properly targeted and “neutralized.” It was now a world where techniques like low observable operations, information fusion, situational awareness, high speed data networking, electronic countermeasures, and an arcane calculus juggling variables of stealth, range, payload, survivability and kill factors all combined to produce the same intended common denominator Yoshida had been musing over-death and destruction. Planes were not made of canvass and steel any longer, or even aluminum, but now became artful contoured compositions of carbon nanotube reinforced epoxy. However they were made, their intention was simple in the end-find and kill the enemy before they did the same to you.
As such, if one side in the looming fight crossed that thin line between the posing of a credible threat and the actual commitment to war on his opponent, they would have a decisive advantage. In these early hours of maneuver and deployment, the shadows of war crept onto the stage, a dangerous kabuki theater threatening to ignite the entire region in flame. While restraint was perhaps the sole saving grace holding the world from the precipice of another major conflict, it was also a damning liability in modern combat, where minutes became seconds, and seconds nanoseconds measuring the razor thin gap between victory and defeat.
Now Captain Wang Fu Jing danced on the edge of that razor, trying to comprehend the true mindset of his opponent that morning. As the sun rose in blazoning gold over the wide Pacific, he had pushed his first pawns forward to occupy the islands. Now came the stalwart advance of nine Seahawk helicopters, followed by a deadly knight with a shotai of three JF-35 Lightning fighters in the blue skies above.
He knew what was coming, and reasoned that these helicopters could carry no more than a full platoon of naval infantry, but it would be enough to best the single squad of sixteen men he had deployed from his lone Z-9 helicopter. The two helos on his escorting frigates had been assigned to ASW roles and were also up that morning, with buoys deployed and dipping sonar ready to seek out enemy submarines.
If he allowed these men to approach and land their troops, what would they do? Would they merely confront his men in a glorified staring contest, or would they dare attack? In that event he knew his men would resist, and then it would come down to simple numbers, and he would lose. Once the Japanese had regained control of the islands, these very same helicopters would soon be hovering over the frigate Shouyang where it held the Japanese coast guard cutter Howo hostage in the shadow of the main island. By allowing the enemy to land he would also be handing the decision to engage in combat to the Lieutenants and Sergeants on the islands. Somehow that did not suit his temperament that morning. He was Captain, and he would decide. His second frigate Weifang, was out in front screening his flagship and ready with a 32 cell VLS system bristling with Hongqi-16B SAMs.
He bit his lip, considered the unacceptable alternative of seeing his marines killed or captured, the Howo freed, his ships forced to sail about the islands in frustrated anger and watch the Japanese flag rising there again, and he decided to even the odds.
Weifang bared its teeth at 09:20 hours. The ship was named for the windy city of colorful kites in China, yet it was not flying kites that morning. Instead the ‘Red Flags’ were up, two cells of six H-16 SAMs each snapped up from the forward deck and bit into the cool morning air, intent on finding and killing prey. They accelerated rapidly to Mach 4.0 in a high arc, radars searching for targets coming low and slow over the sea, but the Seahawks were at the extreme low end of their engagement envelope. The missiles yearned for unambiguous open sky where they could soar as high as 82,000 feet. When declined to low altitude targets their effectiveness left something to be desired against anything under thirty feet, and the helos were coming in right on the deck.
The Japanese flight of nine Seahawks then bloomed with an array of countermeasures. Jammers, radar decoys, and radar cross section modification technologies all came into play, along with the old standby, a barrage of metalized glass fibers called chaff to create a visual smoke screen of sorts where electronic eyes were concerned. Nine of the first twelve missiles were fooled or spoofed, three were not, and that meant that nine Seahawks quickly became seven Seahawks, with one of those damaged but still able to fly.
Ten kilometers out the surviving choppers suddenly stopped, hovered in a breathless moment of vulnerability, using the tiny island outcrop of Okiniokita-Iwa as a screen. The Japanese Marines quickly deployed lightweight inflatable swift boats, and then Marines slid down the ropes with well rehearsed precision, six to eight men to a boat. They huddled low, and the motors sputtered to life as they began flopping in toward the big Island of Peace. The Seahawks veered off, knowing their life span against successive volleys of SAMs would not allow them much more time, but Weifang suddenly had other worries.
High overhead two stealthy JF-35s had launched a pair of JSM anti-ship missiles from well beyond the range of Weifang’s H-16s. They were also low flying sea skimmers, coming in at high subsonic speeds and beginning their evasive maneuvers on the terminal run. The next cell of H-16s off Weifang was up and after them, when frantic radar operators aboard the frigate called out renewed inbound missile warnings. Six more Type-90 SSM had been fired by the Japanese destroyer Ashigara and were inbound at over 1100Kph. The frigate was forced to fire two more H-16 cells and deploy countermeasures in the brief minutes she had to go defensive.
The Chinese missiles were good, but in the wild semi-controlled pandemonium of modern combat they had to be perfect. One of the Type-90s got through and delivered its 270kg warhead square amidships, undaunted by the chattering fire of Weifang’s 30mm Gatling guns. The resulting explosion and hull damage quickly took the frigate out of the fight.
This brief respite enabled Japanese Lieutenant Arimoto to get most of his platoon in the water and spread out in a wide fan of onrushing swift boats. His men approached the island of Uotsuri Jima from the northeast, where the Chinese had posted only two men of the fifteen man squad. Their small arms fire was not enough to dissuade the onrushing boats, and a few minutes later Japanese Marines were landing on a Pacific island in anger for the first time since WWII. A brave Seahawk remained on station covering the landing, and soon Lieutenant Arimoto had the better part of a platoon ashore, the men working their way from the crusty coastline and up the low vegetation to the higher ground above where small outcroppings of bare rock stood like stony sentinels. The cameras were running when the Japanese staged their own version of the famous US Marine flag raising on Iwo Jima.
On the other end of the four kilometer long island the remaining Chinese infantry received the report of the landing on radio and considered what to do. They would soon be confronted by over seventy enemy Marines, advancing even now in a methodical sweep across the island. Arimoto was detaching small groups of sentries at key positions along the way, but he would reach the other side of the island within two hours. The Chinese sergeant in command radioed Lanzhou for instructions.
Captain Wang Fu Jing’s brief reign on Fisherman’s Island would in no way challenge the centuries long dynasties that stitched 5000 years of Chinese history together. His attempt to stop the Japanese helicopter assault had failed. With only three helicopters of his own, and two of those already deployed on ASW picket duty he had little immediate airlift to get reinforcements to the island. He had twenty more Marines aboard, but even if he got them all to the main island that would still leave his men there outnumbered by at least two to one. They might hold, but how would he keep them supplied? The Japanese would soon control the sea and sky around these islands, of that he had little doubt.
When his second flotilla arrived that would again be a matter to be contested, but for now one of his frigates had taken a bad hit and might not survive to see home port again. That left him with his single destroyer and the frigate Shouyang was horse holding with the Japanese coast guard cutter Howo. Worse than this, the air cover he had called for was slow to the scene and even when it arrived it would provide only limited support. It was beginning to feel very lonesome on the wide Pacific, though help was on the way.
A second small flotilla centered on Lanzhou’s sister ship the Haikou was en route with two more frigates, Yiyang and Changzhou. That said, he would still not have the troops required to dislodge the force the Japanese had now landed, unless he cruised right off shore and used his deck gun to persuade them to leave on their own. It did not seem that the Japanese had any intention of backing down. The KJ-2000 Airborne Early Warning sentinel was now reporting activity at both Kadena and Naha on Okinawa, and a line of warships advancing from the northeast. Yoshida’s task force had been spotted and identified as two DDH class vessels, two guided missile destroyers, and another smaller frigate class ship. He had no reports of enemy submarine activity, but he knew that the Japanese had sub pens to the east on Myakojima. His naval reinforcements would be three hours reaching the scene and now he had to face the difficult reality of his situation.
The Japanese were coming in force. He had no doubt that there were more troops ready on those DDH class units. The thought of giving way here galled him but he knew that, at this moment, and with the imminent loss of Weifang, he was out gunned and out manned on the islands. It would be all he could do to rescue the
