John Schettler - Armageddon

He wished he could get a better look on infrared, but that channel was still all screwed up with the heat from that damn volcano making it very difficult to get clear readings in the region. And every so often he would experience a sudden electromagnetic disturbance, even if his satellite was far enough from the eruption to remain largely unaffected.

He thought about the situation…If I was that Russian attack boat Captain I’d be right under that ash cloud. Then again, if I can come up with that, I’m sure our own subs would be searching there as well.

The Russians have pulled most everything in tight-all their diesel boats that were screening that last fleet sortie have turned tail and are mostly on picket duty along the line of the Kuriles and south of Vladivostok. We’ve already nailed their two Oscars, but where is this slippery Yasen class boat? Where is Kazan?

He would have to rely on his optical feed, and with the ashfall over most of Hokkaido shutting down air operations there, he decided the best place to look was up in the Russian safety zones in the Sea of Okhotsk and Gulf of Sakhalin. Where do you hide a big hungry nuclear attack sub, he wondered?

Lieutenant Commander William Reed sat uncomfortably in his chair looking at the satellite photography, and he was thinking the same thing.

“I think it’s a fair bet we nailed their flagship,” he said to the men assembled around the table. “But we lost Key West in the undersea duel, though we do have confirmed kills on both their Oscars. The only boat we really need to watch out for now is that new Yasen class sub.”

White House Chief of Staff Leyman was there, along with General Lane of the Air Force and Admiral Stone of the Navy. Called simply the “Stonewall” because of his stalwart opinions on defense readiness, he had come up to the Washington circuit in 2018, and was pressing the palms of Senators and Congressmen to make sure defense allocations kept flowing the Navy’s way. Now he was sent in to relay a briefing received from PACCOM on the situation in the Pacific.

“I can’t say as that matters a whole lot now,” said Lane. “After what the Chinese pulled the other day it’s coming down to missiles and bombers soon.”

“That decision has not been made yet,” said Leyman. “You were in on that meeting with the President. Yes, he’s hopping mad, but the general feeling is that if we respond in kind, say with one of these EMP weapons like the Chinese used, it will only escalate the matter further.”

“It sure looked grim from what we were seeing in space,” said Lane. “The Russians were heating up all their primary missile bastions and dispersing their mobile launchers all over Siberia. Now it seems they’ve cooled things down.” He looked at Leyman, knowing any news on that front would most likely come from him.

“We received a diplomatic message on the red phone from Moscow. They asked us not to retaliate for the Chinese attack, and to sweeten the deal they backed off on their missile bastion alert. It’s a strong signal that they don’t want this to go any farther than it has thus far.”

“I’d do the same after the pounding we gave them in the Pacific,” said Admiral Stone.

Lane looked at him askance. “How does Captain Tanner feel about that on the Washington?”

“Well at least the ship is still afloat and back in friendly waters. Sure they got through with something, and they hurt us, particularly when Key West went down. I can’t say as I’m surprised. That was an old Los Angeles class boat that should have been retired and replaced years ago. Still, all things considered, we did worse to them. They lost Kirov, their hot new destroyer Orlan and the frigate Admiral Golovko, not to mention that old Udaloy. We didn’t get the Admiral Kuznetsov, but we’ve got the damn thing bottled up now. Let’s face it gentlemen, the Red Banner Pacific Fleet is pretty much out of business. Now that we’ve got CVBG Ford heading east with other Third Fleet assets the Russians won’t lift another finger. So if we have to do something about the Chinese, I think the job should go to us-to the United States Navy. Toss this potato to General Lane here and all it does is ratchet this whole thing up another notch because his bombers will be perceived as strategic weapons.”

Lane folded his arms. “Hold on just a moment, Admiral, if you please. We’ve already showed them we can hit their home turf with our B-2s and there’s nothing they can do about it. I can put in a limited strike with our new CHAMP missiles and we can take down their local command and control for this planned amphibious operation. That’s a well measured response to what they did over the Pacific coast here.”

Leyman looked from Lane to Reed, obviously lost in the forest of acronyms. Reed stepped up to enlighten him.

“CHAMP is Mil-speak for Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project, Mister Leyman. It’s basically a missile that delivers high powered microwaves to the target instead of a warhead. The effect will knock down electronics within a given radius of the strike. Think of it as a precision EMP weapon of sorts, good for a surgical strike if need be, or for wide area deployment if you’ve got enough of them.”

“We have twenty in theater and I can put them on the B-2s in six hours,” said Lane. “We can knock out all their key command assets. Hell, they won’t even be able to turn over their aircraft engines or use search radars if we hit a few key airfields supporting this operation. Our Raptors out of Okinawa stopped that last air strike package they had headed for Taiwan, but that’s the conventional way to slow the Chinese down. We can throw in a magic wand or two and go real high-tech on them any time we choose.”

“Yes, well we’re going to have to establish air superiority over Taiwan if this thing goes any further,” said Stone. “That’s job one, and it’s going to have to come off the decks of Eisenhower and Nimitz. Ford is up north to keep an eye on the Russians, but with those two carriers, and reserve planes from CVBG Washington, Admiral Ghortney informs me he believes we can restore order over Taiwan. We do that fast enough and they would be stupid to try and press this attack any further. There’s no way they cross the straits in force without air superiority.”

“Well, what about these Vampire planes of theirs?” Leyman looked at Reed now. “My understanding is that they gave the Taiwanese a pretty good licking. And don’t the Chinese have carriers too?”

“They do, sir, and so you can bet that if we do move as Admiral Stone suggests, those assets will come into play on the other side.”

“ I can take those out of the game real easy,” said Lane. “We have enough bombers in theater now to make a real difference here. I can put a hundred cruise missiles on any targets you name, Mister Leyman. Let me get the Bones and Buffs up with the rest, we can plaster their amphibious loading operation in port before it ever gets to sea or anywhere near Taiwan. Air superiority is not necessary. Hell, I can put 24 AGM-158s on a single B-1 bomber! One squadron could lay waste to their entire operation from 600 miles away.” The General was referring to the relatively new AGM-158B JASSM-ER, a stealthy, radar evading Long Range Anti-Ship Missile. (LRASM). Six B-1 bombers could send 144 of the sleek cruise missiles at the Chinese amphibious flotilla and wreak havoc.

“So you see we don’t need aircraft carriers in the mix to stop this. You all saw what happened to the Washington. The right tool for the job here is strategic bomber assets. I hope the President knows that.” He folded his arms, well satisfied that he had thumped his chest for the Air Force.

“I’ll see that he does,” General Lane, said Leyman.