Red Storm Rising (1986) (96 page)

“Fire-control?”

“Set!”

“Match generated bearings and shoot!”

“Two fired, sir.”

The Alfa might hear the air blast or he might not, McCafferty knew. The torpedo moved off at forty knots on a heading of three-five-zero, well off the bearing to the target. Three thousand yards out, a command sent down the control wires told the torpedo to turn and go deep. McCafferty was being very cagey with this shot, more than he would have preferred. When the Alfa detected the incoming fish, it would be from a bearing that
Chicago
wasn’t at—if he fired a return shot, it would not come toward them. The disadvantage of this was the increased chance of losing the control wires and getting a clean miss. The torpedo was running deep to take advantage of the water pressure that reduced cavitation noise, hence reducing the range at which the Alfa could detect it. They had to play some extra angles on this because the Soviet sub had a top speed of more than forty knots and was almost as fast as the torpedo itself.
Chicago
continued to move southwest, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the torpedo.

“Torpedo continues to run normal, sir,” sonar reported.

“Range to target?” McCafferty asked.

“About six thousand yards, sir. Recommend that we bring her up at four thousand and go to high-speed,” the weapons officer suggested.

“Very well.”

The tracking party plotted the course of the torpedo and its target—

“Conn, sonar, the Alfa just increased engine power.”

“He hears it. Bring the fish up now, full speed, switch on the sonar.”

“Hull-popping noises, sir. The Alfa is changing depth,” the sonar chief called, excitement in his voice. “I have the torpedo sonar on my scope. Our unit is pinging. The target seems to be pinging also.”

“Sir, we lost the wires, the fish has lost the wires.”

“Shouldn’t matter now. Sonar, give me a blade count on the Alfa.”

“Doing turns for forty-two knots, sir, lots of cavitation noise. Seems to be turning. He may have just deployed a noisemaker.”

“Anybody ever shoot at an Alfa before?” the executive officer asked.

“Not that I know about.”

“Miss! Conn, sonar, the fish has passed aft of the target. Target appears to be heading east. The fish is still—no, it’s turning now. The torpedo is still pinging, sir. Torpedo also heading east—turning again, I have a bearing change on the fish. Skipper, I think it’s chasing after the noisemaker. I show an opening bearing between the fish and target.”

“Damn, I thought we had that one locked in,” the weapons officer growled.

“How far are we from launch point?”

“About seven thousand yards, sir.”

“Bearing to the Alfa?”

“Three-four-eight, target bearing is moving east, machinery noises are down, blade count shows about twenty knots.”

“He’ll keep putting distance between himself and the torpedo,” McCafferty said. As long as it was running and pinging, nobody wanted to get near it. The fish would circle until it ran out of fuel, but anything that came within its four-thousand-yard sonar radius risked detection. “What about the other two contacts?”

“No change, sir.” The plotting officer said, “They seem to be pretty much holding their positions.”

“That means they’re Russians.” McCafferty looked down at the plot. If they were Brits, they would have maneuvered and fired their own fish as soon as they’d heard the Alfa, and probably everyone in twenty miles had heard the Alfa.

Three to one, and they’re alerted now.
McCafferty shrugged.
At least I know what I’m up against.
Sonar reported another contact to the south.
It should be
Boston, Danny thought. If it wasn’t,
Providence
would have done something. He ordered Chicago south. If he had to blast a hole through three submarines, he wanted help. He rendezvoused with
Boston
an hour later.

“I heard an Alfa.”

“We missed. What did you get?”

“It had twin screws, and it’s dead,” Simms answered. Their gertrude phones were on a very low power setting.

“Three boats ahead about fourteen miles. One’s the Alfa. I don’t know about the others.” McCafferty outlined his plan quickly. The submarines would proceed north, ten miles apart, and would try to engage the targets from their flanks. Even if they missed,
Providence
should be able to go straight through when the Russians split to pursue. Simms agreed, and the boats split up yet again.

McCafferty noted that he was still about sixteen hours from the ice. There were probably still Soviet patrol aircraft overhead. He’d wasted a torpedo—
no,
he told himself,
that was a well-planned attack.
It just hadn’t worked, as sometimes happened.

A line of sonobuoys appeared—active ones this time—to his northeast. He wished angrily that the Russians would select one set of tactics and stick to it. Hell, all he wanted to do was leave! Of course he had launched missiles at the Soviet homeland and they were probably still angry about that. Nobody had ever told him whether the mission was successful or not. McCafferty commanded himself to stop this random thinking. He had trouble enough right here.

Chicago
moved northwest. As she did so, the bearing to all of her sonar contacts changed to the right. The Alfa was still there, her machinery noise fading in and out. Technically speaking, he could shoot at her, but he’d just seen that her speed and maneuverability were enough to beat a Mark-48 torpedo. He wondered what the Alfa’s skipper had done. Surprisingly, he hadn’t fired a torpedo of his own down the bearing of the incoming fish. What did that mean? It was an American tactic, and was supposed to be a Soviet tactic also. Was it because he knew that “friendly” boats were in the area? McCafferty filed it away, yet another case where the Russians were not acting the way they were expected to act.

The northwest course closed the distance markedly to one of the contacts. The Alfa and the other unknown maneuvered east themselves, maintaining the ten-plus mile range—unknowingly, the captain thought. He stood over the plot. A fire-control solution was already set on the nearest contact. Range was down to eight miles. McCafferty went to the sonar room again.

“What can you tell me about this one?”

“Starting to look like a Type-2 reactor plant, the new version. He may be a Victor-III. Give me five more minutes and I’ll know for sure, sir. The closer we get, the clearer he looks.”

“Power output?”

“Pretty low, sir. I thought I might have a blade count a few minutes ago, but it didn’t work out. He’s probably just making steerage.”

McCafferty leaned back against the bulkhead separating the room from the monstrous computer used to process signals. The line on the waterfall display that would show the unique frequency pattern of the machinery on the Victor-III was fuzzy but narrowing. Three minutes later it was a fairly sharp vertical stroke of light.

“Captain, I can now call target Sierra-2 a Victor-III-class Russian sub.”

McCafferty went aft to control. “Range to target Sierra-2?”

“Fourteen thousand five hundred yards, sir.”

“Solution is set, sir,” the weapons officer reported. “Ready for tube one. Tube one is flooded, outer door is closed.”

“Right ten degrees rudder,” McCafferty said.
Chicago
turned to unmask her ready torpedo. He checked depth: two hundred feet. On firing, he’d run east rapidly and dive to a thousand feet. The submarine turned slowly at six knots; bearing to the target was three-five-one, and
Chicago’s
midship torpedo tubes were angled slightly outward from her center line. “Solution?”

“Set!”

“Open outer door.” The petty officer on the torpedo board pushed the proper button and waited for the status light to change.

“Outer door is open, sir.”

“Match bearings and shoot!” The seven thousand tons of USS
Chicago
shuddered again with the torpedo launch.

“One fired, sir.”

McCafferty gave orders to change course and depth, increasing speed to ten knots.

Another exercise in patience.
How soon will he hear the fish coming in?
This one ran in at shallow depth. McCafferty hoped that its propulsion sounds might be lost in the surface noise.
How good is Victor’s sonar?
he wondered.

“One minute.” The weapons officer held a stopwatch. The Mark-48 ran thirteen hundred yards per minute at this speed setting. About ten minutes to go. It was like watching some perverse sports event, McCafferty thought, a two-minute drill in a football game, two minutes of playing time that could stretch to half an hour if the quarterback knew his stuff. Except that they weren’t trying to score points. “Three minutes. Seven minutes to go.”

Chicago
leveled out at one thousand feet and the captain ordered speed cut back to six knots again. Already he had fire-control solutions set on the other two targets. But they’d have to wait.

“Five minutes. Five to go.”

“Conn, sonar, target Sierra-2 has just increased power. Cavitation sounds, blade count shows twenty knots and increasing.”

“Kick the fish to full speed,” McCafferty ordered. The Mark-48 accelerated to a speed of forty-eight knots: sixteen hundred yards per minute.

“Target is turning east, her blade count shows thirty-one knots. Sir, I’m getting a funny signal slightly aft of the target. Target bearing is now three-five-eight. The new signal is three-five-six.”

“Noisemaker?”

“Doesn’t sound like that. Sounds like something different . . . not a nixie, but something like that, sir. Target is continuing to turn, sir, bearing now three-five-seven. I believe she may be reversing course.”

“Take her up to two hundred feet,” the captain said.

“What the hell’s he doing?” the exec wondered as the submarine rose again.

“Sir, that new signal has masked the target,” sonar announced.

“The fish is now pinging, sir.”

“If he has a decoy deployed—he put it between himself and the fish,” the captain said quietly. “Fire-control, I want another fish on target Sierra-2, and update the solution for Sierra-1.”

Range and bearing figures were re-input into the computer.

“Set for tube three on target Sierra-2 and tube two for target Sierra-1.” The submarine passed through three hundred feet.

“Match bearings and shoot.” McCafferty gave the order quietly, then took his submarine down again. “That pod on the Victor-III that we thought was a towed-array housing, what if it’s a decoy like our nixie?”
We don’t use them on submarines,
McCafferty thought, but
Ivan does things his own way.

“The fish might still ignore it.”

“He doesn’t think so. He thinks it’ll work—then he can turn behind the noise of the explosion and get one off at us.” McCafferty walked over to the plot. The other new fish was running toward what was probably another Victor-class. The second target was maneuvering east now. The Alfa was also. The obvious tactical move: clear the danger area, turn, and begin your own stalk. While both were turned away, their sonar would be ineffective along the route of the advancing torpedo. Sonar called out.

“Captain, I have an explosion bearing three-five-four. We have lost contact with target Sierra-2. I don’t know if the fish hit her or not. The other two fish seem to be running normally.”

“Patience,” the captain breathed.

“Conn, sonar, we show some sonobuoys dropping aft.” The bearings were plotted. They were in a north-south line two miles aft of
Chicago.

“One of the other boats got a message out to his friends,” the exec suggested.

“Good bet. These cooperative tactics’ll be a cast-iron bitch if they ever figure out how to do it right.”

“Sierra-2 is back, sir. I have a Type-2 machinery signature at three-four-nine. Some possible hull-popping noises. Sierra-2 is changing depth.”

The weapons officer commanded one of the running torpedoes to turn left a few degrees. McCafferty picked up a pen and started chewing on it.

“Okay, probably his sonar is a little messed up. I’ll bet he’s trying to get an antenna up to tell his friends where we fired from. All ahead two-thirds.”

“Torpedoes in the water bearing zero-three-one!”

“Do we have anything else on that bearing?”

“No, sir, I show nothing else.”

McCafferty checked his plot. It was working, by God. He’d spooked the Russians into moving east toward Todd Simms in the
Boston!

“Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water aft, bearing two-eight-six!”

“Make your depth twelve hundred feet,” the captain said instantly. “Right full rudder, come to new course one-six-five. Our friend the Victor got word out to his airedale friends.”

“Sir, we lost the wires to both fish,” Weapons reported.

“Estimated range to Sierra-2?”

“The fish should be about six thousand yards out; it’s programmed to start pinging in another minute.”

“Mr. Victor made a mistake this time. He should have covered his ass before he went topside to radio the airplanes. Sonar, what’s the position of the torpedo on our stern?”

“Bearing changing—sir, I’m losing sonar performance due to flow noise. Last bearing on the Russian fish is two-seven-eight.”

“All ahead one-third!” McCafferty brought his submarine back to slow, quiet speed. In two minutes they realized that the air-dropped torpedo was well clear of them, and that their second shot at the Victor was close to its target.

By this time the sonar display was totally confused. Target Sierra-2 had picked up the incoming fish late, but was racing directly away from it at full speed now. Their shot at the other Victor was still running, but that target was maneuvering to avoid another fish from
Boston.
The Alfa was at full power heading due north, another Mark-48 in pursuit. Two more Russian torpedoes were in the water to the east, probably heading after
Boston,
but
Chicago
didn’t have her sister ship on sonar. Five submarines were racing around, four of them chased by smart-weapons.