Of course, with so many aircraft and missiles in the sky all at once, confusion ? even deadly mistakes ? was always possible. Key to handling so many ships scattered across so much empty water was the Aegis cruiser and its remarkable SPY-1 radar.
Admiral Tarrant sat in the Aegis cruiser's Combat Information Center, surrounded by the subdued green glow of a dozen large radar screens and electronic displays. From his post at one of four huge multi-colored consoles, the unfolding course of the battle could be followed on those screens, which separated sea from land and pinpointed both the IFF-tagged blips of friendly ships and aircraft and the far larger number of approaching hostiles. The SPY-1 radar had a reach of 250 miles, nearly to the limit of the carrier group's defensive patrol range, but it could also take data fed through an electronic data link from E-2Cs or other far-ranging eyes of the fleet, extending its personal space even farther, tracking everything on and over the sea. The system was called Aegis after the magical shield of Zeus in Greek mythology.
At the reductions necessary to compress so much data onto a single screen, however, detail was lost… with potentially deadly results.
Usually, the Battle Group Commander's screens were set to show ranges of either thirty-two or sixty-four miles from the cruiser. For the moment, Tarrant had set his primary display for 128 miles, a necessary compromise between accuracy and what Tarrant liked to call 'the big picture.' The Battle of North Cape was sprawling across thousands of square miles now. Several enemy bombers had penetrated to within eighty miles before releasing their deadly cargoes. Most, fortunately, had launched much farther out. The farther away from the carrier group a missile could be killed, the better.
As Tarrant and his battle staff watched the incoming missiles, they spoke in low, measured tones to communications and weapons officers over their radio headsets, identifying missiles and assigning them to specific ships. With so many shooters and targets, there was a real danger that in the confusion of battle, ships might gang up on some targets with more firepower than was necessary to destroy them… but allow other targets to pass through the CBG's perimeter unchallenged. Battle management, it was called, but Tarrant was terribly afraid that no one human could keep track of all of the variables, all of the moving graphic symbols on those screens, and do more than nudge the unmanageable conflict along in one stumbling direction or another.
'Tally Six, Hotspur King,' Tarrant said. 'Designating Alpha Sierra Five-three at one-one-eight. He's yours.'
'Hotspur King, Tally Six, roger that. Alpha Sierra Five-three at one-one-eight. Range six-three miles. Confirm lock-on. Firing number one.'
A new blip appeared, separating from the radar return marking the Leslie and closing silently with a fast- traveling blip just crossing the one-hundred-mile mark. Moments later, the two blips merged, grew fuzzy, then faded from view. A Standard missile had just killed a Kingfish.
There were no cheers, however, no celebration, though he thought he heard a ragged cheer transmitted from the CIC aboard the Leslie, hastily cut short.
Tarrant and the battle staff were already detailing another missile to another ship, and there was no time for anything but curtly worded orders and equally curt message repeats and acknowledgments.
Tomcats and Hornets, interceptors still deploying from both carriers toward the front line of battle, ate away at the cruise-missile threat by locking on to them one by one with their look-down, shoot-down radars, then tagging them with AMRAAMs or Sparrows. Cruise missiles that closed to within one hundred miles of Carrier Group 14's center began to take fire from the frigates posted in Jefferson's outer defensive zone. Normally spread across thirty thousand square miles or more, the CBG's escorting surface ships had redeployed along the 'threat axis' before combat, concentrating the group's defensive fire between the carrier and the approaching ship-killers. One after another, shipboard radars locked on, missile mounts pivoted, elevated, then loosed their deadly warloads in billowing contrails lancing into the sky.
Explosions detonated across the sea, some direct hits, others near-misses that sprayed thin skins and delicate electronics with white-hot shards of shrapnel.
In minutes, the number of incoming cruise missiles was reduced to seventy-six… then sixty-four… then thirty-eight. Circling Hawkeye E-2Cs tracked the survivors, plotted their courses, and vectored in additional Tomcats and Hornets to add to the mid-zone defense.
The surviving missiles kept coming.
Jefferson's CIC was similar to the combat center aboard the Shiloh, but far less elaborate. The carrier's several radar systems ? SPS-49 air search, SPS-64 surface search, SPS-65 threat detection, and the fire-control systems for her missiles and Phalanx CIWS ? had a much shorter range than the SPY-1, adequate for tracking ships and aircraft throughout Jefferson's area under most circumstances, but insufficient to deal with the complex threat of a massed Russian air assault. That, after all, was why the Navy had Aegis cruisers.
Tombstone was in CIC, watching the computer displays, listening to the chatter of his aviators as they continued to press the oncoming mass of Soviet bombers and their fighter escorts. A dozen separate dogfights had broken out so far. Tomcats such as those flying BARCAP, after they expended their loads of AIM-54s, still had Sidewinder and AMRAAM missiles and were closing eagerly on the Russian formations. The F-14s that had gone aloft with a warload of six Phoenix missiles had only their guns to fall back on in a dogfight and were vectored out of the fray by the all-seeing Hawkeyes, but the F/A-18 Hornets moved in close to cover their withdrawal.
As far as he could see from here, the battle was quickly degenerating into blind, random chaos.
And Tombstone could do nothing to help. Jefferson's CIC was 'off the air,' her radio and primary communications networks shut down to avoid detection and tracking by radar-seeking missiles. The data displayed on the combat center's screens were being transmitted via data link from the Shiloh and from the orbiting Hawkeyes.
All he could do was stand in the eerie semidarkness, watching this clash between anonymous points of light that had all the ferocity and blood-lust of a video game. It was difficult to attach faces and names to the voices he heard relayed over the room's speakers.
'Rodeo Eight, Rodeo One. Come left three-five and goose it!'
'Ah, roger, roger. We've got Alpha Sierra Two-one in our sights. Goin' for fox one.'
'Easy… almost on him. Lock! Fox one!'
'Echo Tango, Rodeo Eight. Splash Alpha Sierra Two-one…'
'Shit-fire, what was that?'
'MiGs! MiGs! We got four… no, five MiGs, coming down fast!'
'This is Echo Tango Seven-six-one. Repeat last and identify.'
'Echo Tango, this is King Three! We just got buzzed by a wing of MiG-29s. That's MiG Two-niner. Goin' to burner! 'Yah, we're turnin'and burnin'!'
'Rock and roll!'
Tombstone turned to the CIC officer at his side, a young, black commander named Frazier. 'Who're 'King' and 'Rodeo'?' he asked.
The officer glanced up at a plastic board where a petty officer was marking up additions to the order of battle.
'King'd be VF-142, CAG,' he said. 'Rodeo is VF-143. The Ghostriders and the Pukin' Dogs, off the Ike.'
Carrier battle force. Combining Jefferson's fighter squadrons with the squadrons off the Eisenhower gave the American task force a fighting chance.
Tombstone moved to one of the big repeater screens, showing the location of each CBG element, ships and aircraft, identified by circling Hawkeyes and compiled and transmitted from the Shiloh.
Several of CBG-7's outer defensive zone pickets were already showing on the board, 150 miles north of Jefferson's position, the frigates Blakely, John C. Pauly, and Simpson, and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer David
