Kirov (28 page)

“No
range was reported on the contact?” asked the Admiral.

“The
signal was cut off, sir. But that plane should have been about here when we got
this signal.” He pointed to a navigation chart. “And considering its aerial set
can range out no more than a hundred miles, on a good day, that would put the
contact somewhere here, sir. Perhaps a hundred and fifty miles south by
southwest of our present position. That’s well within strike range for the
Albacores.”

Designed
as a replacement for the older Swordfish torpedo bombers, the Albacore had
nearly twice the range of the old “Stringbags” as the Swordfish had been
called. With a maximum range of 930 miles, it could strike targets over 300
miles out, using the rule of thumb that an aircraft’s strike range was about a
third of its maximum. It was still a bi-plane in design, yet had a metal
framework and fuselage and a more powerful and reliable engine.

Yet
the Albacores had much to do if they were to ever equal the storied
achievements of their older predecessor. The British had used Swordfish in the
daring attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, losing only two planes in
exchange for hits on three Italian battleships. A few squadrons of the old
Stringbags based on Malta had accounted for 50,000 tons of enemy shipping per
month
in the Med, and it was a Swordfish off the carrier
Ark Royal
that
eventually put a torpedo into
Bismarck’s
Achilles heel, damaging her
rudders and causing her to steam in fretful circles while the Royal Navy
finally closed in for the kill.

“What
type of ship was it?” asked Wake-Walker. “I can’t very well send off my
squadrons only to find this is a lone commercial steamer.”

“There
was no word as to type,” said Bovell. “But we passed it off as a steamer the
first time, sir, and
Anthony
took a punch for that mistake. Thank god
there were no casualties.”

The
Admiral nodded, thinking that he had been a bit sloppy in this business up
until now and wanting to get on top of the situation. He had orders to engage a
cruiser, yet only to shadow if this were anything bigger. What was out there?
Anthony
had been hit by a fairly small caliber gun, enough to warn her off but not
enough to do much damage. If this were
Tirpitz
he could understand why
she might refrain from using her big 15 inch guns on a small, fast moving target.
If it were
Hipper
or another cruiser, she might well have fired her 8
inch guns, but apparently did not. Her captain even reported the ship signaled
him in English. What was that all about?

The
very first report he had on this contact still stuck in his mind. The pilot
said he could see no big turrets that would be obvious on a cruiser or anything
larger. He did note several smaller guns, and at one point seemed to indicate
the ship’s forward deck was covered with cargo hatches. Could this be another fast
German commercial raider disguised as a merchant ship? They had been a
persistent nuisance, like
Raider-C
, the German auxiliary cruiser
Atlantis
.
That ship looked like nothing more than a tramp steamer until it opened up with
its six 5.9 inch naval guns.

On
the other hand, the report from
Anthony
seemed to suggest this was a
fairly large ship, and all those descriptions spoke of the threatening nature
of her design and silhouette. He had to make up his mind, and decided if this
was
commercial traffic, all he had to lose by ordering a strike was a little
aviation fuel. Yet if this were a German raider, then he stood to lose very
much more if he let her slip away.

“Signal
Furious
,” he said quietly. “Have them spot an Albacore squadron first
thing in the morning. We’ll keep steady on this intercept course and close the
range somewhat tonight. Grenfell’s fighters can send out two radar equipped
Fulmars to keep watch, but I want them at the extreme range of their equipment.
Let’s not lose anyone else until we can coordinate a decent strike plan, and
for that we’ll better light. Tomorrow morning we’ll get out there and have a
look at this contact with something that can settle the matter if this is a
German ship.”

“Very
good, sir,” said Bovell. “Up here that won’t be far off. I’ll see that the men
are ready.”

~
~ ~

Just
after dawn
on
August 2nd
,
Admiral Volsky had little time to wonder what his weapons
might do to successive generations. Rodenko's radars had spotted a substantial
incoming contact, twenty four planes inbound at a fairly low altitude.

“It
looks like we were too late getting a missile on that first contact,” said
Karpov. “They have seen us and this is an obvious strike wave. We should engage
it at long-range with the S-300 system as before. They will never know what hit
them.”

Admiral
Volsky considered that advice, but his thoughts strayed to his ammunition
stores. His S-300 missiles were located up front, on the elevated forward prow
of the ship, and mounted in vertical launch tubes, sixty-four missiles in all.
He had used one to shoot down the enemy radar picket, and if he used the system
again now in a normal barrage of sixteen or twenty-four missiles he would
expend more than a third of his missile inventory for this battery. Once they
were gone the ship would have to rely on its medium-range missile defense, or
close in gun systems should they be attacked from the air again.

Modern
combat at sea had been compressed into a few violent minutes and seconds where
opposing forces would fling their arsenal of missiles at each other, with a
decision final enough to end the conflict within the hour. Yet it was not
hours, but long days, months, even years ahead for them that he had to think
about now. Once these missiles were expended there would be no others to
replace them. Yet he could not allow a single one of these planes to launch a
torpedo that might have the slightest chance of striking
Kirov
. Their
war had begun in earnest now, and he had little choice but to fire.

“Mister
Fedorov was correct,” he said in a low voice. “The British can only assume we
are German, and they are acting accordingly. Of course, we will have to defend
the ship, but I’m afraid if we keep on this course there will just be more of
the same ahead for us.” He shrugged, somewhat disconsolate, then turned to his
weapons watch officer. “Mister Samsonov,” he said, his voice intoning an
obvious authorization.

Samsonov's
systems could track and target a hundred separate contacts, but considering the
large explosive warhead on these missiles, the Admiral decided to limit his
outgoing salvo to a barrage of six. If these planes were flying in formation,
he might take down several with a single missile.

“Arm
six S-300 missiles, Mister Samsonov. Only six,” he repeated. “You may fire when
the range is appropriate.”

“Sir,
I have seven missiles left in the first module, shall I use them all?”

“Six
please. Hold one missile in reserve.”

“Aye,
sir,” said Samsonov. “Engaging target in ten seconds.”

He
was toggling switches, selecting out his missile bank, and locking in the radar
signatures being fed into the Combat Information Center. A moment later he
fired. There was a warning claxon and again they watched the nose of the ship
ignite in a wash of billowing smoke as missiles catapulted up from their
enclosures, ignited their engines and lanced up and away into the gray sky
ahead of them.

As
before, the British pilots in their old biplane Albacore's had little time to
think when they first caught sight of strange white contrails streaking in
toward their position. Nikolin was listening to see if he could pick up any
radio communications from the strike group, and clearly heard the voices of men
shouting as the missiles struck home.
“Bloody hell,”
he heard them say.
“What
in god's name is that?”

Seconds
later Rodenko noted the missiles struck home and sent the signal contacts spiraling
off in all directions as if they had thrown a stone into a beehive. The salvo
had taken a bite out of the main group of eighteen planes he had been tracking,
and of these only eight now remained. The others were dancing about with
evasive maneuvers, and a second group had branched off and was now also scattering
in all directions. Nikolin could hear them calling to one another, their voices
strained and desperate, trying to make sense out of what had happened.

The
planes were now about seventy-five miles from
Kirov
, their crews
straining their necks this way that, eyes scanning the gray sea ahead, thinking
to see an enemy ship blazing away at them with its antiaircraft guns. Yet the
seas were dark and empty, and the pilots were frantically steering their planes
into any covering clouds they could get to, unaware of the fact that this made
no difference to their fate whatsoever.
Kirov
was seeing them with other
eyes, it's radars penetrating even the thickest cloud cover to clearly pinpoint
their positions on Rodenko's screens.

“Have
the contacts changed heading?” asked the Admiral.

“We've
shaken them up, sir,” said Rodenko, “but they are still inbound.”

“One
more missile, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral.”You may finish off that last
tube now.”

Samsonov
fired, and the last S-300 rocketed away toward the unseen enemy. Minutes later
it exploded taking down yet another plane, and the Admiral was pleased to learn
this last missile had had the effect desired. Nikolin turned to him, his eyes
bright with a smile.

“I
believe they're breaking off, sir,” he said. “I can hear them!”

“Confirmed,”
said Rodenko. “They are turning. The contact is moving away from the ship now,
outbound on a heading of zero-nine-five. They are still within range, sir.”

“That
will be all, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral. “Secure the S-300 system and
await further orders.”

“Finish
them off, Admiral,” said Karpov. “Destroy them now, or they may be back to bother
us again.”

Volsky
looked at him. “Perhaps, but they will be some time trying to discover exactly
what has happened to them just now. I do not think they will bother us again
today. Helm, increase speed to thirty knots.”

“Speed
thirty knots,” the helmsman replied, and
Kirov
’
s
powerful engines
increased rotations and churned the seas with a frothing white wake. As she did
so one of the escorting Fulmars had a good look at her with its Type 279 Radar,
and tapped out a fix on her position, course and speed.

~
~ ~

What
in god’s
name was
out there, thought Wake-Walker? His 828 Squadron had been cut to pieces. It was
worse than that. Of the nine planes in that squadron, only one was left. Three
more Albacore in his 827 Squadron had also been destroyed. His first thought
was that the strike group had lumbered right over the contact without even
seeing it, and had been cut to pieces by lethal and accurate antiaircraft fire.
But when the report came in from one of the escorting Fulmars that they still
had a reading on the target at a range of seventy-five miles, his mind spun off
into confusion.

His
strike group was badly shaken, clearly demoralized, broken up, and turning for
home. It was apparent that they had no idea what they had encountered. Not one
had reported seeing any ship, or any enemy aircraft. Several claimed they saw
something streaking in at their planes from below until the whole formation was
torn apart by one explosion after another. It was as if the Germans had them
bore sighted all along, and were picking them off with some lethal new gun
system. Yet not even the fearful eighty-eight millimeter dual-purpose gun could
fire seventy-five miles!

What
was happening? What in the name of heaven was he stalking now on the gray
Arctic seas? As soon as he had recovered the strike wave he went down to the
flight deck himself to get first-hand reports from the pilots. The men were
still shaken, and he sent them off to the briefing room where he later learned
that they had seen nothing whatsoever, nothing except the strange sets of white
contrails clawing through the sky. It was as if a great dark Panther had
reached out with its paw and gored them, swiping his planes out of the air. His
aircraft hangers would be twelve planes short now, and there were a lot of
empty chairs in the briefing room. He heard the men trying to explain, yet
unable to sort it all out.

“We
saw them streaks in the sky, sir,” one said. “Then it was as if we flew right
into a storm of steel. Explosions and shrapnel everywhere. The formation was
nice and tight, sir, and most of the lads up front were gone in seconds. Blew
the hell out of the lead planes, it did. I saw two had their wings cracked
right off and bang away they went down into the sea. After that we was all
diving for cloud cover and looking for the ship. But there
was
no ship,
sir! I was damn near down on the deck after our dive, and there was nothing I
could see in any direction. Maybe it was a submarine, I thought. Could the
Germans have some type of new U-boat with flak guns mounted up top, sir?”