Джон Шеттлер - Condition Zebra - The Next War - 2025

11:50 Local, 19 NOV 2025

Several Daring Class destroyers had been upgraded with a 32 cell Mk41 VLS section so they could carry the US made Tomahawk—a contingency made necessary by the retirement of the Harpoon. The British had considered going with the Norwegian Naval Strike Missile, which was on the Type 31 frigates, but decided to follow the American model and add Tomahawk to the bigger destroyers. Just before noon, the first TACTOM’s fired by the British began their attack run on Toamasina harbor, but results were not encouraging. It was discovered that the base was defended by batteries of HQ-9A SAM’s, and only one significant hit was scored, destroying the COMINT compound on the base. A radar station was also taken out further up the coast, but the attack was deemed marginal at best, and did not diminish the Chinese ability to use that base in the future.

As the British fleet advanced, it had been the Chinese strategy to withdraw before them, shifting air assets and any ships or boats out of harm’s way. They then left their ground garrisons in place, and their SAM batteries, and while the British had three troop carriers in the fleet, there were no immediate plans to land anything on Madagascar. Royal Marines would be tasked with landing at Victoria in the Seychelles later, seizing and securing that mid-ocean base. Trying to run the Chinese out of Madagascar, an island over 800 nautical miles long, was out of the question. As the fleet was well north of Toamasina now, the decision was made to cancel a follow up strike there, and shift assets to Andrakaka, on the northern tip of the island.

The British would throw a jab first, testing the enemy guard. They send six TACTOM’s, one after a radar station, and five aimed at the harbor to see if it was also defended by SAM batteries. This fire mission went off at 12:15 Local time, and as it turned out, the Chinese had left air assets at that base. A single J-20 was up on a recon mission, and spotted the first Tomahawk around 12:36 in the afternoon. That plane alone was enough to begin breaking up this small attack, sniping at the Tomahawks with its PL-15’s and killing two of the six missiles. The HQ-9A batteries, suspected but as yet unseen, would deal with the rest. Admiral Wells was given the report that the fire mission had gone bust, and in his mind he came to an unwelcome conclusion.

Half the bloody navy is here under my command, and I can’t take down a radar site and SAM battery. Oh, we could get serious and go in heavier, but at what cost? It would expend the last of my TACTOM’s, so perhaps I’ll use my F-35’s to try and suppress these targets. It would give the men some good experience.

It was a pointed reminder on the limits of his power, and the need for discretion in the hours ahead. These fire missions left him with 60 TACTOM’s, which he decided to hold in reserve. Admiral Wells did not know the actual missile count available to the enemy, or what ordnance the enemy ships were carrying, but the two fleets were very evenly matched, at least in overall numbers.

The British had the edge, with 232 ship killers and 60 more TACTOMS. The Chinese had 258 Ship killers, but their advantage lay in the weapons themselves. Due to the preponderance of destroyers, there were 166 of the lethal YJ-18’s with a 290 mile range, and 32 YJ-100’s with a 430 mile range. They also had a few YJ-12’s and YJ-62’s all over 200 miles in range.

That gave the Chinese 220 missiles they could throw at the British at a range of 200 miles or more. On the British side, they could only answer with 64 Multi-Mission Tomahawks and 48 LRASM’s, mostly on the Argos Fire. So for any battle fought out at the 200 mile marker, the Chinese could throw twice as many punches. The remainder of the British SSMs were all limited to about 100 miles in range.

In effect, the Chinese ships simply outgunned the Royal Navy in any ranged fight, but this is where the three carriers could act to redress that imbalance. The F-35’s could fly out 450 miles and then deliver the British SPEAR’s, a light attack weapon that could travel another 80 miles to the target. Yet to do that, they would first have to operate in the fighter role to win air superiority.

Admiral Sun Wei was a party man, staying as close to the red line as possible when it came to attitudes, beliefs, and public comments. A man of 50 years, he had witnessed the whole of China’s dramatic rise to world superpower status, most of that accomplished in the last 25 years. China did not really want to harm others, he said, but if its interests and security needs were challenged, it would fight to the last breath if necessary. It was his mantra that as long as the people of China believed the same thing, then nothing would stop China’s eventual domination of the globe in this century.

The time of America’s hegemony in world affairs is coming to a close, he said. They are turning inward, with fewer and fewer allies on the world stage, and wherever they take a backward step, we will step forward in their place. So yes, I argued mightily that China needed to be able to project power through the Malacca Strait and into the Indian Ocean.

Our workarounds where the Malacca Dilemma was concerned have helped the situation, but they could never cure it. We send ships carrying 6.2 million barrels of oil through that strait every day. The pipelines through Pakistan, and the new oil line through Burma can only make up for a third of that total. So if we must be in a position to secure and defend the Strait of Malacca from interdiction by a hostile power, then we had to have strength on either side—in the South China Sea, and also in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean.

Admiral Wu Jinlong has just delivered a heavy blow in the action off Singapore. Now I must do my part, and stop the Royal Navy from bulling their way forward here. We could not contest the waters off West Africa, but those off East Africa are well in hand. I labored ten years to see those bases built in Kenya and Tanzania, and we must hold them, as we still hold Madagascar, in spite of our strategic withdrawal from those bases.

It was necessary to consolidate our strength, and now we will fight the first of two great battles we must win here in the Indian Ocean. First we must stop the British, and crush the Royal Navy, then we must turn and face our old nemesis from the Pacific—the United States. Time is of the essence. The Americans have already put out from Port Darwin, and we must engage and defeat the British before they can advance to their outpost at Diego Garcia.

Tomorrow we begin….

“Anything new to report?” asked Commander Dean.

“Not a word,” said Mack Morgan. “Authorities are all over the scene, but find absolutely nothing. They’ve gone to every settlement within 100 miles and questioned all the locals, but no one has seen hide nor hair of our people.”

“This is completely befuddling,” said Dean. “It’s as if the earth just opened up and swallowed them.”

“It’s more than befuddling,” said Morgan. “I’ve pretty much ruled out kidnapping. There is no sign of foul play, and the isolated nature of the terrain out there supports that. Besides, how would anyone get the better of MacRae and four Argonauts? They’d need a small army! Ground search has turned up nothing, no tracks at all in the area they were having that lunch. So I’m beginning to think they may have moved in other ways.”

“Other ways?”

“Aye. You do recall we visited Malta in the 1800’s, and that after leaving Gibraltar in the 1940’s. We’ve come to accept these impossible things as commonplace, and this may be what we’re looking at here.” Morgan folded his arms.