Battlefield Pacific

South Korea

General Bennet had enjoyed his whirlwind trip to D.C. and the time with his family, but the task at hand had quickly called him back to the reality of war. It was time to get down to the brass tacks of destroying the Eastern Alliance.

He spent most of the long flight on his way back thinking of how he was going to form up his army and who he was going to promote. Bennet contemplated for some time and then came to the obvious conclusion that he needed to promote his three corps commanders: Lieutenant General Tony Wilde, Lieutenant General Jacob LaFine, and Major General Amy Cooper.

Amy Cooper was probably the most obvious choice for a promotion, and not just because she was the first woman to command a combat arms corps during the war. It was no accident that she had become a general to begin with. She had served valiantly as an attack helicopter pilot during the first year of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and then during the invasion of Iraq, she had become a battalion commander of an attack helicopter unit. Her unit had single-handedly destroyed an Iraqi Republican Guard tank unit that was on its way to attack her US brothers-in-arms. She had gone on to serve two more tours in Iraq. In 2006, she’d gained a bit of notoriety when one of her wingmen had been shot down and she’d landed her helicopter, somehow managing to strap the pilot and copilot of the downed chopper onto the wings of her helicopter, saving them from certain death. It wasn’t long after that that she’d received her first general’s star and completed her obligatory tour at the Pentagon.

Prior to the start of this current war, she had served as the operations commander at US Army Europe. When the Russians had launched their surprise attack, she had been wounded, along with most of her staff. After spending four months recovering from the wounds incurred during those missile attacks, she had been given command of a newly formed infantry division in the States. Her division had fought well during the Chinese counterattack, and she had landed on General Bennet’s radar. He had promoted her to be one of his three corps commanders, and she had only continued to impress.

Lieutenant General Tony Wilde had also been serving as one of Bennet’s corps commanders, out in the Russian Far East. He had earned a PhD at Harvard, although he had been highly intelligent way before that. As a battalion commander during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and a brigade commander during the infamous Iraq Troop Surge in 2007, he had distinguished himself above his peers and managed to earn a Silver Star.

Rounding out the group was Lieutenant General Jacob LaFine, an Army Ranger who had also earned a Silver Star when he’d led a rescue effort to recover a downed helicopter. He had worked as General Petreaus’ aide during the troop surge, and later worked as an aide to the Secretary of Defense. After a lot of high-level training, he had become the deputy commander of ISAF forces in Afghanistan. General Bennet was grateful to have him on his team.

It wasn’t long before Bennet was sitting in a room with all three of them and their staff officers. As Bennet’s aide brought in a fresh pot of coffee for everyone, they all took turns congratulating him on his new promotion to Supreme Allied Commander of Asia. The aide returned with some sandwiches — this was going to be a working lunch. General Bennet allowed some chitchat to continue until everyone had their food and drink situated, then he tapped his knuckles on the table as if calling a meeting to order.

“All right, it’s time to get down to business,” he declared. “The President and the SecDef have directed our theater to become the new priority theater. That means we will be going to the front of the line when it comes to new troops and equipment coming straight from the factory. The President has tasked us with getting our forces ready to defeat the Chinese and the Eastern Alliance — it’s a tall order, but we command the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen. We will rise to the occasion and defeat our nation’s enemies.”

Everyone in the room nodded in approval.

Bennet went on. “Things are going to move fast over the next couple of months. We’re going to promote a lot of people as we fill our ranks and units. Effective immediately, I’m forming up new Army groups. Each Army will be assigned a specific set of goals that will coincide with our theater objectives.”

He turned to Lieutenant General Tony Wilde first. “Tony, you’re being given your fourth star and will form Army Group One,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Since your current corps is already in the Russian Far East, your new group will be charged with defeating the Indian Army that has set up camp in Irkutsk. Once you have accomplished that mission, I want you to set up your new headquarters there. Then you are to tear into the Chinese rear areas and look to liberate Mongolia. That will place a large force in the Chinese backyard.”

“Yes, Sir,” General Wilde responded.

General Bennet looked down at his notes. “I’m going to swell your ranks to 240,000 soldiers, Tony. I can’t guarantee you that you’ll get all of those troops immediately, but we’ll reinforce you as our offensive progresses. I’m giving you three weeks to prepare and organize your forces to attack, so that means your offensive needs to be underway by June 21st. Is that understood?” he asked.

General Wilde nodded. “You can count on Army Group One to accomplish our mission, Sir,” he answered confidently. “We’ll make that Indian Army wish they had stayed neutral. They’ll regret the day they took up arms against the US of A.”

The other generals were smiling broadly. They liked his style; he liked to get into the weeds and did a lot of the briefings himself or would interrupt his briefers. There was never a dull moment.

General Bennet turned next to Lieutenant General Jacob LaFine. “I’m also promoting you, General LaFine. You’re going to take command of the newly formed Army Group Two. Honestly, you will probably have the hardest task of all — your group will be invading the People’s Republic of China.”

LaFine pursed his lips. Invading China was not going to be an easy challenge. He also was not one to shy away from adversity.

Bennet checked his notes again. “You’ve got, what—90,000 soldiers right now?” he asked.

“That sounds about right, General. I have a few divisions arriving this week, so that will add another 25,000 to my ranks,” LaFine answered.

“OK,” said Bennet. “I’m going to direct most of our new reinforcements to your Army group. Eventually, your forces will number around 350,000 soldiers.” He scratched out a few calculations before he continued. “Because it’s going to take a little longer to get your Army group the numbers, you’re going to need to break out of Korea. I’m going to delay your offensive until July 30th. This will give General Wilde time to get his offensive well underway and time for your ranks and equipment to swell.”

At this point, all of the staff officers in the room were furiously taking notes.

Bennet continued, “I want your Army group to drive the Chinese back to the ruins of Shenyang. This will place a lot of pressure on the Chinese Army to stop you from advancing, which will in turn keep the PLA distracted from our efforts to liberate the Philippines and Taiwan.”

“Yes, Sir. We will get this done,” said General LaFine emphatically.

Bennet turned to General Amy Cooper. “Saved the best for last?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood of the room a little.

General Bennet smiled. “Major General Amy Cooper, I’m promoting you two grades to a four-star general, and you’re going to take over Army Group Three. Right now, your forces have formed up in Vladivostok, Russia; I want your Army group to push into northern China and capture Harbin and Changchun. These two provinces are a major part of the Chinese manufacturing base, and a large portion of their steel factories and other critical war production factories are located in these provinces. Their capture will go a long way toward defeating the Chinese.”

General Cooper beamed with pride. She was excited about this opportunity to lead an army group in combat.

“Your group is probably going to be the slowest to form right now,” said Bennet. “Not because it’s not a priority, but because of the timeline for Army Group One to meet their goals before the winter months and because of the pressure Army Group Two will need to apply in order for your command to succeed in capturing the manufacturing northern half of China.”

“No problem, Sir. When do you want my group to move?” she asked.

“I want your command ready to execute your offensive on August 30th,” he responded.

General Bennet turned to look each of his three new army group commanders in the eye. “The key to our success, Generals, is going to be speed,” he advised. “We need to be agile in our movements, adjusting where we need to and hitting the enemy fast and hard when the opportunity presents itself. I need your groups to inflict maximum force on the enemy. Be aggressive, and do not let up. Is that understood?”

Seeing no objections, Bennet dismissed the group to get back to their commands and implement their new orders.

General Roy Cutter picked up speed as he made the final turn on his morning run. He was now sprinting at full speed as he raced down the parking ramp of the airfield for the last mile of his five-mile run. Cutter felt the flood of endorphins rushing through him and the stress melting away; he really enjoyed this daily ritual. As the wind whipped past his face, he formulated his plans for the coming day.

Parked on the ramp where he was running was the newest squadron of F-35Bs, which had arrived the night before.

“These are really going to add to our Marine capability,” he thought with a smile on his face.

Cutter completed his run and grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off his face. It was time to make the rounds.

As his Marines extricated themselves from the Russian Far East, they were all making the time-consuming transition to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in preparation for the eventual invasion of Taiwan and the Philippines. He had his troops getting ready for the dramatic change in battlefields by engaging in extensive jungle and amphibious assault training. Cutter made his way to one of the observation points to watch that day’s mock amphibious assault.

One of General Cutter’s lieutenant generals, Al Pinkett, joined him.

“Good morning, Sir,” Pinkett said, a little too chipper for that hour of the morning. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, and it might not have been his first.

“Good morning, Pinkett,” Cutter responded. “How do you think today’s practice run is going to go?”

“I expect it to be successful, Sir. My only real concern is the integration of all of the new graduates that they are sending us from boot camp. So far, we have been able to successfully absorb those Marines into our current forces without any significant issues, but as we continue to grow, it may lead to some disorganization.”

General Cutter grunted. “Well, if it does, you need to work that out quickly,” he asserted. “We don’t have a lot of time to get everyone ready for our operation in Taiwan. Right now, I want two amphibious assault practice runs a week, but if you start to have issues, maybe we go to three.”

“Understood, Sir,” answered Pinkett. “I know this tempo of training has been intense for our Marines, but I personally would like to make it to the Republic of China before their military units that have been fighting in the mountains and the jungles are wiped out.”

“Well, for that, we have to hope that the US Seventh Fleet hurries up its operations. They need to secure the waters around Taiwan and the Philippines. Until they do, we can’t set a date for landing our forces.”

“Hmm…” said Pinkett. “I can’t help you with that one, Sir.”

Just then, a flurry of activity began, and they shifted their focus to observing the men and women below them, practicing their drill like a well-choreographed dance.

Vice Admiral Jeff Richards was still getting used to his new command. The past several months had gone by in a blur of activity. His carrier air wings had been beyond busy, providing support to the Marines as they captured the Russian Far East and providing round-the-clock air cover over the Korean Peninsula.

Fortunately, his carrier air wings had scored over 230 kills, and he had only lost 48 of his own aircraft. Most of those losses had happened while supporting the Marines on the ground. While the Russian air defense was not nearly as dense or well organized as what they had faced in Europe, they were still wreaking havoc on his planes. To help counter the Russian and Chinese air-defense systems, the Navy had transferred nearly all the EA-Growler aircraft from the Atlantic fleets to Asia. The added electronic countermeasure planes had significantly reduced his losses.

The next challenge Admiral Richards had to deal with was clearing the waters around Taiwan and the Philippines. For that, he was going to need some help.

Richards walked into the briefing room of his newly established South Pacific headquarters, where he saw his three strike group commanders waiting for him, along with the carrier commanders, the Pacific submarine commander and a couple of destroyer squadron commanders.

“Good, everyone was able to make it in for this meeting,” he thought with relief.

Admiral Richards took his seat quickly, wanting to get the ball rolling. “Gentlemen, we have four weeks to clear the waters around Taiwan and the Philippines, so the Marines can begin their ground operations. We’ve danced around when we want to go after the PLA South China Sea fleet, but time has run out. We need to make a move on them now.”

Richards looked at the rear admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet’s submarine force with a look that was less than friendly. “I need to know what the holdup is with the PLA submarine force,” he asserted. “Why are we still losing subs to the Chinese and not getting them cleared out? What’s the problem?”

Rear Admiral Toby Dag had known this question was going to come. “Sir, several months ago, the Chinese fielded a new high-speed torpedo. The technology surrounding the torpedo has been discussed and researched for decades by DARPA, the Russians, and China, but in a nutshell, they appear to have cracked the code on it and are now inflicting some heavy losses on us as a consequence.”

Toby saw a few puzzled looks and realized he needed to say more. “The new torpedo is able to travel at speeds of up to 150 knots, with a range of ten kilometers. That obviously creates a very big problem for us. With these kinds of speeds, it’s impossible for us to defend against it. Fortunately, it appears that only one of their submarines is currently equipped with this new torpedo. Their Type 095 or Wuhan-class submarine is currently the only submarine in their fleet that presently uses this torpedo.”

He continued. “I’ve made it a top priority to sink the Wuhan. In the last several months, we’ve lost eight submarines to the Wuhan, as well as three destroyers. That said, I did receive word a couple of hours ago that three of our destroyers believe they may have the Wuhan in their sights. We’re vectoring in additional P-8 Poseidon to help prosecute the attack. My concern, Admiral — and I’m not sure if naval intelligence can confirm this — is what if they’re able to equip this torpedo to their naval bombers or antisubmarine warfare planes? That could prove to be disastrous for us.”

Admiral Richards hadn’t thought about that before. He’d read reports about this new “super torpedo” and had known it was a problem, but he hadn’t considered the torpedoes’ use by aircraft. A sinking feeling hit him in the stomach.

“I want every available asset we have hunting the Wuhan down and sinking it,” Richards ordered. “I want a plan put together on how we’re going to engage the South China Sea fleet and sink it. We have to figure out how we’re going to support the Marines’ liberation of Taiwan and the Philippines, to be executed in the next thirty days.”

The meeting went on for another hour as the senior officers strategized how the US was going to engage and destroy the Chinese fleet while not losing more carriers in the process. The Navy was already down three carriers and could ill afford to lose any more. Some creative strategizing was required.

The past several weeks had been absolutely exhilarating for Captain Liu Huaqing. The Wuhan had sunk eight American submarines and three destroyers. It had been a truly marvelous feat and had proved beyond a doubt that this new torpedo was not only going to change the future of naval warfare, it could shift the balance of power in the Pacific.

Looking at the map, Captain Liu contemplated whether his sub should try and go after the American aircraft carriers now or keep nipping at the edges, sinking the ships the US kept sending after them. The Wuhan only had twelve more of the experimental torpedoes left, and once they ran out, they’d have to return back to base and hope the factories had built a more for them.

Sensing that someone had walked up to him, Liu looked up and saw that his XO had joined him at the maps table.

“Trying to figure out where we should go next?” inquired his executive officer, Commander Wei Gang.

Liu nodded. “Part of me wants to sail north and go after the Japanese Navy, or perhaps the supply convoys providing men and material to the Korean Peninsula. But I also know the real battle is going to be right here, in the Philippine Sea.”

Commander Wei let out a short breath before responding, “It would be inspiring to our people back home and the men if we could sail to the West Coast of America and begin sinking ships off the coast of California.”

Captain Liu let out a snort of laughter. “That would be great, but there is no way the admirals would allow us to venture that far away from the main American fleet. I tried to argue that, if allowed to patrol the West Coast of America, we would divert resources away from the American carriers, but they insisted that our new super weapon would be the deciding factor between winning and losing this next battle.”

“Should we head toward Guam, then, and seek out the carriers directly?” offered Commander Wei.

Captain Liu traced his hand across the map, running his finger across Guam, then moved his finger to the north. “Let’s move in the direction of Saipan. Intelligence said the US Marines are doing a lot of training on Saipan and Tinian Island. Perhaps we can find their amphibious assault ships and sink a few of them.”

His XO nodded and smiled at the idea. The two of them began to plot the best avenue of approach and how long it would take them to reach their destination.

Unbeknownst to Captain Liu and Commander Wei, several thousand feet above them, a Boeing P-8 Poseidon had been sniffing around them for the past several hours. When the Wuhan changed course and began to head toward the Island of Saipan, it increased speed from its stalking speed of seven knots an hour to twenty — this change in speed gave the Poseidon just enough added noise for its incredibly sophisticated sensors to collect enough data to start narrowing down the submarine’s exact coordinates. The pilot used that data to call in additional antisubmarine warfare ships and aircraft to help them prosecute an attack on the elusive Wuhan.

An hour into their new course, Commander Wei received a call from the sonar room. “Commander Wei, we are detecting a series of sonar buoys. Probable enemy aircraft trying to guide additional enemy assets toward us,” informed his sonar chief.

A shiver of fear ran down Wei’s spine as he realized they might have been discovered. “Have you detected any possible American submarines or other surface warfare ships in the area?” he asked.

“We thought we had a possible underwater contact maybe ten minutes ago, but it’s gone. If we could slow down, we might be able to see if we can get a better bead on what we are facing.”

Wei looked for the captain and found him talking to another sailor nearby. He quickly got his attention, letting him know he needed to talk with him.

“What’s going on, XO?” Captain Lei asked.

“Sir, sonar reported a possible underwater contact and detected sonar buoys being dropped on the surface. They are recommending we slow down and try to listen for a bit to see what we’re potentially facing,” explained Wei.

Captain Lei nodded in agreement. “Do it, XO. Slow us down and let’s see what’s out there.”

In minutes, the Wuhan had slowed to a mere crawl as they listened with their towed sonar array, hoping and praying they had not been found, or worse, triangulated by the Americans. Over the past several weeks, they’d lived through this type of situation multiple times. In each case, they had been able to identify the hunters and successfully take them out. They hoped their luck would hold in this situation.

As minutes turned into hours, the tension on the Wuhan only increased. Their sonar array had detected at least one underwater contact and multiple surface contacts, in addition to a lot of sonar buoy activity on the surface. Clearly the Americans had caught their scent — now it was a matter of whether or not they could slip away. They might get lucky and sink one or more of the contacts, but in doing so, they would most certainly be fired upon.

The USS Indiana, the newest Virginia-class attack submarine, had managed to get within 2,000 meters of the Wuhan. With their outer torpedo doors opened and lined up for the attack, they proceeded to fire off two of the newest MK 48 Mod 7 torpedoes. The updated torpedoes had a significantly improved sonar and targeting capability, enabled them to effectively navigate past the current antitorpedo defensive systems and decoys.

The Wuhan would have had virtually no time to react to the sudden appearance of two American torpedoes, but it suddenly raced forward at maximum speed, attempting to escape through evasive maneuvers. With no time to obtain a proper firing solution on the Americans, and lacking the proper equipment to listen for Indiana above the noise they were generating, the Chinese never had a chance to return fire.

In less than a couple of minutes, the two American torpedoes impacted the hull of the Wuhan, sinking the vaunted terror of the seas and ending any hope the PLA Navy had of using the Wuhan in the final battle of the Pacific.