by Dale Brown
the Nationalists. This is a great honor we bestow on you. You
deserve it. "
"But this cannot be my victory because it is not my tao-
it is the tao of Comrade General Chin," Sun said. "The nu-
clear attack on Guam was his way, his road to victory. It is
not mine. I cannot lead the People's Liberation Army forces
along this path."
"The Paramount Leader has conferred a great honor upon
you, Sun," Chin said impatiently. "Take it. Plan a strike mis-
sion using any air, rocket, or naval assets you desire. We ex-
pect this underground airfield complex to be destroyed or
occupied by the People's Liberation Ann' within forty-eight
hours." y
"I humbly request to be relieved of duty," Sun intoned.
"Request denied, Admiral," Chin responded. "Carry out
your orders. Present a strike plan to the Paramount Leader and
myself within eight hours, and prepare to execute the plan
within forty-eight hours."
"Sir, I humbly request you to accept my resignation from
your service," Sun Ji Guorning said, bowing deeply in total
obeisance. "A man cannot follow other than his own tao.
Mine is lost. I am of no usefulness to you any longer."
"That is not true, Comrade Admiral," Jiang said. "What
are you trying to tell us?"
"I am saying that to return to the tao that will ensure vic-
tory, we must now strive to make peace just as ferociously as
we strove to destroy," Sun said. "We must gather our forces
to our center and protect it, and in doing so show the world
that we are no longer a threat. We should configure all our air
and naval forces for defensive operations only. We should de-
450 DALE BROWN
stroy all our remaining offensive ballistic missiles, and openly
pledge never again to employ thermonuclear weapons-"
"Are you insane, Sun?" Chin Po Zihong exploded. "Stop
now? Obviously the rebels are far stronger than we anticipated.
We need to destroy them quickly and utterly. And we need
our nuclear-deterrent forces now more than ever to ensure that
the United States will not attempt a massive attack against us."
"Sir, Sun-tzu teaches us that if faced with superior forces,
do not fight. We may feel we have gained the upper hand, but
Sun-tzu's words are a warning to us. Our forces are not su-
perior to the United States. The American forces are massing
over the horizon. I can sense it. I can feel it. They have not
been destroyed. I urge the Paramount Leader to immediately
contact the American president and pray-no, I urge him to
beg for peace."
"What?" Chin retorted angrily. "Beg? We should beg the
Americans?"
"Yes, sir," Sun said. "Now. Immediately. Before it is too
late."
"Admiral Sun, you are dishonoring yourself by this flagrant
display of pompous indignation and insubordination," Chin
said angrily. "Your request is denied. You are ordered to pre-
pare a strike plan against the rebel Nationalist underground
airfield complex and present it, in person, to me and the pres-
ident's staff within eight hours. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," Sun replied.
Chin looked at the president, who was looking at Sun Ji
Guorning as if he had grown a second head on his shoulders.
With no additional comments, Chin snapped, "Then get out
of here." Sun bowed again, turned, and departed. Once Sun
had left "I Chin said, "All that Sun-tzu crap has addled his brain,
I think.
"Unfortunate," Jiang Zemin said. "He appeared to be such
a promising young officer. Perhaps we should reconsider this
attack plan, Comrade General?"
"Because Sun thinks it is not his 'way' to do this attack?"
Chin retorted. "He is upset because his plan of waiting for the
Nationalists to capitulate did not work. He is upset because in
the end we had to use brute strength to shove the Americans
out of Asia. He thought he could do it with unorthodox meth-
ods and trickery, and his lack of vision allowed the Nationalist
air force and the Americans to counterattack. We cannot allow
FATAL T E R R AI N 451
that to happen again. We are on the threshold of a great victory
over the rebels on Formosa, comrade, and this attack will break
the backs of the Nationalists once and for all. Every missile,
every attack plane, every bomb we have available should be
used against this mountain hideout. We shall pound the Na-
tionalists' mountain fortress into sand!"
"But what if the Arnericans do stage a counteroffensive?"
Jiang asked. "Perhaps we should be watchful, gather our
forces, and prepare to repel an American attack. We can deter
the Americans by sheer force of numbers. Surely they will not
try a nuclear attack if we ask to begin peace negotiations
now."
"And then where will the rebels be? Rebuilding their forces,
getting more assistance from the Americans, and conducting
more hit-and-run air attacks on our forces," Chin said. "No.
We should attack the rebel mountain complex immediately. If
Sun will not do it, I have many more competent generals who
will."
OVER TAIWAN, REPUBLIC OF CHINA
SUNDAY, 29 JUNE 1997, 0319 HOURS LOCAL
(SATURDAY, 28 JUNE, 1419 HOURS ET)
The attack began with a heavy missile bombardment with con-
ventionally armed Dong Feng-9 and- I I missiles from the
mainland. Their accuracy was not great, but it didn't need to
be-because more than three hundred missiles launched from
sixteen different locations, with warheads ranging from 500
pounds to more than 1,700 pounds of high explosive, peppered
the area around Kai-Shan for over an hour. Every square inch
of a twenty-five-square-mile area around Kai-Shan was blasted
away. Along with the effect of the nearby nuclear explosions
at Hualien, the area resembled the surface of the moon in very
short order.
The second phase of the attack was by a completely new
weapon system: China's Type-031 attack submarine. In the
day preceding the attack, the Type-031 sub, named the Yudao,
had left its port at Shanghai and had cruised without incident
right up to the mouth of the Mei River, less than five miles
r
452 DALE BROWN
from the cave entrance to the Kai-Shan airfield complex, and
waited. At the preplanned time, the Yudao surfaced, took a
final targeting fix using its Golf-band targeting radar-aiming
at a tiny radar reflector placed near the cave entrance by the
Chinese commandos-and began firing Yinji-6 "Hawk At-
tack" guided missiles at the cave. The first four Yinji-6 mis-
siles blasted open the movable armored doors to the cave
entrance, finally exposing the interior of the complex to attack.
Two of the remaining four Yinji-6 missiles flew inside the cave
itself, creating spectacular gushes of fire and exploding rock
from within.
The third phase of the attack was the most impressive, and
was certainly the largest Asian aeri
al attack force since Japan's
naval air forces in World ' War H. Led by thirty H-6 bombers,
watched by an Ilyushin-76 radar plane, and guarded by ten
Sukhoi-27 and thirty Xian J-8 air-superiority interceptors, an
attack force of two hundred Nanchang Q-5 fighter-bombers,
each carrying two 1,000-pound bombs plus a long-range fuel
tank, swept over the island of Formosa to begin the attack on
Kai-Shan.
The H-6 bombers went first. From ten miles out, they
launched huge Hai-Ying-4 missiles at the complex. These mis-
siles merely flew straight to a set of coordinates, and were
meant to knock down or destroy any rock outcroppings that
might still be obstructing the cave entrance. Although the HY-
4 missiles were not designed for land attack and some did not
perform well in this hastily planned role, the destruction they
caused left the attack path wide open for the waves of Q-5
bombers to follow.
As if they were doing a standard traffic pattern entry to land
on Kai-Shan's underground runway, the Q-5 fighter-bombers
flew eastbound over the Chung Yang Mountains at 1,000 feet
above ground until they were about ten miles offshore, then
turned southbound for three miles, then northwestbound, de-
scending to 500 feet and lining up on the cave entrance. The
planned procedure was a "toss" delivery, where the pilots
would pull up sharply about two miles in front of the cave,
then pickle off the bombs, which would fly on a ballistic path
right into the cave. There could be no delay on the pull-up-
the Chung Yang Mountains rose from 500 feet to nearly
10,000 feet within five miles, so there was only a six-second
FATAL T ER RAI N 453
margin of error. The best bombardiers from all over China
were picked for this important mission.
The first flight of ten Q-5 bombers started their runs, and
the plan was working better than anticipated. The lead bombers
announced that pilots could fly a hundred feet higher to get a
flamer toss into the cave, because parts of the ceiling of the
cave had collapsed and they couldn't arc the bombs in quite
as high anymore. As the first flight of Q-5 bombers cleared
the target area, the second flight started their turn inbound on
the attack course ...
... just in time to hear the warning screams over the com-
mand frequency: "Warning, warning, all aircraft..." and
then the loud, incessant hiss of static. Pilots all over the sky
over Taiwan were switching to alternate frequencies, but all
they found there, after a few seconds of trying to speak, was
more static. The 11-76 Candid radar plane orbiting over For-
mosa might as well have been back on the ground, because
no one could hear or talk with its all-important radar control-
lers.
It was up to the Sukhoi-27s and radar-equipped Shenyang
J-8 fighters now-but it was soon apparent that they were
mostly out of the fight as well-the jamming was intruding
on their attack radars. The J-8's older radars were easily
jammed; the Su-27's modem pulse-Doppler radars and ad-
vanced counterjamming functions worked better. "Enemy
planes, heading westbound!" the Su-27 pilots shouted on the
attack frequency-but that did no good, because all of the
VHF and UHF frequencies were jammed. No warnings and no
formation orders could be sent or received. Two electronic-
warfare EA-6B Prowlers from the USS George Washington,
and two more EA-613s from the USS Carl Vinson had set up
an effective electromagnetic net around the island of Formosa,
denying the Chinese air force the use of any radio or radar
frequencies except those in use by the U. Navy attack planes
bearing down on the Chinese air armada.
The first target was the Ilyushin-76 radar plane-and that
task was left to the nine surviving flyable Taiwanese F-16s,
which had launched out of Kai-Shan just after sunset, along
with Jon Masters's DC-10 tanker-transport. Four Su-27s
guarded the 11-76, but in the confusion caused by the EA-6B
Prowlers jamming their radios and disrupting their radars, they
were no match for the wave of F-16s. All four Su-27s were
454 DALE BROWN
shot down by the F-16s, against the loss of one F-16-and
then each F-16 took a shot at the 11-76 radar plane. At least a
dozen AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles plowed into the Chinese
radar plane, sending huge burning pieces spinning into the
Formosa Strait. The eight Taiwanese F-16s then withdrew
from the area and linked up with Jon Masters's DC-10 tanker-
transport orbiting over the Pacific, where they all refueled and
headed to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.
The confusion between the Chinese planes allowed the
Navy fighters to get into missile range. A total of twenty-four
F-14 Tomcats and twenty F/A-18 Hornets from the two car-
ners in the Philippine Sea began launching missiles. The
Tomcats could open fire from over seventy miles away with
their huge AIM-54C Phoenix long-range antiair missiles, while
the Hornets attacked from as far as twenty miles away with
medium-range AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-120 radar-guided
missiles. Nearly half of the Su-27s and J-8 fighters covering
the attack force were destroyed before the Navy fighters closed
in within range of their short-range AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-
seeking antiair missiles, and another eight Su-27s and J-8s fell
to AIM-9 missile attacks. The surviving Chinese fighters fled
before the American fighters got a chance to close within can-
non range. The Chinese fighter-bombers that had not dropped
their weapons simply punched off the bombs and fuel tanks
WI erever they were and turned westward to get away from the
unseen predators closing in on them.
But the Chinese bombers retreating from the area were just
being herded into another trap-ten four-ship formations of
U. Air Force F-15C Eagle fighters from the Eighteenth Wing
at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa and the Third Wing from
Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, all loaded
with six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9 Sidewinders
apiece. The F-15s spread out over the Formosa Strait and sim-
ply waited for the Chinese aircraft to fly right into their laps
before opening fire. Twenty-three F- 15 pilots claimed kills that
night and three more claimed multiple kills. Any Chinese HQ-
2 su@ace-to-air missile sites that tried to lock onto the F-15s
over the Strait were destroyed by U. Navy A-6E Intruders
launching AGM-88 High speed Anti-Radiation Missiles.
The attack lasted just minutes; as fast as it had begun, it
was over. The radios were clear, and attack radars were as
effective as they ever were. But in that few minutes, the dam-
FATAL T ER RAI N 455
age was horrifying: the 11-76 radar plane, eleven H-6 bombers,
four Su-27s, eighteen J-8 fighters, and forty-one Q-5 fighter-
bombers had been shot down, with no losses to American air-
craft. Each and every Navy and Air Force plan
e made it back
to its carrier or base, then began rearming and setting up for
local-area air defense in case the Chinese tried a counterattack.
The Chinese fighters and bombers lucky enough to escape
the American hit-and-run attack from the darkness soon found
other problems. Twelve B- I B Lancer bombers from Ellsworth
and Dyess Air Force Bases had been sent over eastern China,
loaded with eight AGM-86C cruise missiles with non-nuclear
high-explosive warheads, and eight AGM-177 Wolverine an-
tiair defense cruise missiles, to attack air bases and air defense
sites throughout southeast China. The military landing strips
at Fuzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Jingdezhen, Nanchang, and
even Shanghai were cratered by cruise missiles, and the Chi-
nese approach and ground-control radars and some air defense
missile and artillery emplacements had been destroyed by the
Wolverine missiles. All of the fighters scheduled to land at
these bases had to be diverted ...
... except there were no military fields within range to send
them. The number of planes destroyed or damaged simply by
running out of fuel or attempting to make a forced landing at
a civil airstrip or highway quickly exceeded the number of
planes shot down by American fighters.
But the B-lBs' mission was not to deny landing strips to
Chinese fighters low on fuel, but to open a gaping hole in
China's multilayered air defense and surveillance radar net-
work to allow yet another attacker to slip in unnoticed-six
B-2A Spirit stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base.
The B-2 bombers went feet-dry over several points along the
Chinese coastline from Shanghai to Qingdao, taking separate
low-level attack routes inbound to their targets-the intercon-
tinental ballistic missile bases in north-central China.
The twelve Dong Feng-5 missile silos and twenty Dong
Feng-3 launch sites, with two DF-3 missiles assigned per site,
were spread out over 10,000 square miles in two Chinese prov-
inces, and heavily defended by HQ-2 surface-to-air missile
sites and antiaircraft artillery sites-but the B-2s swarmed over
