Shattered Trident - Страница 76

“The ministry’s estimate is that the Chinese will wait until things start moving again in Tokyo, and then hit it again. The refugee problem is unbelievable. Anyone who can leave the city is fleeing to more rural areas.” The admiral paused for a moment, then continued, “It can’t be helped. Heaven decides our fates. Let us work hard together on problems closer to us.”

“The professor,” Hisagi replied. “Yes. He is grieving, as I am, but it has been less than two days since Admiral Kubo was killed. I believe that with time, Komamura’s spirit will return.”

“Do we have the time for that?” Orihara asked. “This war changes day by day.”

“But his strategy has never wavered. That is one of his lessons. We must avoid distractions and focus our attacks on China’s greatest vulnerability. He’s trained his assistants well. Certainly we can follow sensei’s guidance for a short time without his direct supervision.”

Suddenly the new air raid siren began to wail, and both men’s cell phones buzzed—another missile attack was incoming. Orihara shook his head, a rueful grin on his face. “So much for the ministry’s estimates! Come, let’s get to the shelters.”

11 September 2016

1200 Eastern Daylight Time

CNN Headline News

“NATO ministers met again today to consider possible reactions to the worsening economic situation caused by the Pacific and now Indian-Pakistani wars. Although both conflicts are well outside the NATO charter’s area of responsibility, the economies of all NATO countries are being battered by wildly fluctuating energy prices, and shortages of all kinds, especially finished goods that are largely only available from Asia. With ever-increasing shipping losses, and the blockade of the Pacific sea lanes, global trade has all but ground to a halt. Although initially content with the role of ‘concerned observer,’ demands from European citizens, as well as business leaders, have grown to near-deafening proportions. NATO may be compelled to act. They’re just not quite sure how.

“The normally busy shipping lanes, stretching from the Cape of Good Hope east all the way past Japan, are now a war zone. While some merchant ships continue to sail east of Good Hope, they do so at great risk, and without insurance.

“The British Royal Navy and French Navy have started to move warships from the piracy patrols in Africa, and from their home bases, to the Cape of Good Hope. They plan to begin convoying nonbelligerent merchant ships safely through the war zone, but questions have been raised about what ships will be allowed to sail in the convoys. Also, what if Chinese or Littoral Alliance submarines attack the merchants being escorted? Will the warships escorting the ships be allowed to sink them?

“China has also announced that it will begin convoying ships bound for Chinese ports, but has not released any details, or whether they will be coordinating with the NATO effort.

“NATO has ruled nothing out, although direct intervention in either conflict seems unlikely. In addition to possible further sanctions against China, seen as the aggressor in that war, and against India, NATO could authorize emergency transfers of arms to the Littoral Alliance countries, except India, and Pakistan, and sharing intelligence with the Littoral Alliance and Pakistan to assist in their defense.

“Newton Thursbury, the U.S. Representative to NATO, has lobbied aggressively that any measures should be defensive only, and designed to encourage the combatants in both wars to seek an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. representative spoke strongly. ‘A war between five countries in the South China Sea was bad enough. We now have ten countries involved in two separate wars. The last thing we need is to add NATO to the mix.’”

“In a follow-up to this morning’s report, new photographs from last night’s massive ballistic missile attack on Littoral Alliance capitals have been posted on the Internet. These photographs, many of which are extremely graphic, reveal a disturbing change in Chinese targeting strategy. Instead of striking military, political, or economic targets, the missiles largely hit the residential sections of Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, and Hanoi. Initial casualty estimates are in the thousands, but an accurate count is proving to be difficult as a number of residential areas and schools were hit in this latest attack. Due to the high number of casualties from previous missile barrages, and damage to some of the hospitals, medical facilities in those cities have been filled to capacity, forcing the use of public buildings as emergency medical wards.

“Civil authorities have brought in rescue dogs to aid in finding survivors, but the destruction is so great that heavy equipment cannot get close to the disaster scene, forcing rescuers to dig through the wreckage with hand tools.

“A Littoral Alliance foreign affairs spokesman issued a statement saying, ‘This latest attack shows just how desperate China has become. They are unable to counter our combined militaries, so they resort to terror attacks against our citizens. Their defeat is near, we will continue to press on!’”

12 September 2016

0800 Local Time

Littoral Alliance Headquarters

Okutama, Nishitama District

Tokyo, Japan

With eight nations making up the Littoral Alliance, the sixteen representatives to the working group, with the necessary translators, took up a fair amount of room. Admiral Orihara could not use the commons area for his briefing, given the level of security, but luckily the Hirano estate’s dojo made an excellent venue. The weapons racks, although empty, still gave the place a martial atmosphere, a perfect setting.

The representatives of each country sat in pairs at western-style desks, complete with national flags. The only jarring feature was the sight of dozens of cable runs taped to the floor carrying power and secure data to each delegation. This information was most definitely not going on a Wi-Fi network.

“Gentlemen and ladies, thank you for your time this morning. This is my first official duty as Japan’s military representative to the working group.” He bowed slightly. “Please take good care of me.”

The first slide said simply “Project Ryusei,” and below in English, “Project Meteor.” He quickly brought up a second slide, a map of China with symbols marking oil installations.

“We’ve been striking oil refineries along the coast with submarine-launched cruise missies, as well as unconventional sabotage and cyber attacks. The refineries at Juijang, Ningbo, Zibo, Beihai, and Panjin have all been reduced to below twenty percent output, effectively crippling them, but this takes time and great effort. There are also many refineries that are simply outside our reach.

“The South Korean land-attack cruise missile, the Hyunmoo 3, can only fly fifteen hundred kilometers after being launched from a submarine. While this sounds like a great distance, it is not compared to the vast expanse of China.” He pressed a control and an irregular red line appeared on the map, a little less than one-third of the way across China from its eastern coast. “Of greater concern is the land-attack Klub missile, employed by the Vietnamese and Indian navies, which has a far more limited range of three hundred kilometers. This severely restricts our ability to strike critical targets in the South China Sea area. All of the refineries that have been hit lie within this area,” Orihara pointed out.

He called up a picture of the South Korean missile, along with its specifications. “The Hyunmoo 3 has a five-hundred-kilogram warhead, which is enough to destroy most individual targets, but many oil refineries cover one or two square kilometers, with hundreds of components.”

An after-strike photo appeared of the Huabei Petrochemical Company petroleum refinery in northern China. “This is a major refinery, with an output of a hundred thousand barrels per day. It was struck by nine missiles fired by the submarine ROKS Ra Kyungji. Aiming for vital components like distillation towers and piping manifolds, the installation’s output was reduced by twenty-seven percent, and repairs are estimated to take several months.

“But the Korean Hyunmoo-3 and the Russian Klub, like most cruise missiles, are subsonic, and although both have very small radar signatures, they can be detected if the searching radar is close enough. The Chinese air defenses discovered the Huabei raid, which took just under twenty minutes to fly from the launch point to the target, and destroyed three of the missiles, or one-quarter of the twelve missiles launched. This is essentially the submarine’s entire load, the maximum number of missiles most subs can carry while still leaving an adequate torpedo loadout for self-defense.

“Another issue is the time it takes a submarine to load weapons in port, sail to the launch area while evading enemy defenses, and return to port after launch. While it is engaged in this type of mission, it’s not doing what it does best: sinking other ships and subs.”

Orihara turned and bowed slightly toward the South Korean delegation. “While the strike went well, and did great damage, we need to reach targets farther inland, with greater striking power, and less chance of interception.”

His next slide drew a surprised murmur from the delegates. It was a photo of a rocket, an orbital launch vehicle, with labeled arrows pointing to different components. The arrow pointing to the nose read “warhead.”

“This is a Japanese H II-series launch vehicle. It was first used in 2002, and has proven to be a dependable heavy-lift platform. Even the basic version can lift four metric tons to a high orbit.”