Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Vampires During the Day

“Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!” yelled one of the petty officers in the CIC as the radar screens started to show one, then dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of cruise missiles heading towards the American fleet. Immediately, the fleet’s automated defense system began to take over, slaving every ship in the fleet to the central command at the heart of the fleet, the USS New York, the flagship of the fleet. Admiral Stonebridge would now be able to control all of the ships’ defense and targeting systems.

The carriers immediately began to launch their drone fighters to get them heading towards the missiles to engage them. The missiles were still several hundred miles away, but they were closing that distance fast. As the naval attack came into range of the first ships in the strike group’s screening force, the frigates, destroyers and cruisers began to engage them with their railguns and anti-missile interceptors. A curtain of projectiles was flying at the thousands of missiles streaking in towards the strike group. Dozens of missiles started to disintegrate as they were shredded by the railgun projectiles, while others were destroyed by the missile interceptors. As the ships desperately fought to destroy the waves of incoming fire, several of them started to find their marks, ripping through the frigates and destroyers. Fireballs appeared as the missiles ripped through the hulls and superstructures of the ships like hot knives through butter. As the enemy swarm overwhelmed the outer screen of the strike group, the heavy cruisers and battleships began to throw up their own wall of projectiles, missile interceptors and point defense lasers, engaging as many missiles as their systems could target.

Several anti-ship missiles plowed into the two heavy battleships, the pride of the American Navy. To everyone’s amazement, they sustained little damage. The reactive armor added to the battleships had held, and the ships just shrugged off the hits, only sustaining superficial damage to the exterior structure. As the final wave of missiles flew towards the three carriers of the American fleet, they disintegrated in a hail of railgun projectiles and laser point defense systems.

America had learned a hard lesson early in the war when they had found out that the carrier fleets were vulnerable to a missile swarm attack. It had been a difficult lesson to accept at the time, but now it was paying off through the new design of the carrier fleet’s defensive systems. The JDF and PLAN had just thrown over 2,100 anti-ship cruise missiles at the American fleet, and all but 62 missiles had been destroyed. The Americans did sustain damage, losing three destroyers, four frigates and one cruiser to the missile swarm. However, all three carriers survived with no damage, and the battleships (which packed most of the fleet’s heavy firepower) had taken little damage. The core of the fleet was still intact despite the losses, and now they were moving into their own strike range; soon the JDF and PLAN would feel the wrath of American ingenuity.