by James Rosone
“Captain Jin, you are relieved! I am taking direct command of this fleet.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the stunned look on Captain Jin’s face, but he could almost feel the weight lift from Jin’s shoulders as it fell upon his.
“Counterfire all missiles along the bearings of the incoming weapons! Helm, come to port. Make your course two hundred ninety degrees. Increase the fleet’s speed to flank!”
As his commands were echoed, he felt the Harbin lurch beneath his feet as she made her turn to 290 degrees and increased all ahead flank. If it was a fight the Japanese and Koreans wanted, then he would give them one hell of a battle.
*******
10,000 Feet Above
F-35B
Captain Ayabe Eiji throttled back and dropped to subsonic. Looking to his right and to his left, he could see his fighters all slow to subsonic as they prepared to launch their missiles.
He checked his radar and zoomed in. He watched as the missiles launched from the task force began to head towards their intended targets. The weapons were streaking in towards the Chinese fleet, just as they were supposed to.
Captain Ayabe selected the master arm switch and fired his two JSMs. In his peripheral vision, he saw the plumes from the other F-35s as they fired their own missiles. As the weapons streaked away, he knew they would be harder for the Chinese to engage as they would be flying nearly straight down.
Glancing at his radar, Ayabe caught a nanosecond-long blip before he was alerted to an incoming threat vectoring toward them. A fraction of a second later, his warning indicators went off, alerting him to an incoming missile.
He knew from experience that this close to the Chinese mainland, they were up against J-16s; he also knew his flight was outgunned in their current configuration. However, they had prepared for this. They’d flown into this battle in beast mode, meaning stealth had been traded for max air-to-air loadout.
They were going to use the superior avionics and weapons of these planes, fire everything they had at the Chinese, and then bug the hell out as fast as they could. The hope was that the Chinese pilots would see that they had been fired on by nearly a hundred air-to-air missiles and bug out as well.
Switching to his wing-mounted weapons, Captain Ayabe took a deep breath and launched his volley of air-to-air missiles.
“Fox Three!” he shouted as soon as five of his weapons left the rails.
He then nosed over and hit his afterburners. Looking over his shoulder, Ayabe used his eyes to switch the view in his visor and he literally looked through the plane. He saw the remainder of his flight doing the same.
*******
7,000 Feet Above
J-16
Lieutenant Colonel Cao Heng was on a bearing of twenty-eight degrees, traveling just under Mach 2. He had only half of his squadron with him, but they were all his best pilots, and they were spoiling for a fight.
He had been ordered to vector his fighters towards Cheju-do Island. His squadron was the alert squadron for the region, and they had just taken off when they had been diverted. Each of his fighters carried two YJ-83K antiship missiles as well as PL-10 and PL-21 short- and long-range missiles, respectively. He had initially thought the Americans had finally decided to show their teeth when he was diverted, but command had told him that the Japanese and Koreans had launched an attack against the Northern Fleet. Word had it they had already sunk more than a dozen submarines.
Cao called out to his pilots to cut the chatter on their comms. They were already trying to speculate on what had happened and what they might likely be facing. They had been given an initial warning by a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control plane that there might be fighters in the air between ten and fifteen thousand feet.
He knew the Koreans could scramble F-15Ks and F-16s—the Slam Eagles were worrisome, but he doubted they’d fly them this far out. The Japanese had F-15Js, but would they fly them this far out if they’d just attacked the Chinese Northern Fleet? Surely the cowards in Tokyo would save them for China’s inevitable wrath on their beloved home islands. No, whatever it was out there, he was confident they could handle it.
No sooner had he had that thought than the KJ-500 alerted him that there had been a missile launch at ten thousand feet at a bearing of 340 degrees.
“Roger, three hundred forty degrees, out,” Cao replied curtly.
Switching to his squadron net, he spoke directly with his pilots. “Bandits, three hundred forty degrees, beyond visual range.”
He adjusted his course and heading, his search radar lighting up as he acquired the targets. He armed his PL-21 long-range weapons and fired.
The PL-21 was a good missile, but in firing, his primary intent was to let them know he knew they were there and to tell them “go away.”
You’re flying in my house, he thought. And you are not welcome.
As his missiles left the rails and reached out across the sky, Cao felt a sense of satisfaction and pride. This was short-lived. His own radar began to light up with dozens of incoming missiles.
At first, he just stared at the screen; it didn’t make sense. Why the hell would they fire so many missiles?
He examined his display and checked his airspeed. The incoming missiles were closing at almost Mach 4.
I need to gain some speed and get out of here, he thought. He nosed over and accelerated to full military power.
Cao released chaff and flares as he raced for the deck. He knew he’d need to bleed speed as he approached the water. He intended to use the wave clutter to spoof any missiles that were still there. As he leveled off at 250 feet, his fighters all formed up as they went feet dry. He radioed for them to resume original bearing at maximum speed.
As they climbed to three thousand feet, they accelerated past Mach 2. Cao smiled to himself as he mentally applauded his foe. They’d both fired missiles at the other, but what he realized now was that his opponent knew their planes were outmatched by the J-16s. Firing all those missiles had just given them time to run.
Cao mulled it over. It must be F-16s—they’d be no match for our planes.
He was going to hit the ships in the Japanese fleet, then loiter as long as he could in hopes they might be able to score some aerial kills today. They still had plenty of fuel and all the time in the world.
*******
Harbin
Northern Fleet Flagship
The alarms shrieked throughout the ship and the Harbin’s H/PJ12 close-in weapons systems began to spit fire into the sky as the incoming missiles were picked up by their targeting radars. The sky erupted as the thousands of 30mm rounds from the Northern Fleet went skyward and began impacting with the missiles. Every ship in the fleet was engaging in the fight.
The incoming missiles were coming in from every direction; some were high-angle, and some were skimming the waterline. The first ship to take a hit was the frigate Yancheng. She took two surface-skimming missiles: one just below the hull number, and another amidships. A third missile, a high-angle impact, entered the bridge. The three explosions occurred almost simultaneously; the concussive force blew the front of the ship completely apart and she sank almost instantly.
Admiral Li watched in amazement and horror as the battle unfolded before him. He watched through his binoculars as the ships of China’s Northern Fleet zigzagged, spitting chaff and flares to confuse the incoming threats, all while simultaneously sending their own antiship missiles at the enemy fleet that had fired on them.
While he was busy looking at the sky, he noticed something on the surface, nearly three miles out. It was moving fast and headed their way.
*******
Park Dongjin
PKG-728
Guided-Missile Patrol Boat
Lieutenant Ha Yejun had pushed his ship to its military limits. The Yoon Youngha patrol vessel had a top-rated speed of forty-four knots. As he looked down at the speedometer, he saw it was maxed out. He knew they were pushing at least forty-eight knots.
> His five-ship task unit was spread out in a staggered line, heading straight for the Harbin at the center of the Northern Fleet formation. The five 76mm deck guns were all firing at the Harbin. His mission was to cause confusion and draw fire from the fleet.
He knew that the F-35s had launched their missiles and fled as Chinese J-16s had entered the fray. The Chinese planes had followed their plans and broken off when the F-35s had fired their missiles at them. This gave his ships time to close to visual and gun range. Lieutenant Ha knew their chances of survival were largely dependent on speed and a hell of a lot of luck.
When they crossed the two-mile mark from the outer edge of the Chinese picket, they all fired their SSM-700K antiship missiles. Then they broke off their attack and headed back for Korean waters.
Suddenly, the Han Munsik exploded. A second later, Ha heard the roar of a J-16 scream overhead. Looking back to the front of his own ship, he saw another aircraft approaching the Park Dongjin. He saw the flash of its GSh-30-1 30mm cannon a millisecond before the rounds tore into his bridge. The sailor who had been standing next to him was torn apart by the rounds. The wall behind them was painted with the man’s innards.
Two sailors aft of the bridge reacted swiftly to the threat. Each fired a KP-SAM Shin-Gung man-portable surface-to-air missile at the J-16 as it passed over the ship. The pilot dropped flares and climbed, rolling over as he did. The aircraft glided across the bow of the ship.
The missiles had been launched so close to the J-16 that they acquired it instantly. The pilot hit his afterburner, but the heat drew the missiles like a moth to a flame. He shielded his eyes as the missiles flew into the exhaust intakes and blew the plane from the sky.
*******
F-35C
Captain Ayabe and his F-35s had managed to escape the J-16s. They’d hit their afterburners and gone feet dry over South Korea until they were met by a flight of Korean F-15Ks, who were more than eager to mix it up with the Chinese.
They all formed up, accelerated to Mach 1.5, and began to close the distance to the Northern Fleet. Ayabe’s radar chirped. He magnified the tactical situation display on his left screen and enlarged his stores management display. His F-35s were sharing radars and target information data with the F-15s—they were only going to get one good pass to surprise the J-16s, and he wanted to make damn sure they splashed as many as they could. Once again, the element of surprise was theirs.
When the targeting computer had assigned a missile to each J-16, it would tell him and the Eagle drivers when to fire. In the meantime, Ayabe checked his timer from their original weapons release. He smiled—their subsonic joint strike missiles would be hitting their targets right about now.
Captain Ayabe looked at his feet. Using the augmented reality cameras in his helmet, he saw the Korean PKG boats getting hammered by the J-16s. He inhaled and fired two of his remaining missiles at the unsuspecting aircraft below.
*******
J-16
Lieutenant Colonel Cao had made his second gun run on the Korean PKG. His 30mm rounds tore through the bridge and the deck. Looking over his shoulder, Cao saw flames spewing from the bridge. He banked right and climbed. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a glint in the sky as his warning indicator alerted him to incoming missiles. Instantly following his training, his hands were already working to deploy flares and chaff.
Rolling his plane, Cao jinked hard left. The missile streaked ten meters above his cockpit, exploding into the flare behind him. He felt his plane shudder from the explosion. Checking his radar, Cao confirmed the incoming bandits were coming from twelve o’clock high. He glanced down at his airspeed indicator; they were again merging at near-supersonic speeds.
Just as he was about to switch from guns to missiles, a dark gray jet screamed overhead.
Damn. It’s a F-15K.
Cao raised his shade visor, kicked in his afterburners and gave chase. He looked out his canopy to the left and, seeing that his wingman was still with him, he nodded. The chase was on.
*******
F-35B
Ayabe saw the F-15 streak past him and angle in on a pair of J-16s attacking the Korean patrol boats. As the F-15 shot past, the J-16s followed. Angling down, Ayabe passed the targets to his wingman and he watched as two missiles took off towards the unsuspecting J-16s. The missiles accelerated to supersonic in the blink of an eye.
The F-15 banked hard right and dumped fuel into his exhaust; the afterburner thrust the aircraft away from the J-16 at incredible speeds. However, the pair of missiles found their mark and impacted with the Chinese fighter planes before they had a chance to light up the F-15. The Chinese pilots never knew what had hit them.
Ayabe watched this scene play out again and again as his F-35s used their connectivity as their most lethal advantage. The J-16s beat the 35s in speed and maneuverability, but the 35s could see farther, and in aerial combat, the first shot was most often the first kill.
With the F-15s drawing the fire and attention of the Chinese fighters, the F-35s handily knocked the Chinese aircraft out of the sky. It was over in minutes. With nothing left to shoot, the Korean and Japanese fighters headed for home.
Ayabe was offset from the Izumo by thirty degrees and about seven miles. He looked down through his fuselage using the augmented reality of the fuselage-mounted IR cameras, zoomed in, and saw that the Izumo was listing and ablaze. He knew that when he took off from her, they would be going back to land. He nodded in salute to the sailors fighting for their lives aboard her and headed to Sasebo.
*******
JS Izumo
Combined Task Force
Admiral Mori watched the wall display as the fire crews fought to staunch the flames from the recent hits. They’d just taken three hits from what appeared to be YJ-18s and were now listing to port. The 660-pound warheads had torn a huge gash in the ship.
Her task force had closed to within visual range of the Northern Fleet, but in doing so, they’d taken crippling losses. Only five of her original eleven destroyers remained, two of which were badly damaged. She’d started the battle with six frigates; now only one was still actively in the fight. The Korean corvettes that had joined them had all been destroyed. Only one of the PKG guided-missile killer patrol boats had returned from their charge.
Had it not been for the F-35s and F-15s sparring in the skies above with the PLA Air Force and keeping those planes away from her ships, more would have been sunk. Their antiship missiles simply didn’t have the punch that the Chinese YJ-18s did, and they didn’t have enough of them to begin with. Her plan had been a solid one—it was expertly executed with audacity and precision—but it simply wasn’t enough to go toe-to-toe with the Chinese fleet.
Admiral Mori reluctantly gave the order to withdraw. Her only hope now was that they’d inflicted enough damage to the Northern Fleet that it could no longer remain a viable fighting force.
She felt the Izumo lurch as it turned to head back toward the home islands. The engines strained under the maneuver; the starboard screw had been damaged by a torpedo from a Chinese submarine that had managed to get a shot off before it was destroyed.
I wonder if it was Commander Takahashi who saved us from a second torpedo? Admiral Mori quickly put that thought out of her mind. She would know soon enough if he was still alive, if she herself survived the day.
*******
JS SS-512
Commander Takahashi stood behind his chief sonarman, who had acquired the Chinese boomer—it was an older Xia-class that displaced about 8,200 tons. By modern standards, the boomer was loud. It had tried to slip under the surface action by heading deep, but the sonarman had picked her up at just under ten thousand yards.
Takahashi had given his other sub captains orders to maintain the picket to prevent any Chinese ships from breaking out into the Pacific if the task force failed. On the other hand, his sub had traversed slow and deep, while he kept his ears open, listening for any fast-attacks that tried to get shots off at the fl
eet. In particular, he’d been looking for the 406…and his patience had paid off. They’d finally found it.
Commander Takahashi still had two Sea Wasps and four Type 89s, and his outer doors had been opened since the shooting had begun. It was time to slay this dragon. Somewhere above him, the Izumo had turned for home, and he was not positioned to protect the fleet’s backside if he went after this boomer.
His heart was torn, but he knew his duty; sinking this boat would take twelve submarine-launched ballistic missiles off the board. However, this sub posed probably the greatest strategic threat against the home islands; it had to be dealt with now before China could use the force of nuclear blackmail to achieve their military aims in Asia.
As Takahashi was making his way back to the master plot, the sonarman raised his arm suddenly.
“Captain, submerged contact, designate Sierra 2. Shang-class fast-attack.”
“Bearing and range?”
“Bearing two-nine-zero degrees relative, range ninety-four hundred yards.”
“Designate Sierra 2 Master 2. Designate the Xia as Master 1.”
“Aye, sir. Sierra 2, designate Master 2. Designate Xia as Master 1.”
“Heading of Sierra 2?”
The sonarman remained quiet for five long seconds as he listened to the deep. “Sir, estimated heading puts her bow at the Izumo.”
Takahashi’s blood ran cold. This bastard was going to try to kill the Izumo as she made her way home. The Shang-class was faster than the Xia, and it carried YJ-18s. For a moment, his internal conflict nearly got the best of him.
Commander Takahashi took a deep breath. The Izumo is on her own, he decided. His orders from Mori had been to sink the boomer if at all possible, and that was exactly what he was going to do.
