by James Rosone
As the fleet set sail for Hawaii, the apprehension among the sailors was high. A lot was riding on the ability of the Seawolf to damage or sink the remaining PLAN and JDF carriers and the F41s’ ability to shoot down the inevitable missile and drone-swarm that was coming. Once the immediate threat had been neutralized, then the F38B attack drones and F35s could be sent in to attack the enemy fleet.
Ultimatum
18 January 2042
Hawaiian Islands
In the dimly lit command center of the USS Seawolf, Commander Ramos approached Captain Thompson saying, “Sir, the enemy fleet is nearly on top of us right now. The carriers are approaching quickly.”
Captain Thompson looked at the face of his XO and just nodded. Surveying the Command Center, the captain could see the nervous looks on the faces of the men and women around him. They all knew that this was the moment they trained for, but it was hard not to think that these might be their final moments on this earth.
Turning to his weapons officer, Thompson asked, “Do we have a firing solution on the carriers?”
The weapons officer looked up at the Captain and nodded. “Everything is ready, Sir,” he replied.
The tension on the bridge was palpable; the crew were eager to attack the enemy capital ships but also scared and nervous that once they open fire, they may only have minutes left to live.
Looking at his XO, the Captain insisted, “Please go over our escape plan again.” He wanted to make sure they had fully determined how they were going to slip away once they had unleashed their deadly cargo of torpedoes.
The XO activated the attack and evasion plan on the holographic display. It immediately began to show the preplanned scenario. “Once the torpedoes are in the water, we are going to launch our two decoys: one will dive while heading East at ten knots, the other will dive heading Northeast at eighteen knots. The smokescreen should distract the enemy long enough for us to silently slip away. While the decoys are going, we are going to dive to our maximum depth at five knots and then go silent.” Commander Ramos spoke with confidence; he firmly believed that their plan was sound and would give them their best chance of success.
After running the scenario through in his mind, the captain nodded in acceptance. He paused for a moment, then looking to his weapons officer he ordered, “Fire all tubes! Chief of the Boat, launch the decoys and begin our dive!”
The crew had been prepared for the past twenty minutes to fire their torpedoes. Now that the order had been given, the tension in the room lifted; they knew their fate had been sealed and now it was up to them to outfox the enemy lurking all around them.
Within seconds, the entire sub began to shudder as all eight of their torpedoes left in quick succession. Then the two decoys left the sub and began their high-speed pursuit away from their current position. The Seawolf lurched downward, beginning its descent to its maximum depth, hoping to go unnoticed.
The torpedoes raced towards their targets quickly while the targeting AI determined where the weakest point in the target ships were and steered the torpedoes towards those points. As soon as the enemy fleet detected the incoming projectiles, they immediately sprang into action; multiple destroyers launched decoys, hoping to lure some of the torpedoes away from the carriers. Other ships began launching torpedoes of their own to go after the firing location of the American submarine. Several helicopters also dropped some of their own torpedoes on what they thought was the sub’s location.
The water under the enemy fleet became a buzz of activity with nearly a dozen torpedoes racing after various targets. Within a few minutes, two of the American torpedoes hit one of the destroyer’s decoys; the targeting AI had taken the bait. Seconds later, two other torpedoes hit one of the Chinese carriers, blowing an enormous hole along the keel of the ship. The remaining four torpedoes locked onto an individual carrier and exploded their ordinance directly under the ship, ripping a hole in the center of the hull and causing part of the ship to collapse into the newly created vacuum before the water rushed in to fill the gap.
The carriers shuddered from the impact of the explosion. It was not long before the lower decks of the capital ships started to fill quickly with water; the crew and damage control parties began to lock down the various compartments of the ship in order to try and save the undamaged parts. Hundreds of sailors were being sealed off below decks as they desperately tried to get beyond the quarantined decks. In minutes, the capital ships came to a complete halt as the damage control parties attempted to stabilize them.
In short order, the Chinese and Japanese torpedoes found and destroyed the Seawolf’s two decoys. Following their destruction, the anti-submarine helicopters began dropping sonar buoys as they tried to determine if they had succeeded in chasing off any additional submarines.
Captain Thompson looked around the Command Center and felt a sense of relief sweep through the crew. They had carried out an incredibly dangerous mission and seriously damaged the enemy fleet, and it looked like they were going to live to tell about it.
Turning to the COB, the Captain ordered the ship to continue their slow and steady course away from the enemy fleet. A quick call from the sonar room determined that the enemy fleet was looking for them about forty miles east of their current location. They had also determined that there were two enemy submarines in the area, but could not pin down their location. The Captain directed the sonar room to continue to monitor the enemy subs and ensure they stayed clear of them. He wanted to get their ship away from the enemy fleet for the moment and reposition to attack again in another twelve hours.
*******
The JDF/PLAN fleet had left the safety of Pearl Harbor ten hours ago, and had begun to sail towards the enemy. Admiral Kawano knew this was going to be the final naval battle of the war. They would either defeat the American navy once and for all, or they would have to accept that America could not be invaded, at least not from the West Coast.
As the fleet made their way towards the Americans, alarm bells began to ring. One of the action officers began to shout, “Warning! Incoming torpedoes!”
Admiral Kawano’s carrier began evasive maneuvers, moving as quickly as a ship of their size could; they also deployed their drone decoys, in hopes that the enemy torpedoes might go for them. Several minutes went by, and then Kawano saw two explosions from one of the PLAN supercarriers. It appeared to have been hit by two separate torpedoes, one near the engine room in the rear of the ship, and the other under the keel.
Seconds later, Admiral Kawano felt the floor beneath him lift up…then his feet slammed down on the deck as gravity returned. He heard a deep rumbling through the ship and felt it quiver from what must have been the impact of a torpedo. The lights in the CIC flickered out and then came back on as the emergency generator kicked on.
“What in the blazes just happened?!” yelled one of the officers.
Admiral Kawano knew exactly what had happened; he figured that the torpedo had impacted along the keel, and if they were lucky, the ship might survive. “How bad is the damage?” He barked in a loud voice, trying to be heard over the murmuring of the others in the room.
One of the damage control engineers in the CIC was speaking quickly on a handheld radio to one of his men below deck. Another sailor was looking at the various systems readouts to try to determine what was still working and what was not.
The engineering officer turned to the Admiral saying, “Admiral, we sustained two torpedo hits. One hit our keel; it appears to have broken the hull in multiple locations. We are taking on a lot of water right now. The crews are trying to seal off the lower decks now in an attempt to keep us from sinking. The second torpedo missed the engineering room, but it hit near the propeller screws. It destroyed two of the three propeller drive shafts. We also have severe flooding happening in the rear of the ship.”
The engineering officer received another message as he spoke and paused to read it. “Sir, one of the officers in the engine room just reported they need to do an
emergency shutdown of the reactor. They think one of the hits may have caused a crack in the reactor and they need to take it offline while they investigate.” The officer was not able to hide his concern; his voice trembled as he spoke.
If they had a crack in their reactor and they could not get it under control, then they might have a containment breach. The ship could quickly become irradiated, or worse, the reactor could meltdown. In either case, they would lose the ship.
“Do what you need to do, but we need to save the ship. Is that understood?!” Admiral Kawano yelled at everyone in the CIC. He got up and walked towards the bridge. He needed to see the situation around them with his own eyes and not on a computer screen.
When he got to the bridge and surveilled the fleet around him, he saw one of the PLAN carriers listing hard to one side; it looked like the ship was going to sink. Emergency rafts could be seen inflating all around the ship. Several of the escort ships were moving closer to help pick up the survivors. Looking to his left, he saw his sister ship starting to sit lower in the water as well. When he inquired about it, one of the officers on the bridge said it appeared they had been hit by one torpedo. He was not sure if the ship would sink, but it looked like it was taking on a lot of water by how much lower in the water it was.
Admiral Kawano knew the fleet was in trouble. They had just lost one of their four carriers and it looked like they may lose two more. The loss of the fighters from those carriers would seriously diminish their ability to launch enough cruise missiles to overwhelm the American fleet.
“Sir, Admiral Xi is on the radio for you,” said one of the communications officers as he handed him a handset.
Admiral Kawano could hear a lot of commotion on the other end of the line as he placed the handset to his ear. “Sir, this is Admiral Kawano, what is your situation?”
“Admiral Kawano, we took two torpedo hits. The first one hit our keel; sixty seconds later, a second torpedo apparently hit the exact same spot and nearly ripped my carrier in half. We are going down. I’m transferring over to the carrier Moa. How bad is your ship hit?”
“We are in a similar situation. I believe we can get the flooding under control, but we have a larger problem. Two of our five drive propeller shafts have been destroyed, but worse, it appears we have a crack in our reactor. The engineering room is not sure if they can seal it just yet,” the Admiral responded.
Admiral Xi didn’t say anything for a moment “Admiral…if you are going to lose your ship, then we will need to turn the fleet around and head back to Hawaii.”
Kawano knew that that was the best military decision to make; he also knew it would likely be the end of his military career. The new JDF/PLA command structure did not tolerate failure, no matter whose fault it was.
Two hours went by, and then it became clear that Admiral Kawano’s supercarrier was not going to survive. The crack in the reactor was larger than they had initially suspected. They were able to shut it down, but it would take months of repair to fix. This was time that they obviously did not have. They were also dead in the water with no power.
With the fleet in the predicament they were in, it was determined that all of the mobile ships would have to pick up the survivors and head back to Hawaii. There they would have to prepare to meet the American fleet, hoping that the assistance of land-based aircraft would help their situation.
Battle for the Skies
20 January 2042
Off the Coast of Hawaii
Admiral Stonebridge surveyed an interactive map display at the CIC. “Captain Mason, I want our aircraft (including the F41s) ready to engage the enemy aircraft and ships as soon as the battleships get in range of Pearl Harbor and the enemy fleet.”
The surprise attack by the Seawolf two days earlier had thrown the entire enemy plan off. One Chinese carrier had been sunk, and a second Japanese carrier had been disabled. The remaining two carriers and their support ships where loitering around Pearl Harbor and would obviously rely on land-based air support. As the US aircraft began to assemble over the American fleet, the enemy air armada also began to gather, preparing to meet them. The Japanese/Chinese forces would be caught off guard once they realized that the F41s had been brought down from Alaska to participate in this fight.
As the American F35s and F38s began to engage the enemy aircraft, the F41s swooped in to attack the enemy from the rear. Then the two American battleships moved into range to use their railguns and pulse beam lasers, and they joined in the fight. The Battle of Hawaii lasted over two hours with thousands upon thousands of anti-ship missiles and drone-swarms being fired at both sides. The F41s immediately made their presence known and began to shoot down dozens and then hundreds of the enemy anti-ship missiles heading towards the American fleet.
The U.S. Air Force, which had also been developing micro-drone technology, was able to provide some useful advice on how to tell the difference between a micro-drone and an anti-ship missile. Within minutes of the battle starting, the radar operators were indeed able to tell the difference between the micro-drones and actual cruise missiles. This was quickly relayed to the AWACs above the fleet and the targeting computers of the American fleet defenses.
Nearly one-third of the contacts being tracked were micro-drones, which were essentially harmless if they impacted against one of the battleships or supercarriers. Had the radar operators not been able to tell the difference between them, then the likelihood of stopping the enemy missile swarm would have been greatly reduced. Hundreds of lives were going to be saved because of this critical intelligence victory.
By the evening of January 20th, the American Navy once again controlled the waters around the Hawaiian Islands. Now it was time to develop a plan on how to recapture the land on the islands; however, that would have to wait until the West Coast had been fully secured.
Disrupting Traffic
05 February 2042
High Above the Arctic Circle
Major Lia Michaels was the squadron commander for the B5 drone squadron that was going to unleash a major cruise missile raid on the Central Asian rail and road network. Her squadron was tasked with launching their payload of X59 scramjet cruise missiles to go after the Chinese, Indian and Russian rail and bridge networks that connected the three countries in some of the most remote parts of Asia. Major Michaels’ first target was the rail line that cut through the mountains along Lake Baikal in Russia. Her squadron was going to be hitting numerous rail bridges and tunnels that ran along the trans-Siberian rail line connecting China and East Russia in order to disrupt the primary route that the Indian reinforcements were going to travel.
After five hours of flying to her launch site, her missiles had locked onto their targets and in quick succession, she fired her bomber’s four missiles. She turned to head back to the base, but then she heard over the radio that several of her bomber pilots were reporting enemy fighters in the area. Two of her pilots said they had been hit before they could launch their missiles. The other seven pilots reported a successful launch of their missiles, though two more of them were hunted down by enemy fighters and destroyed. The bombing mission was an overall success, but her squadron had lost four of their nine aircraft. Fortunately, they were drones, so none of the invaluable pilots had been lost during the mission.
The goal of the raid was to destroy as much of the transportation infrastructure linking Russia and China together as possible. This would greatly hinder the ability of the Axis powers from reinforcing each other and transporting needed manpower and material. It would also reduce the ability of the Indian army to get involved in any meaningful way in the war.
No Hotel California
15 March 2042
Downtown Los Angeles, California
Captain Thornton and his company had been fighting Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian and Indian soldiers in the city of Los Angeles for nearly three months. In that timeframe, most of the suburbs that make up LA and the downtown had been torn to pieces by the block-to-block and hous
e-to-house fighting. The enemy knew their situation was hopeless; they were effectively cut off from reinforcements and supplies, yet they would not give up. Many of the Japanese forces his company encountered were surrendering, but the others fought on with a fanatical zeal his Marines had not seen since the battles in Israel. The Chinese knew they had lost this battle, but they were intent on destroying as much of the city and its people as possible.
As the Chinese soldiers lost a block or key portion of a city, they would destroy the sewer system on their way out of the area. In doing this, the enemy was effectively destroying the critical infrastructure of the city. The sewer systems allowed the city to transport water, sewage, and run-off from the rains. This disruption was designed to create an enormous mess for the Americans once they recaptured the city and began the process of rebuilding.
Because of the density of the city, it was difficult to make use of tanks and armored vehicles; they could be used on the roads, but when it came to clearing buildings and houses, the option was to either level them or send soldiers in to clear the structures and then move on. Often homes and buildings were being rigged with booby traps and explosives, which required a lot of engineers to clear them. If a unit clearing a house or building was not cautious, they could end up setting off an explosive, killing or injuring everyone in the squad. It was a terrifying experience for the soldiers having to perform this task.
