Carrier (1999) (61 page)

There was a personal cost to the
GW
and CVW-1 during these operations. On February 6th, two VMFA-251 F/A-18’s collided while on patrol. While both pilots ejected (albeit with injuries), Lieutenant Colonel Henry Van Winkle, the XO of VMFA-251, was killed. His would be the only life lost in the crisis with Iraq. The
GW
and
Nimitz
continued their vigil, until relieved by the
Stennis
and
Independence
groups. The
Seattle
was left behind for a time because of the need for extra logistics ships in the Persian Gulf. Moving back through the Suez Canal, the
GW
rendezvoused with the
Guam
ARG and her escorts, and headed home.

They arrived home several weeks later, and the eighteen-month cycle began anew. Along the way, more changes took place to the people that we had met. Captain Stufflebeem was relieved in late 1997, and became an aide to Admiral Jay Johnson in the CNO’s office. Captain Groothousen took over command of the
Shreveport
about the same time, and continues on the path to command his own carrier someday. Though the various crises continue, the cycle never stops. The battle groups work up, go out, and come back. Let us hope that they continue that way.

Aircraft Carriers in the Real World

A
s throughout this series, I’ve reserved a bit of space at the end of this volume to spin a yarn, to try to tell the story of what I think future carrier operations might be like. Though the following story is set some two decades in the future, it is based upon what 1 believe to be solid plans and ideas. I hope that it also says something about the evolution of our world, and how democratic nations will function in the 21st century.

In the terrible summer of 2015, the great powers of the world—the United States, Russia, and China—all knew that the Indo-Pakistani War was likely to go nuclear at some point. They also knew that there was absolutely nothing that anyone could do to prevent it. Yet when India and Pakistan went to war over a series of escalating border clashes in Kashmir, the suddenness and magnitude of the catastrophe took everyone by surprise.

The roots of the conflict lay in over sixty years of deepening hatred. Border raids and warfare, terrorist actions, fighting on every level had been a part of the landscape since Pakistan’s separation from India after the end of British colonial rule. By the time fighting escalated in Kashmir in 2015, the more fanatical elements of the Indian military and political leadership saw no way to resolve the conflict using conventional means. Instead, they chose a do-or-die course. India fired eight nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at Karachi and Islamabad, the two most important cities in Pakistan. The results were terrible, horrifying beyond the most exaggerated expectations of the almost forgotten Cold War back in the 20th century.

Both Karachi and Islamabad were bracketed by a quartet of five-hundred-kiloton warheads, set to airburst over the cities for maximum damage to buildings and people. In a matter of minutes, both cities were destroyed, with firestorms roaring outward from the explosion epicenters at over sixty miles an hour. Over twenty-two million Pakistanis were killed instantly. Retaliation was automatic and immediate. Though somewhat more limited in their arsenal than the Indians, the Pakistani armed forces also had missiles with nuclear warheads, and they used them. They fired a dozen missiles at India, each with its own four-hundred-kiloton warhead. The targets they selected were Bombay, New Delhi, and Bangalore—the high-technology center of India’s booming military-industrial complex. Over fifty-two million Indians died in the initial explosions. As prevailing winds carried lethal clouds of fallout over Southeast Asia, an outraged world demanded an immediate cease-fire. The demand was enforced by a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution. Within days, that demand was backed up by the rapidly growing military presence of its members in the Indian Ocean.

A map of the activities in the Indian theater of operations in 2015 and 2016.

Pakistan’s provisional military regime immediately agreed to the cease-fire. They had seen that country’s government and fully ten percent of its population snuffed out, and had their hands full dealing with the aftermath of the Indian attack. India’s government, evacuated to a command center tunneled deep beneath a Himalayan mountain hours before its capital was vaporized, grudgingly complied. Nevertheless, they continued to denounce “external interference in our natural and inevitable leadership of South Asia.” It was clear to everyone in the world that the situation was unstable, likely to explode again at any time. By the time diplomats had ironed out the new cease-fire line in late 2015, the other nations in the region were beginning to consider their options.

Ever since the enforced partition of England’s imperial “Jewel of the Crown” led to the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, conflict between the two newly independent nations had never died down. Other nations bordering the Indian Ocean took natural sides, with Muslim states supporting Pakistan, and non-Muslim ones supporting India. Yet after the nuclear holocaust that threatened not only India and Pakistan, but also the entire region, and possibly the world, the states in the region began to distance themselves politically from the two nuclear rogue nations.

Thus the small island nation of Sri Lanka, which had been under virtual Indian control since the partition, took initial steps to remove itself from India’s sphere of influence. The reaction of India to Sri Lanka’s attempt to declare independence was quick and fierce. India was determined to retain control of the island nation; and might even have managed to do so if the rivalry of the island’s Sinhalese and Tamil populations had followed its traditional course. The Indian government had learned the art of “divide and rule” all too well during two centuries of English domination. After independence was declared in India, the ruling class put those lessons to good use, playing the divergent interests and goals of many minority groups off against each other in order to keep a firm grip on national affairs. But the current disaster had changed the Indian subcontinent forever. And in the days that followed, India would discover that the old rules had changed.

Vice Admiral Matt Connelly was always happiest when he was at sea. His current post as commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and the naval component commander (NAVCENT) for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), had kept him out at sea for months now, overseeing a mission vital to his county and the world. He was in charge of the Navy’s ships and aircraft in a place that was as geographically far as you could go from the miserable climate and politics of Washington, D.C. Even better, he was a
real
fleet commander, in charge of
real
personnel, ships, and aircraft doing a critical mission in an area of great tension. Best of all, his ships and aircraft were the newest and best in the fleet. Given where he was and what he was doing, nothing less was acceptable. India was poised on the brink of another war, possibly even another nuclear war. His success or failure in achieving his mission might determine the fate of this part of the world.

The ship he was aboard, the
Mount McKinley
(LCC-22), was a purpose-built command ship, based upon the design of the
San Antonio
(LPD-17) amphibious landing dockship. Even though it was built as a political concession to keep several shipyards busy following the completion of twelve
San Antonio-
class ships, the
Mount McKinley
was one of the finest fleet flagships ever built. Comfortable and fast, it was a marvelous balance of the complex technologies that make up specialized warships. Other wonderful ships were part of the Fifth Fleet, which Connelly was using to quarantine the Indian subcontinent while the United Nations decided what to do with the Indians and Pakistanis.

Several hundred miles to the east was the new carrier USS
Colin
Powell (CVN-79), another proud ship with a notable namesake. The second of the new class of carriers that was then being constructed, she carried an air wing with ten of the new F-25B joint strike fighters backed up by thirty F-18E and F-18F Super Hornet strike aircraft. These jets were armed with a new family of precision standoff weapons—weapons with amazing new warhead effects.

Also aboard the
Colin Powell
were several new variants of the V-22 Osprey, including the SV-22 ASW/sea-control version, the EV-22 airborne-early-warning /surface-surveillance variant, and the KUV-22 tanker/utility model. Though the
Colin Powell
was only one ship carrying a few dozen aircraft, it was a formidable weapon in the current crisis. The aircraft launched from its deck could maneuver anywhere in the region and hit anything that the National Command Authorities cared to target.

Connelly also had an MEU (SOC) aboard the three ships of his amphibious ready group (ARG), as well as a dozen highly capable escort vessels. Eight of these were Aegis-capable cruisers and destroyers, while the rest were new SC-21-class land-attack and ASW destroyers to protect the underway replenishment train ships. Finally, he had four nuclear submarines prowling about, just in case the Indians decided to get aggressive with their fleet of diesel boats.

A few Allied ships would rotate in and out of what he was calling Task Force 58 (named in honor of Admiral Raymond Spruance’s famous World War II force), but by and large this was an American force, protecting American interests and values. Not that Connelly didn’t enjoy working with coalition allies. Over the years he had become known as a master of naval diplomacy. But like any commander, he felt more comfortable with a force whose personnel and capabilities he knew intimately, whose commanders spoke his language without the need to resort to translators, and whose ships and men did what he told them to do without him needing to say “please” first.

His mission was essential, even if it could sometimes grow rather monotonous. He had learned the quarantine game back in 1990 during Desert Shield, and knew how to make it work. Backed up by patrol aircraft out of Diego Garcia and satellite surveillance from the U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) warfighting center at Colorado Springs, Colorado, Task Force 58 had the whole region under tight control. His force would keep it that way as long as the equipment, crews, and food held out. He was an American naval officer doing what he had spent a life training to do. Here in the
Mount McKinley’
s Tactical Flag Command Center (TFCC), with the computerized equipment around him constantly monitoring every creature and machine larger than a gnat within the theater of operations, Connelly was exactly where he wanted to be. As he cleared his head for the morning video tele-conference with his ship and air unit commanders, he took a deep breath, drank some coffee, and reviewed the computer screen in front of him. So far, it had been a quiet morning. It was his job to be sure that it stayed that way.

Jill Jacobs was a lovely blonde. She could have been a college cheer-leader in Texas, or possibly a starlet in Beverly Hills. She turned heads wherever she went; she had the kind of looks that made most people assume she got by on body, not brains. Most people would be wrong. She was a well-regarded doctoral candidate in high-energy physical chemistry, exploring rare earth properties for her thesis. It was slow, painstaking work, typically done at night when the lab spaces were open and she could mix and test the bizarre concoctions that were the basis of her ideas about superconductivity. Tonight’s work was typical of what she had been doing for almost six months—another apparent failure. It had not generated any of the improvements that her computer models had projected two years earlier.
Oh well,
she thought,
at least this batch didn’t explode.

She stared then at the next batch on her list—samples of a hybrid copper-platinum-scandium mix that represented a sort of cul-de-sac in her projected family of superconducting materials. Always a low-probability set within her computer-modeled group, she had mixed it only because she had the time and materials at hand, and needed to try this particular formula out
sometime.
She took the samples, formed into lengths of wire, to her test bench to measure their resistance and conductivity properties. As she stepped up to the bench, she was tired to her bones. It was discouraging to work so hard without noticeable progress.

She knew the world needed metals that were superconductive at average atmospheric temperatures, but wondered if she would ever find them. If she didn’t find them soon, would she ever make a difference with this work? Most likely, she would wind up in a corporate lab somewhere working on improved alloys for jet engines or household appliances. It was the first time she’d even allowed herself to visualize failure, and it surprised her. Maybe the sleep she was losing every night to acquire the lab time for her tests was taking its toll. Or maybe it was the news in the paper every morning. That was enough to depress anyone. But something wasn’t right, she decided. She was normally an optimist with a rose-tinted world-view. She needed a break. Perhaps after she finished this test, she would take off for the weekend, and drive to Taos for an overnight visit to a spa, or up into the mountains for a camping trip. If she could get away for a little, maybe she’d feel human again. Maybe.