Show of Force (26 page)

“Bill, what have your young geniuses come up with today that I don't already know?”

“Well, sir, I've got a couple of men who are rather disappointed that they're out of touch with Hopkins, and they didn't know what to do with themselves. If they were on the bridge, they wouldn't know which end of the binoculars to use, but they know how to dig. They came up with a couple of ideas you might like, things that the computer doesn't have stored.” He took a deep breath. “Number one, the Russians have a very rigid command-and-control system, probably the result of mistrust of each other. Command is centralized, and there is a distinct possibility that on-scene commanders, or an individual ship's captain, might hesitate in making a decision if it doesn't come down from above. In other words, one of my boys said we ought to take a lesson from the Indians. Hide behind trees and pop them off one by one.”

“I assume they meant using my submarines ”

“I think so, sir, but I've learned never to ask them such direct questions. It confuses them,” Dailey answered drily.

“I hadn't thought too much about that idea, Bill, but they may be right. When I sent those submarines off this morning, maybe it was just dumb luck. But I figured we ought to try to cut that force of theirs down as much as we could, since they've got a lot of firepower face to face.”

“Another thing one of them remembered was a statement made a few years back when we didn't have the cruise missiles available. Someone said that the Russians had a great advantage because all they had to do was hit a ship with a missile, but we had to hit a missile with a missile. So, if we keep them busy with what seems like superior airpower, this limits their ability to fire surface to surface. And if we can keep their submarines down, they can only fire their cruise missiles about thirty miles when they're underwater. In other words, if we keep them busy enough firing missiles at our missiles, and keep their subs from surfacing, then our subs can go to work on that one-to-one basis, from behind the trees.”

“Bill, I think you may have lost this morning's bottle of brandy to your brain children. I like the idea of using our subs to best advantage, but you might also ask your experts how they expect this perfect surface battle. Explain to them the first-strike capability Alex has, and ask how I'm going to keep them busy with ail those missiles of my own. Tell 'em I'll end up an Indian with an assful of arrows.” He grinned. “Don't make them feel bad. I'll buy a bottle of brandy for them if you won't.” He was thoughtful for just a second, and then he shuffled through a sheaf of printouts, finally finding the one he was looking for. “Here, give this to them. It's the details of the Russian missiles and their ranges. If they can figure out what I can do with those Aegis ships to counter that first strike, I'll take back what I said about that assful of arrows.”

Dailey looked at his watch. He hadn't been outside to see or smell the ocean since morning, and now he knew the sun was setting. “We'll be close enough to each other to probe by dawn, Admiral. Are you going to keep going or stand off?”

“I'm going to go right at them, Bill. We have to find out more about that first-strike capability and then see what their staying power is like. I'm going to use my subs like Indians at first light, and try to knock a couple of them off. Create some confusion. And I'm sure I could take another bet with you that that's just what Alex will do.”

“You seem pretty sure of that, sir.”

“The old central-control idea again, Bill. Alex is one of the few commanders they have who is willing to strike out on his own. He knows a lot of his captains are going to be hesitant, and I'll bet he's going to try the cavalry approach, too—show them that they can steam right into the enemy. I think he's got too much confidence in that first strike.” He cocked his head to the side. “What do you think?”

“Well, if he heads right at us, I hope you're still around to collect that, brandy.”

“We will be, I think, Bill. The Russians are going to waste a lot of aircraft trying to sink
Nimitz,
and we're going to have a screen of metal around this ship. They'll try to neutralize the force by sinking the carrier, and this is the one thing I can't afford to lose.”

By 0700 the next morning the- two forces were within two-hundred miles of each other. Within six hours they could be crossing each other's screen. If the Americans increased certain if their leading ships to flank speed, they would fire surface-to-surface missiles by 1000. It was also important to hold down the Russian submarines to minimize their missile range. Both
Nimitz
and
Lenin
had dropped to the rear of their groups for additional protection and to launch their first air strikes.

While this was taking place on the surface, there was an entirely different strategy taking place under the sea. David Charles had given his attack-submarine commanders the autonomy they needed to carry out his orders. His Indians moved to positions on the southeast and northwest quadrants along the Soviet line of approach. If there could be wolfpack tactics in the nuclear age, this was it. On each side of the approaching force they had staggered themselves for both missile and torpedo attack. The idea was for the boats at a longer distance to fire missiles first, creating havoc among the Soviet ships on the outer perimeter. Then, the two subs that were lying silent on either flank would make a rapid final approach and fire torpedoes into the cruiser-size ships that remained untouched. With luck, they might even close
Lenin.
Before the satellites tied into Hopkins had been destroyed, each Russian surface craft had been identified and the memory bank of each submarine computer had been checked to ensure they contained the sound characteristics of their enemy. Passive listening devices could isolate a target, identify it, provide a solution if the captain chose to attack that particular target, and fire a missile that would be well within lock-on range before the surface ship could take evasive action.

Bluefish
positioned herself well away from the Soviet fleet, keeping deep enough to avoid any type of airborne detection. At precisely 0630 her commanding officer sent his crew to battle, stations. His sonar operator had identified the antisubmarine cruiser
Kronstadt,
a sister ship of
Marshal Timoshenko,
which had been sunk two days before. The computer, of course, had analyzed the sound that had traveled almost two-hundred miles underwater to the listening devices aboard the submarine. The surface ship's sounds were isolated by the computer for the attack console, which fed continuous information concerning the course and speed into the number-three torpedo tube. That tube contained a Tomahawk missile.

At 0700, exactly as Admiral Charles had ordered,
Bluefish
ejected the missile from number-three tube. Upon breaking the surface of the ocean, and righting itself, the engine ignited. The missile climbed to its selected altitude and achieved maximum speed, leveling its flight according to the information previously programmed into it. It knew exactly where
Kronstadt
would be in the less than ten minutes it would take to reach its target.

Fifty miles to the northeast, but much closer to the enemy ships because of her shorter range Harpoons,
Philadelphia
was following the same pattern of target acquisition. She selected a guided-missile destroyer,
Boiky,
one of the outer circle of ships defending against possible air attack on
Lenin.
On the opposite side of the Russian fleet,
Los Angeles
and
Archerfish
were accomplishing much the same, although
Los Angeles
was much closer to her targets, since she, too, was utilizing the shorter range Harpoon.

The electronic warfare unit aboard
Grozny,
a Soviet cruiser selected by
Archerfish,
gave the initial warning. A bored technician had been quietly scanning the frequency bands when he happened on 'to the acquisition radar of the approaching missile. He quickly flipped the switch that started a computer to identifying the source of the enemy signal. Within a split second it had identified the Tomahawk missile. Alarm bells went off at the same time
Gronzy's
radar automatically began searching on the Assigned sector for the missile. But it was too late. The launcher that was selected was unable to fire before the Tomahawk warhead's one-thousand pounds of high explosive detonated slightly below and abaft the bridge level, destroying the starboard side of the bridge, and ripping a jagged hole into the room where the no-longer-bored technician unfortunately still sat. For an instant, he realized that the early warning system was not as fast as he had been instructed it was at school. But before he could even cry out this injustice, the force drove his equipment into his body, tearing him from his seat and hurling him the width of the small room that was shattering as he died. 'For pedoes in the tubes forward of the bridge exploded, lifting the forward missile launchers clear of the ship. In less than two seconds,
Grozny's
bow was a mass of flames, sweeping back to midships as she still plunged ahead at twenty-four knots.

Kronstadt
was luckier. It was taking just enough longer for the missile fired in her direction to arrive. She was able to locate the incoming weapon and direct both antimissile and 76-mm. fire at the attacker. A shell explosion close by the Tomahawk caused its direction to deviate slightly as it dove, enough so that it exploded twenty yards off the beam of the great cruiser. The impact buckled the bulkhead in the forward engine room. The chief of the watch was just making his entry in the log following the bridge's order for all the steam he had. The noise behind him was one he had never heard in all his years in an engine room. He turned to see the bulkhead tearing inward, steam lines closest to the impact already bursting. For an instant, the blast held back the ocean. Then, as the first traces of superheated steam touched him, he saw the water filling the great hole, rushing into his beloved engine room. The high-pressure steam scalded him to death before his feet were even wet. Shrapnel from the explosion set off ammunition in one of the A A gun tubs, destroying the mount and its crew.

Boiky,
being much smaller, was unable to survive the direct hit of the smaller missile. Her commanding officer, Nikolai Svedrov, helplessly watched the last couple of hundred yards of the Harpoon's approach. The weapon grew bigger as it fell, and his last thoughts were not about his ship but of his brother. He could not imagine that the Americans could possibly hit
Lenin,
and at least his brother would be able to tell his family that he died in battle. It occurred to him at the last moment that they might team that Boiky never had time to fire a single gun in her own defense. The five-hundred-pound warhead detonated at the waterline, lifting the ship enough to break its back. The captain was thrown into the side of the pilothouse, his neck snapping instantly. Her stern rapidly lifted into the air as the forward section filled with water. The bow section, streaming burning oil, lost speed while making a slow erratic circle to the left as her crew abandoned ship.

The fourth missile exploded in the after crew's quarters on the cruiser
Vladivostok,
causing a fire but little damage to the ship's ability to maneuver or fight. ' The explosions were the signals for the close-in submarines to commence their attack.Their torpedoes had ranges of over twenty miles. At forty knots, submerged, they presented a difficult target to a force already taking evasive action, and that was their greatest advantage.
Cavale
fired four torpedoes, two at a cruiser they had been tracking for some time and two more at what later was identified as
Kronstadt.
The first ship picked up the torpedo noises immediately, turning down their path, offering as little target as possible.

Kronstadt
was not so easily maneuvered nor able to hear the torpedoes in the water. The combination of the water still coming into the forward engine room and the damage-control crews' desperate efforts to stem the flow were her death knell. Those sailors in her after engine room at the instant the torpedo entered probably recognized for a moment what few ever know, the source of their death. The explosion, which is always magnified on a ship from the weight of the water behind it, tore a tremendous hole in the hull, ripping upward to buckle the main deck, and downward to rupture fuel tanks. The ocean now became a part of
Kronstadt's
engineering spaces, creating an automatic list of almost ten degrees. The fuel from the ruptured tanks caught fire instantly. The second torpedo struck aft of the engine room, disabling the giant steering gear and adding another five degrees to the list. Again water did the rest.
Kronstadt
was dead in the water, burning, and the fires quickly found their way to one of the magazines in the after section of the ship. Before the first report was made to the bridge, her captain knew he would stay with his ship, but gave his crew the order to abandon.

The submarines dove immediately after firing, their job done. By chance,
Mendel Rivers
was the last to fire. With their attack commencing at 0700, the missile-firing submarines were allowed a full ten minutes to make their departure. Those close in were to take advantage of the confusion that always follows a surprise attack. However, at 0700
Lenin
had also launched her first flight of Rigas, and she had helicopters in plane guard station. At the first alarm, the helos left those stations and were vectored to the attacking subs by those ships lucky enough not to be targets.

The sonar operator on
Rivers
heard the sonobuoys hit the water and reported them immediately to his captain. The attack could not be halted.
Rivers's
CO, having no more combat experience than any of the others, completed his attack but was late in taking evasive action. The attack console in the Soviet helicopter quickly located the undersea craft and two homing torpedoes were dropped into the water at close enough range so 18ft