructions as to how many missiles they should fire. Only 40 of the 110 would go in this attack, but they would focus on just two ships, the contact presumed to be the carrier Independence, and its closest screening unit.

Captain Holmes signed off on the morning strike and was heading for his chair on the bridge when the radar team noted a contact aspect heading change that hour. A group of enemy ships had altered course on an intercept heading, and increased speed.

“And sir, Argent Forward just reported vampires, about 284 miles out now.”

“They’re attacking with the YJ-100’s,” said Holmes. “Alright, tell the Air Boss to shake ‘em loose.”

“Yes sir.”

Independence had teed up a squadron of Avengers with the LRASM and another of F-35’s with GBU-53. They would all be airborne in a matter of minutes, even as the first SM-6 missiles started firing at the distant Vampires, which were now 130 miles out. That the US ships could see and target the low flying enemy missiles that far away was a tribute to their excellent radar and missile technology.

“Come to 138 degrees southeast,” said Holmes. He was altering course to keep those bird dogs heading his way at bay.

“Sir, Avengers report they have reached assembly point and have the range.”

“Clear them hot, and the escort is to engage the Vampires.”

“Aye sir.” His XO, Lt. Commander Cooper, was fast and efficient.

The battle was on, 40 YJ-100’s inbound, 48 LRASM’s about to be released in reprisal from the Avengers. The F-35’s would be a while closing the range for their saturation attack, and the Captain looked at his watch. He was going to follow them with Maritime Tomahawks. He had about the same number of those long range missiles as the Chinese had. There were 118 MMT’s in the strike group, and about 175 miles to the southeast, the New Jersey Surface Action Group under Captain Hap Turner had another 150.

For the next ten minutes, the Captain watched as the combination of SM-6 and AAMRAM’s off his F-35’s slowly cut those trains of 40 YJ-100’s to pieces. Not one would get as close as 80 miles from the US ships.

Pakistan had 15 ships at sea, and one group of nine ships had slipped inside the 30 mile limit line. Under normal circumstances, planes might have been scrambled from the nearest Indian airbase, which was now at Jamnagar, just 80 miles away. That base was home to the 6th and 224th Squadrons of Jaguars and the 28th Fighter squadron, which had a dozen Soviet built Mig-29’s.

India had made most of its military hardware purchases from the Soviets. In fact, they had a modified Kiev Class carrier still in service, now at sea as the Vikramaditya. Their own newest carrier, Vikrant (Courageous), was also at sea, and both ships had squadrons of Mig-29K’s and a lot of Russian built ordnance. The presence of these two carriers, and the fact that India could also call on support now from several airfields, made the sortie by the Pakistani fleet a dangerous ploy. It had worked insofar as getting the attention of the Indian forces, but now, after thumbing their noses at their old foe, the Pakistani Admiral Zahid Ilyas, Commander of COMKAR, (Naval Group Karachi), realized he was badly outgunned. His fifteen ships carried a total of 64 C-803 Chinese built missiles, with a range of 100 miles, and not much else.

Relatively speaking, the Indian Navy was armed to the teeth. It had fighters that could carry fast and dangerously effective missiles like the KH-35 Russian Star, and the deadly Brahmos high speed cruise missile. The Indian ships also carried those missiles, and they also had the export variant of the Klub “Sizzler.” Their weapons were much better than anything Pakistan had, and that meant Admiral Ilyas was going to now exercise the better part of valor, and turn for Karachi before things got hot. They were now 240 miles from the Indian fleet, and the order was given to return to port at 15:00 that afternoon.

But then there was Kalvari….

The Indian Sub Captain had been told to investigate, and he was eager to do so. So he cruised, just over the layer, and got himself very close to the intruding ships… too close. His boat was detected, the Pakistani Fleet got very edgy, thinking they might have stumbled upon an American sub, and a YU-7 torpedo was put in the water.

As soon as the Captain of Kalvari realized he was under attack, he accelerated to 20 knots to try and evade, and then counterattacked the nearest enemy ship, which was the Frigate Zufliquar, a Chinese 053H3 class ship sold to Pakistan. When that YU-7 failed to lock on and hit, the Indian Captain fired two torpedoes, and he would put that frigate down. Seconds after that explosion was heard, another torpedo made a run at the sub, this time a Mark-46, but it swept past, spoofed by countermeasures.

The torpedo soon realized it had no target, and began to circle to re-acquire. It would make one more pass at Kalvari, but fail a second time before it ran out of energy and died. Kalvari had escaped, but its attack had sent the entire Pakistani fleet into wild evasive maneuvers like a lion coming on a herd of Wildebeests. Once the sub got to clear water, out of range of enemy torpedoes, it would send up an emergency buoy for a flash comm signal to Mumbai stating that it had been fired upon, and returned fire in self-defense, sinking a Pakistani frigate.

The hellcat was out of the bag…

As this was playing out, the nine F-35’s carrying a total of 72 GBU-53’s snuck inside HQ-9 range and released without being detected. They had targeted the main body, and particularly the heavy destroyers where all the Chinese offensive, and most of their defensive capability was roosting. About 25 miles out, the HQ-9’s rose up in a furious stream of missiles that tore into the glide bomb cloud and savaged it. The defense was rock solid, and they would find and destroy every target, none reaching even the 15 mile range mark before they died. But there went over 100 SAM’s….

The Chinese screening formation was now getting close to the 300 mile marker as it kept closing the range, which prompted Captain Holmes to turn due south after his Avengers were recovered. He would not allow Independence to be put inside the range of those YJ-18’s.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “The GBU’s didn’t get any hits, but they did their job and pulled some teeth. Now we go to the Tomahawks. All ships are cleared hot to engage as planned.”

That plan would allocate 80 missiles, keeping up the pressure on the enemy SAM bays, and intending to slowly wear down the defensive viability of the enemy fleet. Unlike the GBU’s which would do minor damage if one hit, a Tomahawk could not be ignored, because a single hit would likely kill any ship it struck.

At 16:00, the Chinese satellite Yaogan-7 made its timely overflight and updated all the positions of the US ships. Without it, Sun Wei might have been largely blind, but at least he knew where his antagonist was. That data hit the updated situation screens a few minutes later, and it showed a lone US destroyer, identified as DDG Sherman, now within range of YJ-18’s in both TF’s.

“A lost sheep,” said Sun Wei.

“That is the ship that escorted the damaged US destroyer to Mumbai,” said the Watch Officer.

“Yes,” said the Admiral, “and if India wishes to remain neutral, it should demand that ship be interned there for the duration of this war. Very well, let us see if we can kill this ship before it reaches the protection of one of the other task forces.”

“DDG Chaoyong reports they have target lock, sir, and with 16 missiles.”

“Then they must fire at once. I want first blood in this fight.”

Chapter 26

Two Seafire Class[8] destroyers in the screen also reported they had a target lock on the Sherman, and they were authorized to join the attack with 8 missiles each. As it happened, Yaogan-7 flew almost directly over the US destroyer, further refining its position. The YJ-18 was a fussy missile, and needed very precise position data before it could be fired. So it wasn’t merely a question of having the range, it also needed down range certainty as to the location of the target.

The attack was fired just before the first of the US Tomahawks were picked up, and now the alarms sounded for fleet defense. The Vampires were coming in on many different vectors, but they were slow enough to allow the Chinese defense systems to acquire and target them easily enough. The missile was an old dog dating from decades past that had been upgraded and taught new tricks, but it was still the same old dog when it came to speed at just 500 knots. If these missiles had been designed to make a terminal run at three times that speed, they might have scored some hits. As it was, they were threatening weapons that had to be respected, but not unduly feared as long as Sun Wei still had SAM’s. There were a little over 200 HQ-9’s still available, and they were going to work.

Yet the Admiral watched, somewhat nervously, as his missiles fired, seeing his defensive strength ebbing away with each SAM he flung into the hazy sky. How many Vampires were out there this time? It might take two SAM’s to ensure a kill, though his HQ-9’s got many hits with just one missile. That said, he had used half of those missiles to kill the first 120 vampires that had already attacked. Now these infernal Tomahawks were going to drain away the better part of his remaining strength. It was all happening as he feared it would. His enemy was going to have more missiles to throw at him than he could hope to kill….

The worst of the attack appeared to be over, and now the stragglers on odd attack vectors were coming in ones and twos. He was also watching the progress of the YJ-18 attack, seeing that the Independence group, which was 150 miles west of the Sherman, had still been able to cover that ship with its superb Standard Missile-6. In spite of that, he took some heart when he saw his missiles begin their high-speed sprint, no longer easy targets for the American SAM’s. Two hits later, DDG Sherman was a smoking wreck on the sea, and sinking fast. The killer YJ-18 had struck again, and the Admiral had his blood. That was the first US surface ship to be sunk by the Chinese Navy in the war, though three other ships had been damaged and were in various stages of repair.

Now he looked his situation over, the grim realization settling on him that he was running low on SAM’s. His main group now reported only 69 HQ-9’s remaining, and 35 medium range HQ-16’s. He had 70 YJ-100’s left, and two prime targets out there in range, the Independence and the New Jersey. Which could hurt him the most? He knew he had not been hit with the full air wing off that carrier, but how soon would they strike again? As for the American battleship, it had an enormous missile battery, and could carry up to 100 strike missiles in addition to scores of SAM’s. In the end, he deemed the carrier the more valuable target, and now he would expend all his remaining YJ-100’s in a desperate effort to kill that ship.

“Dragonfire!” he shouted the order. “Everything on the American carrier!”

“Mother, this is Bertha. Hot potatoes heading your way, over.”

The E-2D Hawkeye had seen the missile fire from the Chinese main body, and flashed the warning. Captain Holmes looked at the screen, so he gave the order for Independence to turn to port and come to 212 degrees southwest.

“Let’s get six F-35’s up on BARCAP, and then increase to all ahead flank,” he finished.

They watched those six fighters roar off the deck and climb away from the strike group. Captain Holmes looked on his ready board and noted he still had six Avengers armed, four with GBU-53, and two with Slammers. He noted the incoming Vampires, now being tracked by the Hawkeye, and decided to hold his cards in hand for the moment.

The BARCAP, got five kills, then thought to return to the carrier when they went Shotgun, before the Captain found out they were inbound and ordered them to stay in the fight until they went Winchester. They had 12 AAMRAM’s left, and took them back to the Vampires knowing they would hear from Holmes when they got back to the carrier. They could almost hear the Captain now: ‘You don’t go Shotgun and break off in a situation like this. You hang in there until you’ve got nothing left to fight with.’

The chastened F-35 pilots were at high altitude, but they overflew the Vampires on the way back out, then turned around and swooped down on them like birds of prey. Seconds later they rammed their last twelve missile right up the ass end of a long train of YJ-100’s. They got more kills, but it still left 47 Vampires inbound on the Independence, about 50 miles out.

Some tense minutes passed, and the Captain folded his arms, waiting for his screening units to engage. They were having trouble getting enough reflectivity off the YJ-100, but cruiser Shiloh finally opened up with ESSM’s. Antietam was next to fire, and then the destroyers Sheridan and Hancock. For the next few minutes, missiles seemed to be flying everywhere, but it was a SAM feast. The combined weight of the defense was still just too strong for those 47 Vampires to penetrate, and they would all be stopped.

With that attack, Admiral Sun Wei had literally shot his wad, at least for any attack he might make beyond 300 miles in range. The Chinese were still leading 1-0 into the middle innings here, but the US was now coming up to bat. When the smoke cleared, Captain Holmes took a deep breath, because he knew every last damn missile the Chinese had just fired had the name Independence written on it—but they had failed.

“Alright,” he said. “It’s Miller Time. These guys won’t have much else to throw at us, and so now we start picking them apart. We’ll coordinate with New Jersey, and go to the Tomahawks again. Let’s bleed the suckers dry.”

The sun began to set that day, a big orange ball over the quiet seas, and with it Sun Wei knew the darkness would not bring him any comfort. His offensive power was largely gone, though his screen signaled they had a firing solution with YJ-18’s on the US destroyer Buckner, cruising with the New Jersey. He authorized them to fire, knowing he would never get close to the carrier to do it any harm. At that hour he was still 730 miles from Colombo, running at 30 knots, and it was going to be a long, hard night on the bridge.

After the screening units fired, he ordered those ships to vector in on his position, knowing he would need their HQ-16’s soon. They had not yet been targeted, and reported a SAM inventory on that weapon at 190 missiles. That would go a good way towards bolstering his defense, but those ships had been chasing the American carrier, and were now 75 miles to the southwest. They were to make an immediate rendezvous.

That night, the 24 H-6 Bombers that had operated from Hyderabad took off a little before 18:00, and started the long flight north to Hotan Airbase on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert. The War Gods were leaving. They would land at Hotan, refuel, and then take to the skies yet again, bound for Lhasa in Tibet, and from there they would await orders, possibly to redeploy to Yangon in southern Burma, a base where China had negotiated rights in trade for her older fighter jets. The plan now was to use the long range of J-20’s based at Yangon, with J-31’s off Taifeng operating from the Gulf of Thailand, and it was hoped those assets could secure the western entrance to the Malacca Strait.

Admiral Sun Wei was stoic, regretting all that was lost with this withdrawal order. Now it will be up to Pakistan, and any air force units we left behind, to see to the Gulf of Oman. This is a disgraceful retreat, he thought, but yet, I could see no way to prevail against those two American Carriers. Here we struggle to escape from just one carrier, and may not yet live to reach Colombo. If we can at least get close before our SAM defense is depleted, we may get air cover from Sri Lanka. And of course this is why we must tip-toe past Mumbai, and do nothing to antagonize India at this point. Their Air Force is the last thing we need turning on us as we continue south.

Just after 18:00, the alarms jangled again, and the Admiral rushed to the tactical display to see more enemy missiles heading his way. More Tomahawks, he thought. How many? We may have the HQ-9’s to stop them now, but then what?

That proved to be true, for it seemed a small package of only about 36 enemy missiles. Just sent to annoy us, he thought, but looking at his SAM count told the real tale. He had 41 HQ-9’s left when that attack ended.

As if in reprisal, the 16 YJ-18’s that had locked on to DDG Buckner earlier were now closing on the place they expected that target to be. The three ships in the SAG were having trouble targeting the Sizzlers, and it was DDG Sheridan with the Independence who saw and fired on them first, some 80 miles to the east. They would not have much work to do. The target lock could not be held by the Chinese destroyers who sent the Sizzlers here, and so the first eight missiles executed a turn, fired up their rocket motors, and began to sprint… Unfortunately, that turn had taken them away from Buckner, and they were streaking off over an empty sea, totally lost. The next group would do the very same thing, and Captain Hap Turner just stood on the bridge of the New Jersey, grinning from ear to ear. There went 16 valuable missiles, off into the night to become nothing more than junk on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

The Admiral took the news of that failed attack with stoic resignation. The YJ-18 is a killer, he thought, but only when it knows exactly where to go. Down range ambiguity of even two miles can result in costly failures like this. It was our inability to actually have a real time radar fix on the enemy ships that caused this. Yet I have no AEW assets or even fighters to dash in and get me that information. I can rely only on the latest satellite feeds, which age second by second. If we could have better positioned our submarines before attempting this withdrawal, it might have helped, but they are too slow, and that could have taken days. So I elected to try and surprise the Americans by leaving Karachi last night, and here we are, under constant attack as our SAM’s dwindle away.

I am weary, and in need of sleep, but now I must be strong. If we succeed, it will be spoken of as one of the greatest sea romps since the last great war. Let us write this history our way….

Captain Holmes had other ideas about how this mission would be written up in the history books. He had kept the pressure on all day, with an air strike and two SSM strikes using Tomahawks, all against the same target, the main body where the better Type 055 destroyers held forth. He wanted to break the enemy’s main offensive and defensive strength, which resided in those ships, and by his count, he did not think they had anything more they could use to hurt him. His strike group had beaten off at least 100 cruise missiles, the long range YJ-100’s, and he knew those were only typically carried on the Type 055’s.

Now he was rigging out his wing for another strike. The enemy had no air cover, and they were now very vulnerable after fending off his three attacks. So in about three hours he would begin spotting planes again for a little midnight madness.

“Mister Cooper,” he called to his XO. “What’s our count on available Tomahawks?”

“We still have 68 MMT’s, sir. The rest are TacToms.”

“That’s a good throw. Did New Jersey update on the network yet?”

“Yes sir. They have 86, mostly on the battleship.”

“Excellent. You know, if we threw in an attack of that size, I don’t think they could stop it now. But I want our air wing to get at these guys. They’re hungry. So let’s pester them with half our present loadout on the MMT’s. When we’re done, New Jersey can do the same. I want to keep them under heavy pressure between now and midnight.”

As the clock swept through 20:00, the Chinese screen was the first to detect the Tomahawks. 30 had been sent, but one group of six had vectored close to that screen, which had been maneuvering to rejoin the main body. That served as a warning that another attack was coming in, and the alert jangled the nerves of the crews yet again. The intruding Vampires had ventured inside the 21 mile range of the HQ-16’s, so the DDG screen engaged. They sent six SAM’s out, but only got two kills, and saw the Tomahawks making an evasive maneuver, much to their surprise. Before they could lock on and fire again, the Vampires had slipped beyond range.

As they began to reach the main body, now 36 miles to the northeast, HQ’9’s came out to greet them. Over the next 15 minutes, the Vampires came in twos and threes, and some got close enough to require three missiles fired before they were killed. No hits were scored, but the attack left only three HQ-9’s and 20 HQ-16’s in the VLS bays. After that, it would be up to the short range HQ-10, a last ditch defender inside the five mile range marker. Enemy missiles that got that close were very dangerous, with a strong chance of scoring hits.

That attack concluded, the New Jersey Group would now throw another 30 missiles, and look to get even for the loss of DDG Sherman. They would approach in a fairly tight group, with the course plotted to avoid the screening group. The first Vampires were picked up at 21:10 as they passed through the 20 mile range mark, and 30 seconds later the last three HQ-9’s went out into the fray. As Sun Wei watched them go, rising from the forward deck of the Dragon God, he realized that he should have left all his YJ-100’s at Karachi, and simply filled his VLS Bays with SAM’s, but it was too late for second thoughts now.

Those last three missiles got just one kill, and now the frigate Weifang began firing its eight remaining HQ-16’s. FFG Nantong joined in, the missiles soaring over the destroyers and heading out towards the horizon. Explosions glowed in the sky, and the sound of thunder rolled back at then Chinese ships. Soon the Vampires broke through the five mile marker, and DDG Chaoyong now began firing a hissing stream of HQ-10’s. All but one missile in the first two trains was killed, but a leaker was boring in on DDG Feilong, the Flying Dragon.

Captain Chen Wang had reported his ship was now depleted of all SAM’s. The once powerful super destroyer was now weaker than an old frigate from the 1980’s. All it had left were its ASROC’s and Gatling guns, which began to rattle out a stream of fire at the last Vampire. Two precious laser turrets sat inoperative, because the power couplings had not been finished.

The guns scored the kill, but then over a dozen more Vampires appeared from the southeast. Longshen and Yingshen, the other two Type 055’s, still had HQ-10’s and they began to fire. They were barely enough to stop that attack, and as the smoke began to clear in a light breeze over the fleet, Admiral Sun Wei knew the desperate hours had come upon them. The next attack would see death and destruction delivered to his proud fleet. Yet for now, he had work to do.

“Signal all ships reporting SAM depletion to take stations to port side and aft of the main body,” he said.

Those that still had weapons would now stand in the front rank.

Chapter 27

Help was coming, the Seafire Class destroyers in the screening group that had not yet been attacked. Six in that class and one frigate were rushing to the scene on an intercept heading, and together they would combine to add 184 HQ-16’s to the defense. That would extend the SAM shield to at least 20 miles, and Sun Wei hoped that might buy the fleet several hours before things got worse.

In the meantime, far to the north, The Indian Navy was given a most unexpected order. There had been ongoing “incidents” along the line in the Punjab, with exchanges of artillery fire, and even air strikes delivered on both sides. India was weary of the constant antagonism of the Pakistani Government, and now New Delhi saw the injudicious sortie by the Pakistani Karachi Command as a perfect means of punishing them.

The order was given to strike, coded Shiva, the Destroyer.

Both Indian carriers had 18 Mig-29’s, and each would send up a squadron of nine planes carrying the Soviet built AS-20 Kayak, or Star. It was a slow turbojet missile with a 140 mile range and a terminal popup maneuver as it attacked. Another 12 Migs took off from Jamnagar AFB, a little east of the enemy fleet, also carrying that ordnance. Behind the carriers at Pune AFB behind Mumbai, a squadron of SU-30’s would bring the coup de gras, the high speed Brahmos.

Alarmed when they saw the planes on radar, the Pakistani Admiral Zahid Ilyas sent an emergency message to Karachi warning that they might be under attack, and requested air support. Unfortunately, most of the planes on the fields near Karachi had been loaded with strike ordnance, but six fighters scrambled from Omara on the coast northwest of the port. In frustration, the PAK Air Commandant looked at all the planes at Faisal AFB, J-20’s armed and ready on the field, but the Chinese Air Liaison Officer told him they had orders not to engage the Indian military unless attacked.

At that hour, no one was really sure whether this even was an attack. It could simply be a show of force, as would often happen during similar “incidents” during peacetime. But this was war, and the Vampires would soon be flying. As the radar crews on the Pakistani ships nervously watched the tracks they had on those aircraft, the Indian fleet was seen to be increasing speed in its distant pursuit. At 21:50, there was no longer any doubt when the Indian planes were cleared hot and began to release those Kayak missiles.

There were eight ships in the trailing PAK Task Force, and each one was targeted with six missiles. The Vampires were seen immediately when they were released, and a wide eyed Admiral Ilyas, forward in the leading TF, gave orders to prepare to defend the fleet. For that mission, there were 48 Chinese built HQ-7 missiles in the trailing TF, with a 5 mile range, and a dozen of another strange bird, the HQ-64. That missile had a twisted development path. The Italians first knocked off the US made RIM-7E Sea Sparrow, and then the Chinese got hold of that and copied it to build their HQ-64, a missile with a 10 mile range.

All the Kayaks penetrated the ten mile line unchallenged, but at 5 miles, the frigate Shamsheer began to engage with its HQ-7, which was itself a reverse engineered copy of the French Crotale missile. All these missiles dated to the 1990’s, but that was what the Pakistan Navy had, with nary an HQ-9B to be seen. Other ships started firing, but the missiles were not very effective, getting few hits, which soon brought the close in defense guns into action. Seconds later, Shamsheer was struck, and exploded in an angry welter of fire and smoke.

Frigate Khaibar was hit seconds later, and the 145Kg warhead in the Vampire was more than enough to kill that ship as well. Then, in rapid succession FFG’s Saif, Tariq, and Tippu Sultan were blasted open to the sea. Frigate Aslat was hit soon after, along with Frigate Sha Jahan, and seven of the eight ships were burning wrecks. Only the squadron leader, the US built Perry Class Frigate Alamgir, had survived.

The six Pakistani Mirage Fighters saw the long columns of smoke on the sea, and they rushed in to look for enemy fighters. Unfortunately, the Indian Migs had seen them, and moved to engage with their longer ranged Soviet built missiles. They would easily target and shoot down all six fighters, whereupon they began circling in a loiter, painting the next Pakistani TF with their radars. The dangerous sortie made by the PAK Navy had been a case of “fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.” India was teaching them a very hard lesson now, that at least in the Air/Naval arena, they held a clear superiority.

By this time, that squadron of nine SU-30’s from Pune AFB were arriving on the scene with their Brahmos missiles. They were looking for targets, identifying the frigate Larkana some 60 miles beyond the stricken TF. With time running out on fuel, they decided to fire, half their missiles at the more distant target, and the remainder at the two ships still afloat in the first TF, for one frigate, the Sha Jahan, had not yet sunk. That ship would die with its second hit a minute later, and the Perry Class frigate Alamgir would die with it.

Five other missiles streaked in at 1450 knots on the distant TF, but those were the best ships in the Pakistani fleet, all Type 054A Class Frigates bought directly from the Chinese. As such, they had the HQ-16 SAM, and enough of them to get those Vampires before they could harm any of the ships.

There, shaken by the stunning loss of all eight ships in his trailing TF, Admiral Zahid Ilyas stood aboard the frigate named for his home port and command center, Karachi, and burned with anger. This was a dastardly attack, he thought, and it must not go unpunished. Yet behind that anger he knew that if that were to happen, the reprisal would most likely have to be delivered by the Air Force or the Army.

Some fool gets spooked by an Indian submarine, he thought. Now I have lost nine ships, and over a thousand men in the water, and this war has taken a most deadly turn. The Chinese have abandoned us! Their planes sat idle on the air fields we provided for them here, and did not intervene. Yet can we bite the hand that feeds us now? This ship beneath my feet was built by China, and we get all our best weapons from them now. This is not over. We will have our vengeance! The Air Force is coming.

At that moment, Mirage F-1 Fighters and JF-17 Thunder strike planes were roaring off the Pakistani airfields. They were bringing the H-4 SOW Raptor glide bombs, with a 60 mile range, and the Wrecker cruise missiles, a derivative of the Chinese YJ-12 with a 135 mile range. They flew off in angry swarms, heading out to find and strike the Indian fleet, with a few Mirage-5’s joining them, carrying Exocets.

The mission was to be all guts and a glory. They would have no fighter escorts, but would just bore in on the suspected location of the enemy fleet, turn on all radars, and strike any ship they could find.

The Indian Admiral Arun Sing had joined the fleet when it left Mumbai, wanting a firm hand on what was to happen that day. He planted his flag of the new carrier Vikrant, and had been very pleased with the stunning results obtained by his strike. Now, however, he was going to have to weather the storm of reprisal heading his way.

As soon as word came that the Pakistani Air Force was rising from their bases around Karachi, he realized he needed to get more fighters up, and quickly. The nine planes he still had out there were only carrying their short range AA-11 missiles, but they would have to do until he could get more Migs in the air. He had one squadron of Mig-29’s remaining, armed for fleet air defense, and another Mig-29 Squadron at Pune AFB, with six more French built Raphael fighters there. All these planes would begin scrambling at once.

Berated by the Pakistani Air Commandant, the Chinese had agreed to send up two J-20’s to use their long range radars as spotters and coordinators, hoping India would not detect them. They also agreed to protect the Pakistani Saab 2000 AEW plane that was deploying out near the border zone.

The last nine Mig-29’s took off from Vikrant in three flights of three planes each, and it was not long before they were engaging with their AA-12 Adders. For all its bravado, the Pakistani attack was going bust. The enemy fleet, when finally located, was much farther away than they thought, and all the JF-17 Thunders went bingo after the Adder attack, and did not have the fuel to carry on. Only two of those missiles could be fired. Four Mirage F-1’s slipped through the CAP defense at 300 feet with their Raptor Glide bombs, and delivered four of those. Five remaining Mirage-5’s each got off an Exocet, and five more Mirage III’s delivered their bombs too, but that was the strike.

Against those 16 Vampires, India had 22 ships out there, and they had good Russian built SAM’s, (including the SA-N-12 Grizzly) that were more than capable of defeating that jab. The grand air strike out for vengeance had become pathetic, and all the Vampires were shot down with little difficulty. When the smoke settled, the score in this little duel would be logged 9-0, a decisive Indian victory. Having made their case in the most direct way possible, the Indian Fleet now turned back for Mumbai.

Now the professionals when it came to naval strike operations were stepping up to bat, and the Independence began to send its strike planes aloft. All 18 Avengers would take off with a mix of Slammers, LRASM, and the GBU-53. They would be joined by nine more F-35’s carrying those same small diameter bombs, and six escorts, just in case.

The six escort F-35’s surged ahead at 740 knots and then went to active radars to nail down the location of the Chinese fleet. Once found, the data was relayed to all the strike planes, and the LRASM’s were in the air minutes later. The Slammers followed soon after. All this time, the only plane that was seen on Chinese radars was the Hawkeye overlooking the event. They did not even know the strike was underway. It was a naval air strike capability an order of magnitude beyond anything else on the sea, and the only defense against it would have had to come from a robust screen of stealth fighters like the J-20, but none were there.

Four Avengers got in to their 60 mile release point and each would put 16 GBU-53 bombs in the air against the Chinese Seafire DDG screen, intending to saturate that group, as yet unfought. Keeping that group hot would try and prevent them from defending the main body, where most of the other ordnance had been targeted. The DDG screen was still very effective, able to defend itself while also getting after several groups of Slammers. But now a storm of steel was headed for the main body, and the screen had expended all its medium range HQ-16’s. It was down to the HQ-10’s, guns, and chaff, and for a good mass of reasonably stealthy weapons that could not be engaged until they were just five miles out, that spelled disaster.

Admiral Sun Wei still had 100 HQ-10’s left on his own ships, and the life of his mission, ships, and men now depended on those missiles…. But there were 87 Vampires on the radar screens….

Aboard Dragon God, Sun Wei instinctively braced himself for what he knew was about to happen. He had bravely positioned Longshen on the starboard flank of his formation, and watched as the darkness was lit by the tails of missiles being fired from all his ships.

There came a flash of light and the rumble of thunder, and he looked to see DDG Taiyuan badly hit by an American LRASM. In came a cloud of GBU-53’s with at least eight targeted to every ship. At the tail end of the formation, destroyer Lanzhou erupted with fire, and then her magazine blew up with all remaining missiles in the VLS bay, including eight YJ-18’s. Yingshen, the Eagle God, had systems damage from the GBU’s but no fire.

He felt Longshen shudder, then an explosion broiled up on the aft helo deck where a Z-9 had been hit and destroyed. A succession of four rapid punches hit the Dragon God, ripping through her superstructure and exploding inside the ship. He could smell the smoke, and knew he had a bad fire with those hits.

Then it was over. A stony silence settled over the sea, and the roiling smoke from all that missile fire and the explosions was a ghastly ocher hue. One minute he had his entire fleet intact, straining south in the darkness. Now two ships were sinking, and two more burning.

“Admiral,” came the voice of the ship’s Captain. “The engineers report heavy damage. We can make only nine knots, and have damage to the torpedoes, VLS Bays, hangar deck, and a very bad fire. You must transfer your flag immediately. I will carry on here. The Flying Dragon was not hit. I can have the men get a launch ready at once.

The Admiral gave him a dull eyed look. “Feilong reported SAM depletion some time ago. That is why it was moved to the interior of the formation.”

“But sir, it still has all its Gatling guns in good working order, and lasers. The engineers here report we now have only one gun operational.”

“You think those Gatling guns re going to stop the next American attack? No, Captain, I will stay right where I am. If this ship sinks, and I survive, then you may see me to another vessel. Yet I have little hope of that. If the Americans have any Tomahawks left, they will be on us within the hour.”

Yes… They would.

Captain Hap Turner got the message from Independence requesting the follow up SSM strike, and he still had 56 Maritime Tomahawks. They had good targeting data being relayed by the escort of F-35’s, and so they would not let this opportunity pass. Their enemy was finally cornered, on the ropes, and it was time for the heavy punches to go for the knockout.

SAG New Jersey was 375 miles southwest of the enemy fleet, and put 40 missiles out at about 01:30 on the 22nd of January. Sun Wei had tried to reorganize his remaining ships, pulling in the Seafire DDGs that still had missiles to form a good picket line defense off his starboard side. The alarms rang again. His prediction had come true.

Brave Taizhou was screening the center of the fleet, firing all its last HQ-10’s and then going to guns. One Tomahawk got through, pounding into Longshen, and the Dragon God groaned in agony, and the Admiral braced himself to keep from falling with that impact. The only other ship hit was DDG Haihuo, another of the pickets. So now, with over 90% of his systems down, the Captain pleaded with the Admiral to abandon ship.

Heavy hearted, and unwilling to leave his men, the Admiral finally relented, and Feilong came alongside to receive him. It was a cold, bitter end, but Sun Wei knew he had other ships and men to still look after, still in the fight, and he could not be so selfish as to abandon them. The call of duty, his disdain for fear, and his sense of honor would keep him in the fight with them, and he made the transfer to the Flying Dragon in the next twenty minutes.

The Dragon God sank ten minutes later, and he would never see that Captain of that ship again.