The Kidd Incident

US Naval Base Guam, USS Kidd (DDG 100)

Commander Harris had never seen so many destroyers in one place at a time.  While Guam wasn’t a massive port, it wasn’t small either.  Currently, there were so many destroyers in port that they were rafted two deep across the entire quay.  Usually, the base held three or four at a time for various reasons.  Today there were over twenty.  That plus four cruisers meant that a good chunk of the Pacific fleet was tied up right there.

As amazing as this was, it wasn’t the most amazing thing he could see.  The most amazing sight of all was the line of replenishment trucks on the quay.  Stacked was a better word.  They were stacked along the quay.  Cranes were busy unloading them.  Each one held the same thing.  Missiles.  Hundreds of missiles.  All of them being loaded into the VLS mounts on the ships tied up alongside.  Harris tried to count up how much all that ordinance cost.  He couldn’t.   A SM-3 cost about $10M.  A SM-6 about $4M.  If there were 100 SM-3s sitting out there, that would be a billion dollars in weapons.  Just sitting on the pier.  Well, not for long.  At the frantic pace they were working it wouldn’t take more than a day to get them all loaded up.

The Kidd was also due for a reload.  He hoped some of those boxes were earmarked for DDG-100.

Drifting down to his spot on the quay under minimum steerage way he also noticed something else.  All the ships not actively loading ordinance had their radars on.  He couldn’t see into the CIC of course, but based on the sailors in full battle dress and helmets manning the lookout stations and the M2’s on the rails, he bet the ships were fully rigged for a fight.  Any attack from the air on Guam was going to be in for a big surprise.  Normally the largest formation that the Navy would support would be a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) which usually had three Burkes and a Ticonderoga.  During the height of the cold war, this group had been larger but the larger magazine depth of the new Burkes and end of the cold war had meant cutbacks.  However, adding eight Burkes and two Ticonderogas from the Atlantic had shifted things considerably.  The extra ships allowed ComFltPac to take on several missions that hadn’t been possible before.  Now that there were three CSG’s in the Pacific, the Burkes could focus on their anti-air role and leave the attack work to the carriers and subs.

“Skipper, call for you on the sat phone, it’s the J2’s office.”

“Thanks sparky.”  Harris took the handset from the communications officer.  “Kidd, Actual.”

The voice on the other end was brusque.  “Commander, report to building seven when you tie up.  Expedite.”

“Aye aye.  It will be about fifteen minutes, we are still waiting for the tug.”

“Acknowledged.  Out.”

Commander Harris had no idea what the J2’s office wanted to see him for but when a two-star admiral called (even indirectly via his staff), you went.

Building Seven, when he arrived, turned out to be a pretty typical Navy building.  Designed for the tropical heat and the occasional cyclone, it was low with only a few windows.  The sign outside simply said “Operations.”  Two heavily armed marine sentries standing outside checked his ID before letting him in.  The rating at the front desk directed him to a conference room at the back of the building.

Inside, he found more stars than he had ever seen in his life.  ComFltPac was there in person (a four-star), J2 was there along with their seconds and aides.  Harris’ direct superior, a one-star admiral, was one of the more junior officers in the room.  Overall, a very top heavy room.  Harris immediately came to attention.  “Commander Harris, reporting as ordered, SIR!”

“At ease, Harris, take a seat.”  ComFltPac indicated a chair towards the end of the table.  “General Kelley, you can proceed with your briefing.”

A marine General (two-star) stood and gestured to the projected image on the far end of the room.  “Thank you, Sir.  As you know, we have two MAU’s currently steaming for the South China Sea.  We are calling this ‘Operation Leopard.’  Leopard will begin with an F-35 strike on Woody Island’s radar site followed by Growlers off the TR.  The Tomahawk strike from TF Tango will be timed for a simultaneous time on target attack with F-35’s.  Any radars left after the initial bombardment will be taken out by the Growlers.  We have two squadrons of BONEs that will be orbiting 100 miles out for follow on strikes once the radars are taken out.  They will be supported by F-22’s to take out any fighters who get out before the bombardment.  As discussed, the major threat to the MEUs will not be from Woody Island or from PLAN ships.  Our main threat is shore based anti-ship ballistic missiles.  We will position TF Archie to defend the two MEUs and cover the landing.”

Harris had been confused by why he was present.  As the captain of a Burke destroyer, he was as about as helpful in attacking Woody island as wheels on a submarine.  Defending against ballistic missiles, however, was something he knew quite a bit about.  His stomach knotted as he realized why he was here.

ComFltPac was looking at him.  “Commander Harris, since you are the only skipper in the Navy who has experience with the new Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile capability, you will take command of TF Archie.  You will retain command of Kidd and coordinate with the other members of TF Archie.  This is properly a Cruiser command, but moving you to a cruiser now would delay the operation.  Your mission briefing is in the packet my aide is about to give you.”

There was only one answer to a direct order like that.  “Aye aye, sir.”

After the meeting, Harris was smoking a cigarette in the parking lot when his boss strolled over.  “You OK, Neil?  That missile strike was rough.”  Admiral Williams was an old school tin can man.  He had made his bones hunting Russian subs in the Atlantic.  He never seemed thrilled with being in command of an anti-aircraft squadron.

“Yes, sir, the Kidd is ready to fight.  The full AA load-out will help quite a bit.  Feels strange to have zero Tomahawks onboard but I guess there are plenty of other ways for us to deliver a strike if we want to do that.”

“That’s not what I asked Neil.  Are you OK?”

Harris stubbed out the cigarette and straightened his uniform.  “Thank you, sir; I am fine.”

“I hear the ESSM’s didn’t do shit against that inbound.”

“No, sir.  We took one out with an SM-3 but we launched four ESSMs and didn’t get a single hit.  Sparks thinks that the attack profile was wrong and they couldn’t get a lock because they were trying to go straight up.  ESSMs were originally designed to take out bombers and stuff so they mostly got tested in a lateral or turning fight.”

“For what it’s worth, the boffins at Raytheon agree.  We are re-programming your Aegis to counter by focusing on more SM-3’s, the ESSMs are going to target the cruise missiles and the SM-3’s will focus on the ballistics.  Your previous load-out only had four SM-3’s so the system was trying to conserve.”

“That’s an expensive attack profile.”

“Cheaper than losing ships or sailors.  You will be fully loaded out, no land attack at all this time.”

“Roger that.  We are ready to go.”

Williams looked at him critically.  “Then why are you out of uniform?”

Harris looked down, checking.  He wasn’t completely perfect but Williams wasn’t the spit and polish kind of Admiral.  “Sir?”

The Admiral reached into a pocket.  “In my day, a TF commander was a Commodore slot.  I was pretty pissed when they shit-canned the commodore rank.  I always figured commodore was the best rank in the Navy.  It’s a shame, but that’s progress for you.  I guess you’ll have to make do with an extra stripe.  Congratulations Captain, you are promoted to O-6 effective immediately.”  He handed the box to Harris who opened it.  Two shiny captain’s insignia were inside.

27^th Fighter Squadron

FL 330,  Northern Philippines

Looking down at the four squadrons of F-15E “Strike Eagles” and their tankers, the scene looked peaceful enough, beautiful even.  Under complete EMCON, the “Fighting Eagles” of the 27^th Fighter Squadron had drawn high cover duty today.  The squadron was normally based at Langley AFB with the rest of the 1^st Fighter Wing.  On TDY to Clark in the Philippines, their job today was to stay high and provide overwatch.  Their high altitude and stealth gave them a huge advantage over any Chinese jets that decided to come out to play.

The F-22’s of the 27^th had a single, primary mission in combat.  To maintain air superiority.  Or as the wing’s Chief Master Sergeant put it:  “To be the biggest bad-ass in the sky.”  Until recently, that mission had been largely subsumed by a support role.  F-22’s had been used to attack ground targets, to support strike packages as a “coordination node” and as a relatively stealthy ISR platform.  However, no F-22 had ever achieved its primary purpose of scoring an air-to-air victory over another fighter aircraft.  In fact, the USA had not scored an air to air kill for over 25 years before the shootdown in Syria in June of 2017.  Considering the target was an elderly and supposedly poorly maintained Su-22, some folks didn’t even count that one.    Major Richard “Tex” Ewing, commanding officer of the 27^th had a feeling that this fact was about to change.

While the Chinese had done well in using hit and run tactics against the Navy and to some extent against the Air Force, the problem was that their tactics were predictable.  Because they were on the defensive, they had to react to American movements.  This meant that the US could “force” the Chinese to make the moves they wanted by showing them something they thought they understood.  They would then learn the difference between “near-peer” and “peer” adversaries.

The Chinese were desperate to maintain air superiority over their island bases in the South China Sea.  The island bases gave them the force projection they needed to keep the Navy at bay.  In effect, each island was an unsinkable aircraft carrier.  This meant they were on the lookout for raids such as the one below him right now.  The four squadrons of F-15E’s would do an excellent job of raising all kinds of hell on the island and Ewing was pretty sure that they would attempt to disrupt the raid.  In this case, the F-15E’s were all armed with HARM missiles to go after the SAM radars in addition to their JDAM bomb load to take out buildings and any aircraft that they were foolish enough to leave sitting around.  Taking the runways out would also be a great outcome, but the F-16 was the only plane in inventory rated to carry the French-made Durandal anti-runway bomb.  A few years back, that would have been the job of F-111’s but those airplanes had been retired with no direct replacement.  In this case, the shorter legs of the F-16 made them less than desirable and the mission had been planned with F-15E’s instead.

The F-15’s were not his main concern, however.  They could take care of themselves.  Each aircraft was armed with two AIM-9x and two AIM-120D missiles plus a Vulcan cannon if things got really hairy.  In reality, the Chinese were very unlikely to get into a furball with the Eagles.    His mission was much more complicated than that.  Directed by the pair of AWACS aircraft orbiting two hundred miles to the rear, his job was to localize, track and shoot down the force of Chinese fighters that would surely be sent to take out the tanker squadron.

Under normal circumstances, this would be difficult enough and the usual goal was to simply convince the opposing fighters to break off.   A flight of four F-15’s could normally do that just fine.   In this case, the goal was to force a decisive engagement and destroy the bulk of the Chinese fighter aircraft operating in the South China Sea theater.  Without fighter cover, they would be unable to protect their fixed assets and the US could systematically reduce each of their island strongholds.

That was the theory, anyway.  In actual practice, it was quite difficult.  The AWACS controllers could not see the F-22’s and the F-22’s could not communicate without giving their position away.  Unlike the F-35, the older F-22 had a very limited ability to share tactical information when running under full EMCON.  This meant that although he was being given instructions from the AWACS controllers, he could not ask questions or redirect the mission without giving away his position.

All of this meant that while he was fairly confident in his mission and extremely confident in his plane and his squadron, there was a certain amount of tension involved.  While stealth was a new and as yet untested element in air to air combat, there were several other factors that were not so risky.  In this case, having the energy advantage of altitude.  The squadron had very carefully placed themselves above and in front of the tankers.  This meant that if the Chinese scrambled from their island base as expected, they would have to fly under the squadron of Raptors.  Height was a huge advantage in air combat and had been since the sport was invented during World War I.  Second, while the flying weather was good, the visibility was “limited” to about a mile or two.  This meant he could see (barely) the tankers flying below and behind him, it also meant that the Chinese would have a hard time visually locating the small stealthy planes of the 27^th.    On the other hand, if the Chinese had deployed “anti-stealth” Radar, they might know that the squadron was in the vicinity.  Nobody really knew how well Chinese UHF Radar worked.  The Air Force was relatively certain that it wasn’t good enough to get a “hard lock” but it might be good enough to warn of the squadron’s presence.  Too many unknowns and too many if’s for Ewing.  The tactic would work or it would fail.  Simple as that.

While EMCON meant he couldn’t transmit, his receivers were working fine.   “Raid warning.  Raid warning.  We have multiple aircraft rotating from the primary target.”

So, the Chinese had decided to come up and play.  Either they didn’t know the F-22’s were there or they thought they could take them out in a fair fight.

Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t going to be a fair fight.  War isn’t about fighting fair.  War is about killing the other guy before he kills you.  Better yet, sneak up behind him and stab him in the back before he knew you were there.  Or as it’s known by the US Air Force: stealth.

Utilizing the tactical information from the trailing AWACS, Ewing’s aircraft was showing an intercept vector for the new Chinese planes on his display.  Coming in from above and at long range, the incoming aircraft might not ever see the F-22’s coming to take them out.   Which was just fine with Ewing.  Turning and burning was fine for air shows but his job was to take the other guy out.  If that happened at long range with the other guy not seeing it coming, all the better.

Looking to his right, Ewing gestured to his wingman.   Two fingers pointed down and a circling gesture.  Considering that his wingman was only twenty feet away, he saw the signal clearly.  Hopefully, he was also receiving the same tactical signals, but it was best to be sure.  The thumbs up in reply and a tap to the helmet confirmed that he was receiving the tactical feed and could hear the AWACS controller also.

As they vectored to the target, Ewing mentally reviewed his plan again.  He wanted to engage at about fifteen miles range.  He could estimate that range based on his own known position and the tactical data transmitted from the AWACS.  This should allow him to fire his missiles without revealing his location to the Chinese.  While the AIM-120D was radar-guided, it could be used in combination with the F-22’s AESA radar to produce a “Low Probability of Intercept” or LPI lock.  While the Chinese would undoubtedly know that American planes were targeting them, they wouldn’t have enough information to get a lock themselves and return fire.  In theory.

In practice, nobody knew.  No Stealth Aircraft had ever scored an air to air kill.  Until today.

As the range decreased, he found himself breathing more rapidly.  While he had trained for the majority of his adult life for this moment, he had been too young for Iraq and had never had the opportunity for an air to air kill in his entire 20-year career.  The majority of his career had been in F-15’s bombing ground targets during the “global war on terror.”  Not what the F-15 was designed to do.  This was different.  His squadron was about to attack what was probably a squadron of Chinese jets that were a near-peer of the F-15.  They had a will to fight and the aircraft to do it in.  Or so they thought.  Ewing was getting way too old to lead a fighter squadron and he knew it.  This would be his first and last air war.

As the range approached fifteen miles, Ewing realized that he didn’t have as much to worry about as he had originally thought.  The Chinese jets had their search radar on but not their fire control radar.  While they clearly knew there were American planes in the vicinity, they didn’t have a lock on the F-22’s of the 27^th.   While in theory, the AIM-120C has a range of over 65 nautical miles, the tactical discipline of US Fighters was to employ it at much shorter ranges.  While still a “Beyond Visual Range” or BVR weapon, the reality of the physics involved meant that super long-range shots of 30 miles or more were rare. At that range, it is more up to luck or your enemy being dumb.  The longer the weapon is in flight, the easier it is to change your vector and the longer you have to plan your evasion.  Thus, the plan was to engage at fifteen miles.

“All Eagles:  Light ‘em up, take ‘em out.”

With that command, the F-22 tactical data link, previously dormant, was activated on all planes.  This allowed them to share targeting information.  While this increased their probability of intercept, it also meant that the planes would share the target load and prevent targeting one plane with too many weapons or leaving someone out.

In this case, the eight F-22’s of the squadron was armed with six AIM-120D missiles each for a total of forty-eight long-range missiles.  The twelve aircraft below were targeted by two missiles each with enough missiles remaining for a second salvo.

“All Eagles, Shoot!  Now, now, now.”

In nearly perfect unison, all eight F-22’s opened their internal weapons bay doors and ejected their missiles.  Each plane fired three AIM-120 missiles in rapid succession.  All of this was sorted out by the computers in the aircraft, target assignment, firing sequence, and drop spacing was done automatically.

Ewing was pleased with the squadron’s performance but could not help but be appalled at the carnage that was about to ensue for the Chinese.  This isn’t a dogfight, this is friggin’ murder.

Too late, the Chinese pilots realized they were under attack.  Either the radio chatter or the emissions signature of the Raptors had given the game away.  The aircraft broke, scattering in pairs.  While the maneuver was nicely done, it was too little, too late.  More than half the aircraft was destroyed in the first salvo.

“Eagles, break, break break.”

On command, the eight F-22’s of the 27^th squadron broke into pairs to chase down the fleeing aircraft.  Operating over 15,000 feet higher than the Chinese jets gave them a huge advantage to start with.  Adding in the hard locks they already held, the result was predictable.  Or mostly predictable.

“Eagle four, break off and RTB.  You are approaching bingo fuel state.  Repeat, break off and RTB.”

Lieutenant Williams, a good pilot but a bit too eager had managed to burn off 80% of his fuel on burner trying to bring one of the Chinese jets to action.  The Chinese pilot had wisely gone to full afterburner and taken a reciprocal course to the Americans.  Not that the young Lieutenant couldn’t catch the fleeing Chinese plane, because he could.  The issue was that he shouldn’t be chasing after him at all.  Their orders were clear, seek a decisive engagement and break off once the initial surprise was lost.  They didn’t want to get into a turning fight this far from their base on Clarke.  Williams had blown that plan.  “Scooter, take your wingman up to tank and then RTB.”

“Roger that Tex.”

Young Williams would be scouring a hallway at Clark with a toothbrush before the day was out.  A long hallway.   The longest one Ewing could find.