Men of War

Chapter 13

The PLAN (People’s Liberation Army & Navy) was no longer a local self defense force, and its navy was not confined to littoral coastal waters as in the past. When the 21st century got underway in earnest the Chinese Navy began to deploy more blue water capable forces in virtually every major ship category. The surface fleet, known as the shuimian jianting budui, had grown enormously, with new classes in guided missile destroyers and submarines, new carrier and helicopter carrier designs, and equally important, a capability for underway replenishment that allowed the navy to project power beyond the coastal waters of China for the first time since the 15th Century.

The missions assigned to the navy grew with it. It was now tasked with responsibilities to find and engage enemy surface action groups, participate in anti-submarine warfare, transport and guarantee the landing of troops on enemy shores, spoil the enemy’s objective of attacking China’s coastal cities and ports, and carry out reconnaissance on the seas with regular patrols. Active ASW warfare and anti-mine sweeping were a part of this task.

That said, the Chinese were still new at the game, and on September 15th, 2021, a small task force of was at sea off Diaoyutai or Senkaku Island to the Japanese, showing the flag over the oil rich sea floor beneath the deserted rocks. It was a continuation of the long war of words between Japan and China over the territory, and this time it was also something more. The islands were located about 125 miles northeast of Taipei, Taiwan, and in a perfect position to place a screening force for operations that might be aimed at that larger objective. If the Japanese came, they would come out of Okinawa and Japan proper to the northeast, and so Diaoyutai was right astride the sea lanes they would use.

The squadron assigned to the mission was therefore given ample resources. It was centered on one of their new Type 052C Destroyers, dubbed the Lanzhou, the lead ship in its class. With a stealthy design, this 7000 ton ship was often referred to as the China’s Aegis, with its fixed panel AESA phased array radar, and “it” was a very capable ship. The Chinese considered their ships material objects, and did not personify them with either masculine or feminine traits.

The ship mounted 48 vertically launched HQ-9 surface to air missiles on its forward a deck in eight cold launch cells of six missiles each. They could range out to 200 kilometers at Mach 4, providing a strong defensive anti-air umbrella over the squadron. It was in many ways similar to the Russian S-300s aboard Kirov, and almost as capable. The Lanzhou also carried eight C-805/7 anti ship missiles in two 4-cell launchers. It was known as the YJ-82 Eagle Strike system, a lethal sea skimmer on its terminal approach that was touted to have a 98 % hit probability. Six torpedo tubes and a new 130mm single barreled deck gun that was a knock off of the old Russian 130mm gun finished off the destroyer’s main weapons suite, but she also had a pair of 30mm close in defense guns and one Harbin Z-9C helicopter for additional ASW defense.

Cruising to either side of the Lanzhou were two type 054A frigates at a little over 4000 tons. The Shouyang and Weifang, both built in 2012. They carried a multi-purpose 32 cell VLS system that could use either SAMs or ASW rockets, and also mounted two 4-cell C-803 anti-ship missiles and six 324 mm torpedoes. Each ship also brought a Z-9C helicopter to the fight.

The fourth member of the task force was not on the surface. The Li Zhu was a 7000 ton submarine in the 095 class with a modified hull that provided greater acoustic stealth and flank linear array sonar. It was named for a legendary pearl that grew under the chin of a powerful black dragon, a jewel from the sea. In spite of the improvements made to the boat’s design it was still noisy compared to the more stealthy Russian and American submarine designs. Even the old Russian Akula and Oscar class subs were quieter, though this boat was one of the stealthiest China now possessed. Undersea noise was never a friend of any submarine, and it would betray the Li Zhu that night. Revealing her position to the capable electronic ears of the Japanese task force approaching from the northeast.

The sub was out in front of the Chinese flotilla, cruising some twenty miles in the vanguard. The boat’s captain, Kai Fan, had been slowly stalking the Japanese flotilla, moving quietly into a position where he could block their approach to the islands. His sonar operators had identified what they believe to be two Abukuma class destroyer escorts, and they were correct. These were the Oyoko and Sendai out of Sasebo, about 2500 tons each, older ships built between 1988 and 1991, but still capable for the roles they were designed to play. They were not as stealthy as the newer Chinese surface ships following the Dragon Pearl into battle that night, but they were well armed with 8 harpoons, octuple ASROC launchers in the older deck mounted “Matchbox” design, six torpedoes, and a 76mm deck gun.

Behind them came the more formidable presence of the guided missile destroyer Kirishima, a 9500 ton vessel every bit as capable as an American Aegis Class cruiser. It was already well aware of the presence of the Dragon Pearl beneath the sea, and had a helicopter up off its aft fantail deck to refine the enemy boat’s location. The ship’s captain, Kenji Namura had taken the precautionary step of activating his RUM-139C VLS ASROC system, which could fire a lightweight sub-killing homing torpedo out to 25,000 meters, his modern day ‘Long Lance,’ but he would not yet announce his displeasure by going to active sonar.

For years the two sides had quarreled over the islands, with incidents where one side or another would paint a target with active fire control radar systems, or overfly a ship with a flight of fast strike jets. Namura had more support available, including Naval Marines at nearby bases. He would soon need them, for tonight China would send men from the their surface action group, and they would land by helicopter on the Island of Peace to plant the flag of the People’s Republic there. A meaningless gesture of defiance, it would set the stage for far a more serious confrontation between China and Japan that was even now beginning to spin slowly out of control.

What submarine Captain Kai Fan did not know, or hear that night, was the overhead deployment of Kirishima’s helicopter. It already had buoys in the water and was feeding good location data back to the Japanese flotilla as she slowly closed the range with her two smaller destroyer escorts. Kai Fan was nervously watching the range close to under 22,000 meters when his sonar man heard what he believed was the splash of a deck fired torpedo entering the water. It was actually another guided motorized sonobuoy, but the inexperienced sonar man interpreted the sound of its search pattern wrongly, and it had grave consequences. In modern war at sea, where computers aim and guide weapons to unseen targets, seconds become an eternity. He announced torpedo in the water, which prompted an immediate reaction from Captain Kai Fan. He already had his forward tubes primed and ready, and he fired a spread of four torpedoes.

When the sonar men shouted out their torpedo warnings on the three Japanese ships they were in deadly earnest. Kenji Namura was aghast when he realized his flotilla would very likely be hit by this flagrant attack, and he immediately gave the order to fire back. His MCH-Merlin 101 helo quickly had a Stingray torpedo in the water from above, and Kirishima added two VLS ASROCS to the soup as the ships and subs now both deployed their countermeasures and jamming suites to try and defend against the incoming ordinance.

Two of the Chinese torpedoes were fooled, the others found Oyoko and split her port side hull open in a violent explosion that would end that ship’s brief career forever. She would give her name to the sea that night, and sink within the hour.

As for the Li Zhu, the boat would become a pearl of great price that would soon fall to the bottom of an angry sea. The sonar man would pay his share, the boat’s Captain Kai Fan would also sign the bill, but the world itself was set to pay the greatest price of all when the Dragon Pearl was hit and sunk on that September night off the Island of Peace.

Light helicopter escort carrier Akagi, wasted little time getting out to sea, and she would be in good company. The ship was originally classed as a helicopter destroyer, Class 22DDG to replace an older 1970s legacy destroyer by the same name that had been built around an aircraft hanger capable of housing three helicopters. The new Akagi was something much more, however, now reclassified as a light escort carrier after it had been modified to carry and operate the JF-35B STOVL Lightning fighters, which was tech speak for a short takeoff and vertical landing capable plane. The aircraft had been replacing the aging AV-8B Harrier jump Jets over the last decade, as well as slowly filling out air wings that had once been largely composed of F-18 SuperHornets, though these squadrons were few and far between. By 2021 the bugs had been worked out and it was a reliable and deadly fifth generation strike fighter asset. It had a stealthy, fuselage-mounted 25 mm gun pod and a combat radius of more than 450 nautical miles.

Akagi was one of four such ships in the Japanese Navy now, based in Sasebo with her sister ship Kaga. They were the largest surface combatants in the present Japanese Navy at a length of 248 meters and 27,000 tons fully loaded. That load today was partly composed of the seven JF-35Bs, nine SG-60J Seahawk helicopters and two Merlin CH-101s. There was room for more, with a maximum capacity of nine aircraft on deck and fourteen in the hangers, but Akagi had received an abrupt invitation to an event in the East China Sea, and it was a come as you are party. Depending on conditions encountered, the JDF could airlift additional assets out to her at sea—if she survived.

With the light escort destroyer Oyoko already at the bottom of the sea, that question weighed heavily on the mind of Captain Shoji Yoshida. At only 2500 tons, Oyoko was really a frigate class vessel, and went down with two torpedo hits. While Akagi might be more durable in combat with her 27,000 tons, size was no guarantee of safety, a lesson the Japanese knew all too well as they remembered the demise of their proud old fleet carriers in the Second World War. His ancestor ship was nearly twice the displacement of the modern day Akagi.

So it had finally happened, he thought as he stared over the short forward flight deck, watching the first two F-35s being spotted. The Chinese thought they were finally going to settle the matter. They paid a high price for Oyoko. Kenji Namura aboard Kirishima had collected a heavy toll in reprisal when he took down the Type 095 submarine Li Zhu that had launched the bold attack. Now he wondered just how far the Chinese were prepared to go with this.

They were already holding another small Japanese Coast Guard cutter hostage in the deadly game, and they had the impudence to actually land a small naval marine contingent on the main Senkaku island of Uotsuri Jima, the old ‘Island of Peace,’ to plant their flag. Seven years ago it had been simple activist protestors who had dared to land on the islands, but this was something altogether different. This was the first real flexing of the vast Chinese military, and it gave Yoshida the shivers to think Japan was now boldly sailing off to confront their great hostile neighbor to the west.

Huge demonstrations outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing had been raging for months, and now the gold chrysanthemum emblem there was besmirched with eggs splattered on the walls, and the solitary flag of the rising sun waved bravely in a sea of anger in that distant city. Japanese stores and restaurants had been broken into and vandalized, then draped with bright red Chinese flags. The discord had spread to many other cities, spilling over from Shenzhen to the normally more civil Hong Kong where there had been flag burnings. The rising demonstrations had prompted the Chinese government to offer the protestors a bone by committing the further insult of placing the Japanese ambassador in Beijing under house arrest, an unprecedented breach of international protocol—but then again, war was nothing more than an ever escalating failure of manners and civility, neh?

He shook his head, disheartened. The dispute over these worthless islands had deeper roots in the bad blood between China and Japan dating back to WWII, and now the oil and gas rights there would also play a part. It was starting again—blood for islands in the endless sea, blood for oil and gas. How many of his men would have to pay that price with their lives today, all so that Toyota and Honda could keep their wheels turning? He knew Japan had been foolish to try and purchase the islands outright instead of negotiating some amicable agreement with China. It was not a thought he wished to carry into battle at this moment, however, and so he pushed it aside, deep into an inner compartment of his mind, and focused on the task at hand.

He had seven JF-35s, enough to do what he had been ordered. They could easily cover the swift dash of his Seahawks, each capable of carrying a squad of his own elite naval marines to the argument. Then we will see what to do about that coast guard cutter. First he would get up some air cover. We’re playing one of our aces, he knew, and there were only four in the entire fleet just like a good deck of cards. His sister ship Kaga was still in Sasebo, and the first two ships in the class were both assigned to Yokohama to the north. This ship is one of our very best, he thought, and I must not let my nation and my people down.

It had already started in the darkness of the East China Sea, and now it would continue, with this proud man in his proud ship, with a proud heritage at stake—and much, much more. Pride, it is said, goeth before the fall, and the abyss that was now yawning open in the Pacific was impenetrably deep. Captain Yoshida was sailing swiftly towards its edge.

He would to rendezvous with the Kirishima, and he would bring the new destroyer Ashigara along, one notch up on the Kongo Class ships with the new Type-90 SSM and a suite of good SAMs to give him some solid air defense beyond his seven fighters. At 10,000 tons, she was the largest surface combatant in the navy, only a seventh the displacement of the last vessel class to hold that distinction, Yamato. That said, Ashigara would have ripped the superstructure of Yamato apart, piece by piece, just as Kirov had, and the great menacing battleship of old would have never come in range to once fire her guns in anger.

Following third in line was the older DDH Hyuga, a true helicopter carrier commissioned in 2009 and drawing near the end of her useful life now that the four Class 22 ships had been built to take over their role. Yet Captain Yoshida was glad the ship was still active and in his wake, for she carried another eleven Seahawks, with a second platoon of Naval Marines, should they be necessary.

One more ship completed Yoshida’s flotilla that day, SS Soryu, the quiet Blue Dragon already well out in front of his task group, riding the ocean currents at a 300 foot depth. It had slipped out of its moorings at Myakojima sub base on a small island outpost 225 kilometers southeast of the Senkaku Islands group. The boat carried Type-89 torpedoes and the deadly UGM-84 Harpoons which could also be fired from her six 21 inch torpedo tubes.

Information was now being received an analyzed from a lone P-3C early warning plane near the disputed islands. The Chinese still had warships there holding the cutter PS-206 Howo hostage, and more ships were reported approaching the islands. What would this come to today, he wondered? Yoshido had been ordered to put his Marines on those Islands, remove the Chinese flag and the troops that brought it there, and oppose any and all Chinese naval units attempting to interfere with this operation. If he needed more force than he now commanded, Kadena and Naha airfields were a scant 450 kilometers to the northeast, just a few minutes cruising time for an F-15 Eagle or an F-22 Raptor. The nearest Chinese Air assets would be at Shuimen, Longtian or Fuzhou airfields, an equal distance to the west—but they were not Eagles or Raptors. Yoshida liked his cards this morning.

The roar of the first JF-35 split the air as it took off, the second plane maneuvering smartly to the ready line and waved off right on its heels. His top cover would be up at angels thirty in minutes. He would then spot and launch a third plane for any contingency that might present itself, his first shotai of three planes aloft and ready for battle. A strange thought came to Yoshida as he watched the operation. This could be the very first launch of carrier based aircraft in the third world war! A moment of bumbling misrecognition had prompted the Dragon Pearl to fire those torpedoes at Oyoko, and now it had begun. As the three planes climbed into the bright sky overhead Yoshida imagined how Admiral Nagumo must have felt as he watch the first three Zeros climb into the pre-dawn sky off the northern Philippine Islands at the outset of World War Two.

It was always so clean and simple in the beginning, he thought. All the uniforms were fresh and white, the well starched collars laden with pips of gold and silver, and no stain of blood or the darkened burn of flash and powder. It started with flags and honor, and national pride, and music, and it always ended in the same old thing—death and destruction.

It would not be long before he would see the true face of war with his very own eyes, and it would not be pretty.

Chapter 14

Aboard the Lanzhou, Captain Wang Fu Jing was the fortunate king of the Diaoyutai Islands for the moment. A small detachment of five naval marines had landed by swift boat, a helo perched overhead for additional cover, and the men stormed up the rocky shore, where a series of stony outcroppings looked like stairs climbing up to the shark fin outcrop of rock that made up the bulk of the island. There they found a statue of Matsu, the Chinese Goddess of the Sea brought by a Taiwanese fishing vessel in 2013 to protect the fishermen who worked these waters, for Diaoyutai meant the ‘fishing island’ in Chinese. The first attempt to land the statue had been driven off by a water cannon from a Japanese coast guard cutter, the second won through later that year.

Taiwan also laid its claim to the disputed islands, though it had wisely remained at the edge of the growing dispute between China and Japan. But now the rising clamor of war was again in the air, as China renewed its claim that Taiwan was also one of its long disputed Islands, and long overdue for its return to mainland control. The Taiwanese never really believed the Chinese would press their claim in earnest, but the recent military buildup they had watched was making men nervous in military headquarters and political situation rooms all over the globe.

China now had ships at sea to the northeast near the Diaoyutai Islands, and to the southwest out of Shantou harbor. Both surface action groups were small, but they were nonetheless positioned right astride the most obvious sea lanes any outside force would have to use if it wished to approach Taiwan.

Wang Fu Jing’s Marines were now ashore on the southernmost Island of Nanxiaodao, setting up a small encampment and surveillance station there beneath a tall black outcrop of stone that sat like a great rocky Buddha in serene silence. A few sea terns perched indifferently on the nearby rocks, mixing peacefully with gulls and an occasional pelican. It was said that birds of a feather flocked together, but these had at least reached some unspoken accord to share the rocky shore with one another, where the men in uniforms and metal ships and planes could not.

The remainder of Wang Fu Jing’s squad was on the main island of Diaoyudao, or Uotsuri Jima to the Japanese, clearly visible in the distance. It was the only island in the little archipelago really worthy of the name, about four kilometers long, a green emerald jewel in an otherwise barren crown of stone. There were just eleven men here. Their small military footprint was more symbolic than anything else, but it was enough for the moment and China now controlled the Diaoyutai Islands.

The troops quickly ranged along the shore, finding and tearing down any vestige of Japanese occupation. There was not much to find. A group of right wing activists had managed to plant a few rising sun flags weeks ago, and a small white tower that looked like a miniature oil derrick. Beneath it they had gathered stones and rocks scattered on the shore and piled them up into a makeshift wall, a stubborn symbolic fortress that the Chinese soon tore down along with the flags.

There was very little else to speak of on the islands…the birds, the rocks, the scattered vegetation. Later, when the dispute was decided, men would come with survey ships, drilling rigs and other gear, and plans to erect more steel framed oil platforms that might dwarf the smaller islands in the group. That was the essence of it all. The islands really had very little to do with it.

At the moment, however, other men were on the way in two flights of Seahawk helicopters launching from the Akagi. Two F-35 Lightings would lead the way in with a third on high top cover and a second shotai of three more ready on short notice. The helos were coming in low on the water to minimize and hide their radar cross section as much as possible, but 150 kilometers to the west the Chinese had a KJ-2000 Airborne Early Warning plane up, with third generation technology that even allowed it to find and track the Japanese F-35s—or so it was claimed. The helos were seen on approach, and a warning relayed to Wang Fu Jing aboard the Lanzhou. Now it remained to be seen whether China would treat the coming incursion as just another standoff, a show of force by the other side to pacify national sentiment back home, or if it would be treated as an imminent threat to his assets and troops already deployed in the region.

His orders were also very clear and in certain conflict with those of his adversary: occupy the Diaoyutai Islands, establish a signals and observation post there, remove all accouterments and personnel of any foreign national, oppose or detain any force attempting to violate the territorial waters of the People’s Republic of China.

Modern air/sea warfare was not what it once was. The concept of intercepting an enemy at sea and closing the range to fight a gun battle or even launch an air strike was long ago obsolete. The first battle opponents would fight was one of knowing exactly where the opponent was and what assets he brought to the fight so they could be 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 stranded survivors still aboard the crippled Weifang. He decided to pull his men out and classify the operation as a “raid.” The Japanese counter operation would become a grievous act of escalation in tomorrow’s news cycle, but for now his wisest course was to follow the precepts of Sun Tsu as he considered the odds: ‘When ten to the enemy’s one, surround him. When five times his strength, attack him. If double his strength, divide him. If equally matched, you may engage him with some good plan. If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing. And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him.’

The question now was whether Lanzhou was even to be capable of eluding the advancing enemy. Missiles had already found the Weifang, and he knew his ship was next in line of sight on the enemy radar screens. He decided that he would immediately send his three helos to pick up the men on the islands, and then send the Shouyang to aid the foundering crew of Weifang. I might just be throwing another fish in the hot oil, he thought, but he could not abandon those men.

He decided to fire a disruptive covering barrage at the enemy and then withdraw to effect a rendezvous with the second flotilla centered on Haikou. In reprisal for the loss of Weifang, the Japanese coast guard cutter Howo would be scuttled, their crew taken in prize. It was not the victory he had hoped for, but it would be enough to save face in the heat of the moment, and possibly save lives as well.

He gave the order to activate his YJ-82 Eagle Strike system and fire a full barrage or eight missiles at the oncoming enemy task force, hoping to force them to go defensive long enough to pull his men off and beat a hasty retreat. Then, when he had rendezvoused with the second flotilla, and had adequate air cover, he would see how the Japanese Marines enjoyed the Spartan accommodations at Hotel Diaoyudou that night. The battle was not ending in his mind, only evolving, but the way in which it evolved next would not be to his liking.

Chapter 15

The Silent Eagles were coming, a full squadron off Naha airfield, Okinawa. The F-15SE fighters had been upgraded with new stealth features, including radar absorbing materials and new internal weapons bays. Against the X-Band radars typically used in air-to-air conflict, the F-15s would leave a forward radar signature no bigger than a baseball might. It wasn’t as stealthy as the JF-35s, which might be golf balls in the sky, or the deadly F-22 Raptors which would appear no bigger than a marble, but it would do in a pinch. The days of tiled stealth were long gone. Now the fifth generation fighters were made out of bismaleimide (BMI) and composite epoxy and carbon fiber materials. The Silent Eagles would be more than enough to decide the day in their favor, or so the Japanese hoped. This was the only squadron of this plane type they had.

Today they were each carrying the new JSM anti-ship missiles, two per plane, and there were six aloft for this strike mission. Captain Wang Fu Jing saw them coming on radar, then lost them, then with assistance from his KJ-2000 AEW plane he found them again in time to launch his defensive missile barrage, but not before the Eagles had also fired.

Now the sky was filled with the thin tracers of sleek, deadly missiles on every side. The H-16 SAMs were like a pack of barracuda falling in with a school of tuna. The Lanzhou had managed to get twelve missiles up, with more firing from its forward VLS cells, and they had found and killed four of the incoming SSMs. Three more would die as they swooped down to begin their final approach, but the remaining five would get through his hastily deployed defensive barrage, and challenge his flotilla’s 30mm Gatling Guns. They got two as the missiles made their final run, and the last three found the Chinese ships in a most compromising position.

Shouyang was abaft of the already damaged Weifang, and took a hit forward on the main deck, which ignited the missile cells there and caused a tremendous explosion. Weifang was showered with additional shrapnel just as a second missile came in and struck her aft quarter. The second explosion was enough to wreck the ship for good. The last missile found Lanzhou, rising at the last minute in a popup maneuver and falling on the deck amidships. Captain Wang Fu Jing felt the ship shudder under the impact of the missile, saw the bright orange fires and knew he had taken a serious hit. The 7000 plus ton vessel was sturdy enough to weather the blow, but there was no way he could continue to linger in these waters. He immediately radioed the airfields at Fuzhou, berating the air force commander there for lack of air cover.

“Where are you? Where is my air support? I have one ship sinking, another hit, men in the water, a fire amidships, and a fistful of enemy aircraft on our radar screens!”

He was furious that he had to contend with both land based and seaborne enemy fighters, with nary a whisper of opposition in the skies over the contested islands. At last he heard from his KJ-2000 where it circled far to the west, unknowingly right above the submerged wreckage of the old WWII Japanese battleship Kongo, which had been sunk there by the US submarine Sealion II on 16 November, 1944. The air force was coming though they would not bring their A-game that day.

Two squadrons of Chendu J-10AH multirole naval fighters were up and coming in on afterburners as they raced to the scene, though their haste was only making them more visible on radar. They were very capable planes, with good avionics and excellent speed and maneuverability, but this was their first sortie in anger and they were not quite prepared for the heat of combat. Behind them was another group of six Shenyang J-11B “SinoFlankers” with more experienced pilots, eighteen planes in all.

When the Japanese task force picked them up on radar, they immediately began vectoring in every plane they already had aloft. The three JF-35Bs climbed high while the six Silent Eagles out of Naha, surged in at 30,000 feet. Even with the KJ-2000 assisting, the J-10s were having difficulty acquiring the Japanese planes. They finally got returns on the oncoming Eagles, but as both forces approached the islands, the Japanese pilots had already shouted out the NATO brevity code “Fox Three” and fired their AIM-120C AMRAAMs. The weapon was designed to engage targets well beyond visual range, (BVR), a fire and forget missile that could actively home in on its target. They had fired just inside their maximum range of 105 kilometers, outranging the PL-11 missiles on the Chinese J-10s by thirty kilometers. That small interval of thirty kilometers amounted to no more than a twenty second advantage, as both sides were closing on one another at a whisker over Mach 2. Yet those twenty seconds before the Chinese J-10s could fire was the difference between life or death. The missiles were twice as fast as the planes at Mach 4, and the sky was soon alight with countermeasures and kills.

The first wave of Chinese planes had managed to get their own missiles away, but only seconds later they were in it up to their eyeballs. The J-10’s fared badly, losing five planes to outright hits, and seeing two more damaged by near proximity explosions. Their own barrage of PL-11s failed to find even one Silent Eagle, as the Japanese had peeled off after firing to stay at the extreme edge of the PL-11’s firing envelope. The narrow advantage that made all the difference was a little stealth, better radar, and those thirty kilometers.

As their initial missile barrage disordered the enemy, the Japanese pilots had turned again to close and switched to their shorter ranged AIM-9X Sidewinders, shouting “Fox Two” to signal the use of an infrared guided missile. It was a slower missile at just Mach 2.5, but very maneuverable and could range out to 35 kilometers. They would claim the two wounded J-10s, and one more plane as it banked in a violent turn, its countermeasure sputtering to life in a vain shower of phosphor fire as it attempted to spoof the missile that had acquired it. But the Sidewinders had been fine tuned to recognize the difference between such flares and a plane’s tail pipe, and it was not deceived.

The agile Silent Eagles had swooped in and galled their prey, taking down eight of the twelve J-10s in less than five minutes. Now the last deadly duel was fought as the two sides actually closed well within visual range, (WVR), and began to dogfight. Here the experience and skill of the Japanese pilots, and the amazingly capable plane they were flying proved decisive.

“Fox Four! Guns, guns, guns!” The 20mm Vulcan Gatling cannon was equipped with just 510 rounds in a normal load-out, but they were enough to take down two more before the last two J-10s bugged out, heading west at full throttle to look for their big brothers in the Shenyang J-11s

Called the SinoFlanker by some Western analysts because it was a plane based on the Russian Sukhoi SU-27 Flanker, the J-11 was an able challenger to the Eagles and Fighting Falcons it had been built to oppose. It had Russian avionics, radars and engines, but many indigenous improvements as well. It was bringing a better missile too, the PL-12 that could match the Silent Eagles in range at 100 kilometers.

But the Eagles were not alone.

As the J-11’s roared in from the west, unseen lightning fell from the skies above when the three carrier launched JF-35Bs suddenly appeared on the screens of the startled Chinese pilots. The F-35s in relied on front-quarter Low Observabilty to gain the all important advantage of ‘first look — first shot — first kill’ beyond visual range. Missiles were away and the Lightnings struck the J-11’s hard, with each plane claiming a quick kill.

Then the scene became a wild dance of inexperienced pilots wheeling super high performance aircraft about in a dizzying display of flying. One of the Japanese pilots lost his concentration, too jubilant after his guns had ripped a J-10 to pieces, and his Eagle was damaged by a near miss from a P-12 fragmentation warhead explosion. He dove, struggled for control and eventually managed to get his plane down low and head east for Naha. The last three were caught up in the chaos of the swirling aerial maneuvers, and soon joined the J-10s bugging out and heading west for friendly shores. It had been the first real combat mission flown by any of the pilots involved, and the small accumulation of advantages possessed by the Japanese planes and pilots had proved more than decisive. Yet the Chinese would learn quickly, and the next time their J-10s sortied that would have better missiles.

Aboard the Akagi, Captain Yoshida had been listening to the frantic calls of the pilots as they engaged the enemy planes. When it was over he heard the report. “Enemy breaking off. We have fourteen kills! Fuel low, returning to base.”

The men on the bridge of Akagi cheered, though the word bonzai was not uttered by a single man. When he heard them Captain Yoshida, raised his voice in a sharp rebuke. “We do not cheer the death of our enemy, nor would we have them do the same when our brothers have fallen in battle.”

He considered the situation, realizing that he now would quickly need to launch his second shotai of JF-35s, and soon the bridge was all business again, the flight boss on the radio giving the order to launch. Yoshida came to the radar operator’s station and pointed.

“Is that the KJ-2000?”

“Yes, sir. It had been orbiting at 40,000 feet for the last hour.”

“Send it home. Vector in a J-35 from the second shotai.”

Yoshida wanted to scratch out the enemy’s eyes, blinding him to the battle space and insuring that he could now move his task force to the Senkaku archipelago with impunity, but he was too late. The Chinese had seen and fixed his position long ago and had a deadly surprise in store for the Japanese that day.

The radar operator shouted out the alarm. “Sir, I have a high speed, high altitude missile inbound!”

The battle was evolving yet again. The Chinese had sent their second string fighters to the fray, fixing the attention of their enemy on the air duel above the islands, but high in space a watching American spy satellite suddenly flashed a warning to Pacific Command in Honolulu, Hawaii indicating ballistic missiles had been launched. While the brave ships had been dueling on the sea, and the planes locked in their deadly dance in the skies, Chinese archers had fired a volley of DongFeng-15C short range ballistic missiles, and their bigger brothers, the lethal DF-21s. Named for the east wind that was a harbinger of good favor, this wind would bring a rain of fire and anger on the unwary enemy.

They were coming for Yoshida’s ships at over Mach 6 terminal velocity, and extremely difficult target to track and hit. With just seconds to react, he gave the order to engage with his SM3 Anti Ballistic Missile system, with a blistering speed of just under Mach 8. Four were fired, but they had seen the incoming missiles too late, and they would claim only one successful interception. Five of the six missiles in the first volley would get through to the target zone, and of these two would fulfill their mission.

The first exploded high above the task force with an electromagnetic shockwave warhead designed to knock down the enemy’s electronics. The second was a straight conventional warhead, 950 kilograms of rip snorting armor piercing anger coming in at a plunging angle that went clean through the flight deck of the unlucky ship DDH Hyuga, and continued penetrating until it had blown completely through the bottom hull. The resulting explosion of mission ready helicopters, aviation fuel, and munitions was catastrophic. Hyuga had been dealt a fatal blow and the ship would keel over to starboard side, the last of her Seahawks sliding into the ocean, and die an agonizing death within minutes.

While not a true aircraft carrier per se, Hyuga was close enough, the third unit in Carrier Division two, now composed of Akagi, Kaga and the stricken DDH. No aircraft carrier had been sunk in the world since the Japanese carrier Amagi in Kure harbor on July 24th, 1945. The sting of bad fate now sent Hyuga to the bottom of the East China Sea, a painful reprisal in exchange for the near lifeless hunks of rock Japan had been so keen to secure.

Aboard Akagi Captain Yoshida stared aft in shock and dismay, watching the Hyuga burn and capsize within minutes. He had more on his hands now that he had first thought when he mused over the launch of those first three JF-35s. Just when the battle seemed to be within his grasp, the missiles had found his task force at sea, a feat that had been considered, planned for, and yet not believed possible until this very moment. China had sunk a fast moving ship with a single ballistic missile. He knew that the systems that had guided this missile to its target were high above in the airless domain of outer space, with satellite GPS navigation playing a major part in the success of the attack.

If this “incident” actually expanded to a general war, something would have to be done about that, but Japan did not have the means to insure ABM defense that involved taking out enemy satellites. It would be a task for the Americans, pledged to defend Japan by treaty since the conclusion of WWII. And if the Americans come to the fight, he thought, how long before the Russians come?

Yoshida could not think about that now. The electromagnetic shock warhead had caused its own measure of additional trouble, though it did not function as intended. A number of his unshielded systems were affected, but his essential electronics weathered the pulse and continued to function. Still, it was enough to cause some disruption to his operations, and the loss of Hyuga was a hard blow to ship’s morale.

Yoshida looked sullenly at his bridge crew now, reinforcing the lesson he had barked out earlier. “Who now wishes to hear the jubilant song of our enemies?” His dark eyes found one officer after another. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “And should war come to our homeland again in earnest, believe me, we will not find him a welcome guest.”

Yoshida did not know it at that moment, but that uninvited guest was already knocking on the back porch of the Japanese homeland. The salvo of deadly missiles that had blown in on the east wind was just the first fitful stirring of the storm to come. China had burrowed into the ancient soil of its homeland, digging up the bones of dynasties past to build an amazing network of over 3,000 miles of underground tunnels and hardened bunkers. Slow mobile launchers were creeping through the dark subterranean tunnels, moving to deploy for the main event that had been planned long ago.

In a matter of minutes, China had taken the deadly tactical duel for the islands to a new level. What began as a potential small unit engagement by a few squads of Naval Marines, had soon escalated to a wide area air/sea battle, and then to a strategic strike against the bases that were most essential in supporting further Japanese operations in the area. The one saving grace had been the fact that no nuclear weapons had been brought to bear. Both sides were still wearing gloves in the fight, and the “rules” of combat had been assiduously followed.

China had been unprepared for the ferocity and determination of the Japanese counter to their planned occupation of the Diaoyutai islands, and had been beaten in a fair duel of ships, planes and missiles over the deep blue sea. Yet to beat them the Japanese had played out their very best assets in the region. The odds would get much steeper, and the Chinese promised to be a much more formidable fore than the brief action had foreshadowed. They boldly played a trump card that the Japanese had not expected this early in the game, and to the discerning minds of the military analysts back in Honolulu watching from their KH-11 satellites high in space, more was afoot than this limited hot engagement at sea.

The battle Captain Yoshida would claim as a pyrrhic victory was nothing more than shadow play on the wall, a mere distraction meant to draw the eye and ear of the enemy, and lead him astray. That afternoon the first missiles fell on Okinawa, longer range DongFeng-21s that employed terminally guided maneuvering re-entry vehicles and brought a rain of incendiary and high explosive warheads to the Japanese air base at Naha. The US base at Kadena was spared for the moment, but it remained on the target list should the Americans enter the fray any time soon. It was a subtle signal to the Americans—stay out of it and we will have no quarrel with you. The little battle that began with troops landing on distant, deserted Pacific islands had ended with ballistic missiles on Japanese soil in a strange mirroring of the last great war. But Yoshida’s rebuke to his bridge crew had been truly prophetic. This was only the beginning.

The alarm clock bomb was ticking loudly now, and the second hand sweeping ever closer to a chaos that would soon become all but uncontrollable. Within minutes of the attack, the ringing of telephones from Beijing to Vladivostok to Honolulu to Washington DC chimed out their warning on one desk after another.

A new storm was coming to the Pacific, and the first darkened squalls had flashed the lightning of war over its restless waters. It would begin there in a squabble for undiscovered oil, one tiny lit fuse that would soon ignite many others. The real war would be fought where the crude already ran thick, in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the vast new superfields of Central Asia in Kazakhstan.