Battlefield Ukraine

Vampires, Vampires, Vampires

Admiral James Munch had moved his command from the carrier George H.W. Bush to the Gettysburg within hours after his flagship had sunk. The Gettysburg was a Ticonderoga Class guided missile cruiser, carrying 122 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which packed some serious firepower. It was a formidable warship. Together with the Arleigh Burke Destroyers traveling with them, it had an incredible air defense capability. Despite the tremendous losses he had just endured, Admiral Munch was feeling hopeful about their position, especially given that the Truman Carrier Strike Group was in the process of transitioning to the Bosphorus Straits and would join them tomorrow.

The Romanians, for their part, had sent their three frigates to join his fleet along with a couple of corvettes. None of their ships packed any sort of serious firepower, though they could perform picket duty at the outskirts of the fleet, which is where he had them positioned. Everything seemed to be well-prepared…

At roughly 0122 in the morning, an American E-3 that was on station loitering over Bucharest, Romania, suddenly detected 60 Russian Backfire bombers lifting off from several bases deep inside Russia. The radar operator, who had been feeling rather sleepy, was jolted into a very alert state. As he continued to scan the air, he spotted 30 Su-34s and 35 Su-27s heading towards the direction of the naval fleet.

What the radar operator did not see was the 12 Russian Zhukov drones, which were flying at less than 100 feet above the ground. Each one was carrying six air-to-air missiles to surprise the American fighters.

As the enemy air armada began to amass near the Russian border, the air battle manager aboard the E-3 began to vector in two squadrons of F-15s and a squadron of F-18s that had been flying combat air patrol over Romania and the fleet. While the American fighters were headed towards the Russian bombers, three squadrons of Russian MiG-31s, and a squadron of the new MiG-35s (which no one in the US military knew were operational), also headed in the same direction, ready to join the melee. Then, completely undetected, a squadron of Su-57 stealth fighters were also being guided to the battle by two Russian AWACs aircraft, ready to silently swoop in and snipe at the Americans.

The air battle in the night sky was shaping up to be one of the largest air battles in modern warfare. While the NATO and Russian fighters began to engage each other, each of the Backfire bombers fired off all three of their anti-ship cruise missiles from their maximum range, and then quickly turned around to head back to base. Altogether, the 60 bombers let loose a combined 180 anti-ship missiles at the American fleet.

In response to the massive wave of missiles streaming through the air, the Aegis-equipped destroyers and Ticonderoga cruisers began to fire off their missile interceptors. Meanwhile, the Russian Su-27s and Su-34s dove in at max speed to try and attack the American fleet. As they approached the ships, nearly a third of the Russian fighter bombers were shot down by the American fighters; fireballs lit up the night sky. However, the ones that got through fired off their anti-ship missiles. This added another 260 missiles for the American fleet to try and stop.

As the USS Gettysburg launched its last missile interceptors, Admiral James Munch had a stark moment of realization. “My God… the remnants of my carrier strike group are most likely going to be sunk. I am going to go down in naval history as the only US admiral to have lost an entire strike group during combat. It doesn’t even matter how courageously we fight at this point — we simply don’t have enough missile interceptors or point defense weapons to shoot down all of the incoming missiles.”

Every naval analysis group had warned that this was a serious vulnerability. In an age of cheap anti-ship missiles and cheaper throw-away missile platforms, the more technologically superior weapon systems could simply be overwhelmed by a missile swarm.

Hundreds of missiles could be seen exploding in the air as they approached the fleet from various angles and heights. Then, as if in slow motion, the missiles began to impact against their targets. In the span of seven minutes, the remaining anti-ship missiles (which still numbered in excess of two hundred) began to find their marks. At first, it was the outer picket ships that were hit, exploding in spectacular fashion as the missiles ripped through the bulkheads of the ships. Then, the missiles started to strike the larger more important ships, the Ticonderoga guided missile cruisers and the Marine Amphibious assault ships. Most of the ships were hit on their sides, some so many times that they just burst apart, blowing chunks of debris into the air. The others had so much damage to the superstructure of the ships that they simply had no hope of staying above water.

In minutes, the vaunted ships of the George H.W. Bush Strike Group slipped beneath the waves with thousands of crew members never to see the dawn of a new day. It was the single worst naval loss since World War II.

While the American fleet was being overrun by cruise missile explosions, the twelve Zhukov drones slipped past the American fighters, dancing in aerial combat nearby. The drones proceeded to fire off their six air-to-air missiles, throwing the allied formations into chaos. The sudden appearance of seventy-two missiles from behind the NATO aircraft caught them off guard, resulting in the expedient shootdown of 48 additional NATO fighters that might otherwise have lived to fight another day.

By the end of the multi-hour air and naval battle, the Russians had lost 92 aircraft in all. However, NATO had lost 103 aircraft, along with the remaining American warships in the Black Sea. The various amphibious assault ships carrying the 22^nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) had also been sunk during the missile swarm attack.

Fortunately, roughly half of the Marines had been able to get to their amphibious vehicles and landing craft and managed to evacuate the ships before they went down. While they were unable to grab most of their equipment, they did manage to escape with their lives. Despite their valiant effort, of the roughly 3,500 Marines in the MEU, 921 of them still lost their lives during the attack. The survivors made best speed in their vehicles for the Romanian coast.

The Truman Carrier Battle Group had not yet entered the Bosphorus Straits. After the battle, they halted their forward progress. The 6^th Fleet Commander would have to reassess whether or not the Black Sea should continue to be contested; they might have to cede it to Russia.