GWOT Intercept
Oct. 5th, 2018 10:50 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
The 1MC, the ships loudspeaker, sounds loudly.
"Prepare to receive aircraft."
All of us are exhausted. I have spent nearly every waking moment in the sick bay and the mess designated as our minor casualty treatment area, seeing to care for our psychological casualties and follow up on the minor injuries all of us have.
For example, I have a cut on my leg - no idea how I got it. Was it while I was doing first aid? Wrestling a hose across the deck? Removing firefighting suits from dead sailors? I don't recall, and although it is deep, and hurts from time to time, I check it each day and it's healing, so no point to wondering.
The radiological watch confirms that we have not had any significant exposure to radiation. That is one benefit of nuclear war at sea - an unlimited supply of seawater to flush any fallout from the decks. The watch remains set - we could be nuked again at any time.
"Sir, FOD walk," says a sailor. I sigh and join the hordes of people walking the flight deck. We are looking for foreign objects, any one of which could end up in a turbine and cost us an aircraft and her crew.
There is a slight change in protocol. If an object is found, the sailor who finds it points at it until another sailor with a trash picker and sand bucket removes it. A few pieces of FOD have turned out to be radioactive, and there is no need to take chances.
We finish the FOD walk. The carrier turns into the wind to make landing easier.
The first aircraft to land are transports. Unusually, our handful of surviving Marines are on deck in full gear including rifles and helmets to greet them. There is only one reason for this, which all of us know and none of us say.
We are being resupplied with nuclear weapons. We seem to have used them all, and we are going to use more.
The transports are unloaded and sent back as soon as possible.
I am watching the flight operation from the base of the island, carrying out my now collateral duties as war correspondent, when the 1MC screams.
"Battle stations! Battle stations! Vampire vampire vampire! Hypersonic inbounds!"
The one pallet of nukes on deck is still guarded by Marines. Instead of dodging for cover, they take cover on different sides of the pallet. If the flight deck becomes a hurricane of steel fragments - AGAIN - at least half of them will be killed. But the other half not facing the shrapnel storm will be able to protect the nukes, and they are Marines. Dying for their duty is their job.
It is not my job exactly. But I decide in my moment that I owe it to you - the reader of this article - to tell you what it is to see a naval battle. So I make sure my helmet and flak jacket are on and duck below the unarmored railing, but do not race other sailors for the hatches even now being slammed.
I hear the roar of rocket motors igniting as defense missiles light off from their half-turrets below the flight deck. To aft I hear a deafening CRACK! that I cannot at first place. Then again, CRACK! CRACK! Three flashes of bright light, but visibly from the stern of the carrier.
Laser Close In Weapons System. This is not Star Wars, this is as real as the deck under my feet and the cut under my leg. The CRACK! is vaporized air and the shockwave of ionized air rushing to fill the sudden vacuum.
The LCIWS is shooting down enemy missiles approaching from our rear aspect.
Then I hear what sounds like a fart from God. This sound I know. A conventional CIWS, an R2D2 shaped turreted autocannon that fires shells the size of soda bottles at the rate of thirty per second. It Godfarts twice more, and stops. I am close enough to hear a high pitched whine for a moment.
Out of ammunition. Still trying to fire.
I see what I have risked my life to see. A gray dot with little stubby wings, leaving behind an almost invisible contrail as it races towards us from port, across the flight deck from the island.
Chinese antishipping missile. This is the first I have personally seen of the enemy. The rest has been dots, little marks on screens, and explosions.
What did it take to get that missile launched? We have pasted China with strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. We have sunk her ships and her submarines whenever we could find them. Any harbor, any port ... trashed. Any tunnel or bunker that could hide the tractor-trailer of a shore to surface missile, watched carefully by satellite, and at the first sign of such use, obliterated.
Yet it is coming at us. And in a sense it is only fair. We have wrecked their nation. Of course they should shoot back. But they should have thought about that possibility when they shot _first_.
Such a missile, certainly larger, perhaps differently configured, destroyed San Francisco.
If it is a "red pill," a nuclear weapon, the detonation will certainly kill me. Shockwave alone would pick me up and slam me against the unyielding steel of the 'island' superstructure with bone powdering force. Then if I lived, however briefly, the thermal pulse would set me on fire. But if I somehow won exception from those effects, the sleet of hard radiation would kill me in hours or days. The only rough gauge would be how long it took me to start puking. The chart was posted in Sickbay.
https://images.slideplayer.com/23/6875873/slides/slide_31.jpg
I hear another Godfart, this one from the far side of the ship.
The gray dot breaks up in midair, pieces falling.
"Scramble, scramble, scramble, launch all aircraft. Enemy alpha strike inbound, eight minutes."
Suddenly the hatches of the island slam open and sailors in different colored shirts are running. The two working elevators are bringing up aircraft.
The unharmed Marines salute an officer with a clipboard, who leans over the pallet, lifts a cover and enters a code. Munitions sailors then remove the device and rush it over to one of our remaining strike aircraft, an FA-18. They fasten it to the pylon.
It is not a missile. It is a bomb.
Yet we are still over a hundred miles from the Chinese coast.
I duck into the island and climb the ladder to PriFly.
The computers are up but there is still a sailor chalking friendly and enemy movement on the plexiglas. I look at the displays and immediately grasp the situation.
The Chinese put in a missile strike, with a handful of missiles, to slow us down in launching aircraft. This is because the second strike is much slower aircraft. Prop driven aircraft. But an obsolete pistol can kill you just as dead as a modern one, and we had no way to know what they were carrying. Missiles, bombs ... and just one nuclear bomb can ruin your entire day.
Just ask San Francisco.
There are over fifty enemy aircraft inbound.
We have four FA-18 fighter aircraft, and even fully loaded, they can't shoot them all down.
I see below three things I do not understand. The second crewman of the FA-18, the backseat operator, is getting out of the aircraft. He joins the officer and they both salute as the FA-18 is towed to the catapult.
Only the one weapon uploaded to the pylon is on the aircraft. It's a bomb. It has no air to air capability at all.
There is a pallet of air to air missiles nearby, but no effort is being made to mount them.
Oh. My. God.
The FA-18 takes off under full thrust and the pilot makes a sweeping bank in the direction of the enemy alpha strike.
"Hitachi 92 going supersonic on intercept," says a clear female voice. The pilot. The callsign, one of the many in-jokes of being a Marine aviator. The numbers, from the tail number of the aircraft.
I remember seeing in the pilot briefing room, a lifetime before the War, a shock of blond hair and making a mental note, that I would want to interview one of the handful of female pilots in the Wing.
That interview would not be possible.
A snatch of song, half remembered.
The FA-18 goes to afterburner, and the shock wave rattles the plexiglas windows - the third set of replacements so far. Two more shockwaves, as the aircraft races through Mach 1 and Doppler effect. Wasting massive amounts of fuel. But it doesn't matter.
The songlet.
"There's one time that suicide isn't a sin..."
Kamikaze is not a tactic limited to the Japanese.
"Intercept in one minute," one of the air controllers says quietly in the suddenly silent room.
The 1MC sounds.
"All hands, all hands. Nucflash in thirty seconds bearing 240 degrees. Shield optics and cover your eyes."
The operators hunch down over their consoles.
"A ten count," says one. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three ..."
I have my hands over my eyes. Before he can say "two," he stops as a brilliant flashbulb lights the sky.
A moment later, a different operator says quietly,
"Enemy alpha strike trashed."
We all owe our lives to her.
But the War continues.
"Captain to Conn. Set course 275. All ahead full. Full military power authorized."
The carrier lurches under our feet as we in turn make a sweeping turn.
We are now sprinting for the China coast.
We have some more red pills to deliver.
Express.
Ringside Seat | Raid 17 | Hangar Bay | Direct Commission | Intercept | Coastal Action
The 1MC, the ships loudspeaker, sounds loudly.
"Prepare to receive aircraft."
All of us are exhausted. I have spent nearly every waking moment in the sick bay and the mess designated as our minor casualty treatment area, seeing to care for our psychological casualties and follow up on the minor injuries all of us have.
For example, I have a cut on my leg - no idea how I got it. Was it while I was doing first aid? Wrestling a hose across the deck? Removing firefighting suits from dead sailors? I don't recall, and although it is deep, and hurts from time to time, I check it each day and it's healing, so no point to wondering.
The radiological watch confirms that we have not had any significant exposure to radiation. That is one benefit of nuclear war at sea - an unlimited supply of seawater to flush any fallout from the decks. The watch remains set - we could be nuked again at any time.
"Sir, FOD walk," says a sailor. I sigh and join the hordes of people walking the flight deck. We are looking for foreign objects, any one of which could end up in a turbine and cost us an aircraft and her crew.
There is a slight change in protocol. If an object is found, the sailor who finds it points at it until another sailor with a trash picker and sand bucket removes it. A few pieces of FOD have turned out to be radioactive, and there is no need to take chances.
We finish the FOD walk. The carrier turns into the wind to make landing easier.
The first aircraft to land are transports. Unusually, our handful of surviving Marines are on deck in full gear including rifles and helmets to greet them. There is only one reason for this, which all of us know and none of us say.
We are being resupplied with nuclear weapons. We seem to have used them all, and we are going to use more.
The transports are unloaded and sent back as soon as possible.
I am watching the flight operation from the base of the island, carrying out my now collateral duties as war correspondent, when the 1MC screams.
"Battle stations! Battle stations! Vampire vampire vampire! Hypersonic inbounds!"
The one pallet of nukes on deck is still guarded by Marines. Instead of dodging for cover, they take cover on different sides of the pallet. If the flight deck becomes a hurricane of steel fragments - AGAIN - at least half of them will be killed. But the other half not facing the shrapnel storm will be able to protect the nukes, and they are Marines. Dying for their duty is their job.
It is not my job exactly. But I decide in my moment that I owe it to you - the reader of this article - to tell you what it is to see a naval battle. So I make sure my helmet and flak jacket are on and duck below the unarmored railing, but do not race other sailors for the hatches even now being slammed.
I hear the roar of rocket motors igniting as defense missiles light off from their half-turrets below the flight deck. To aft I hear a deafening CRACK! that I cannot at first place. Then again, CRACK! CRACK! Three flashes of bright light, but visibly from the stern of the carrier.
Laser Close In Weapons System. This is not Star Wars, this is as real as the deck under my feet and the cut under my leg. The CRACK! is vaporized air and the shockwave of ionized air rushing to fill the sudden vacuum.
The LCIWS is shooting down enemy missiles approaching from our rear aspect.
Then I hear what sounds like a fart from God. This sound I know. A conventional CIWS, an R2D2 shaped turreted autocannon that fires shells the size of soda bottles at the rate of thirty per second. It Godfarts twice more, and stops. I am close enough to hear a high pitched whine for a moment.
Out of ammunition. Still trying to fire.
I see what I have risked my life to see. A gray dot with little stubby wings, leaving behind an almost invisible contrail as it races towards us from port, across the flight deck from the island.
Chinese antishipping missile. This is the first I have personally seen of the enemy. The rest has been dots, little marks on screens, and explosions.
What did it take to get that missile launched? We have pasted China with strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. We have sunk her ships and her submarines whenever we could find them. Any harbor, any port ... trashed. Any tunnel or bunker that could hide the tractor-trailer of a shore to surface missile, watched carefully by satellite, and at the first sign of such use, obliterated.
Yet it is coming at us. And in a sense it is only fair. We have wrecked their nation. Of course they should shoot back. But they should have thought about that possibility when they shot _first_.
Such a missile, certainly larger, perhaps differently configured, destroyed San Francisco.
If it is a "red pill," a nuclear weapon, the detonation will certainly kill me. Shockwave alone would pick me up and slam me against the unyielding steel of the 'island' superstructure with bone powdering force. Then if I lived, however briefly, the thermal pulse would set me on fire. But if I somehow won exception from those effects, the sleet of hard radiation would kill me in hours or days. The only rough gauge would be how long it took me to start puking. The chart was posted in Sickbay.
https://images.slideplayer.com/23/6875873/slides/slide_31.jpg
I hear another Godfart, this one from the far side of the ship.
The gray dot breaks up in midair, pieces falling.
"Scramble, scramble, scramble, launch all aircraft. Enemy alpha strike inbound, eight minutes."
Suddenly the hatches of the island slam open and sailors in different colored shirts are running. The two working elevators are bringing up aircraft.
The unharmed Marines salute an officer with a clipboard, who leans over the pallet, lifts a cover and enters a code. Munitions sailors then remove the device and rush it over to one of our remaining strike aircraft, an FA-18. They fasten it to the pylon.
It is not a missile. It is a bomb.
Yet we are still over a hundred miles from the Chinese coast.
I duck into the island and climb the ladder to PriFly.
The computers are up but there is still a sailor chalking friendly and enemy movement on the plexiglas. I look at the displays and immediately grasp the situation.
The Chinese put in a missile strike, with a handful of missiles, to slow us down in launching aircraft. This is because the second strike is much slower aircraft. Prop driven aircraft. But an obsolete pistol can kill you just as dead as a modern one, and we had no way to know what they were carrying. Missiles, bombs ... and just one nuclear bomb can ruin your entire day.
Just ask San Francisco.
There are over fifty enemy aircraft inbound.
We have four FA-18 fighter aircraft, and even fully loaded, they can't shoot them all down.
I see below three things I do not understand. The second crewman of the FA-18, the backseat operator, is getting out of the aircraft. He joins the officer and they both salute as the FA-18 is towed to the catapult.
Only the one weapon uploaded to the pylon is on the aircraft. It's a bomb. It has no air to air capability at all.
There is a pallet of air to air missiles nearby, but no effort is being made to mount them.
Oh. My. God.
The FA-18 takes off under full thrust and the pilot makes a sweeping bank in the direction of the enemy alpha strike.
"Hitachi 92 going supersonic on intercept," says a clear female voice. The pilot. The callsign, one of the many in-jokes of being a Marine aviator. The numbers, from the tail number of the aircraft.
I remember seeing in the pilot briefing room, a lifetime before the War, a shock of blond hair and making a mental note, that I would want to interview one of the handful of female pilots in the Wing.
That interview would not be possible.
A snatch of song, half remembered.
The FA-18 goes to afterburner, and the shock wave rattles the plexiglas windows - the third set of replacements so far. Two more shockwaves, as the aircraft races through Mach 1 and Doppler effect. Wasting massive amounts of fuel. But it doesn't matter.
The songlet.
"There's one time that suicide isn't a sin..."
Kamikaze is not a tactic limited to the Japanese.
"Intercept in one minute," one of the air controllers says quietly in the suddenly silent room.
The 1MC sounds.
"All hands, all hands. Nucflash in thirty seconds bearing 240 degrees. Shield optics and cover your eyes."
The operators hunch down over their consoles.
"A ten count," says one. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three ..."
I have my hands over my eyes. Before he can say "two," he stops as a brilliant flashbulb lights the sky.
A moment later, a different operator says quietly,
"Enemy alpha strike trashed."
We all owe our lives to her.
But the War continues.
"Captain to Conn. Set course 275. All ahead full. Full military power authorized."
The carrier lurches under our feet as we in turn make a sweeping turn.
We are now sprinting for the China coast.
We have some more red pills to deliver.
Express.
