Episode 56

VMFA-121 (The Green Knights)

Embarked on USS America (LHA-6)

Ten Miles Northeast Fiery Cross Reef

“Launch the Alert Aircraft!”

Captain Charles had been sitting in his F-35B for the last hour, ready to start his engines. While the LHA (Landing, Helicopter, Assault) ship was smaller than a full on fleet carrier, it was specifically designed for F-35B operations. It was only “small” if you had been on a Nimitz class recently. By any other definition, it was a large ship and was able to hold eight fully fueled and armed F-35B’s on the deck ready to go. The rest of the squadron were on “plus 15” just below in the cavernous hangar deck. They would be brought up on deck and launched shortly after the first group were off.

Charles signaled to his wingman and began his start engine procedure. Once the engine was spooled up, he got a signal from the crewman directing traffic on the deck and rolled forward into launch position. For the F-35B on the America and her sisters, takeoff was a deceptively simple procedure. By putting the jet into STOL (Short Take of and Landing) mode, he caused the jet to reconfigure its self to open up two doors on the top and one on the bottom of the airframe. One allowed air directly into the engine from the top and the other two uncovered an enormous fan. This fan, combined with the rotating engine nozzle at the rear, allowed the F-35 to take off from the short runway on the America without a launch catapult.

Acknowledging the salute of the deckhand, he pushed the throttles to the stops and released the brakes. Unlike a catapult shot, the acceleration was smooth. The small amount of lift created by the wings at such a slow speed was compensated by the lift fan and tilted engine exhaust. As the fighter rolled down the deck, it slowly began to lift off and was fully in the air before it reached the end of the deck. As the plane’s speed increased, the jet automatically reconfigured its self into normal flight. The doors closed and the engine nozzle straightened. Within a minute of takeoff, the plane was difficult to separate from an Air Force F-35A.

“Romeo flight, turn to two three zero at Angels 10. Support Hammer flight and intercept inbound Vampires.”

“Romeo flight, turning to two three zero.”

PHIBRON 3, USS America (LHA-6)
Ten Miles Northeast Fiery Cross Reef

“Vampire! Vampire! Multiple cruise missiles inbound. Range one three zero miles bearing two eight zero.”

“Sound General Quarters. Air boss, get the fighters vectored in. Coordinate with the Air Force folks and see where our guys can help out.”

“Aye, Aye, Sir.” As Captain Lensten made his way down from the flight bridge to the CIC he could hear the klaxon sounding general quarters and watched with approval as his ship raced to prepare for combat.

Now came the waiting. If the Chinese were going to pull off a time on target attack as everyone expected them to, they would need to launch ballistics fairly soon to ensure they arrived at about the same time as the recently launched cruise missiles.

However, as the time ticked by, the launch didn’t come. Ten minutes. “Radio Alpha Whiskey to see what’s up with the ballistics.”

“Alpha Whiskey reports that they believe that the counter air strike threw off the timing of the time on target attack. Current belief is that they are off by about fifteen minutes.” Which meant that the ballistics should be coming any time now.

“Launch warning! Multiple launches detected on the Chinese mainland. Expect inbound ballistics in fifteen to twenty minutes.”

And there it was. Almost exactly fifteen minutes late. Whoever was doing strategy calls for the anti-air group was bang on today.

“Zulu Whiskey to all ships. Execute evasive pattern delta.”

“Helm! All ahead flank, course three five zero.”

“Aye. All ahead flank, three five zero.”

As the America started her sprint, Lensten turned to the ASW officer. “Status on the helos?”

“We have four helos scanning out to one hundred miles, no joy. The P-8’s are supporting. If they’re out there, we can’t hear them.”

“Very well, carry on.”

“Transient! Transient! We have a submarine preparing to shoot!”

“Bearing?”

“Working sir. Not enough for a hard bearing yet.”

“Torpedo! Torpedo in the water. Bearing one four zero, range two miles, course two two zero. Sir! It’s heading right towards us!”

“Helm! New course one three zero.”

“One three zero, aye!”

It wasn’t much of a chance, but heading at a right angle from the torpedo gave them the best chance of getting away. Two miles was not a very long way when the torpedo was running at fifty plus knots. A minute or so of running time. How had they gotten so close?

“ASW! Get a helo on that contact!”

“On it sir, they are localizing. TF Tango is launching ASROCs.” At least there was only one torpedo running. If it stayed that way, the America had a chance.

“Transient! Transient! I have multiple submarine contacts. Torpedos! Multiple Torpedoes running.”

Oh, shit.

“BRACE! BRACE! BRACE! Prepare for impact!”