Джон Шеттлер - Condition Zebra - The Next War - 2025

At 22:00 the three British ships would enter the eastern mouth of the Strait of Malacca, a chastened and dispirited lot. As they turned for the harbor at Changi, their thoughts were heavy with the loss of so many ships and crewmen. Illustrious , Lookout and Loyal were gone, along with frigates Sheffield, Newcastle, Portland and Trinidad . The Royal Navy had not suffered such a loss since the Battle for the Falkland Islands, where six ships went down in that campaign, including one HMS Sheffield , which was a Type 42 Class Destroyer at the time.

Only the support group with Admiral Pearson on HMS Ocean had been unscathed. It still had three frigates in attendance, ( Battleaxe , Singapore , and Malaya ), making a total of six surface warships remaining in the British Far East Fleet. While disaster had been averted, it was still a stinging defeat, and the Chinese South Seas Fleet was still advancing.

So the enemy army is fleeing for the refuge of their castle walls, thought Wu Jinlong. Unfortunately, I have only 36 missiles remaining on my destroyers with the range to strike them now. All my remaining SSM’s are with the frigates, the YJ-83’s, with a more limited range. Yet they are getting close. Soon I will be able to make a combined strike. Singapore’s navy has also sortied, but they pose little offensive threat. On defense, however, those frigates will be able to throw up a wall of SAM fire that could seriously degrade my attack. I have a total of 68 YJ-83’s, and with those 36 longer range missiles, my offensive strength now sits at 104 SSM’s, and anything more I can send with my J-31’s.

But the River God is coming… Yes, the River God, another of our fine Type 055 destroyers, and that TF will bring 64 more missiles to this argument. It was stationed in the Bay of Bengal, and given my success here, the General Staff decided to move it into the Strait of Malacca from the west to support my battle. That force raises my offensive strength to 168, and I think that will be enough to prevail and complete this victory. By midnight, we should be in position to attack, but I must wait until all my ships are in range.

That time was very near, and by 01:00 on the 19th of November, orders were given for all ships in range to strike their assigned targets. The two sides had exchanged inconsequential air strike in the last minutes of the 18th, with neither side able to get good target locks with the anti-radiation missiles they had been carrying. Ships running in EMCON mode offered nothing for the missiles to find and home in on, and so the Admiral was convinced he had to use his cruise missiles to achieve the decisive result he was hoping for.

By this time, Captain Hargood and his escorts had reached the port at Changi Harbor. The Singapore Strait itself was now being defended by the escorts from Admiral Pearson’s TF Ocean , when that ship and other fleet support vessels also took refuge in Changi Harbor. This left the British frigates Battleaxe, Malaya , and Singapore to join with the RSN frigates, four still in action, and two withdrawing due to damage suffered in the air exchanges earlier.

The opening salvo of 40 missiles was soon clouding up the sea as the missiles fired, tipped over, and turned on their assigned headings. They would all take varied routes, but inevitably converge on the mouth of the strait, where the frigates stood in lines like soldiers on a battlefield, ready to volley fire with SAM’s. The RSN ships all had the Aster 15, and it would get many kills as the attack began, the missiles screaming in, SAM’s leaping off the decks of the frigates to chase them down. Of the 40 Zulus that came charging in, all but four would die, and those fearless survivors, all the speedy YJ-18’s off the Chinese destroyers, would press through that thick defensive fire and score hits.

Frigates Singapore , Tenacious , and Formidable would be skewered by those missiles and die, and another RSN ship, the Intrepid was damaged and dead in the water. A Harpoon counterstrike was aimed at the Chinese TF Subi , and it was able to even the odds a bit, hitting and sinking corvette Hanzhong , and more importantly, the 052D class DDG Yinchuan was also damaged so badly that it would sink within the hour.

The missiles on both sides, of every kind, were slowly running out. This was what made the kill count rise so dramatically in those hours around midnight. Ships without SAM’s in the VLS bays were defenseless, and with each salvo fired by either side, the offensive power diminished. The battle was simply burning itself out.

What had happened here? In the twelve hour duel, the Chinese had sunk or damaged 60% of the British Far East Fleet, and put the RAF airbase at Changi out of commission. But what were the Chinese really trying to do? It was inconceivable that they would want to see the Strait of Malacca closed, and equally dubious to think they could ever control it. They certainly could not land forces on Singapore Island itself, which had three full divisions mustered and ready for battle. Somehow, in some equation being drawn out at the Naval General Staff HQ, the purpose of the battle was only to do what it actually accomplished—to so attrite the Royal Navy forces here that they could not offer meaningful resistance against any future Chinese operation on this scale. That was coming.

Perseverance, thought Wu Jinlong. Water always prevails over stone, as long as it perseveres….

Lessons learned…. That was the heart of post-combat briefing in HQ’s the world over as the news rolled in concerning the dramatic and costly battle fought off Singapore. At Whale Island, Sir Frederick Graham Cooper, 1st Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, was looking at the reports from Singapore with some trepidation. He had taken over from Admiral Anthony Radakin two years ago, and was now the man in the chair, as it were, for this sudden and violent outbreak of war.

In truth, every Admiral wonders if they will ever serve in time of real war, or hold the tiller as the navy steered its way through genuine crisis. It had been a long, sleepy time for the Royal Navy since WWII, with only that scrap in the Falklands to rattle the teacups in the Naval Staff HQ. This was something quite more.

“Pearson damn near got handed his hat,” said Cooper, a tall man, strait and strong for his years as he entered his early 50’s. He looked at his 2nd Sea Lord, Admiral George Oliver, and his concern was evident.

“Heavy losses all around,” said Oliver. “He had just one Type 45 destroyer with each carrier, but it wasn’t enough, because the frigates simply couldn’t offer adequate support.”

“Why?” asked Admiral Cooper.

“The Type 23 is getting a bit long in the tooth, sir, as you well know. But it was more than that. The Sea Ceptor was faced with a missile it simply couldn’t catch, the Chinese YJ-18. It’s the best they have, with good range, stealth, and hitting power, but the real trick is the terminal attack run, with maneuvers—at 1900 knots. Sea Ceptor can only handle targets moving a little over 1300 knots, so it can’t even engage this Chinese missile, which befuddles the gun systems as well when it comes in at that speed. Our frigates do quite well against subsonic cruise missiles, but this is something altogether different.”