Ops briefed the skipper on their plan while Sam crawled into his rack and got some sleep. Ops didn’t mention it was Sam’s idea, though he did say the LDOs contributed to the plan. No sense in condemning the lot of them to op’s planning meetings – they’d just cheat the nuggets out of an opportunity to learn by making fools of themselves in front of Flags.
The skipper added a few details and tasked Ops with writing the op order, which meant the Ops Department JOs would be tested.
Monday morning, 0300, T-Time minus five, the New Jersey was steaming northeast at a leisurely 10 knots, EMCOM Charlie set, and her topside lit up like Times Square. They were close enough to the Ranger CTF that the cans’ protecting her were painting a nice picture of their search and fire control radars for the Jersey’s spooks. From the ecm gear, it was easy to see the cans were all clustered around Ranger, nice targets for a Surface Launched Cruise Missile with a low yield nuke to take them all out in one launch.
Though New Jersey could do it, so could the missile ships in her task force, and that really wouldn’t prove the BB’s worth. No, Ranger would suffer a more painful, personal fate.
At 0500, she had closed to 30 nautical miles, close enough that Ranger’s ECM guys would be wondering about the Furuno and Decca 2100 radars sweeping around among the Sperrys and Ratheons on the fishing boats. Those were passenger boat radars, and though it was a commercial waterway, there wasn’t usually any cruise ships steaming that close to the op area. They made a report to the CIC Watch Officer, and logged the contact.
But then, the Ranger’s spooks suddenly had bigger fish to fry. They were catching an SPS-48 3D F/C Radar off in the east. And moments later, an SPG lit off. Missile ships, the Orange force! Two minutes was all it took and they had them vectored.
“Combat, ECM, we have racket, vampire fire control radar bearing 275 degrees .”
“Combat, Aye”.
A second later the CIC watch officer threw back the curtain to the ECM room and strode inside. “You got the Orange Force already?” he said.
“Looks like they lit off their fire control stuff, probably just testing it. The exercise doesn’t start for another hour,” said the ECM operator.
“Yah, but what a fuck up. They tipped their hand and gave away their position. We’ll have fast movers on them before they know what’s hit them.”
He looked at the WRL10’s display as if he knew what it meant. “That’s them, right?” he said pointing at the racket coming from the south.
“Yes Sir, that’s them,” said the ECMO.
The CIC officer made his report to the bridge, along with his recommendation that they dispatch the cans to the south to intercept the BB and her brood before they got too close. It didn’t occur to any of them that the BB’s signature was missing from the racket burst.
New Jersey was now on the horizon, and the Ranger’s look out could see her lights.
The New Jersey’s look outs could see the Ranger, too. Aircraft carriers don’t care about darken ship, the flight deck is a dangerous enough place without having to stagger around in the dark. She looked like a Christmas tree.
Jersey’s CO was already the 05 level main battery control station. The guns were manned, and optical fire control solutions were being inputed to the Mark 1 Able fire control computer. She could fire now, and inflict sufficient damage to put Ranger out of commission for a month or two.
But the plan was humiliation, not annihilation. They were to get closer, much closer.
At 15 nautical miles, T minus 30, the New Jersey’s signal bridge reported a signal from Ranger. “Bridge, Sigs, Ranger’s Alfa-ing us”.
“Bridge, aye. Stand by.” Sam looked at Ops and smiled. “So they don’t recognize us. Ha!” he said.
Ops hit the bitch box switch and said, “Sigs, Bridge, ignore the Alfa.”
“Sigs, aye.”
“Let’s see how long it takes them to use the Bridge to Bridge”, said Ops.
“My money’s on 10 miles,” said Sam.
Ops turned his binoculars on the Ranger. He had to hand it to their signalmen, they kept up the Alfa interrogative tirelessly.
12 nautical miles out, the bitch box from CIC crackled to life. “Bridge, Combat, Ranger’s calling on Pri Ci. They are asking us to ID ourselves.”
“Combat, Bridge, you have them on ‘Ignore’ right?” asked ops.
“Combat, that’s a Roger. ECM says we’re being painted, but not any shooter radars.”
“Very well. Let me know if any fire control radars come up.”
He turned to Sam, “So far so good.”
9.5 nautical miles, the Bridge to Bridge’s Motorola broke squelch briefly, then crackled to life.
“Vessel to my west, this is the US warship, USS Ranger. Identify yourself”.
Sam laughed, “Oh hell, not a ‘US Warship’! What will we do?”
Ops waited a full minute, then keying the mic on the Bridge to Bridge, “USS Ranger, this is SS Azure Seas, cruise ship of the Princess Line returning to San Pedro from Mazatlan.”
“SS Azure Seas, this is Ranger. We are conducting a military exercise in this area and may be changing course without notice to conduct flight quarters. Be advised, you will be the burdened vessel.”
“Flight quarters? Will you be launching air craft?” asked Ops. “Could we watch?”
“This is Ranger, you may, but please maintain 10,000 yards off our beam, and no closer than 5,000 yards off our stern.
“Welcome. Ranger, out.”
“Azure Seas out, thank you, our passengers will be so excited!”
The Captain’s circuit crackled to life. ”Like taking candy from a baby. How long till first light?”
“About 20 minutes before they’re able to see the guns,” said Ops.
“OK, let’s take station 5,000 yards off their stern. It’s a natural blind spot for them. Two minutes before first light, bring her up to flank speed and make our run up her starboard side, between her and the can. At COMEX I want to be blowing holes in her side.”
Sam took the con so Ops could coordinate the missile ship strike without worrying about rules of the road. He gave ruder orders to the master helmsman to take them slowly to Ranger’s stern.
It was now five minutes before first light, and 40 minutes to COMEX. The 5MC from sigs crackled to life, “Bridge, Signal Bridge, Ranger’s showing meat balls, she’s turning into the wind and going to flight quarters.”
“She’s cheating – getting ready to launch a strike against the missile ships at COMEX,” said Sam.
Ops punched the Gun Fire Control button. “Captain, OOD, recommend we execute the strike. The missile ships are in position, solutions plotted, on my word they’ll illuminate Ranger with incoming SLCM racket. Should cause the screen force to sortie, giving us our shot.”
“Good call, Ops. Make it happen, but mind the plane guard can”.
“Roger.”
“Sam, order up flank.”
In rapid order, OPS ordered the missile ships to ‘fire’ their cruise missiles. The radar signal from the simulator was immediately interpreted on Ranger as an anti ship missile launch from North and West, two totally unexpected directions due to the misdirection signals sent out first by the tin cans.
The Ranger came up to flank speed as she turned into the wind. The plane guard destroyer, in position off Ranger’s stern to rescue luckless aviators who couldn’t catch the wire and splashed moved into position while the rest of the screen split to move against the Orange Force threat.
New Jersey was moving up on the Ranger. She’d killed the deceptive lighting pattern, and went to EMCON ALFA, complete emission silence. No one was paying her any mind, she was in Ranger’s and the plane guard’s blind spots, and any radar that painted her would show her to be a fishing boat or other small craft – her rounded shapes, an inadvertent byproduct of the artistic craftsmanship of WWII builders, and low freeboard, gave her a stealth advantage modern designers were still working to attain in modern warships.
At 40 knots New Jersey was bouncing like a pogo stick. She wasn’t used to such speed, and the main shaft bearings weren’t cooperating. She was going to wipe a bearing. The Chief Engineer, the Ops O, and the captain all hoped it would happen after she sunk the Ranger. “Eight burning, four turning”, a good day for the blackshoe navy.
As Ranger steamed past the plane guard, the secret was out, but it was too late. The plane guard wasn’t at GQ, and even if she had been, her 5 inch gun wouldn’t slow the New Jersey down, and New Jersey was so close to her that the plane guard’s missiles wouldn’t even arm before striking the Jersey. The Ranger suspended flight quarters and took an evasive turn, but Jersey was on her like a cheetah on an antelope.
Try as she might, Ranger couldn’t shake the Jersey. New Jesey was too fast and too maneuverable com[ared to the lumbering carrier. The Jersey slowly came along Ranger’ s port side, just so the whole flight deck crew could see. Her nine 16 inch guns were aligned to her starboard and level with Ranger’s waterline. As Pri Ci announced, “Now commence FLEETEX 2-87” Ranger’s bridge to bridge was receiving a message from the “SS Azure Seas”, “Thank you for your hospitality, Ranger. Please enjoy your break from the action. Azure Seas out”. The Jersey gunners fired air slugs at Ranger for emphasis while the New Jersey’s signal bridge was flashing “Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf, Golf” signifying that New Jersey had fired her nine 16” guns into Ranger’s hull, a decidedly fatal attack as judged by CINCPACFLEET’s referees.
POSTEX:
New Jersey had ended the exercise before it started, and while it was a brilliant tactical victory, it wasn’t appreciated. The whole point of the exercise was to test Ranger and her battle group, not NJ.
CINCPAC sent New Jersey back to the Southern Edge of the SOCAL OPAREA, and reset the exercise clock.
Ranger had her CAP on station, and the airborn E-2C Hawkeyes were patrolling the outer perimeter of her layered defense zone. The screening cans were also dispersed, spreading the task force from horizon to horizon per the nuclear defense plan.
Of course, Ranger passed her ORE, with lessons learned. In the restarted exercise, the Orange Force was never a real threat. Though they attacked from missile strike distances, their positions had been noted and the minute they ‘launched’, Standard missiles and Sea Sparrow missiles knocked the incoming SLCMs out of the sky, and F/A 18s roared in on the tin cans and the BB pickleing Hellfire Missiles and LGBs, ‘sinking’ them repeatedly.
New Jersey was never again given an Orange Force role.
But she did get to participate in another carrier battle group’s ORE, as part of the battle group, with interesting results.
Next episode.
3 comments:
Acronyms? Please let me know if I need to add a glossary.
Part II was great LC.
A list of abbreviations with meanings might not be a bad idea for any non-military/Navy types reading this.
Brevity is an essential tool in battle comm's.
In Nam we were in contact with ground units, FAC's, slicks, and the jets. Once in a while we had comm with the Blue Water guys.
It's a more precise way to relay details in a short amount of time, which could become a matter of life and death.
Took ahile to get used to it and even longer to relearn the English language again once we were out of that...hehe.
Thanks Dean.
When I was in Nam, I had to deal with Army types, Aussies, and the VNs, half the time I had no clue. But I learned. Didi mau, suk mai (sp?) and lai dai, occassional, lai dai co, too! ;)
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