Episode 16

Task Force Archie, 100 NM North West of Woodie Island

USS Kidd (DDG 100)

Harris knew he was neglecting his duty on the Kidd.  He was doing it on purpose, but it still rubbed him raw.  Kidd was his ship and he loved the ship and every sailor on her.  While he had always wanted the extra stripe of captain, he did not relish giving Kidd up.  In his current role, he had to captain the Kidd and command a task force all at once and it was not easy to do.

His first job was to ensure that Task Force Archie was ready to defend the strike force approaching Woodie Island.  Kidd was a strong ship and it would basically run its self for quite a while.  Butch is a fine officer, he can run Kidd just fine.   He tended to repeat that to himself about four times an hour.

The only saving grace was remembering the looks on the faces of the three Ticonderoga class cruiser captains when they had met in person on Guam.  Taking orders from a freshly minted O-6 in command of a DESTROYER of all things did not rub them the right way.  After all, anti-aircraft commanders did so from the decks of Ticonderogas, not from the deck of a lowly Burke.  In reality, the Ticonderoga was a dead man walking.  They were unlikely to survive another ten years and no more were planned.   The Navy had shifted the majority of their anti-air surface fleet to the Burke and it was just a matter of time until the flight III’s came online and completely replaced the Ticonderogas.

In the meantime, the larger magazine depth of the three Ticonderoga class cruisers was definitely welcome.   While 122 missiles didn’t sound like that much more than the 96 the Kidd carried, it was significant.  Probably not significant enough to justify her larger manpower requirements in the long term, but certainly significant enough to make Harris very happy to have USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) and her sisters along.

The three Ticonderoga cruisers and four Burke destroyers of TF Archie were loaded heavy for anti-air.  Split evenly between the high flying SM-3, the quad-packed RIM-162 ESSM, and the speedy SM-6, the task force had the ability to take out dozens of Chinese missiles.  Depending on assumptions of hit and kill ratios, they could take out hundreds.  That outcome was unlikely but possible.  After action analysis had shown that the Kidd had done very well against the cruise missiles but not so well against the ballistics.  That suggested that the task force was well prepared for 100 ballistic missiles but woefully under gunned for 400.  Since Naval Intelligence currently estimated that the Chinese had about 1,000 ready to go, that wasn’t a very comforting number.

In theory, the biggest threat to his command was a Chinese submarine.  In practice, they had two Los Angeles class attack boats attached to them.  While the Los Angeles class was an older boat, it still was leaps and bounds more advanced than their Chinese adversaries.  A couple of dead submarines had convinced the Chinese to hold their subs close or lose them.  A rogue Chinese sub hunting the task force was unlikely but still a contingency to be guarded against.

Well, all four of the Burkes were trailing their tails and the two attack boats were prowling.  If that didn’t keep the Chinese subs at bay, it was just going to be his bad luck.  No, the real worry was protecting the impending operation against Woody Island.  While the tech weenies had promised that the new software update would help them more accurately track the Chinese ICBMs, this had never been tested.  All his peacetime experience with the Kidd did not prepare him for going into battle with untested software guiding his missiles.  However, this was war and risks must be taken.  In any case, ComFltPac hadn’t actually asked his opinion on the matter.