The Kidd Incident

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

Captain Lensten awoke to the sound of groaning. It took him a moment to realize that he was the one groaning. He tried to open his eyes, only to realize he couldn’t see. He raised his hands to his eyes, they came away wet and sticky.

“Easy there sir, that’s a nasty cut on your forehead and you have a concussion.”

“Sitrep. What is the condition of the ship?”

“Sir, I need to treat this cut, now.”

“WHAT IS THE CONDITION OF MY SHIP!?”

“Sir, the XO has the deck. We are flooding in all compartments below D deck. Cheng says a torpedo broke her back. We took three hits amidships. XO has ordered all hands to abandon ship. I need to treat this cut RIGHT NOW so you don’t bleed out when we take you out of here. Please, sir.”

Another voice broke in. Commander Baker, the XO. “Captain, please let the corpsman treat you.” Then as Lensten struggled to sit up again. “Captain… Bill. Let the man do his job. Live to fight another day. We can’t hold the flooding. We need to get you out of here.”

With a sigh and a helpless gesture, Lensten relented.

“Chief, muster by division to the evacuation points. I want a full count. Bosun, get that DDG off the port side. RHIBs and Amphibs off starboard. Damage control, move those pumps starboard, this list is getting worse.”

Through the pain, the fear and the sense of loss, Lensten felt a sense of pride. The crew was holding together. Working to save their shipmates in the most terrible conditions possible. Hours of relentless drill were paying off even as the crew moved to save themselves instead of the ship.

VMFA-121 (The Green Knights)

Angels 20, Forty Miles Northeast Fiery Cross Reef

“Romeo Lead to Zulu Foxtrot.”

The America had reported being under attack and then had fallen silent. Captain Charles continued to try and raise the ship. “Romeo Lead to Zulu Foxtrot.”

“It’s no good Kit Kat. They’re either too busy to answer or they can’t. Try the Bonnie Dick. I think they’re Tango Zulo, right?”

Charles consulted his thigh pad for code name and frequency. “Romeo Lead to Tango Zulu, can you hear us?”

“Tango Zulu, we hear you.”

“Tango Zulu, we are unable to raise the America. Is she off the air.?”

“Affirmative Romeo Lead. She took three torps amidships. We are taking the crew off now. You need to divert to alternate.”

Well, Goddamn. He didn’t have to look on his thigh pad to remember his diversion location. Fiery Cross Reef.

As they came closer to the island, they could see a pillar of smoke in the distance. The America was doomed, but the battle wasn’t over. The cruise missile strike was still inbound and the outlying picket destroyers were engaging the incoming missiles as they got close enough to “see” them on radar. In theory, the orbiting AWACS planes should have been providing airborne radar coverage for the entire area, but in practice, they were held hundreds of miles away to keep them safe. At that distance, it was difficult for them to localize such small moving objects flying at wavetop height. The movement of the ocean created “clutter” which made it difficult to detect objects close to the surface. The longer distance meant a more oblique angle and thus a harder problem to solve.

Because of this, the sea skimming missiles were coming into the engagement envelopes of destroyers a couple at a time. As this happened, the ships would only have a few seconds to engage. For this reason, all the Aegis-equipped ships were configured for fully automatic firing. Kit Kat was very glad he wasn’t flying a helicopter down there. One wrong move by one of those destroyers would ruin your whole day. Flying at 20,000 feet, the fighters were largely immune to this and he was far less concerned about himself or other members of his squadron.

“Romeo Lead, this is Alpha Whisky. Come to heading One Two Zero. Decend angels 10. Your signal is buster.”

“Romeo, one two zero, my signal is buster. Be advised that Romeo Flight is Winchester.” As Kit Kat pushed his throttles up and into full afterburner, the descending airplane quickly became supersonic.

“Romeo, understood. We need visuals on those Vampires. AWACS has lost track, we need you to queue the AA.”

“Roger Alpha Whiskey. Romeo flight, form up on me, echelon right. Two miles separation.”

With a small sigh, Charles began his search.

USS Kidd (DDG 100)

70 miles Northeast Fiery Cross Reef

“Looks like ten survivors from the THAAD salvo.”

“What’s that straggler there?”

“They had a misfire. They fired an additional interceptor about thirty seconds after the initial launch.”

“OK. Let’s get the engagement set up.”

With over thirty Aegis equipped ships within one hundred miles of Fiery Cross Reef, the Navy had more than enough launch platforms to work with. The Aegis system had been specifically designed to handle this problem. It automatically tracked the incoming missiles, evaluated the threats and distributed target assignments. With only ten incoming missiles, the system could spread out the load evenly across multiple ships. In this case, only one SM-3 IIA would fire from each ship with all of the Cruisers firing and only five Destroyers being assigned targets.

“Target load assigned. One target for us.”

“Weapons free, anti-air.”

“Aye, aye. Weapons free.”

With this command, Captain Harris set the system on automatic and allowed the computer to control the attack. With the success of the THAAD battery, it looked like this salvo would not endanger the task force or any of the personnel on the occupied islands. Well, at least one thing is going to plan today. The roaring of the VLS as the large interceptor launched was almost anti-climactic.

“XO, any status on the America?”

The Kidd’s Executive Officer had been attempting to get a status report from the America for the past few minutes. “Negative sir. They confirmed they were under torpedo attack and reported at least one hit. Nothing since.”

“Shit. OK. Anything from the ASW team over there?”

“Yes sir. Looks like the ASROC barrage sank at least one. The others have moved off. One of the P-8’s believes they have a submarine isolated and are attacking. No joy on the third. Our helos are rotating back to one of the LPDs to refuel and will rejoin the search.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Weps, status on the Vampires?”

“They will be in optimum range in one minute.”

“Confirm the attack plan with Alpha Whiskey.”

“Confirmed, TF Archie to take primary attack at 100 miles, MEU escorts at fifty miles, shore assets at 25. Aircraft are engaging now.”

“Excellent. Triple check those IFF’s. We will not be taking out any friendly aircraft.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

VMFA-121 (The Green Knights)

Angels 10, 75 Miles Northwest Fiery Cross Reef

“Hatchet Lead, this is Romeo Lead, you with me?”

“Right with you boyo. You peep, we shoot. Second time today, it’s getting to be a habit.”

“Roger that. Just don’t shoot my Marines.”

“No promises.”

Due to the enhanced radar and other sensors on the F-35, they had a much better chance of targeting the small cruise missiles. The combination of 5th generation and 4th generation aircraft in a single strike package was turning out to be much more effective than even the war planners had hoped. The USA had thousands of tactical aircraft. Even though the number of F-35s was still very low, they were able to make the very large number of “regular” fighters much more effective than they would be on their own. In this case, the stealth features of the F-35 were not required, but their sensor suite would be very critical to the mission.

“OK Marines. Just like the exercise. Keep it tight and watch your targeting hand offs.”

“Oorah!”

While the missiles were much smaller than an aircraft, they were not very stealthy and they didn’t maneuver. After over forty years of planning on how to take out cruise missiles to protect the fleet, the US Navy and thus the rest of the US military had a very deep playbook on how to take out cruise missiles. However, there were a huge number of them out there.

“I count over a hundred.”

“Affirm, lock them up.”

“Locked and loaded.”

“Hatchet, Shoot!”

“Hatchet Lead to Hatchet flight. Shoot! Now, now, NOW!”

With that command, the F-16’s of Hatchet flight fired their remaining AIM-120D’s. In this case, the extended range of the “D” model wasn’t a factor, but their enhanced targeting and more precise guidance package were.

“Good tracks. Flying true.”

“Hit! That’s a hit. Multiple kills.”

“How are we doing?”

“Good kill ratio. Going to have some leakers though.”

“Hatchet Lead to Alpha Whiskey. Engagement successful. Heads up for some leakers.”

“Alpha Wiskey to Hatchet Lead. We see them. Good shooting.”

USS Kidd (DDG 100)

70 miles Northeast Fiery Cross Reef

“Aircraft have broken off. Missiles approaching fifty miles.”

“Very well. Engage at fifty miles.”

“Sir! The missiles are entering terminal attack mode. Altitude is dropping!”

“Damn, that’s early.”

“We are losing them. They are under our radar horizon.”

“Are we linked to the AWACS bird?”

“Yes sir, no joy. Too much surface clutter.”

“OK. Warn the island. They’re on their own.”

War is a democracy, Neil. The enemy gets a vote too.