Episode 22

USS Ohio (SSGN-726)

Point Tango

“Action message, sir.”

Marklee set his tea down on the console and took the offered message.  “Thank you chief.  Ask the XO to join me, please.”

“Aye, aye sir.”

Marklee took his time reviewing the action message.  Although the message was expected, he wanted to be sure he understood the intent of his orders.  Submarine commanders were the last bastion of the “Master Under God” theory of ship’s captain.  Modern satellite communications meant that command could and did jostle the elbow of surface commanders with distressing regularity.  For a submariner, the assumption was that the boat would be out of contact the majority of the time.  For this reason, orders to submarines tended to set objectives and leave implementation details vague.

In this case, he had his target list and precise time to hit those targets.  Other than that, he had leeway on how to implement.

Commander Leyland came into the compartment cradling a mug of coffee.  “Still on the tea, Skipper?”

“Navy coffee?  Shudder the thought.  We got the go order.  Case Bravo.”

Leyland grimaced as he read the action order.  “That’s a crap ton of ordinance for such tiny little islands.”

“They don’t call it ‘Area Not So Nice’ they call it ‘Area Denial’ as in nobody left alive.”

“How you want to play it?”

“By the numbers.  The Seawolfs on two sides, we go up the gut.  Full spread, time on target attack.”

“How many you think they can knock down?”

“Intel says at least one SAM battery, assume they have two.  Say fifty.”

“We go in hard, one fifty?”

“Yeah, triple tap each target, fifty targets.  That leaves the Seawolfs Winchester and we are half done.”

“We have resupply at Guam?”

“Yeah, confirmed yesterday.”

“OK, attack at O-Dark-Thirty from 600 miles.”

“What about Chinese airborne radar?”

“Two squadrons of F-15’s will be doing sprints to try and catch them off guard.  Either they bag one or they get them to go off the air.  Either way, the Tomahawks should be a surprise when they arrive.  Land-based radar will only have about a minute or two to acquire and engage.”

While Marklee was very confident that the strike would work, he was less confident about the ultimate outcome.  Yes, the Navy could pound these small islands into dust, but that wasn’t the same as gaining control of the South China Sea.  In order to do that, the Marines would need to take and hold the islands.  As the Ohio and her sisters were about to prove, defending a small island like Woody Island was not an easy thing to do.  Islands didn’t move so you could target them with satellites or other high flying recon assets.  Anything the US put on those islands was subject to the same treatment they were about to dish out on the Chinese.

His more immediate concern was with Chinese submarines.  In all reality, Chinese ASW was not up to tracking and engaging a Seawolf class SSN or even the much older Ohio.  That plus the aggressive surface sweeps going on overhead meant it was unlikely that the Ohio or her sisters would be tracked by Chinese surface or air assets.  That just left a diesel sub.  While the Chinese had a couple of ‘nucs, the reality was that these boats were research and development platforms, much like their sole aircraft carrier.  At the moment, the only real submarine threat was from the diesel boats.  With the addition of air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems, they had the ability to move quietly and stay submerged much longer than a traditional boat.  Their main downside was endurance.  They didn’t have the ability to make their own air like a nuclear boat and they had to surface occasionally to ventilate the boat.  The P-8’s had already found a couple this way.

However, the Chinese knew this and had adapted their tactics.  There could easily be a diesel boat or two between Marklee and his planned launch point.  In order to balance the risk of detection by a Chinese sub with the risk of having the cruise missiles detected in flight, he was choosing the middle ground by attacking at six hundred miles.  By launching at night, they would decrease the chance of visual detection, but radar-based detection from aircraft was still very likely.  If the F-15’s could not get the Chinese AWACS to move back or shut down their radars, it was likely the Chinese would detect the missiles well before they reached their targets.