Global War of Terror: Raid 17
Jan. 1st, 2018 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGlobal War of Terror - US Navy 'Press Release' Entries
Ringside Seat | Raid 17 | Hangar Bay | Direct Commission | Intercept | Coastal Action
It has been a day of horrors.
The carrier battle group fights for its life against sheafs of incoming missiles launched from shore, ships and aircraft. A hypersonic targeted on the carrier strikes a destroyer instead, trading over 200 lives for the 5,000 on the carrier. The survivors are quickly rescued so as not to delay our sprint for the China coast.
But in CIC, the combat information center, the silver lining to this cloud is that she was "shot out," out of missiles, and therefore no ordinance was lost with her destruction.
News trickles in detailing the devastation of the San Francisco Bay Area by not one, not two, but three nuclear weapons detonation and a fourth missile shot down. The Chinese deny responsibility but the US is not asking.
We are paying the Chinese back in oceans of blood. But this is a secondary side effect. We are attempting to disable the strategic strike capability of a major world power, and the sledgehammers we must use cannot help but break some eggs. If by eggs one means cities.
The officers and sailors are exhausted. A few are unfit for duty: a quick screening of personnel files has revealed orphans, men and women who have survived the destruction of their hometowns. Three more suicides, and others at risk confined to quarters or to sickbay with heavy prescriptions to keep them safe.
The battle planning staff of the carrier is duty bound to protect the carrier from all threats. But they are obsessed with defending America from further attack. Over half of the missiles carried by the Aegis cruiser USS Shiloh have been fired not in defense of the carrier group but at ballistic missiles targeted at the United States.
So far, there have been no "leakers," an antiseptic term for failure to save a city from San Francisco's grim fate. So far.
The carrier aircraft are as much engaged in reconnaissance and "BDA," Bomb Damage Assessment, as in direct strikes. But good data means more targets serviced, and the Chinese would very much like to put out this inconvenient set of eyes on their front lawn.
I am sitting on a folding chair in the back of CIC. The PAO is busy and it is up to me, an "embed" or I suppose now, a war correspondent, to see what I see and interpret it for people at home. Or blow up or burn or drown, nothing is safe here.
"Twelve fixed wing aircraft bearing 276. Designate Raid 17."
The CIC is having to do some of the job normally done by AWACS, airborne command and control aircraft. The carrier's own and two larger ones from Japan have been shot down.
Even I know something is off. Prior strikes have involved dozens of aircraft and have been swatted down, if not casually, but with relatively little loss. The big threat was missile strikes and the ships and land batteries that could fire them have been trashed.
A small attack like this may be a feint, an effort to get a radar in the battle group to turn on to identify and track them... and thus to betray our position. But the Chinese know where we are.
Like a champion boxer obliging a weaker fighter who staggers to his feet, the TAO ... Tactical Action Officer ... wearily states "Kill Raid 17 with ..."
They disappear from view.
The TAO blinks once. Then quickly, desperately orders "Go active."
"Confirm go active?"
Like a man shining a flashlight in a dark room, the carrier lighting off her own radars will determine what is going on. But like that man, will reveal herself as well.
"Go active," the TAO confirms.
There is a brief stifled gasp and everyone is suddenly very busy. The 1MC bellows "Vampire! Vampire! Hypersonic inbounds in three, two..."
I tense. This is a nuclear war and the next instant may be a flash of intense heat followed by nothing.
The antishipping missiles were flying slow, pretending to be aircraft until they selected their targets.
We are many decks below but there is still a flash, like a flashbulb, reflected through cracks and small openings.
Then there is a loud rumble, like an earthquake but from the side. We are knocked off our feet, but everyone scrapes back to their posts.
"Set Condition Zebra! Set Condition Circle William! Flood all weather decks. Corpsman to the bridge! Corpsman to PriFly! Set the radiological watch. Sound and security report status and flooding! Fire on Cat 3, away the deck DC team!"
Orders flood out, reports flood in. But not to here. It is the task of others to save lives and save the ship. CIC's task is to fight.
"_Shiloh_ is gone," someone says. Four hundred sailors in the blink of an eye. And our only surviving Aegis asset. The only ship that could shoot down ballistic missiles.
CIC is tracking and talking to each other - and ships and bases both near and far - but they are using language I do not know, acronyms and jargon I have not heard.
"Two ballistic tracks. Target is Los Angeles, 300 seconds."
My brain skips to the class of submarine, then I realize.
_They are talking about the city._
The Navy can't stop it. The nuclear attack on the carrier group was specifically timed to prevent interference. Even if they hadn't killed _Shiloh_, her sensors would have been blinded at the critical instant.
"270 seconds."
It is now up to the Missile Defense Agency and a handful of interceptors at Vandenburg Air Force Base in central California.
We are all spectators now. Just like me.
"Launching one, two, four, seven. Tracking. Separation."
"240 seconds. Air defense warnings."
How do you tell millions of people they have four minutes to live?
But on the outskirts, four minutes is time to go into a building, hide behind a hill, get away from a vehicle ... or like the infamous turtle from my childhood, "Duck! ... and Cover!"
"210 seconds. Sep failure on five. Six good tracks."
What must be going through the minds of the Chinese leaders who planned this attack?
That I can answer. Rage. Fear. How we felt after San Francisco.
Ringside Seat | Raid 17 | Hangar Bay | Direct Commission | Intercept | Coastal Action
It has been a day of horrors.
The carrier battle group fights for its life against sheafs of incoming missiles launched from shore, ships and aircraft. A hypersonic targeted on the carrier strikes a destroyer instead, trading over 200 lives for the 5,000 on the carrier. The survivors are quickly rescued so as not to delay our sprint for the China coast.
But in CIC, the combat information center, the silver lining to this cloud is that she was "shot out," out of missiles, and therefore no ordinance was lost with her destruction.
News trickles in detailing the devastation of the San Francisco Bay Area by not one, not two, but three nuclear weapons detonation and a fourth missile shot down. The Chinese deny responsibility but the US is not asking.
We are paying the Chinese back in oceans of blood. But this is a secondary side effect. We are attempting to disable the strategic strike capability of a major world power, and the sledgehammers we must use cannot help but break some eggs. If by eggs one means cities.
The officers and sailors are exhausted. A few are unfit for duty: a quick screening of personnel files has revealed orphans, men and women who have survived the destruction of their hometowns. Three more suicides, and others at risk confined to quarters or to sickbay with heavy prescriptions to keep them safe.
The battle planning staff of the carrier is duty bound to protect the carrier from all threats. But they are obsessed with defending America from further attack. Over half of the missiles carried by the Aegis cruiser USS Shiloh have been fired not in defense of the carrier group but at ballistic missiles targeted at the United States.
So far, there have been no "leakers," an antiseptic term for failure to save a city from San Francisco's grim fate. So far.
The carrier aircraft are as much engaged in reconnaissance and "BDA," Bomb Damage Assessment, as in direct strikes. But good data means more targets serviced, and the Chinese would very much like to put out this inconvenient set of eyes on their front lawn.
I am sitting on a folding chair in the back of CIC. The PAO is busy and it is up to me, an "embed" or I suppose now, a war correspondent, to see what I see and interpret it for people at home. Or blow up or burn or drown, nothing is safe here.
"Twelve fixed wing aircraft bearing 276. Designate Raid 17."
The CIC is having to do some of the job normally done by AWACS, airborne command and control aircraft. The carrier's own and two larger ones from Japan have been shot down.
Even I know something is off. Prior strikes have involved dozens of aircraft and have been swatted down, if not casually, but with relatively little loss. The big threat was missile strikes and the ships and land batteries that could fire them have been trashed.
A small attack like this may be a feint, an effort to get a radar in the battle group to turn on to identify and track them... and thus to betray our position. But the Chinese know where we are.
Like a champion boxer obliging a weaker fighter who staggers to his feet, the TAO ... Tactical Action Officer ... wearily states "Kill Raid 17 with ..."
They disappear from view.
The TAO blinks once. Then quickly, desperately orders "Go active."
"Confirm go active?"
Like a man shining a flashlight in a dark room, the carrier lighting off her own radars will determine what is going on. But like that man, will reveal herself as well.
"Go active," the TAO confirms.
There is a brief stifled gasp and everyone is suddenly very busy. The 1MC bellows "Vampire! Vampire! Hypersonic inbounds in three, two..."
I tense. This is a nuclear war and the next instant may be a flash of intense heat followed by nothing.
The antishipping missiles were flying slow, pretending to be aircraft until they selected their targets.
We are many decks below but there is still a flash, like a flashbulb, reflected through cracks and small openings.
Then there is a loud rumble, like an earthquake but from the side. We are knocked off our feet, but everyone scrapes back to their posts.
"Set Condition Zebra! Set Condition Circle William! Flood all weather decks. Corpsman to the bridge! Corpsman to PriFly! Set the radiological watch. Sound and security report status and flooding! Fire on Cat 3, away the deck DC team!"
Orders flood out, reports flood in. But not to here. It is the task of others to save lives and save the ship. CIC's task is to fight.
"_Shiloh_ is gone," someone says. Four hundred sailors in the blink of an eye. And our only surviving Aegis asset. The only ship that could shoot down ballistic missiles.
CIC is tracking and talking to each other - and ships and bases both near and far - but they are using language I do not know, acronyms and jargon I have not heard.
"Two ballistic tracks. Target is Los Angeles, 300 seconds."
My brain skips to the class of submarine, then I realize.
_They are talking about the city._
The Navy can't stop it. The nuclear attack on the carrier group was specifically timed to prevent interference. Even if they hadn't killed _Shiloh_, her sensors would have been blinded at the critical instant.
"270 seconds."
It is now up to the Missile Defense Agency and a handful of interceptors at Vandenburg Air Force Base in central California.
We are all spectators now. Just like me.
"Launching one, two, four, seven. Tracking. Separation."
"240 seconds. Air defense warnings."
How do you tell millions of people they have four minutes to live?
But on the outskirts, four minutes is time to go into a building, hide behind a hill, get away from a vehicle ... or like the infamous turtle from my childhood, "Duck! ... and Cover!"
"210 seconds. Sep failure on five. Six good tracks."
What must be going through the minds of the Chinese leaders who planned this attack?
That I can answer. Rage. Fear. How we felt after San Francisco.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-01 08:09 am (UTC)