Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (74 page)

           
“Sir! Three B-52 bombers that were
reported turning west and disengaging—they are now turning northbound and
appear to be re-engaging. They are at forty-three nautical miles, at extreme
HQ-91 range.”

           
Damn them! Jhijun cursed to himself.
There were just too many of them. Well, the bombers were out of range—at least
he still had a chance to get the cruise missiles before they started attacking
the landing ships. “Message to all units: at least three, perhaps as many as
six B-52s and at least one B-2 inbound from the south of
Davao
Gulf
. Destroyer
Jinan
is unable to engage because of Tomahawk
cruise missiles coming in from the southeast. Request fighter and surface
support.”

           
He received a reply moments later:
“Sir, destroyer
Hong Lung
will
provide support. Admiral Yin sends his compliments and advises you that the
Tomahawk missiles are your priority . . . your
personal
priority.”

           
Captain Jhijun swallowed hard when
he heard the name
Hong Lung,
but when
he got the message from Yin himself, his skin turned to ice. Every cruise
missile he allowed to pass him, he knew, would mean a year in prison or a full
reduction in grade. His career—more precisely, his
life
—rested on his performance now.

Destroyer HONG LUNG,

sixty miles west of destroyer
JINAN

           
Aboard the flag bridge of the
flagship of the South Philippines Task Force, three large grease boards were
kept constantly updated on the deployment of warships in this operation. It was
beginning to resemble a child’s crayon- drawn rendering of a beehive—
Mindanao
—with swarms of angry bees surrounding it.
And the bees were getting closer and closer to the hive every minute. . . .

           
Admiral Yin Po L’un could easily see
the American tactic now: strike at the Chinese fleet from simultaneous,
multiple axes of attack. Along with the reported B-2s and B-52s coming in from
the south and the Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast, he had also
received word of more B-52s from the east and B-ls from the northeast, followed
by more B-52s and faster bombers, possibly F-llls, accompanying them. Jamming
was heavy in all areas, so obviously a few of the aircraft were not strikers
but electronic-countermeasure planes.

           
Captain Sun Ji Guoming, Yin’s chief
of staff, said, “A rough estimate so far is twenty-six B-52 bombers, six B-l
bombers, four B-2 bombers—one reportedly shot down already by
Jinan
—possibly two EF-111
electronic-countermeasure planes, and perhaps four to six F-111 fighter-bombers
involved in this raid. If this is so, the First Air Battle Wing has committed
at least three-fourths and possibly as much as four-fifths of its force on this
one escapade.” Sun smiled knowingly. “We can crush the American Air Force in
one night’s work.”

           
“Is that so, Captain?” Yin asked in
a low voice. “You say we have shot down only one plane so far, yet they have
sunk one destroyer and one frigate, damaged two other frigates, and sunk or
damaged nearly two dozen patrol boats. In less than thirty minutes they can be
over
Davao
Gulf
itself. I see no evidence of anyone being
crushed so far.”

           
“They have suffered a great loss
well before striking the target area or even coming within range of
concentrated firepower,” Sun explained. “They will suffer tremendous losses
when they come within range of the destroyers
Yinch- uan
and
Dalian
near
Davao
itself. The American forces are
undisciplined—they are launching antiradar and other guided weapons at every
small patrol boat they encounter, without bothering to save their weapons for
the frigates, destroyers, or landing-craft carriers. It was sheer luck that
they sunk
Huangshi
and
Kaifeng
,
and
Yingtan
is still operational ...”

           
“You failed to adequately take into
account the possibility of a Tomahawk cruise missile attack,” Admiral Yin said
angrily. “They were able to overwhelm our outer defenses too easily. And why
was I never advised of the presence of B-2 stealth bombers on
Guam
. . . ?”

           
“Sir, the fleet intelligence center
reported that the
Ranger
's battle
group was still in
Manado
and that
Indonesia
had not given permission for offensive
operations,” Sun explained. “If those cruisers launched their missiles from
Indonesian waters, that is an illegal act . . .”

           
Yin glared at Sun, not satisfied
with
that
explanation at all.

           
“Admiral,
Hong Lung
is engaging B-52 bombers at extreme range,” the
communications officer reported. They could feel the distant rumble of the
destroyer’s two big combination diesel-turbine engines spooling up to maximum
speed, and the ship made a hard turn to starboard briefly before settling down.
“Antiship missiles launched . . . jamming ineffective at this range, good radar
contact, intercept confidence is high on all tracks.”

           
Yin looked away from Captain Sun,
finding it hard to fault Sun too much—had he not suggested that
Hong Lung
travel east to assist in the
invasion defense, all these aged

           
American bombers might well be
attacking his Marines by now. “Report on the invasion force,” Yin ordered. “Are
they ready to land?”

           
“All vessels in position,” Captain
Sun reported. “The bombardment was to commence in two hours, and the invasion
was to begin in three ...”

           
“It can no longer wait,” Yin said.
“Order the landing craft to head ashore immediately.”

           
“But sir, we have not had time to
prepare the beachhead for our forces,” Sun argued. “There could be anything
waiting for them. We should proceed with the bombardment first and shell the
beachhead for at least an hour before—”

           
“We may not have an hour before
those bombers and cruise missiles are on top of them,” Yin said. “Issue the
orders and get those Marines on the beach.”

           
“There is no need for haste, sir,”
Sun tried one last time. “We should wait to see if any of the American bombers
go overhead—perhaps the American bombers will even bomb the beach for us. In
any case, our forces should not be on the beach when the bombers come in . . .”

           
“Neither should they be in the
landing craft on
Davao
Gulf
,” Yin said, his voice louder and sharper
this time. Sun knew enough to hold his tongue then. The uncomfortable silence
in the flag staff was broken by the combat-alert horn as the destroyer began
prosecuting its attack on the B-52s swarming around them. . . .

Forty miles east of the
Chinese destroyer HONG LUNG

           
The six B-52 G-model Stratofortress
bombers in the southern strike group were threading the needle here in the
worst possible sense—trapped between two Chinese destroyers, with no place to
hide except for an electronic curtain of jammers. Their only hope: throttles to
military power, altitude pegged at one hundred feet, and hope to make landfall
at
Balut
Island
or
Sarangani
Island
, twenty miles ahead, before the crush of
Chinese antiair missiles found them. Although they were not receiving any
missile fire-control signals from the eastern destroyer, it had still somehow
shot down the B-2 with a missile—they were going to give both destroyers as
much space as possible.

           
“Trick Zero-Two, this is One,” the
lead B-52 pilot called out on the tactical frequency. “We’ve got a radar fix on
those ships to the west. I’ve got four Harpoons left. We’re going for it.” As
soon as the navigators plotted the position of the ships, they commanded a
climb to three hundred feet and launched their last four AGM-84 Harpoon
missiles at the ships.

           
The first two Harpoons were the
original air-launched model, which flew directly toward the ships at five hundred
and fifty miles per hour; the second two missiles were the advanced AGM-84E
SLAM missile, which was far more flexible in selecting an evasive course and
attacking from multiple directions and altitudes.

           
While the first two Harpoons sped
directly for
Hong Lung,
the second
two split north and south of the destroyer, so in effect the
Hong Lung
was attacked from three sides
simultaneously.

           
The engagement worked—the southerly
missile, being steered by the first B-52’s radar navigator, impacted just above
the waterline on the starboard side of the escort frigate
Change De,
putting it out of action immediately, and one
minesweeper/patrol boat riding point for the
Hong Lung
was hit by a Harpoon missile. The other Harpoon and SLAM
missiles were destroyed by gunfire from
Hong
Lung
and its surviving escorts.

           
But the counterattack by
Hong Lung
was devastating— the sky
filled with antiair missiles as soon as the B-52 attacked. Releasing all four
of its remaining Harpoon missiles on the
Hong
Lung
battle group created a big, bright “arrow” to point the way for the
Chinese fire-control operators, and
Hong
Lung
released four HQ-91 air-to-air missiles at the B-52 within a few
seconds, followed by a volley of four more.

           
“Time to get the hell out of here,”
the pilot of the first B-52 shouted—for his own benefit more than for his
copilot or the rest of the crew. “Get rid of those mines and let’s split!” .

           
The last of the conventional B-52’s
weapons were four Mk 60 CAPTOR torpedoes on clip racks in the forward part of
the bomb bay. CAPTOR, which stood for Encapsulated Torpedo, was a large
canister containing an Mk 46 torpedo and complex sensor gear. As the B-52 began
a tight right turn away from the western destroyer, it began sowing the

           
CAPTOR mines in the eastern
Celebes Sea
. After activation, the canisters would lie
on the seabed or hang suspended in the water until a warship passed by. When
the sound, pressure, and magnetic parameters matched its pre-programmed
settings, the mine would track the target and launch the torpedo. The torpedo
had a range of six miles, and one CAPTOR by itself could sink all but the
largest class of Chinese surface ships or submarines.

           
In two minutes, all four CAPTOR
mines were released, and the airspeed of the B-52 increased dramatically. Now
weaponless, it dropped a cloud of radar-decoying chaff and continued its right
turn to a safe southerly heading. But at its high speed the tightest turn the
bomber could make was still twenty-five miles—directly in the path of two of
the stricken destroyer
Jinan
's
patrol-boat escorts.

           
Guided by
Jinan
's
one remaining air-search radar and using
infrared sights, the patrol boats opened fire on the bomber with 57-millimeter,
37-millimeter, and 25-millimeter gunfire, rattling every inch of the big jet
with shells. The B-52’s cockpit windows shattered, decapitating the two pilots
and sending the stricken aircraft crashing into the sea.

           
The crash of the B-52 not more than
three kilometers away was the most incredible sight any of the seventy-man crew
of the Haijui-class patrol boat
Yingkou
had ever seen. The mushroom cloud of fire had to be a kilometer high, and
flames were so big and so hot that the captain could swear he felt the heat
from inside the bridge. The fireball skipped across the water, rolling and rushing
along like a huge or- ange-and-red tidal wave. It was utterly spectacular.
After a few minutes of awe, the bridge crew broke out into wild cheers as the
flames began to die away—and then the crew ran for cover as bits of flying
metal and thick clouds of smoke rolled across the water.