The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

8. Counter-Attack

8.1 America

8.1.1 Halsey: Gulf of Oman

"Admiral," Captain Teegin called out, pointing to the horizon, "Seventh Fleet is in sight. I'm receiving a signal from the replenishment ship Lipton. It reads, 'Belly up to the bar, boys!' She's five points off our starboard bow."

Jim Duncan breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Signal Spigott to take over all fleet screening. Get the frigates refueled, first."

The frigates, almost dry from their extended period of running at high-speed, drank thirstily from Lipton's gigantic bunkers. Halsey needed both fuel oil for its turbines and jet fuel for its aircraft. Carson needed fuel, but more importantly she needed to replace the SM-4s she had expended over a week before.

Refueling is a long, boring and demanding job, requiring two ships to travel in parallel for an extended period. However, as the ships get closer to each other, the current between them sucks them together. Yet, they can not drift apart, because of the length of their refueling lines. Deft seamanship is required to keep the ships on station.

In comparison, rearming vertical launch tubes is an order of magnitude more difficult. Vertical launch tubes had been developed to maximize the number of missiles in the available deck space. They also had the advantage that there were no moving parts, such as a launcher. Once the missile was installed within the array, it was ready to fire.

In port, reloading the launch tubes is fairly routine. Depending upon the shipyard, a ship is firmly held in a stable area, such as a dry dock or alongside a pier. A crane is used to raise a launch carton containing the missile into position. A special mobile gantry is slid into place over the launch tube, acting much like a funnel. The missiles are slipped through the gantry directly into the launch bay. Once the missile is in place, a team of electronics experts plug them in and test them. Typically, a skilled team with all the right equipment can reload a Burke's eighty-two vertical mounts in an eight-hour shift.

At sea, reloading the vertical arrays was a very different story. As with refueling, two ships sail side by side for an extended period. Both ships are moving, not just ahead, but also up and down and side to side while rocking back and forth. There is no way for one ship to position a missile cartridge over a hole in another ship.

Instead, four 1500-pound, prepackaged missiles are carefully transferred from the replenishment ship to the DDG's deck. The destroyer, using its own hoists, lifts each sixteen-foot box into position. Then, as the ship rolls, pitches and yaws, a team carefully manhandles the missile into the tube, being careful not to smash it into the other ones already in the array.

As the topside crews transfer the next batch of SM-4s from the replenishment ship to the DDG's deck, technicians crawl within the claustrophobically small space beneath the missile containers to connect them electrically and test the birds. Worse still, if a missile doesn't check out, it has to be extracted and another laboriously loaded in its place.

Reloading is hard work -- both mentally and physically exhausting. Tiger teams of specialists are assigned to the task. This is their one and only job until the process has ended.

Yet, such was the skill of the specialists and the navigation crews that the process of reloading Carson's vertical arrays took only twelve hours to complete. When the job was done, the DDG was ready to fight again. Charley Taylor gave his tiger teams a full watch off, anything they wanted to eat, and a movie of their choice in the mess hall. They'd earned it.

As Sixth Fleet replenished, the commanders of the different departments met to collaborate and redefine their roles within the combined fleet, now designated the Ninth or Gulf Fleet. The commanders of Halsey's two frigates, Kimmel's three and Wasp's two met with the Screen Commander, Charles Taylor of the Carson. The missile team met under Captain George Ball, CO of missile cruiser Saratoga and his Missile Boss, Commander W. "Ralph" Rafael. The two CAGs, the Air Bosses, and Senior Commanders met to work out the fleet's air dispositions.

Vice Admiral Duncan and Rear Admiral Norm Spigott met with their senior commanders, Rear Admiral (jg) Jerry Lake of the LPHN Wasp and Brigadier General Sam Carter of the Third Marines, along with their respective J-2s to discuss the general strategy they'd use to carry out Gator Algarro's plan to destroy the Iranaqi supply lines.

Admiral Duncan kicked off their meeting. "Gentlemen, and you too, Norm," he said, grinning wickedly at his brother-in-law who, in turn, flipped the bird at his commanding officer, "as I see it, we have over two hundred miles of target and one hundred planes with which to strike it. Obviously, we have to go about this process in some other way than assigning two miles of dirt to each aircraft. We have to strike at places that will maximize our power and the damage we can do to them.

"As I see it, one place stands out clearly." He flicked a button and the big screen in his briefing room lit up with a map of the Persian Gulf. He stood, walked to the display, and pointed to the road paralleling the Gulf coast.

"This road is the main artery between Kuwait and the South. In fact, there's only one other North-South route in the whole country. Whoever controls this road controls the east." His finger stabbed at the display. "This fork, leading to Suffaniyah in the east and Qaysuma in the west, is the key. If we can control this junction, we should be able to cut the Iranaqi supply lines instantly and permanently.

"So, why hasn't the Air Force done this already?" he asked, rhetorically. "They've tried. They've thrown F-19s, F-22s, F-34s and even A-29s at it.

"But, the Iranaqis can also read maps. They refurbished two small airfields in Suffaniyah and Qaysuma, put a bunch of MiG-31s on 'em, and dared the Air Forces to do anything about them. Then, they transferred a whole lot of stuff up here to Kuwait City and Ahmadi to back up their forward bases when we do attack. Finally, they refurbished the air base at Jubayl.

"Why would we be any better off trying to kill that road junction than the Air Force? We're attacking from the other side.

"The Iranaqis are set up to detect and defend against attacks from the southeast, south, southwest and west. We can attack them from the east and northeast.

"We can't sneak up on them. They know we're coming. They'll see us round Oman and watch us all the way through the Straits of Hormuz. They'll watch us from every island throughout that shallow pond. So, we have to make them think we're doing one thing and then do another.

"Do you remember the last war over here? Schwartzkopf called his move the pump fake. Well, we're going to do the same thing, only different. Instead of a pump fake, I'm going to do a Flea-Flicker.

"Remember your old football plays? The quarterback fakes a hand-off to the fullback, who hits the line just like he had the ball. Instead, the QB hands the ball to the halfback, who sprints out towards the end of the line. But, the quarterback continues to fade back as though he had the ball. The QB actually fakes a pass, just to keep the defense guessing.

"By the time the defenders figure out that neither the quarterback nor the fullback has the ball, the halfback is running like hell. The defense panics and sends everyone after him. But, just before they tackle him, the halfback laterals the ball back to the quarterback. The quarterback has all the options. He can run, throw the ball to the either the fullback, the halfback or one of the ends.

"The secret of the entire play, though, is that the defenders can see what's happening at all times. They can see the ball going back and forth all over the place. They protect against the fake and end up confusing themselves. Their confusion works against them, leading to a score.

"We're going to start by faking the fullback plunge where they can see us." He pointed again to his display. "Farst Island is the key. I want them to see us launch. We'll show them a fullback plunge directed at their forward airbase, here, at Jubayl. They'll have to go to full alert and scramble everything they've got to defend themselves. Instead, we'll send the halfback, our Avengers, to hit Suffaniyah!

"Now, remember that they saw our big launch. They'll have to figure that we hit Suffaniyah with those aircraft. They'll be wrong. Our Tomcats, Hornets and Harriers will be way down here, off the coast of Bahrain."

"All their aircraft from Jubayl will be in the air when they learn about our attack on Suffaniyah. What'll they do with them? They could stay home. If so, we'll out-wait them. The moment they start to cycle their aircraft down to refuel, we'll hit their CAP with our Tomcats, and blow the crap out of their airport with our Hornets.

"On the other hand, and this is what I'm hoping they'll do, they might come out after us. They might figure on hitting our planes returning from Suffaniyah to catch them while they're low on fuel.

"If they do come out, we bushwhack 'em with the T-2s. Then, we bomb their undefended base with the Hornets. Either way, we knock off both Suffaniyah and Jubayl.

"At that point, Farst Island will have outlived its usefulness. So, we'll knock it out. That's where the Marine's Harriers come in. After that, the Marines can hit the road with impunity."

Duncan sat down to let his idea sink in. He'd done his best to sell his plan. Now it was time to see if his brain-child survived.

Being senior and the other fleet commander, Norm Spigott took first turn in the barrel. "OK, Flea-Flicker, war of movement and all that, but I see a whole lot of the element of surprise built into this. They'll be expecting us and looking for an attack from the sea. As you said, they've got lookout posts scattered all through these islands, and they'll be watching us, both optically and with radar. How do we avoid detection?"

"Norm, we don't. They have to see us for the Flea-Flicker to work. I've built some surprise into it, because we have stealth and their communications are slow. But, that's all."

Spigott still wasn't satisfied. "I'm still concerned about their reaction time, Jim. Can the Air Force do something to pull the Iranaqi planes up and to the west, so that we can sneak in the back door?"

Duncan nodded in agreement. "I've already talked with Gator's staff about that. He's concerned about the timing over such long distances, and I have to agree with him on that.

"The Air Force could be a big part of this. However, they don't want to be used as our stalking horse. They're trying to invert the plan so that we get the Iranaqis to chase us, while they attack from the rear.

"This is typical college bullshit, Army-Navy game and all that crap. You know as well as I do that this kind of politics is rife in the services. So, I need to be able to do it alone if we have to."

Spigott agreed, enthusiastically, "Oh yes, Jim, if we have to, hell, we can make it work. It'd just be easier if we had a stalking horse. Other than that I can go along with it."

"Admiral," General Carter said, scowling at the big display, "I'd like to make a few suggestions. If your halfback and fullback strikes do their jobs, it really opens things up for my Marines. If we can sort of hide the Wasp after your strikes are completed, I can sneak off without the Iranaqis seeing us. I can put a company onto Farst Island to mop up after the air strike. And, I can lead the rest of my battalion to the mainland using our choppers and Ospreys. We can begin cutting the Iranaqi supply lines tonight."

"Do you really think you can pull it off, Sam?"

"Yes, Admiral, I do. If we hit Farst with the LCACs while the air strikes are going on, the Iranaqis will be looking up, not out to sea towards the fleet. The choppers and Ospreys can fly low and be concealed by the fleet. As long as they stay low, nobody will know we're in Saudi until it's too late.

"The only question, Admiral, is one of intelligence. If you can use some of your sneaky planes to reconnoiter the road, we'll be able to find a good place to ambush a supply column. With the size of the Iranaqi army, I'd expect that they've got lots of convoys coming down from Kuwait. We should be able to figure out something."

"Sounds good to me, Sam. Anybody else? No? Then, let's get the staffs together and begin working on this." He laughed. "The Air Bosses will have to work their Ouiji boards overtime!"