In Defence of the Fleet

The regiment had flown west of the Hindu Kush range, cruised south over Baluchistan, and crossed above the coastline of the Arabian Sea about one hour before. Ahead is their target, an American carrier battle group, steaming up the Arabian Sea. Data from Soviet surveillance satellites had located it within roughly a 50-mile circle. Close enough, he thinks; our radars soon will find them with all the accuracy we need.

To the south and west, a nuclear submarine lies deep and silent in the Som’3. li Basin. She’s called ‘Charlie’ by NATO, not out of friendly familiarity, but because she’s the third new class of submarine recently spotted. Her crew have already begun a final checking of her battery of long-range anti-ship missiles, fusing their massive warheads and programming the targeting data. In the coordinated plan of attack, the Charlie will surface after the bombers have launched their weapons and fire a salvo of missiles, their targets the massive aircraft carrier and its screening vessels.

To the east, steaming at flank speed to intersect the battle area in time, a Soviet cruiser, escorted by two destroyers, pounds through heavy seas. She is the Kara, a relatively new warship, first of a class armed with anti-ship cruise missiles and well-defenced by radar-controlled anti-aircraft missiles and cannon. In the rolling, lurching vessels, technicians groom the missiles they will soon fire against the Americans as part of the three-pronged attack.

‘We’ve got about two hours’

‘I would guess we’ve got about two hours,” says the carrier’s Captain, breaking the silence on the bridge. ‘It may be a bluff again, but the general assessment is that this time they mean business. Intelligence spotted their deployment to the south a couple of days back, and we were just lucky enough to have an AWACS in place around the southeastern end of Saudi Arabia. Our Air Force buddies spotted them on the way down here. A whole damn regiment of Backfires that means at least 36 Kitchen missiles. And they’re on a collision course with us. Let’s get ’em!’

Routinely, a pair of Grumman E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft are on station about 200 miles forward and to either side of the huge, nuclear-powered carrier, the hub of the battlegroup. Their radars, tied to an onboard computer and data linked to the carrier’s Combat Intelligence Centre, can detect, identify, and track all air and surface targets out to 200 miles in every direction. They are working with paired combat air patrols, each of two Grumman F-14 fighters.

The two-man Tomcats are armed with a standard mix of Phoenix, Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, each type chosen to cover a different range, from more than 100 miles to the close-in visual dogfight. Each Tomcat also packs a rapid-fire 20 mm cannon to round out its formidable armament mix.

The battle group spreads over hundreds of square miles, about 50 miles separating the advance guard of destroyers and the trailing frigates. The formation resembles a distorted ‘X’, with the carrier at the centre. Abeam are two cruisers, part of the anti-air force, to defend the inner zone of the defence-in-depth that shields the fleet. Seven or eight miles forward, two more cruisers guard the approach sectors, their surface-to-air missile batteries linked to the Aegis system. That combination of advanced phased-array radar, computerised data processing and automated target-tracking forms a formidable new weapon system only recently introduced in the fleet.

Two destroyers further forward are expected to tackle either submarines or aircraft; two trailing frigates are dedicated to the anti-sub battle. They carry the newly deployed Sikorsky SH-60B Lamps Ill helicopter, capable of finding, fixing and destroying submarines. Their anti-sub task is shared with carrier-based Lockheed S-3 Viking ASW aircraft and with land-based P-3 Orions, long-range patrol planes that have been shadowing Soviet submarines in the Indian Ocean for weeks. Indeed, it was an Orion that had found the Charlie-class sub that now lay in hiding and had passed the word to the battle group commander yesterday.

Carrier is a floating air base

The 90,000-ton Nimitz-class carrier is a floating air base for two dozen F-14 Tomcat fighters, an equal number of McDonnell Douglas FA-18 Hornet strike fighters, a dozen Grumman A-6E Intruder all-weather attack aircraft, four E-2C Hawkeye early warning planes, plus some miscellaneous types born of the specialised needs of naval warfare. Also carried are four Grumman EA-6B Prowlers, tactical jammers that add an electronic shield to the fleet’s air defences.

Together, the planes of the carrier air wing form a three-zoned defensive system designed to cope with saturation attacks on the fleet. The outer battle defence zone is defined and manned by Hawkeyes and Tomcats. The E-2C can detect incoming attackers at a great distance and then vector fighters to a point where they can launch their Phoenix missiles. Each of the F-14s carries up to six of these unique long-range weapons; they are able to kill equally well the high- or low-flying bomber and its launched missiles.

A much smaller circle is the innermost zone of point defence, protected by the concentrated firepower of batteries of shipboard anti-aircraft missiles and rapid-fire 20 mm cannon, lethal at close range. Any cruise missile that gets through the outer rings of the defensive perimeter must be shattered by the ships’ own ‘curtain of steel’, which is their last hope for avoiding severe damage.

Between the outer battle zone and the innermost circle about the carrier lies the middle zone of defence. This, too, is the province of the fighters and the ship-launched SAMs. Closer in, a myriad of surprises awaits any attackers trying to target the carrier. Chief among these is the high-flying Prowler, powerful jamming pods slung underneath its wings, ready to turn the clear signals on enemy radar scopes to a bright, befuddling blob. The Prowlers mask the carrier and the other ships of the battle group with electronic clouds and smoke screens, hiding individual ships from prying enemy radars just as effectively as the smoke screens laid by daring destroyers shielded combatants in the great sea battles of decades ago.

‘Comrade Commander! We have a contact. Single aircraft . . . bearing one seven three. . . probably one of the carrier’s early-warning planes. ‘ Across the expanse of sky eight aircraft push over into dives, heading for a minimum-altitude flight path to delay radar detection. Levelling off no more than 200 feet above the wavetops, the red-starred air regiment continues on course, its crews slipping into the familiar routines they had practised earlier in feints against the Americans.

Backfires will jam Hawkeyes

In the lead bomber, the electronic warfare officer sits before his consoles, running repeated cycles of engagement through his mind. Much of his jamming equipment is automatic, designed to cope with the Hawkeye’s advanced radius system. Ten Backfires will concentrate on jamming the E-2Cs’ radar; others will work on their communications.

The bombers are quiet, radios silenced by orders. Somewhere ahead, each crew knows, is at least one Hawkeye that will detect them soon, as they speed just above the water. But, by the time the Americans have worked the problem, it could be too late. . . for them. With our speed, thinks the regiment’s commander, we can get in, launch, and streak out of the area before they can get their interceptors out to meet us.

The flight in will not be free, though, and the bomber crews know it. Each Hawkeye usually is teamed with two or more Tomcats, and these will take their toll of the bomber force. But Soviet jamming will degrade the defenders’ performance somewhat, and the bomber regiment is confident it will get through with relatively minor losses. The plan is to launch their air-to surface missiles near the extreme range of the Tomcats’ weapons, and that will help.

From the bridge comes ‘Alert Five’

The battle group, now in a tighter defensive formation, steams northward, heading for the confrontation. A Prowler circles on station high above the carrier, its sensitive receivers awaiting the faintest enemy radar emission. From the carrier bridge comes the ‘Alert Five’ signal, putting aircrews on notice for fast launches. Already, Tomcats are at the forward catapults, engines idling and systems checked, ready for flight. With four Phoenix missiles apiece, and carrying extra fuel tanks, they’re loaded for Bear. . . or Backfire.

‘Mother, this is Screwtop. We’ve got many bogies, bearing one-eight-niner. Correction . . . we had bogies. They’re spooking. Request DLIs!”

Off go the first line of Tomcats, the deck-launched interceptors, or DLIs, that the Hawkeye has called for. Others roll into place behind them, are secured on the cats, and run up for launch. Engines shrieking, they pitch against the nosewheel strut hooks, and then, with the roar and sudden rush of air violently displaced, they are slung forward, over the bow, dipping briefly toward the water to regain mastery over drag and gravity as they begin to climb. Next to go off is a heavily loaded KA-6D tanker, an aerial-refuelling variant of the A-6 attack plane. It climbs to a station above the fleet to await the return of the fuel-starved fighters.

And now the Backfire force, wings swept fully forward for best climb performance, pulls up into a rocketing ascent: about 7000 metres per minute, a fantastic rate for so heavy a bomber. At 12,000 metres, the aircraft level off and begin to accelerate. The wings sweep back automatically, transforming the cruise and climb configuration to the arrowed shape of a high-altitude dash. They set up cruise at Mach 1. 3, a little below their best speed with the external missiles.

The radar operators switch on their sets, and the big search and acquisition radars in the noses of the bombers begin their scan of the sky and surface ahead. They spot the controlling Hawkeye easily and assume he’s being countered by the brute force of Backfire jamming.

There! On the scopes a small blob shimmers, just about where the carrier battle group should be. If it’s like the other forces we’ve seen, thinks the Commander, the carrier will be spotted near the centre of that array of screening ships.

Here we go, thinks the Russian. If we are successful, and if I live through it, I’ll get that dacha in the woods and another decoration, and my kids will read about their father in their history books. If I fail. . . well, better not to consider the possibility.

Now the radars in the missiles’ noses are turned on, their pulses in synchronisation with those coming from the Backfires’ main radars Operators watch for an indication that the missile seeker has found a possible target somewhere in the area being designated. Data seems good; the display shows nine blips that define the enemy force. The carrier is in there somewhere, screened by eight ships, probably a mix of cruisers, destroyers and frigates. Right now, on radar, they all look the same. But every minute that goes by gets us 20 kilometres closer, thinks the Commander. We’ll soon be in range, get a lock-on, fire these missiles, and turn for home.

Nine blobs suddenly are a hundred

As he watches, the radar scope blossoms into a field of brightly speckled green. Nine blobs suddenly are a hundred, a thousand, too many to count. It is the work of these devilish American jamming aircraft, the Prowlers. The electronic duel has begun, and it complicates life for the Red Force’s commander. He knows that he is jammed; he can’t make out the carrier or even the entire fleet in the clutter on the scopes. Now he must face up to alternatives, and none is very pleasant. But the decision must be made. . . and fast, for with each passing second the regiment is hurtling closer to the point of no return.

I can signal the regiment to turn back, and if I am lucky I can take my wife and children to a new settlement in Siberia. Or I can go ahead until our radars are able to bum through that jamming and get some kind of a return, enough to target that big radar reflector of a carrier. We can launch then, and most of the missiles will get through and dispose of the carrier. Or I can launch the missiles ‘blind’ now and let them select targets when they get in closer.

‘One minute to launch!’

Yes, Technician Ulanov, I’m well aware of that, he mutters to himself. And just how, Comrade, am I going to launch when I can’t fix a single target? Those damned jammers are blinding us. We must go closer.

The Prowlers are doing more than just jamming, though. At the moment, they also are helping in a triangulation problem with Hawkeyes and Tomcats, computing launch parameters that will help the fighters work around the jamming and launch their missiles.

On the carrier bridge, the low hum of cooling fans, quiet conversations, clipped orders, and acknowledgements lend an air of tense unreality to the environment of battle. ‘They’re closer than they have to be,’ says the Captain. ‘The Prowlers are doing a job. Come on, babies, bring ’em in where we can kill ’em!’

Hawkeye detects a new threat

But at this point a new threat is reported from another direction, and it demands the skipper’s attention. A Hawkeye has detected what appears to be a large Soviet cruiser and accompanying destroyers approaching the fleet defence perimeter. It’s a small force, but it poses a serious threat – an attack on the carrier with long-range anti-ship missiles.

The skipper orders an immediate strike by A-6 Intruders equipped with new Harpoon stand-off missiles. On the carrier’s flight deck, the activity is furious; sound upon sound, until the last attack aircraft is slung off. The strike force, a half-dozen A-6Es accompanied by a Prowler, will speed to the area where the Soviet warships have been reported. Its mission: hit the cruiser before it comes within the launch range of the carrier. Using the Intruders’ unique long-range identification and targeting system, the actual attack will be made from a point well out of range of the cruiser’s air defence system. With the Prowler flying electronic interference, the enemy may never even get to see the strike force.

The multi-pronged nature of the Soviet attack is fully confirmed as, far to the west of the fleet, a frigate’s Lamps Ill helicopter makes a sonar contact. Comparison of the data with the known signatures of submarines confirms this one as a nuclear-driven Charlie. The halo, out of sight of its controlling frigate, is acting independently, holding the sub under guard until the order to attack comes through.

With the outer-perimeter defence elements engaged or en route, the carrier’s inner defence forces must wait their turn. Their crucial task is to stop any attackers that manage to get through the outer defences. On the accompanying ships, surface-to-air missile batteries, loaded with the new Standard weapon and some older Terrier and Talos rounds, can launch deadly seekers out to distances of 20 to 40 miles. Tied to the Aegis computer, these SAMs can be aimed and fired rapidly. Further, all the screening ships carry armament for point defence; short-range missiles like the Sea Sparrow, five-inch dual-purpose guns, and the Phalanx, a radar-directed Gatlingstyle 20 mm cannon with a fantastic rate of fire. The ships’ batteries also can fire chaff rockets and decoys to confuse the incoming missiles. For this ‘last-gasp’ defence, the screening ships – and the earner, too – can throw up a veritable curtain of steel.

At this point, however, the ‘outer battle’ is about to get underway. The Tomcats have the launch parameters and are in position. They launch the first Phoenix, a second pair follows and a third, exhaust trails streaking white across the sky.

In the lead bomber the Commander sweats

In the lead Backfire the Commander, sweating heavily, struggles with the problem. Any moment now, he thinks, my radars will burn through the jamming and give me the target data I so desperately need. He doesn’t see the outside plane in the formation vanish in a sudden slash of fire, but one of the pilots breaks the silence to tell him Communication stops in midsentence, as that pilot and his plane disappear in a second fireball, leaving a bursting bouquet of fragments. A third Backfire pitches up suddenly, a wing panel torn and distorted by the blast from a near-miss. The violent forces of supersonic flight cleave the wing from the fuselage neatly, and the twisted remnants corkscrew crazily toward the ocean far below.

‘Launch. Section 2! Launch!’

Desperate now, he orders one of the three bomber force elements to launch and let the Kitchens bear the brunt of the assault. From beneath their wings drop the tapered shapes, one after the other. Of the first six, one malfunctions and falls below the flight path in a long downward arc. In the second salvo, all six get away smoothly; streaking in the general direction of the battle group, radars seeking any sort of positive return that will indicate a ship on the water.

The bombers, freed of their loads, trail the missiles to lend their jamming power to the attack. It is a fatal move for two more, stricken by Phoenix missiles.

Fighters take missiles under fire

The Tomcats and Hornets now concentrate on stopping the cruise missiles as they are launched. The enemy bombers are no longer offensive weapons, but they continue to protect their missiles with electronic warfare. The fighters, augmented by the DLIs now swirling into battle, begin to take cruise missiles and bombers under fire. Help comes again from the Prowlers, whose jamming continues to confound the Soviet crews, and from the Hawkeyes, whose radar data processors have managed to break through the heavy jamming.

Many of the cruise missiles are destroyed in flight, victims of Phoenix or Sparrow attacks by the F-14s. Some burn themselves out aimlessly, denied homing information by the Prowlers’ screening tactics, and plunge harmlessly into the sea. Others are brought down by the ships’ missiles, and one is shredded during its terminal dive by a burst of Phalanx gunfire.

Of the 36 cruise missiles that carried those hundreds of miles, only four manage to elude the fleet’s defences and achieve lock-on. One slams into a destroyer, just aft of the bridge, blasting a huge hole in its superstructure. A second Kitchen missile singles out the same target, unable to distinguish it from the carrier. A third missile finds one of the Aegis cruisers. Struck at the waterline, she stays afloat as damage-control crews work feverishly to contain the flooding below decks.

A Kitchen finds the carrier

The fourth Kitchen finds the carrier, striking on the upper port bow and blowing a hole in the hull, bending the deck plates back like the petals of some gigantic steel flower. Yellow machines and men rush to clear away the wreckage of two Tomcats and a helo; they have to patch over the rent deck in less than two hours. Flight operations go on virtually uninterrupted, using the waist catapults.

The Soviet surface force, probably the weakest element of the three-pronged attack, is not doing well. The Kara has taken several strikes. Her steering jammed, the Soviet cruiser begins a helpless circle at reduced speed, out of the action. Her escorts close in, trying to screen, but the American strike aircraft never come within range of the ships’ air defences. It’s obvious the missile cruiser is not going to get within launching range of the carrier force this time. The Navy Intruders swing into tight turns, head back to their carrier.

The Charlie, skippered by a clever submariner, is trying its best to evade the Lamps helo. But the Navy pilots have called in help, and an S-3 arrives, loaded for action. It begins to work a coordinated attack with the Lamps, adding its sophisticated sensors to those of the helo in a tactical pincer movement. Below, the sub-commander sweats, curses, and tries a run for it. For a minute or so he feels confident; he may yet break clear, surface, and fire. But then his sonarman calls a contact, and reports the signature of one of the new American homing torpedoes. Now, only a chance error in the torpedo’s guidance can save Charlie.

Gradually the hydraulic groans of missile launchers and the hammering of guns grow silent. Damage control crews report in. On the carrier bridge, there is a collective exhalation of breath, a slow realisation that the fight is over for now. ‘I think we’ve won this one,’ says the Captain. ‘Now let’s get cleaned up for the next time they try something cute. ‘

A decimated regiment limps home

To the north, a decimated force of Backfires heads for a forward base inside Afghanistan. The Commander’s plane and seven others limp homeward, a shattered force. Ten bombers – more than half the regiment – lie in fragments on the ocean bottom.

The Commander nurses his thoughts, battle-weary, still confused about what could have caused the carefully planned attack to fail. His mind turns over the most vividly recalled events. The Kara attack, the Charlie sneak punch. . . they had never come off. But it was his own force, the world’s most powerful long-range supersonic bombers, that had been counted on to destroy the enemy carrier force.

But the Americans’ defence had proved too stubborn, with too much depth. The Tomcats with their devilishly accurate long-range missiles, the Hawkeyes which had too soon broken through his jamming and regained control of the battle, and the Intruders which had stopped the Kara before it could launch against the carrier – who would have guessed they could do so well against our coordinated attack. It had to be the jamming; if those Prowlers hadn’t been so good at that, we could have gotten in and sent the carrier and many of its escorts to the bottom.

We had no alternative but to attack as we did. Each of my bomber commanders had studied the approved assault tactics until he knew them cold. There was no tactic that had said, in effect, take charge and improvise; maybe that was a mistake.

The battle plan was as sacrosanct as the Five Year Plan, carved in marble. To deviate was unthinkable; to improvise, not permissible. Yes, he thinks, it cost the majority of my force. And it cost the battle.