Pacific Command HQ
Joint Base Hickam Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
“Well, Goddammit.”
While General Tom Braverman was not prone to swearing, he had to agree with The Admiral. The concept of all-out war with China was not something that he had ever wanted to see in his lifetime despite spending over a year planning for just such an event. Being ready for the contingency was not the same as being happy to see it occur.
“The Vinson is pretty torn up. Her upper decks are mostly gone. Mission kill for sure. They are hopeful that they can get her back to Japan but there are two fleet tugs on the way just in case. Air ops are completely down. Most of the birds made it to the divert field safely, but several had to ditch. The Sterett is a total loss, Bunker Hill got some survivors off before Sterett sank but at least two hundred dead. Bunker Hill is completely Winchester on her VLS. If the Kongo hadn’t been doing a southern exercise, we would have almost no coverage at all for the group.”
“Damn. Scratch one flattop. This is our worst case.”
The Admiral took a moment to compose himself. “No, the carriers are not out of it completely. We got too close to the mainland and the Chinese mousetrapped us. What I don’t get are these BDA photos. See how the blast damage comes from above?”
Braverman had wondered about this also and asked his tech weenies to look into it. “According to the eggheads down the hall, the warheads detonated about two hundred feet above the ship.”
“That’s damn strange.”
“There are competing theories. One group claims that the radar jammers on the carrier set the warheads off when they got close enough, the second feel that the Chinese set them off early on purpose.”
“The first crew seems a bit far fetched, why wouldn’t they just use contact fuses? The second crew doesn’t sound much better though.”
“Apparently, they have been reading the RAND study that claims that the Chinese think they can de-escalate an ongoing conflict.”
“Ah, that crap again. Do you believe any of that?”
“It’s possible. The Chinese have some interesting notions of how to fight a war.”
“At any rate, it pushes us back at least five hundred miles from their coast. And what about those F-22s down south? If they can take down an F-22, that negates our stealth advantage.”
“We lost two F-22s down there. Luckily, the F-35s were able to back them up. They took out the KC-135 also, we are going to need to pull the tanker fleet back to Japan and Guam. To be fair, the F-22s illuminated the Chinese before firing, it was a tactical error but they didn’t know the Chinese were ready to shoot. Wrong ROE at the wrong time.”
“Even if we can maintain air superiority close to shore, I am not sure if the carriers can operate in this environment. Without tanker support, we can’t get F-22s or F-35s near them. Without the Navy, we lose the Pacific.”
“Bullshit. Pull back behind the nine-dash line and keep the carriers moving. Use our depth and speed to fuck up their kill chain. Surge assets into the Pacific to pen them up behind the nine-dash line.”
“Doesn’t that play to their strategic goals?”
“Not really, we will still be operating in the Pacific, once we get additional groups moving.”
“But we can’t get to their mainland.”
“The United States of America is not going to invade mainland China. No fucking way. Our strategic objective is to control the Chinese aggression and support our allies. We can do that from the blue waters east of the nine-dash line. Get Fleet to communicate that ROE Alpha is in effect. Shoot on sight.”
“Aye aye, sir. And the Taiwanese?”
“They’re fucked if the Chinese invade, but that’s not officially our problem. Yet. Let’s get Korea reinforced. If the Chinese get adventurous, there is no way we stop them with what we have there now.”
“Aye aye, sir. First things first, let’s surge our assets into the Pacific and contain the situation. It makes me nervous as hell that we have zero operational carriers in the Pacific right now.”
Based on recommendations from Pacific Command, the Secretary of Defense and Joint C
The United States prepared for war in the Pacific. Again.
“The Sterett is a total loss, Bunker Hill got some survivors off before she sank but at least two hundred dead. Bunker Hill is completely Winchester on her VLS”
Enjoying the chapters, this line initially confused me. You are referring to the Sterett sinking, but he can be read as the BH sunk. Took me a second to decode, fyi…
Thanks!!!
The work is a little rough around the edges. Getting tons of fan input is helping tremendously.
I could not stop reading these chapters!
The start of an excellent book!
Looking forward to its publication.
I am a bit confused as to what the five Chinese missiles hit. Some hit the CV and others hit the DDG but exactly how many, as in 3 on CV 2 on DDG or some other ratio? Maybe some missiles missed and hit the water?
(The implicit question here is how good is the payload and guidance of the Chinese missiles.)
The story is intentionally vague here. The reality is that nothing is known about this system. If more data presents on how the system performs, I might make this section more specific. Hopefully it doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the core story.
Lovin it so far!
Thank you Joseph. I have also incorporated your edits into Episode 9.
Great story. I noticed you clarified the paragraph regarding whether it was Sterret or Bunker Hill that sank.
Minor type in the third to last paragraph: “Aye aye, sir. First thigs [should be “things”] first, let’s surge our assets into the Pacific and contain the situation.”
Fixed!
So, if a carrier group in SCS was attacked, and essentially “lost”, that would prompt a full scale “eradication” move (at the minimum) against all land based missle assets, right? Those missle emplacements would be “slagged”. The escalation would be rapid- no way there would be a “cat-n-mouse “ play here- the gloves would come off…
Fair point. Please keep reading and let me know if you still feel that way. The USA is going to react, that is for sure.
The issues around an immediate full scale retribution are many.
1) The USA doesn’t want to risk a nuclear war. So far, this is a “contained” conflict. Escalations are scary and could lead to something we would all like to avoid.
2) The USN doesn’t have any striking power in the pacific at the time. This limits options.
3) The missile launchers are mobile. Time will be required to build a strike plan.
4) Multiple assets will need to be gathered. See following episodes for the USA response which will take time to build up.
5) Strikes on the Chinese mainland will be difficult. Unknown air defense capabilities and a very dense air defense grid make this dangerous and not something to just rush into.
This is a very entertaining piece of writing. I’m enjoying it immensely. I would have like more detail about the action in this and the previous chapter. Essentially you reverted to aftermath. I would have loved to have read the live account.
This is a really good story that I stumbled upon. Regarding Chinese ASBMs; even though they are mounted on mobile launchers can we not “see” them with satellite systems? Specifically the USAF newest B39 (?) not sure of nomenclature? Please be sure and make this a Kindle book. In light of recent events, I don’t want to venture a guess about Chinese intentions. I would like to share an old thought of mine even though it’s not in this book. Should we maybe look to obtain smaller and more numerous carriers. The modern carrier seems to be a large slow target.
Thanks for your comments.
Yes, the US may be able to track them closely enough to target them. However, we know that during the Gulf War, the Iraqi’s were able to hide mobile launchers. For the purpose of the story, we decided to allow the Chinese to keep their mobile launchers at this stage of the conflict. The US will take countermeasures of course.
As to the “small carrier” debate, it is very interesting and I have answered several questions on Quora about this topic. The Kidd Incident does not discuss this because it is not current US doctrine and thus falls outside the realm of the “reality-based” fiction that we chose to focus on here.