Read Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 for Free Online Page B

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                Yin’s flagship, the Hong Lung, or Red Dragon, was a beauty,
a true oceangoing craft for the world’s largest navy. It was a Type EF5
guided-missile destroyer that had a Combination Diesel or Gas Turbine
propulsion system that propelled the 132-meter, five-thousand-ton vessel to a
top speed of over thirty-five nautical miles per hour. The Hong Lung had a helicopter hangar and launch platform, and it
carried a modern, French-built Dauphin II patrol, rescue, antimine, and
antisubmarine warfare helicopter. Yin’s destroyer also carried six supersonic
Fei Lung-7 antiship missiles, the superior Chinese version of the French Exocet
antiship missile; two Fei Lung-9 long-range supersonic antiship missiles,
experimental copies of the French-built ANS antiship missile; two Hong Qian-91
single antiair missile launchers, fore and aft, with thirty-missile manually
loaded magazines each; a Creusoit-Loire dual-purpose 100-millimeter gun; and
four single-barreled and two double-barreled 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns.
It also had a single Phalanx CIWS, or Close-In Weapon System gun. Developed in
the United States of America , Phalanx was a radar-guided Vulcan
multibarrel 20-millimeter gun that could destroy incoming sea-skimming antiship
missiles; from its mount on the forecastle perch behind and below the con, it
could cover both sides and the stem out to a range of two kilometers. The Hong Lung also carried sonar (but no
torpedoes or depth charges) and sophisticated targeting radars for her entire
arsenal.
                The Hong Lung was specifically designed to patrol the offshore islands
belonging to China , such as the Spratly and the Paracel Islands , and to engage the navies of the various
countries that claimed these islands—so the Hong
Lung carried no antisubmarine-warfare weaponry like the older Type EF4
Luda-class destroyers of the North Fleet. The Hong Lung could defeat any surface combatant in the South China Sea and could protect itself against almost any
air threat. The Hong Lung’s escort
ships—the minesweepers and ASW vessels—could take on any threat that the
destroyer wasn’t specifically equipped to deal with.
                “Position, navigator,” Admiral Yin
called out.
                The navigator behind and to the
Admiral’s right called out in reply, “Sir!”, bent to work at his
plastic-covered chart table as a series of coordinates were read to him from
the LORAN navigation computers, then replied, “Sir, position is ten nautical
miles northwest of West Reef, twenty-three miles north of Spratly Island air
base.”
                “Depth under the keel?”
                “Showing twenty meters under the
keel, sir,” Captain Lubu Vin Li replied. “No danger of running aground if we
stay on this course, sir.”
                Yin grunted his acknowledgment. That
was exactly what he was worried about. While his escorts could traverse the
shallow waters of the Spratly Island chain easily, the Hong Lung was an oceangoing vessel with a four-meter draft. At low
tide, the big destroyer could find itself run aground at any time while within
the Spratly Islands .
                Although the Spratlys were in
neutral territory, China controlled the valuable islands informally
by sheer presence of force if not by agreement or treaty.
                Yin’s normal patrol route took the
flotilla through the southern edge of the “neutral zone” area of the island
chain, scanning for Philippine vessels and generally staying on watch. Although
the Philippine Navy patrolled the Spratlys and had a lot of firepower there,
Admiral Yin’s smaller, faster escort ships could mount a credible force against
them. And since the Philippine ships had no medium or long-range antiship
missiles or antiair missiles in the area* the Hong Lung easily outgunned every warship within two thousand miles.
                They