USS Bougainville (LHA-8)
Point Mugu Range Complex, California
“War Plan Ardent Resolve in effect. MEU to proceed to point Whisky Delta, best possible speed, maintain EMCON. DEFCON 1, medium probability.”
“Get third fleet on the horn.”
“They are not answering, sir.”
Admiral Baker, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3 sat back in his chair. While the Combat Information Center (CIC) in the Bougainville was not as large as the one aboard a full-sized carrier, it was still able to command a major engagement. At the moment, the Bougainville was the largest naval unit known to be operating on the West Coast. The two carriers that had been in San Diego were out of communications and the USS George Washington was forward deployed to Japan. They were on their own.
Baker turned to Lensten. “Bill, you’re senior here.”
Lensten nodded. “Let’s give things a few minutes. We don’t know the current situation.” He consulted the display for a moment. There were a total of six destroyers and a cruiser at sea currently within 100 miles of the West Coast in addition to Bougainville, Tripoli and their escorts. “In the meantime, let’s get those stragglers lined up. We will form into a single task group at Whisky Delta.” He turned to the communications specialist on duty. “Is COMSUBPAC online?”
“Yes, sir. Pacific fleet is on the air.”
“OK, let’s coordinate with them and ELF all the submarines in the Pacific. If this is a worst case, I want a submarine screen off the West Coast, pronto.”
Using Extremely Long Frequency (ELF) to contact submarines was tedious and slow. Any orders sent to submarines at sea would take longer than other units. At a minimum, they could be alerted to come up to antenna depth for more detailed instructions.
It took a few minutes to coordinate with Pacific command. At the moment, everyone was in a bit of a panic as orders and counter orders swirled around the globe.
The secure voice circuit blared to life. “ALL CONUS UNITS, THEATER COMMAND HAS SHIFTED TO CRYSTAL PALACE.”
Godammit. Crystal Palace, the code word for Cheyenne Mountain, was a relic of the cold war. Northern Command had been run from the much more comfortable and easier to support Peterson Space Base since the end of the cold war. “Any word from third fleet?”
“No, sir. They are still offline.”
“Very well. Inform all commands that I am shifting the flag here to the Bougainville.”
“ALL UNITS, 3rd FLEET FLAG HAS SHIFTED TO BRAVO UNIFORM.”
Effectively Lensten had just put himself in charge of all US Navy units operating on the West Coast. He sincerely hoped that his boss would countermand that order shortly but hard-won experience had taught the US Navy that someone had to be in command at all times.
“Northern Command, Actual, for you sir.”
“2nd Fleet, Lenston here.”
“Wilkes. What’s your situation there, Lenston?”
“We have a full MEU here. Bougainville and Tripoli have a full ESG embarked. I have taken the liberty of gathering up all the other ships under way and we are proceeding to a rendezvous off the Channel Islands. We can defend ourselves and conduct limited combat operations, but we are not taking on the entire PLAN by ourselves.” While an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) was not nearly as powerful as a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) it did contain a full Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and its supporting units which made the ESG the most flexible naval strike unit.
“Understood. At this point, I need information. Get your air assets up and running. We have lost SATCOM across the board and both the RORSTATS in the Pacific are offline. With zero overhead, we could have an entire fucking invasion fleet out there and we wouldn’t know.”
“Understood. Permission to disperse my assets, General?” While he had been ordered to get his air assets up and running, they would have no fuel, weapons or maintenance if the support personnel died in an enemy strike. The only way to protect them was to spread them out to places less likely to be attacked.
Wilkes thought for a moment. “You expect follow-on attacks?”
“Wouldn’t you prosecute any air assets on the ground if you were the attacking force?”
“Yes, I would. Proceed.”
Terminating the connection, he turned to the intelligence specialist on duty. “I want a list of all civilian airports with a runway of 5,000 feet or longer on the West Coast. Anything in California, Oregon or Washington.” The Lieutenant on duty just stared at him for a moment, a bit shocked by the turn of events. “NOW, LIEUTENANT!!” The bark of command had its desired effect. The junior officer sprang into action. “Get COMNAVAIRFOR on the horn, I want all their birds in the air, NOW.”
Just a small typo (the question mark in the middle of the sentence):
I want a list of all civilian airports with a runway of 5,000 feet? or longer on the West Coast.
Back in the day when I was active duty Air Force, we had a canned plan called OpPlan 55 to cover a surprise nuclear attack on the base. At the time I was based at George AFB (37th TFW, the Wild Weasels). I had the job as a junior MX officer to refresh the plan. It was a four part plan:
1. launch anything that could fly and
2. get as many maintainers along with cops and parts away from the base before it got nuked in about 20 minutes.
3. Then those jets would fly to pre-selected airfields and
4. the maintainers that survived the attack were to mate up with them any way they could.
We never actually practiced it for it contained some pretty creative solutions to get as much operational capability dispersed in as little time as possible. It’ll be interesting to see what the author does with this.
So.. Hang in there for a couple of episodes and then tell me what you think.