Episode 12

93rd Bomb Squadron, US Air Force Reserve (USAF-R)

FL 330, South China Sea

Major Michael Tinney was a second generation B-52 bomber pilot.  His dad had flown them over Vietnam before he was born.  A career Air Force combat pilot and the son of an Air Force combat pilot, he pretty much thought he had seen, done or at least heard about everything the US Air Force had to offer for a bomber pilot.

He had been wrong about that.

“John, do we have waypoints and search area locked down for all the weapons?”

“Yes Sir, Jackal from the P-8 is steady and locked.  We have hard target data for all twelve tangos.  All weapons coded.”  The idea that a lowly P-8 Poseidon was using link-16 to pass targeting data on to an entire squadron of B-52’s just felt wrong somehow even though it was, in theory, no stranger than taking targeting data from a J-STARS bird over Iraq.  In practice, however, nobody on the P-8 had ever called in an air strike before which didn’t give Tinney the warm feelies. Also, the Navy crew had not exercised with the Air Force before this mission was put together so nobody knew exactly what was going to happen.  One thing for sure, we are gonna open a whole can of whup-ass on someone.  Just hope those squids had their IFF data locked and loaded.

“Good.  Have weps triple check those civilian ship locations.  We DO NOT want any friendlies hurt down range.”

“Roger that, sir.”

Tinney knew he was bugging his crew a bit more than he needed to but he couldn’t help himself.  The idea that his squadron was about to unleash over one hundred Harpoons after taking just one practice shot each over the gulf last month (and not with a live weapon) did not make him feel confident.  He had dropped a dozen JDAM’s in practice before dropping the first one in anger over Afghanistan.  And that was shooting at buildings.  Now he was shooting at ships, and those MOVED.  Please God, don’t let me screw the pooch.

The B-52’s of the 93^rd were spread out in a long line abreast.  What would have been called a skirmish line if they had been infantry soldiers except that each BUFF was flying slightly behind the one next to him so the line wasn’t perpendicular to the line of travel.  In this case, the objective was to allow the missiles to “see” the Chinese ships clearly and to avoid any “fratricide” as weapon on weapon hits were called.  B-52’s normally did not fire missiles in squadron formation so this was also a new thing.  Unlike newer jets like the F-35 which were designed to operate as a group, the B-52 was largely self-contained.  There was no mechanism to guarantee a rippled salvo. 

Tinny held down the number one position on the far left.  He could clearly see his wingman about a hundred yards to his right and barely make out the next plane behind that.  The idea was for the lead ship to fire and this would queue the next behind and so on.  The others were not visible, but he knew they were there.  Ten minutes to firing range.  At this altitude, he would be able to “see” the ships on radar (if he had radar on, which he did not at the moment) at over 200 miles which were the “effective horizon” at 33,000 feet.  In theory (and according to Wikipedia), a Harpoon had an effective combat range of “just” sixty-seven miles.  However, that was for a missile fired from a surface combatant.  In this case, the Harpoon would be able to glide down to wave-top height, taking advantage of the extra energy imparted by its very high release point.  This was not a “normal” attack profile for a Harpoon and the missiles had been specially reprogrammed for this mission.  Another item to worry about in this very worrying mission.

Are the Chinese reading Wikipedia? That random thought ran through Tinney’s brain before he could suppress it.  Although they must have had good radar returns on the squadron of B-52’s, they had taken no action other than to light off their powerful air search radars. After all, why waste valuable anti-aircraft missiles at extreme range?  Wait until the B-52’s were within 100 miles and then shoot, well before they entered the Harpoon’s range.  Right?

Wrong.  At 125 miles to the target, Tinney gave the order.  “Master arms on.”  Then on the squadron frequency, “All Outlaws: Bruisers drop.  Drop.  Drop.” With that order, every member of the squadron dropped their missiles in very rapid succession, the lead plane starting the sequence and the drops rippling back through the line.  Instead of lighting off their small turbofan engines, the missiles opened their diminutive wings and in effect became glide bombs for their descent to wave top height.  They actually had a glide ratio of 8:1 which was similar to a Piper Cub aircraft.   This long glide would give them an additional 50 miles of range in addition to their powered flight range (which was actually 100 miles and not the “67” posted on Wikipedia).  This was forgetting the fact that they were already moving over 600 miles per hour when they were released from the bombers.

With the ordinance released, it was time to go back to Clarke and hope the rest of the operation went as well.  “All Outlaws: Break.  I say again, break, break, break.”

Transmitter off, he continued to his co-pilot.  “I hope those Chinese ships saw all of that.  Otherwise, this whole show was for nothing.”

“Well, if they’re not watching, we might get some kills on our own.  I wouldn’t mind having a Destroyer painted on the side of the old girl.”

“Yeah, we could paint it next to that camel of yours.”

“Low blow sir, low blow.”

VMFA-121 (The Green Knights)

Captain Lester “Kit Kat” Charles was a marine first and a pilot second.  Which meant he was an infantryman at heart.  While he would never admit it to the Marines under his command, he did not consider killing ships to be a proper job for a Marine.  This was Navy work, pure and simple.  However, in this case, he had to agree that this was a case of the right tool for the job.  His current working office was at 35,000 feet in the cockpit of a brand new F-35B Lightning II “Joint Strike Fighter.”  Why the FA-18 was a “Fighter Attack” aircraft and the F-35 was just a “Fighter” he had no idea but it wasn’t something he had spent much time worrying about.  Of course, he had flown the AV-8B “Harrier II” which was also a fighter, but the A stood for “attack” and the V stood for “Vertical.”  Ironically, he had his only air to air kill in the AV-8B over Iraq.  So, yeah.  Charles supposed that AVF-35B was just too much.  After all, the F-35B was also a VTOL aircraft which he had just proven by taking off from the USS America which WAS NOT an Aircraft Carrier.  No sir, she was “Landing Helicopter Assault” (LHA) ship.  Despite the fact that on this mission she held only two helos and those were strictly for SAR in case one of the F-35’s went into the drink.  Not to mention that the America and her sister the USS Tripoli didn’t even HAVE a well deck which made them aviation only ships.  That pretty much eliminated the “Landing” part of her name.  They were basically modern equivalents of the “escort carriers” of World War II, but without the name and without the Naval aviators they used to carry.  While the F-35B’s were relatively limited in their carry capacity, this was made up for by a helpful air force tanker equipped with Navy style “hose and drogue” equipment.  In the case of the new KC-46A, this meant that they could refuel three F-35B’s at once which was very convenient.

Basically, he was flying an attack plane that was called a fighter from an Aircraft Carrier that was called a Helicopter Assault ship which was being refueled by an Air Force tanker using a Navy designed refueling system.  Life in the military was like that.  Oh, and he was about to engage in Naval combat even though he was in the Marines, not in the Navy.

Thinking about the reason why he was up here at 35,000 feet in his F-35 loaded down with two AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW) tucked into the carefully radar opaque bomb bay of his “fighter” did make him smile.  A great big smile that shifted the oxygen mask around on his face. Unlike the Navy, the Marines had taken to the F-35 like a pig to a mud hole.  Compared to the Harriers they had been flying, they were immensely superior in every way.  In the very first time in living memory, the Marines had a plane that was far superior to anything the Navy had on offer.  That would change once the F-35C came fully into the fleet with longer range and more payload capacity, but for now, the F-35B was king of the hill.

All of which explained why he was so incredibly happy to see his threat receivers light up like a Christmas tree.

While they were technically under “emissions control” (pronounced em-con) which meant no radio chatter, the F-35B had a “low observable” data link between planes that also included a “text-based tactical communications system.”  Or in other words, you could text with them.  “There they go, Kit Kat.  Looks like the BUFFs did their job.”

“Oorah.  Time to find out how good that Chinese radar really is.”

“Roger that.”

While he didn’t think the Chinese could see him, it didn’t feel good to see those ships burning holes in the atmosphere trying to find him.  After all, he was less than 100 miles away.  Surely they would see him at some point.  Reflexively, he checked for contrails, a known issue with the F-35 due to the vortexes that they produced.  Nothing right now.  They probably couldn’t be seen visually yet.  Probably.

Time to Cowboy Up, Lester.  This is what we get paid for.  Well, it wasn’t actually, but it made a good motivational speech inside his head.

Dropping AGM-154’s was a good news, bad news proposition.  The good news is that they were GPS and IR guided and in the latest “C-1” configuration could autonomously track moving targets at sea.  This meant almost no radio or radar signature for the enemy to pick up.  For a stealth platform like the F-35, this was a very good thing.  No point in dropping a radar-guided Harpoon from an F-35.  As soon as the Harpoon radar lit off, the game would be up.  The JSOW, on the other hand, was very stealthy.  The Chinese might not even see them as they glided down to the ships below.  On the other hand, they were GLIDE BOMBS, not powered missiles.  This meant getting up close and personal when you attacked.  Up close and personal being mostly defined by the SAM range of the ship you were attacking.  Which in this case was WAY more than the 70-mile range of the JSOW.  Charles and his squadron intended to drop at about 50 miles to ensure a good probability of kill even if the ships tried to run.  Unlikely at this point, but they wouldn’t get another chance like this.  The trick with the B-52’s was only going to work once.

The reality was that the Chinese had spent over twenty years studying the Harpoon and had even managed to purchase a few of the weapons on the open market.  The missile was so common in western Navies that there was very little they didn’t know about it.  Or so they thought.  The “export” version had been very carefully degraded to ensure the USA always had the edge. However, even the glider trick that the B-52’s had just pulled was unlikely to work more than once or twice.  The Chinese had extensive data about the radar-based guidance system in the Harpoon and had worked very hard to counter this threat.  While the B-52 strike was large enough that some leakers might get though, a decisive victory was unlikely.  The real reason why the B-52’s had attacked is that having over 100 missiles fired at you tends to “focus the mind wonderfully” as his old boot Gunny had said. The Chinese would be well and truly focused on that very well known threat.

In the meantime, Charles and his two squadrons of F-35B’s were about to prove that “the most costly weapons system in human history” was worth every penny.  Just twenty planes were about to completely take out an entire Chinese flotilla in one attack run.  The F-35 was about to do to Naval Warfare what the F-117 had done for land warfare.  Demonstrated Global Strike capability with impunity.  If we can see you, we can kill you.

Unlike his old Harrier, flying a strike mission in an F-35 was very much like a video game.  The aircraft knew where the enemy ships were, it knew what the weather was like, it knew when and where the plane had to be in order to hit the ships.  As the solution got better and better, the icons went from pale yellow to bright red.   The plane even calculated PK or “probability of kill” which at this altitude and 50 miles out was pretty high at 95%.  Of course, there was always a chance something went wrong which is why each of the larger Chinese ships had two weapons targeted on it.  The smaller support ships would make do with one each.  While a single JSOW strike was unlikely to sink a larger combat vessel, it would be enough to put them out of action which was the point of the exercise.  The smaller Chinese corvettes and patrol craft were unlikely to survive even one hit.

“Looks like SAM fire from the cruisers….  Headed away from us.  Looks like they are engaging the Harpoons.”

“Roger that.  Two mikes.”

While the F-35’s couldn’t “see” the Harpoons, the P-8 was broadcasting Link-16 data which they could “hear” and that meant they knew where the sea-skimming anti-ship missiles were.  And then the missiles started to die.  As an unintended consequence of all this activity, the Chinese ships were screaming their locations into the ether.  All of which allowed the P-8 to give the AGM-154’s very precise targeting data which would be constantly updated via Link-16 all the way to target.

“I hope the tech weenies are getting all this.  I think the Chinese AA is better than we thought.”

“Yep, hope they have this on the DVR.”

“Now it’s our turn.  Drop. Drop. Drop.”

Being a new aircraft was both a good thing and a bad thing.  Good because they mostly worked right and the mechanical parts were all new and thus at the beginning of their service life.  Bad because they still had “bugs” to work out.

One of the pilots, call sign Harry “Chuckles” Peters texted his frustration.  “Dammit Kit Kat, I got that ‘Drop Command Override’ bug again.  I thought they said they fixed that.”

“Yeah, me too.  Cycle the weapon and try again.”

“Roger that.  Still no-op.”

So, it would be 38 bombs attacking 24 ships.  It would have to be enough.

It was.

“Hard kill!  We have multiple secondaries!”  The voice coming from the P-8 was jubilant.  Perhaps they had friends on the Carl Vinson.  “Hard Kill!”  The call went on and on.

In the end, all of the Chinese Cruisers, all of the Destroyers and two of the support vessels were destroyed.  Only two support ships escaped.  Both heavily damaged by near misses as bombs and Harpoons targeted their more dangerous brethren.