“Well what I want to know, Commander Reed, is whether or not these things are going to beat us.”
“I can’t tell you that for certain, sir. What I can say is this. That FA-18 Hornet we put out there may be past its prime, but it won’t be alone. We have a couple of carrier squadrons with our new F-35 Lightnings. But there’s more to all this than which plane is better. It isn’t just stealth and missiles that will decide this thing, sir. A good combat aircraft today has a long checklist. Yes, its radar signature and missiles count for a lot, but then there are things like its integrated electronics, the reliability of its radar and engines, the Electronic Warfare system it’s using, the ability to synthesize both onboard and off board sensor data-information from satellites, ground based systems and other assets like AEW or AWACS planes. Then we get to how good that pilot is, the training he has and the maintenance routines that put his plane in the air that day. And how long can he stay there? That takes a well practiced and reliable air refueling capability. Wrap it all up with good hardware and software and you’ve got the whole package-the real modern aircraft worth the name when it comes to war fighting.”
“So what’s the bottom line, Mister Reed. Is that what the Chinese are going to be throwing at our carrier task forces if we send in the Eisenhower and Nimitz?”
“No sir, I don’t think so. These planes have a few things on the list, and I’ve already mentioned those: good range, speed, stealth and weapons. As for everything else on my list, I don’t think they can come anywhere near us, sir. We’ve been at this for years, decades. This new J-20 was just delivered in large numbers three years ago. We estimate they may have no more than a hundred in inventory, and this will be their first invitation to the dance. As for pilots, they’ll have some good ones in the seat, some bad ones, and some miserable ones. But every plane we send up is going to have a rip-snortin’ expert in the harness, and that’s no brag, sir. So think of these planes like darts. They’ll throw them at us, and occasionally they’ll hit something.”
“Our carriers?”
“They’ll try, but they’ll have to get through hell’s gate first, sir. I think they will most likely make high speed runs at our AEW assets, at-sea replenishment ships, command ships, the smaller Marine Amphibious carriers will be more vulnerable than our fleet carriers. But it’s never quite like that, sir. These targets aren’t sitting out there alone. We’re a highly integrated Air/Sea combat force. All those assets will have a carrier air wing up and angry for defense, sir, and if you want to know what our boys are capable of just ask Saddam or the Ayatollah.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mister Reed, but Saddam is dead,” Leyman said glibly.
“My point exactly, sir.”
“Then you believe we can safely move these two CV battlegroups — say into the East China Sea?”
“I think I would stand off just a little farther out, sir. We don’t need to be in those waters to project our force there. Remember, we’ve got assets at Kadena on Okinawa as well.”
“Yes, but look what happened at Naha. Are we to expect a rain of these ballistic missiles on our airfields in the region as well?”
“If we get into it, I would certainly count on that, sir. I described those J-20s as aimed darts. Well the ballistic missiles are another matter entirely. Think of them as arrows, and fired by some very good archers.”
“Can we stop these things, Commander?”
“We can try, sir. And to bring it back full circle, I would begin with the satellites, and I wouldn’t waste much more time with that. The General made a real show if it in the UN when he dragged out that photo of a cratered airstrip in the Gobi. Yes, they can hit a target, as we clearly saw, but they have to know where it is, sir. As it stands now, they can sit up there with satellites and see exactly where Eisenhower and Nimitz are at this very moment. Take down those satellites and they’ll have to rely on three other things: air reconnaissance, submarines, or over the horizon radar. We can shoot down the first one, find and kill the second one with our own subs, and jam the third one. But the satellites? You’ve got one option, sir. Get them as soon as you can.”
Leyman took that all in and slowly set his briefing file on the table. “I see,” he said. “Well just how many of these ballistic missiles are we talking about, Mister Reed? All it took was six of the damn things to raise hell at Naha.”
“I’m afraid they have quite a few more than that, sir.”
“How many? Are we talking about a couple hundred here?”
Reed rubbed his nose, and then looked Leyman in the eye and told it to him straight. “No sir, we’re talking about a couple thousand, over 2,200 by our latest estimates.”
“My God…” Leyman reached for a glass of water.
“And then there’s one other matter, sir.”
“For heaven’s sake, these damn missiles are quite enough, but go ahead, Commander. What else have they got in their back pocket I need to know about?”
“Well, sir… They have the Russians.”
Chapter 30
Admiral Volsky sat behind the big desk in Abramov’s old office at Naval Headquarters, Fokino. It was now his new home, his new ship, and somehow being chained to a desk forced home the realization that comes to every admiral over the age of sixty years-the bone yard was not far off. This was the last post he would likely hold in the navy, and the shadow of imminent retirement was already darkening the light of his long and distinguished career. Soon he would be like the old ships in the graveyard bays of Sakhalin and Kamchatka, and the sight of the rusting hulk of the second original Kirov Class battlecruiser, Admiral Lazarev, seemed to mock him where it rode at anchor near the Fleet Munitions Depot down in Abrek Bay.
Yes, he thought, There you sit, Lazarev, just as I sit here at Abramov’s old desk. This chair was his, and now it’s mine until they drag me off to some desolate harbor where I can rust my last years away. Maybe one day they will name a ship after me, the Admiral Leonid Volsky, and then I will live again and cut through the open seas under a starry night…But not today. Now I have other matters to attend to, the things that choked the veins and arteries of old Abramov and put him in that hospital bed. And the worst of it is knowing the futility of it all-knowing the dark end it all comes to, and sitting here trying to find a way to still be a serving Fleet Admiral in the Russian Navy while I strive to prevent the very thing that the ships and men I command were made for.
We build them, and by God we will use them one day. That was the sad and inevitable logic of war. The Admiral Lazarev had not seen much action in her brief career. She was laid down in the old harbor at Leningrad in 1981, commissioned in 1984, sailed about for a time with visits to Aden, Luanda, Vietnam, and then sat uselessly at her port berthing, retired in 1999. Her heart was ripped out a few years later when they unloaded her nuclear fuel, just like Abramov.
His eye wandered to the squat buildings southwest around Chazhma Bay where the Ship Repair Facility received the old depleted fuel that was at the heart of the fleet’s nuclear powered submarines. The long thin steel of the Trans-Siberian railway would receive fresh fuel from the Machine Building Plant in Elektrostal and return spent fuel assemblies for storage or reprocessing at the Mayak Chemical Combine in Chelyabinsk. Heart surgery, he thought, wondering how many years he had left himself.
Nothing lasts forever…
His Chief of Staff, Talanov, buzzed him, breaking his reverie with the news he had been expecting. “Good morning, Admiral, Captain Karpov and Captain Fedorov are waiting as ordered. Shall I send them in?”
“Please do. Thank you, Mister Talanov.”
The door opened and the two men entered, smiling to see the Admiral again. Volsky stood to shake their hands, invigorated to see them, and gesturing warmly to the two chairs before the polished maple desk.
“Well, gentlemen, I expect you have seen the theatrics at the United Nations. Astounding to think the Chinese would make such a display.”
“The talk is that there has been a split between the civilian leadership and the military, sir,” said Karpov.
“Perhaps,” said Volsky. “The Chinese ambassador seemed as surprised as everyone else when that general stormed in and took the microphone. So now they are pouring over their maps over there, and pointing fingers at islands and rattling off numbers and the names of men and ships they will send there to fight. There is nothing more dangerous than an Admiral or General with a compass and a map. Sadly, that applies equally to me at this moment. I called you here because Moscow wants us to mobilize the fleet and make a strong show of force in
