Sword of Shiva - Страница 47

The Luzhou class destroyer was powered by two steam turbines of indigenous Chinese design. When the first round of the artillery barrage began falling from the sky, the strongest thermal signature was a plume of superheated gas rising from the forward exhaust stack.

The first Vulcano round punched through the hottest part of the exhaust trail about six feet above the stack, missing the destroyer cleanly, striking the water about fifteen yards off the ship’s port quarter. It exploded on impact, sending out a shower of shrapnel that either fell into the sea or pinged harmlessly off the metal flanks of the warship.

Three seconds later, the next Vulcano round missed the Chinese vessel by an even wider margin. Then, the third shell arrived.

PLA Navy Ship Shijiazhuang (Luzhouclass destroyer #116):

Junior Lieutenant Dong Jie swung his binoculars to the right, and frantically scanned the sky to the starboard side of the ship. The Watch Officer and Tactical Lookout were gathered at the port side bridge windows, trying to get a look at the points of impact for the two explosions that had occurred so suddenly off the port side of the ship.

But they were looking the wrong way. The rockets, or artillery shells, or whatever they were, had come from the east. Dong had heard them distinctly, a strange whistling noise so high-pitched that his ears could barely detect it. What was that sound? What was causing the explosions?

And then he was hearing the whistling noise again, coming from the east, just like the last two times. He turned toward the Watch Officer, and said, “ting!” (Listen!) But the Watch Officer wasn’t listening.

Dong moved swiftly to the watertight door at the starboard side of the bridge. He yanked up the dogging handle, pulled the door open, and stepped out onto the starboard catwalk under the stars. The cold night air hit him like a blow from a hammer, but he had to know where that sound was coming from.

Whatever it was must be too small to see on radar, because the scopes on the bridge were clear of any incoming contacts, and the radar operators were not reporting anything out of the ordinary.

He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the darkened sky. He saw nothing up there but stars. Who could be doing this? The Indians? The Americans? But they were all gone. Defeated, and chased from the field of battle…

Through the open bridge wing door, Dong could hear the buzz of the telephone. That would be the captain, demanding a report on the source of the unidentified explosions.

The whistling noise was increasing in volume. Dong thought he caught a glimpse of something for a fraction of an instant — a blurred flicker of motion as some small dark shape arced down from the black face of the heavens.

And then he was blinded by an impossibly bright flash of light. His feet left the deck as the shockwave and shrapnel of the detonating shell tore into his body, hurling him back through the open doorway into the bridge.

There were reports coming over the speakers now, the excited voice of the radar Officer jabbering about the sudden appearance of four incoming missiles, all closing from different bearings. Shouted orders to defensive weapons systems.

But Dong Jie’s stunned ears were filled with the distant rhythm of his own pulse. Fast at first, but then slowing… Slowing…

He closed his eyes, and then opened them again. The view didn’t change. Whether his eyelids were open or shut, he could see nothing but the searing white afterimage of the explosion.

His brain didn’t register the chainsaw snarl of the Gatling guns spewing bursts of 30mm slugs into the night. He didn’t see the two fireballs erupt in the darkness as the twin streams of high-velocity bullets shredded two of the incoming missiles. He didn’t see the Gatling guns swing toward their next targets.

And he didn’t see the last of the American Harpoons slip in past the fusillade of defensive fire, and dart in for the kill.

USS Towers:

“TAO — Weapons Control. Harpoons on top, now!”

Bowie didn’t hesitate. “Go active on SPY!”

A few seconds later, the giant Aegis display screens began populating with hostile contact information: five hostile surface ship symbols, and four pairs of hostile aircraft symbols.

For a brief instant, sixteen friendly missile symbols were superimposed — in groups of four — on top of the symbols for the Chinese frigates and destroyers. Then the blue missile icons vanished from the display, leaving behind the symbols representing the enemy warships.

Commander Silva watched the Harpoon symbols wink out. How many of the missiles had gotten through, and how many had been destroyed before they could reach their targets? More importantly, how many of the Chinese carrier’s escort ships were still in the fight?

With the UAV gone, there was no way to get real-time battle-damage assessment. It might take several minutes to sort out which ships were capable of maneuvering and firing, and which were not. But the out-numbered American destroyers couldn’t wait around to find out.

“Keep hitting them with the gun,” Bowie said. ‘Five rounds, shift targets — five rounds, and shift back.”

Every three seconds, the big deck gun barked again, and another Vulcano round began its long flight toward one of the Luzhou class destroyers.

Somewhere on the far side of the Chinese aircraft carrier, the USS Donald Gerrard was dishing out similar punishment to the frigates on the western perimeter of the enemy formation.

So far, the attack had gone according to plan. The surprise had worked perfectly, but the cat was most definitely out of the bag now. With their SPY radars pumping several million watts of microwave power into the atmosphere, the Towers and the Gerrard had lost all semblance of stealth.

The enemy fighters knew where they were now. The time for skulking was over.

This was proven about ten seconds later, as the Air Warfare Supervisor’s voice came over the net. “TAO — Air. Four Bogies inbound. Two flights of two. Looks like the other four are going after the Gerrard!”

“TAO, aye. Stand by.”

The Tactical Action Officer looked toward Bowie. “Captain, request batteries released on hostile air contacts.”

Bowie nodded. “Granted.”

The Tactical Action Officer turned back toward his console and keyed his mike. “Weapons Control — TAO, you have batteries released. Engage and destroy all Bogies within our engagement envelope!”

On the Aegis display screen, two pairs of red hostile aircraft symbols were converging on the Towers.

There was another clap of thunder as the 5-inch gun pounded out another Vulcano round toward one of the enemy surface ships. The sound was instantly followed by the roar of launching missiles.

“TAO — Weapons Control. Four birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted one each on the inbound Bogies.”

The TAO was reaching for his mike button when another report broke over the net. “TAO — Air. Bogies are launching. I count eight missiles inbound.”

The Tactical Action Officer keyed into the circuit. “All Stations — TAO, we have in-bound Vipers! I say again, we have missiles in-bound! Weapons Control, shift to Aegis ready-auto. Set CIWS to auto-engage. Break. EW, stand by to launch chaff!”

The Electronics Warfare Technician’s response came a split-second later. “TAO — EW, standing by on chaff. I’m tracking eight active H-band seekers, consistent with SSN-27 Sizzlers. Request permission to initiate jamming.”

“EW — TAO. Permission granted. Jam at-will.”

A prolonged series of rumbles announced the launch of multiple SM-3 missiles, followed by the voice of the Air Warfare Supervisor. “TAO — Air. Sixteen birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted two-each on the inbound Vipers.”

The Aegis computers were following a shoot-shoot-look-shoot-shoot doctrine: fire two interceptor missiles at each incoming cruise missile, evaluate with radar to see which ones had been destroyed, and then fire two more missiles at any Vipers that survived the first salvo. Unless overridden by human intervention, Aegis would continue to follow this pattern until Towers expended fifty percent of her available SM-3 missiles. Then the computers would automatically throttle back to a shoot-look-shoot-shoot doctrine.

The Aegis display screen had become a bewildering swarm of cryptic red and blue icons. Silva’s eyes darted from symbol to symbol, trying to make sense of the rapidly-evolving tactical situation. The complexity of the battle picture had increased beyond the integration capacity of the human mind. The fight had shifted into the realm of man-machine symbiosis, where the human operators were completely dependent on the processing and correlation capabilities of the computers, and the computers were equally dependent on the humans for intuitive decisions and periodic flashes of tactical brilliance.

The left third of the display screen, corresponding to the western side of the Chinese battle group, was every bit as complex. The Gerrard was neck-deep in her own fight, and the missiles — both incoming and outgoing — were flying fast and furious.

Amidst the chaos of iconography, the red symbol for Surface Contact Zero Two flashed, and was replaced by a last-known-position marker. The warship had disappeared from radar. Either it had been sunk, or it had been blasted into pieces too small to present a radar return. Either way, it was gone.