First Salvo (33 page)

The sea ahead of them erupted.
Briscoe
’s lookouts reported wreckage boiling to the surface at the same time her sonarmen reported secondary underwater explosions. A submarine had been hit! The second helo, arriving on station, had just reported torpedoes still running when another undersea blast occurred less than a mile away. A second sub!

Two destroyers and one submarine were left in that sector. But there was no way to locate it. No sonar could penetrate through the underwater mess to locate the last sub. And nothing was more dangerous than a high-speed submarine, one that knew it was free to move for a period of time without detection.

Nelson wheeled the two remaining ships about, reversing course. The sub had the upper hand for the time being. There was no reason to offer two perfect targets. Only
John Hancock
had a second helo available. She couldn’t recover, but Nelson could launch the remaining one. It had been armed and was ready in one hangar, and now he ordered it rolled out for launch.

As best they could determine, there were four submarines left against two destroyers. Each wolf pack had been hurt. Now the packs were independent, no longer able to present a united front. The initial part of Nelson’s plan had worked.

“Missiles away.” The buzzer echoed the voice, once again indicating that at least one missile was locked on to
John Hancock.
The source was in the vicinity they had just left. The one remaining submarine persisted! These must be its last missiles, unless the sub could reload tubes under trying conditions faster than Nelson anticipated. If only
Hancock
could get through this….

Nelson overheard the report of Sea Sparrows launched. He heard the report that they failed to bring down any missiles. Shortly thereafter, he could hear the thump of the automatic five-inch guns vainly pumping shells in the direction of the incoming missiles, hoping for a lucky hit. Then
Hancock
hummed to the shattering noise of the Phalanx system pumping three thousand rounds per minute at a point the fire-control system determined would intercept the missiles. There were two distinct explosions. One, Nelson was sure, was a hit on a missile. The second followed so quickly that the two were barely distinguishable—except that
John Hancock
reeled from the impact of one of them. The missile struck to the rear of the ship, perhaps near the aft gun or the Sea Sparrow launcher. It did not penetrate the lower decks of the ship before blowing up, but detonated on impact. The explosions that followed were Sea Sparrow warheads still in their launcher, and a combination of the helo on the flight deck and her torpedoes. The after section of the ship was shattered and fire raged out of control, fed by the fuel in the helo. Yet
Hancock
continued on her way, her engineering spaces untouched, her steering gear still functioning. Her only defenses were forward—a single five-inch gun, the remaining torpedoes in her ASROC launcher, and her Harpoon missiles which were useful only against a surface ship. She no longer could defend against missiles—her Sea Sparrow and Phalanx systems were destroyed.

There were still submarines ahead. One of the helos had regained contact but no longer had weapons to fire. Nelson sent
Briscoe
to its aid. Using the helo to pinpoint the approximate location of her contact,
Briscoe
fired ASROC torpedoes, hoping to home in on the submarine before it went deeper to reload its tubes. They assumed it must have been a stern chase, the submarine running and diving at the same time, but the torpedoes were faster. Sonar soon confirmed a sub breaking up. That left three submarines. The Russians’ undersea attack had been neutralized. Three subs could still fight, but their strategic capability had been destroyed.

Briscoe
came back alongside
Hancock
to assist in the fire fighting. Now Nelson had to make a decision. Should he shift his command to
Briscoe
? To the north, Nicholson had three destroyers and three frigates, all with helicopters—a more formidable force than Nelson had started with an hour before. From the position reports, Nelson was positive the Russian strategy had been for both forces to join, probably forming a southern submarine line to act both as decoy and secondary cruise-missile group for the Soviet surface forces as they swept toward
Kennedy
’s battle group. Nicholson was experiencing some contact, but the reports seemed to indicate that those submarines intended all along to head south toward a meeting point. If they did not attempt to break through Nicholson’s line, they could also be isolated.

In the end, there was no argument that could keep Nelson aboard
John Hancock.
The battle was to the north, an hour or so away. His ship could no longer fight a meaningful battle or defend herself. He was the overall commander. His XO could handle the ship. He was highlined to
Briscoe
to see his part of Pratt’s war through to the end.

ABOARD U.S.S.
JOHN F. KENNEDY

A
dmiral Pratt had seen such attacks before; some had been even more overwhelming than this one. But they had all been simulated. Sometimes NATO prevailed; other times the Russians had won. Some said it was all a matter of throw weight—the explosive power launched at you at a given time. Those who felt the U.S. would always win were absolutely sure it was a matter of tactics—if those tactics were coupled with superior American technology. And there were those few who said these arguments were unnecessary if the enemy were removed from the face of the earth before he could attack.

Dave Pratt knew it was a combination of the first two, plus a dollop of luck. During war games, his computers could destroy his entire battle group if the Soviets were allowed an unlimited number of Backfires. But that would never be the case because, after warning of the initial launch, his own forces would rise to the attack, and the Air Force would set about destroying Soviet air bases and their resupply system.

As he analyzed the development of the attack, Pratt quietly congratulated himself on his initial determination a few weeks before. If he were willing to accept heavy losses at sea, there might definitely be a chance of turning back the crucial land battle for Central Europe.

The nuclear cruiser
Arkansas
was his next ship to face Soviet missiles, although the number of missiles that might have been targeted for her was much more than ever came close to hitting her. Some were drawn off by the chaff that affected their homing radars, others were decoyed away from the real target.
Arkansas
brought down at least six of them herself, but there were those that got through. The first dove deep into the bow, the explosion lifting the forward missile launcher out of the deck. When fire threatened the magazine, her captain ordered flooding. The increasing weight of the water began to slow her forward progress. A second missile struck aft just moments later, passing through the hangar deck. The blast damaged the steering gear, and now
Arkansas
was forced to steer with her engines. Burning fuel threatened the after magazine, and the captain was forced to flood there also. The huge nuclear-powered cruiser was now unable to operate her main battery, the formidable dual missile launchers. She was limited to two automatic five-inch mounts, less firepower than a tiny World War Two escort.

Arthur W. Radford
, out on the antisubmarine screen, located the first submarine to break through. Her first warning came through sonar, the scream of approaching high-speed screws. As her captain threw the rudder over in an effort to evade, two torpedoes hit close amidships, about fifty feet apart. The explosions were simultaneous—Radford broke in two. She never had the chance to fire a weapon.

The first hit on
Kennedy
was on the port quarter, disabling the elevator. The fires there were quickly controlled and might have been insignificant if a second missile had not penetrated the hull on the same side. The flow of water to the fire hoses was instantly cut off. Then the first fire began spreading, igniting a helo poised to go up to the flight deck. Fuel tanks exploded and burning fuel spread to ammunition. In moments, a conflagration shrouded the after section of the hangar deck, and a third missile slammed into the starboard side under the island. With power to the upper levels cut, Dave Pratt found himself in darkness in flag plot.
Kennedy
was suddenly very alone, unable to monitor the battle outside. Luckily her engine rooms remained untouched, and she was able to continue under her own power. Yet in the real world of electronic warfare, she was proceeding blindly toward the enemy.

ABOARD U.S.S.
YORKTOWN

A
s Carleton had explained earlier to Dave Pratt,
Yorktown
was everything they had designed her for—and more. Without AEGIS, there would have been no doubt about the outcome of the Battle of the Mediterranean. The Soviets’ first salvo was intended to eliminate resistance, and the ferocity of the effort could only be understood by those who had studied Soviet strategy. With the exception of the use of atomic weapons to end the war in Japan, never before had so much explosive been used at one time by mankind.

As the Backfires crossed the southeastern Greek islands, Tom Carleton ordered AEGIS into automatic. Then electronic warfare devised by man took over man’s battle. The computer was able to search and catalogue hundreds of contacts at one time; it was fed information on aircraft and air-to-surface missiles by the giant fixed-array radar. Secondary radars catalogued all surface contacts, and sonar delivered data on the undersea picture. The computer also received information from Hawkeye aircraft hundreds of miles out on the perimeter, from individual ships in outer stations, and would have accepted everything sent to it by recon satellites.

Once an object was recorded by the computer, it was then identified as either friend or foe and appeared on the appropriate display console or status board. The next step was threat evaluation—to determine which of the hundreds of catalogued targets offered the most immediate threat to the battle group. AEGIS would then select the appropriate weapon, whether on board
Yorktown
or on another ship attached by LINK to the battle group. Once the weapon was fired, AEGIS remained in touch with the situation until the threat no longer existed.

AEGIS instantly processed every bit of information within electronic range, notwithstanding the electronic countermeasures presented to it. The Soviets utilized jammers of their own, responding to search radar by returning dual or triple images where only one existed. As the Soviets came within range of the battle group, they launched their own anti-radiation missiles which homed in on search and fire-control radars.

Electronic warfare has little concern for blast effect— its basis is purely deception, the creation of countermeasures and countercountermeasures. Damage—and unimaginable loss of life—occurs as the result of a simple failure, the failure of a microchip, the failure of a circuit to open or to close according to design.

These thoughts coursed through Tom Carleton’s mind as he watched the scene develop in
Yorktown
’s CIC. AEGIS’s computer system faithfully recorded successes and failures faster than the human mind could assimilate them.

The initial hit on
Yorktown
did not seem overly serious at the time in comparison with what might have been damaged. The starboard Phalanx exploded a missile warhead an instant before it hit the ship. It was aft, just behind the number-two engine room, where damage could have been critical. Yet an explosion that close does inflict damage, and in this case, the explosive force tore into the hull at water level, opening up the generator room and damaging the number-three generator. Damage control isolated the area immediately.

When an electrical failure occurs on an AEGIS cruiser, there is a load-shedding feature that transmits power requirements to the remaining two generators. If one generator fails, the system sheds electrical demand by various sectors of the ship to avoid overload. In this case, Carleton noted with relief, there was only a momentary dimming of the AEGIS system before it continued normal operation. Those parts of the ship requiring electrical power would be quickly brought back on line through crossconnecting by the damage-control parties.

Yorktown
continued on her way, steadily closing on the enemy forces, steadily managing the battle with her powerful computer.

The second hit, however, was more critical. This time there was no last-minute save by Phalanx. A cruise missile plunged into the bow, destroying the three upper sonar equipment rooms.
Yorktown
’s ability to detect submarines was lost in an instant, but this was not critical to the battle group; other ships could relay the ASW picture. Of greater import was the fire that the blast generated. Within moments, the high-temperature alarms went off in the magazines below the forward five-inch mount. Damage control reported to Carleton that they were unable to control the fires in time to save the magazines. He was forced to order them flooded.

It was at this stage that a quirk of luck, or nature, occurred that threatened to change the outcome of the battle. Though
Kennedy
’s battle group was sustaining heavy damage,
Kennedy
was still moving east toward the enemy surface force. The carrier, though still burning, could still recover aircraft—
Yorktown
’s AEGIS still controlled the defense.

A Soviet Alfa-class submarine, one of those that had been worrying Admiral Pratt for more than twenty-four hours, was the cause. They are the fastest and quietest of the Russian submarine armada. Their titanium hulls make sonar detection extremely difficult. They are the deepest diving submarine known and they are highly automated. This particular submarine,
Odessa
,
had escaped contact more than thirty-six hours before. Diving deep, she avoided the infrared capability of the recon satellites. Finding security under a layer of extremely cold water that defied sonar detection, she cruised slowly and very quietly under
Kennedy’s
battle group.