Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (17 page)

Ohio
’s Tomahawks tore
above the ocean’s rippled surface.
 
The
cruise missiles wore a dark-grey, energy-absorbing coating, and their noses and
bodies were faceted to reflect radar.
 
They passed an invisible marker, the first of their GPS waypoints, and
turned to the southwest.
 
As the
Tomahawks neared the Chinese coast, they maneuvered again to minimize exposure
to densely layered air defenses.
 
Once
over the beach, the cruise missiles dove in and out of valleys and jumped
through mountain passes.
 
One Tomahawk’s
engine failed, and it careened into trees, surfing along the canopy before degrading
into segments by thick branches.
 
In the
darkness, a startled Chinese shepherd glanced up and watched a flight of many unidentified
flying objects passing overhead.

At Shaoguan missile base, an artillery officer checked on
security patrols that emerged from dense trees.
 
He scolded a soldier for an unbuttoned tunic, but then his attention was
diverted to a rushing sound.
 
Then, an anti-aircraft
battery peppered the sky.
 
Flinching at
its reports, the officer spotted the first of the American cruise missiles.

The Tomahawks swept in at treetop level.
 
They peeled off for individual structures,
and, one-by-one, slammed into command bunkers, flew into missile shelters, and
lit off fuel tanks.
 
A siren serenaded as
the Chinese base was laid to waste.
 
The
surrounding woods were drought-dry and would burn for days.

◊◊◊◊

US Navy Task Force 16 rounded Shihmen Point at the northern
tip of Taiwan, the Taipei metropolitan area off to
port.
 
Placed under the
command of Captain Ferlatto, TF16 was short an aircraft carrier. It consisted
of the cruiser
Lake Champlain
; the
destroyers
Paul Hamilton
and
Mahan
; the littoral combat ships
Coronado
and
Fort Worth
; and the nuclear attack submarine
California
.
 
California
sped ahead of the task
force’s surface ships, and then drifted and listened, ready to destroy anything
in TF16’s way.
 
Soon,
California
’s sonar heard the surface
ships’ thunder as they approached.
 
Lake Champlain
powered up her phased
array radar, and soon Ferlatto was awed by the juicy choice of airborne targets
populating the ship’s combat information center displays.

“Who do you want to shoot first, skipper?”
 
The commander’s cocky question was redundant
as Aegis had already prioritized the plots and had decided for them.
 
Ferlatto folded his arms and stepped back
into the shadows, allowing the anti-air warfare officer to do what he did best.

Two Chinese Badger bombers cruised on maritime patrol west
of Taiwan.
 
Belonging to the People’s
Liberation Army Air Force’s 4
^th
Bomber Regiment, they were loaded
with East Sea anti-ship cruise missiles.
 
They swept ahead with chin-mounted radar and found weak reflections on
the horizon.
 
The Badgers turned in and readied
their missiles.

“There,”
Lake
Champlain
’s electronic warfare technician pointed at the radar screen.
 
“Weak signal, low on the horizon.”
 
The flickering dot became solid.
 
“Inbound contact.
 
Two on the same bearing.”
 
On the screen, four small dots were born from
two big ones.
 
They sped toward the task
force.
 
“Vampires.
 
Vampires.
 
Fast movers inbound.”

“Tracking four,” another sailor added.
 
Four dots appeared on his tactical screen,
and began skipping toward the ships.

Deck mortars sent canisters aloft from the American
ships.
 
The canisters burst, and spread radar-spoofing
metallic clouds over the task force.
 
The
destroyer
Mahan
fired at the Badgers,
while
Paul Hamilton
shot at the
inbound cruise missiles.
 
One East Sea was
taken out by an Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, however the other three Chinese
anti-ship missiles locked on target, with two tracking
Lake Champlain
, and the other,
Mahan
.
 
The East Seas got in close fast.

Lake Champlain
brought
one of her SeaRAM turrets to bear.
 
Rolling Airframe Missiles burst from the box launcher, and zoomed off
over the water.
 
They collided with two East
Seas.
 
Mahan
’s Phalanx Gatling guns built a wall of tungsten before the
last enemy missile.
 
The East Sea slammed
into this wall and exploded, creating a shockwave that rocked
Mahan
to the keel.
 
Lake
Champlain
guided Sea Sparrows into the Badger bombers, tumbling them from
the sky, to disintegrate in high-speed impacts with the water and sprinkling
their bits to the bottom.
 
The American
cruiser’s combat system re-prioritized the 33 enemy targets it tracked over
Taipei, and assigned each a weapon: a Sea Sparrow or the longer-ranged Standard
Missile.
 
The task force readied for a
massed launch.

Over Taipei, flashes and sparkling showers showed where 29
Chinese aircraft had been blotted from the sky.
 
Doing the hit and run, Ferlatto ordered Task Force 16 to wheel east and
increase speed.
 
In addition, he read
orders that would send the task force’s nuclear attack submarine off toward the
west.

◊◊◊◊

California
slipped
silently through the water.
 
Her shrouded
propeller made turns for seven knots.
 
In
the vacuum of space instead of the black crush of Earth’s oceans,
California
’s command and control center
would be the bridge of a starship.
 
Its
science was far from fiction, however, and the bank of video screens that wrapped
the long room showed environmental, navigation, power plant, sonar, and weapon
systems, not galaxies, cloaking devices and warp drives.
 
American submariners manned their outward
facing terminals, and, out front and surrounded by dedicated screens, were two
young men in bucket seats who drove the boat with joysticks:
California
’s planesman and
helmsman.
 
Commander Wolff ordered that a
bathythermograph sensor be launched from the submarine’s ejector tube.

The sonar watch supervisor reported a thermal—a
sound-reflecting boundary between upper warm and lower cool water—at 100 feet.
 
Wolff planned to take advantage of this
acoustic membrane and bring his boat up to run just below the layer.
 
California
’s
burly, tattooed chief-of-the-boat paced behind the center’s seated submariners.
 
He was, in turn, overseen by the officer-of-the-deck.
 
Wolff and the XO leaned over the tactical
table that displayed a line, marking the boat’s course and summary data, including
bearing, course, depth, and speed.

Sonar arrays mounted along
California
’s long lateral axis, and on her sail and forward hull,
pulled in sound for the submarine’s sonar system and, along with the big active
array in the bow dome, could map the seafloor, localize minefields, pin-point
the quietest of enemy submarines, and track far-off ships in transit.
 
The computer heard something, and a red light
blinked on
California
’s sonar station
console.
 
The sonarman leaned in to
scrutinize the display.
 
Called the
waterfall, it showed all ambient noise in the form of cascading bars that
represented bearing, frequency, and range of a sound’s origination.
 
The sonar technician reported the contact to
his supervisor, and began the classification and identification routine.

“Conn, sonar,” the sonar watch supervisor broke the control
center’s quiet.
 
“Faint, submerged
contact bearing three-one-zero.
 
Designate: Sierra One.”

Wolff and the XO moved to the sonar station.
 
The officer-of-the-deck wandered over, too.
 
The computer compared the new noise with a
catalog of known signatures as the sonarman tried his best to discern a blade
count.

“What do we have?” Wolff prodded his sound team.

“The screw sounds Russian to me; blade tip
imperfections.
 
No pump noise.
 
Could be an SSK running on batteries, sir.” The
sonar technician had deduced they were listening to a diesel-electric
submarine.

“Water beneath the keel?” Wolff asked.

“Two hundred, thirty feet,” The XO replied.
 
“Someone’s in a hurry,” he quipped.
 
The contact, though quiet, was on a speed
course and sacrificing stealth for speed.
 
If it was a diesel-electric boat, its passive sensors would be degraded,
making it harder to hear
California
.

“He’s rushing right at us,” Wolff licked his chops.

“Hey, that’s fine with me,” The XO countered.
 
He preferred his enemies careless.

“Put us in a hover,” Wolff told the XO.
 
“And bring us just above the
thermocline.
 
Do it smartly.”
 
Wolff’s glare said it all: you will be in a
world of shit if they hear us.

“Conn, sonar.
 
Sierra
One classified as diesel-electric attack submarine,” the sonar supervisor
announced.
 
“She’s making turns for 18
knots.”

“Fire control, begin localization and tracking,” the
officer-of-the-deck ordered.
 
The
tracking team began their target motion analysis.

“Sierra One is bearing three-one-five; course
one-eight-zero; depth holding at 200 feet; range now 3,000 yards,” fire control
reported.

“Conn, sonar.
 
Sierra
One identified as
Kilo
-class
diesel-electric attack submarine.
 
Redesignating Sierra One as Kilo One.”

“Steady as she goes.”
 
The chief-of-the-boat watched the helmsman and
planesman level the boat at 70 feet.
 
Now
above the thermal layer with her acoustic cloak in place,
California
’s propeller turned lazy and quiet, just enough to
maintain steerage in the current, and creep her long hull along.
 
Her course zigzagged.
 
This action enhanced bearing rates and
ranging on the plot.
 
Wolff readied to
joust with his counterpart, and ordered
California
to battle stations, torpedo.
 
The
chief-of-the-watch sounded the general alarm.
 
Crewmen scurried to their posts.

“Skipper, we have a firing solution,” the XO informed.

“Very well, input presets.”

“Fire control, Conn.
 
Make selections for Mark 48 ADCAP, and input presets,” the executive
officer ordered.
 
“Weapons, make tube one
ready in all respects.”
 
The chief-of-the-boat
repeated the orders and made sure they were followed.
 
Beneath their feet, the submariners in
California
’s torpedo room sprang into
action.

Four stout hatch covers lined the torpedo compartment’s
forward bulkhead, and racks of dark-green Mark 48 advanced capability heavy
torpedoes covered its curved walls.
 
A
torpedoman hoisted one of the weapons from its cradle and lowered it to a
track.
 
He removed a protective cover
from the torpedo’s blunt, black nose as another man unpinned the rammer that
would slide the Mark 48 into the open launch tube.

“Pin out,” the torpedoman observed.
 
The torpedo began to move forward and slide
into the open tube.
 
“Good speed,” he
noted.
 
From a dispenser at the torpedo’s
tail, the technician attached the Mark 48’s umbilical to the submarine.
 
The tube breech was sealed, and the hatch
closed and locked.
 
The tube’s indicator
placard was turned around, changed from ‘Empty’ to ‘Warshot Loaded,’ and a
report went to the center that tube one was ready.
 
California
’s
computerized combat system talked to the torpedo and readied the weapon to
swim.

“Firing point procedures, tube one,” Wolff ordered.

“Solution updated.”
 
The boat was ready for combat, the chief-of-the-boat reported.

“Weapon and tube ready, sir,” the weapons officer confirmed.

“Okay,” Wolff acknowledged.
 
He had trained for this moment all his life and he savored it.
 
“Match bearings and shoot, tube one,” Wolff ordered.
 
A button was depressed on the fire control
panel and
California
’s air turbine
pump drew in seawater to squirt the Mark 48 out.
 
Shutter doors closed behind it, and, free of
the hull, the American heavy torpedo accelerated to 55 knots.
 
Trailing its umbilical, it rose above the
thermal layer.
 
California
’s fire control technician used its seeker as an
off-board sensor to update the firing solution.