Episode 7

USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19)

Point Tango

“Gentlemen, please be seated.”

Admiral Longacre looked around the small room.  While it would not be called roomy in any shore-side facility, the Blue Ridge afforded the most spacious meeting spaces that the Navy had in the fleet.  Designed as a command ship during the Vietnam war, the Blue Ridge was the oldest serving ship in the US Navy.  She did her job well to this day, but she wasn’t flashy.  Or fast.  No, the old girl was built for comfort.  And communications.  Shit tons of communications.  In her current incarnation, she could support thousands of simultaneous communications links and direct an entire theater’s worth of naval operations.  At the moment, having a forward command post not tied to a specific location was hugely useful.  It also obscured ship movements and allowed the various task force commanders to meet in person without going back to base or crowding into one of the destroyers.

The five men in the room were the task force commanders that Pacific Command had scratched up to respond to China’s latest insane episode.  Not insane, just miscalculated, Longacre reminded himself.  China had been flexing its muscles at sea for years now.  This latest episode was simply a case of a local commander getting carried away in the heat of the moment.  That was what everyone fervently hoped for, anyway.  Until the Teddy Roosevelt and COMCARSTRKGRU Nine arrived, the five task groups were the bulk of his striking power in the region.   The Ohio had set new records coming across the Pacific at flank speed and her S-TF Tango was currently spread out in a wide arc between Japan and Taiwan.  Captain Marklee looked calm but his dark face was a mask that obviously hid concern.  The SSGN’s were a “first day of war” weapon, not a “keep an eye on the neighbors” weapon and he knew it.

The admiral cleared his throat and shuffled the papers in his hands.  “Thank you all for this rendezvous.  I know that it is unusual in the extreme to hold a face to face briefing instead of a teleconference.  However, the situation is fluid and changing rapidly and this may be our last chance to meet face to face before things get really exciting.  If you need to exercise your command authority, I want us all to be on the same page. More importantly, I wanted to look each of you in the eye as we go over these plans. We need to be in complete lockstep here.”  He looked around the room.  All of the captains gathered were senior commanders or full captains.  Most had seen some combat in the global war on terror but that conflict wasn’t good preparation for what might happen against China.  ISIS didn’t have submarines or pose any serious threat to a US Naval vessel at sea.  The Chinese were a different story.  “I assume you have all familiarized yourself with the war plan.  While we do not have the execute order, I expect it at any time.  I have made my recommendation to Pacific Command and I think they agree with me that plan alpha is simply too aggressive.”  There was an almost inaudible but definitely detectable sigh of relief in the room.  While these men were professionals, nobody wanted to risk a full-on nuclear exchange with China.  “On the other hand, case bravo and Charlie seem reasonable responses to further aggression by the Chinese.  I have recommended to Pacific Command that we stage case Bravo now and then move to Charlie later as this gives us the most measured response.  Any questions?”

Captain Marklee shifted in his seat.  While the Admiral did specifically ask for questions, the conversational device could sometimes be rhetorical.  He had not served under Longacre before so he didn’t know his preferences.

The Admiral must have noticed his body language because he looked straight at Captain Marklee.  “Thad, we only know each other by reputation, but please know that I expect my subordinates to speak their minds.  Especially when it’s a command level meeting like this.”

Marklee gave the admiral a chagrined half smile.  “Thank you, sir.  I have reviewed case Bravo and it looks like to plan assumes one of the SSGN’s backed up by all four Virginias.  While I am happy to have a few attack boats backing me up, it does seem like a tad overkill for such a flyspeck as Woody Island.  I don’t think that I have enough targets on my own let alone the extra magazine depth that the Virginias bring to bear.”

“Excellent point Thad.   Yes, it certainly is overkill.  However, there are a few points we should be aware of.  While we don’t think that Chinese ASW has a prayer of tracking you or the Virginias, that’s different than ‘know for a fact’ that they can’t track you.  If it turns out that J2 is wrong about that little tidbit, I don’t want one of only two SSGN’s in theater getting into a knife fight with some Chinese ASW platform.  We’ve taken a sucker punch already, I’m not letting them do that to us again.  The Virginias will screen you and if necessary, engage any hostile forces to sanitize the area.”  Marklee nodded.  While he could duke it out with another sub if necessary, he much preferred to let the attack boats do their jobs.  His professional pride bristled at the thought that a Chinese ASW platform could track him but he recognized that they didn’t really know what they were capable of.  “Further, we don’t want you to flush your magazines just yet.  I am going to hold Michigan in reserve in case we choose to run case Alpha.  This means that if we do decide to authorize Charlie, you will also take point.  I have four Los Angeles class boats, led by Chicago ready to back you up.  They are Flight two and three boats so they can support your strike like the Virginias.  All five of you should drop to no more than 50% magazine capacity after the first strike so that should give you the ability to do both strikes without rearming.  In any case, we have replenishment support for you in Guam.  You are directed to fall back to Guam if you don’t get an alert order within 48 hours of the first strike or after the second strike.”

“Aye, sir.  We won’t let you down.”

“Just bring back your crew and your boat in one piece.”

Marklee could agree with that wholeheartedly.  “Aye, aye sir.”

Captain Lewis at the end of the table gestured to the chart on the table.  “It’s the Chinese diesel boats the concern me.  I think we can beat their ASW screen based on the intel we got from the Koreans but those diesel boats are basically a hole in the water if they stay still.  We go charging into the littorals and we are asking for trouble.”

Longacre nodded.  “I agree, Les.  We need to be aggressive but realistic.  We stay outside the nine-dash line unless there is a a very good reason.  We are not getting mousetrapped by moving into the littorals where they can wait for us to come to them.”

The admiral shifted his gaze to the other captains in the room.  “Now, let’s dig into the various permutations.  You may not be able to launch buoys or come up to antenna depth so I want you all to be ready for whatever happens.  Here are the mission specific ELF codes that we have established and the orders for the surface combatants.”