The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

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'So, what the hell is going on?' Richards asked his staff.
'We have no idea, sir. No reason was given for the alert,' the communications
officer said lamely.
'Well, it leaves us between two chairs, doesn't it?' That was a rhetorical
question. The TR battlegroup was just passing Malta, and was now in range of
targets in the Soviet Union. That required 'The Stick's' A- 6E Intruders to take
off, climb rapidly to cruising altitude, and top off their tanks soon
thereafter, but at that point they had the gas to make it all the way to their
targets on or near the Kerch Peninsula. Only a year before, U.S. Navy carriers,
though carrying a sizable complement of thermonuclear bombs, had not been part
of the SIOP. This acronym, pronounced 'Sy-Op' stood for 'Single Integrated
Operations Plan,' and was the master blueprint for dismantling the Soviet Union.
The draw-down of strategic missiles – mostly land-based ones for the United
States – had radically reduced the number of available warheads, and, like
planners everywhere, the Joint Strategic Targeting Staff, co-located with
headquarters SAC, tried to make up for the short-fall in any way they could. As
a result, whenever an aircraft carrier was in range of Soviet targets, it
assumed its SIOP tasking. In the case of USS Theodore Roosevelt, it meant that
about the time the ship passed east of Malta, she became not a
conventional-theater force, but a nuclear strategic force. To fulfill this
mission, TR carried fifty B-61-Mod-8 nuclear gravity bombs in a special, heavily
guarded magazine. The B-61 had FUFO – for 'full fusing option,' more commonly
called 'dial-a-yield' – that selected an explosive power ranging from ten to
five hundred kilotons. The bombs were twelve feet long, less than a foot in
diameter, weighed a mere seven hundred pounds, and were nicely streamlined to
cut air resistance. Each A-6E could carry two of them, with all of its other
hardpoints occupied by auxiliary fuel tanks to allow a combat radius of more
than a thousand miles. Ten of them were the explosive equivalent of a whole
squadron of Minuteman missiles. Their assigned targets were naval, on the
principle that people most often kill friends, or at least associates, rather
than total strangers. One assigned SIOP mission, for example, was to reduce the
Nikolayev Shipyard on the Dniepr River to a radioactive puddle. Which was,
incidentally, where the Soviet carrier Kuznetzov had been built.
The captain's additional problem was that his battlegroup commander, an Admiral,
had taken the chance to fly into Naples for a conference with the Commander of
the United States Sixth Fleet. Richards was on his own.
'Where's our friend?' Roosevelt's CO asked.
'About two hundred fifty miles back,' the operations officer said. 'Close.'
'Let's get the plus-fives right up, skipper,' Jackson said, 'I'll take two and
orbit right about here to watch the back door.' He tapped the chart.
'Play it cool, Rob.'
'No sweat, Ernie.' Jackson walked to a phone. 'Who's up?' he asked the VF-1
ready room. 'Good.' Jackson went off to get his flight suit and helmet.
'Gentlemen,' Richards said, as Jackson left, 'since we are now east of Malta, we
are now part of the SIOP, therefore a strategic and not a conventional asset,
and DEFCON-TWO applies to us. If anyone here needs a refresher on the DEFCON-TWO