China Invades Taiwan (The Russian Agents Book 6) by Ted Halstead

Author:Ted Halstead [Halstead, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2021-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Five

Changzheng 21

Under the East China Sea

Captain Huang and Commander Zeng looked at each other as a tone sounded they had never heard outside an exercise. The tone alerting them to a message sent from the Wireless Electromagnetic Method (WEM) Project.

WEM had taken over a decade to build before completion in 2018. Its Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) antenna array covered an area of central China greater than New York City. Officially its purpose was to map underground mineral resources and provide early warning of earthquakes. Which were both scientifically valid explanations.

And had nothing to do with the money spent on it. Its real purpose was communicating with submarines since ELF radio waves could penetrate seawater.

The downside of ELF technology, and the reason the Americans had abandoned it, is that messages had to be extremely short. In practice, the only message sent was a code saying, "Approach the surface, so you can extend your communications antenna to receive further orders."

Ordinarily. Before this mission, though, Captain Huang and Commander Zeng had both been informed of a new ELF code.

One which, once received, would authorize unrestricted submarine warfare. Huang would have complete discretion in picking his targets and choosing his weapons. No additional authorization from headquarters would be required.

In practice, there would be only one restraint on Huang's freedom of action. All attacks would be recorded and logged by multiple systems aboard the Changzheng 21.

Naturally, Huang would be expected to justify his actions after the Changzheng 21 eventually returned to port.

Huang and all other submarine commanders had also been given a priority target list. At the top of that list were enemy submarines.

The lowest priority among them were two submarines built by the Americans during WWII for service against Japan. Both were completed too late to fight in that war and were later sold to Taiwan and renamed as Hai Shih-class submarines.

Both submarines now had the distinction of being the oldest and longest-serving ones in the world. They were used primarily to train Taiwan's submarine crews, and neither was expected to be encountered during this mission.

The two Chien Lung class diesel submarines Taiwan had purchased from the Dutch in the 1980s were another matter. Until recently, they had been considered more a nuisance than a real threat.

That changed once the two Chien Lung submarines were each outfitted with sixteen Harpoon Block II missiles by the Americans, along with the weapon control systems and other associated equipment needed to fire them. That upgrade was completed in 2016.

Harpoon missiles were a mortal threat to every ship in the invasion fleet, and so the two Chien Lung submarines were high on the priority list.

But not as high as the three Indigenous Defense Submarines (IDS) that Taiwan had built on its own. Though eight IDS had been planned, only three had deployed so far, the first in 2023 and the next two in 2024. The Americans had provided designs for combat system integration, digital sonar systems, optronic periscopes, torpedo tubes, and diesel engines.

The Americans had also sold

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.