9 Days Falling, Volume I k-5

by John A. Schettler

  Sprague had a couple of DD pickets well out in front, just under a hundred kilometers ahead of his main force. They were a pair of Gearing class destroyers outfitted with radar to form an advanced screen. Each one had been specially modified for their new role by removing one of the torpedo tube mounts and altering the internal arrangement to make space for SP radar, IFF, and rudimentary ECM equipment.

  Both ships were newcomers to the action in the Pacific, laid down in 1944, with Southerland commissioned in December of that year and Benner joining the fleet in February of 1945. Their SP system was a light weight fighter direction control radar on a parabolic antenna that rotated six times per minute. With a range of 30 to 65 kilometers for surface contacts, depending on their size, and 65 to 130 kilometers for air contacts, they were nearly in range of Kirov and the small Russian flotilla to the north. They had been sent to look for any sign of trouble that morning, cruising due east of Nemuro Peninsula on Hokkaido, though all seemed quiet and calm.

  Commander John Mulholland was aboard Benner when his radar operators called out contacts to the north, emerging from the long chain of the Kurile Islands. He leaned over the operator’s scope, watching the slow sweep of the radar circling every ten seconds.

  “Looks to be three ships, sir. They’re right between those two big Islands. I’ll send the position to the plotting board.”

  “Very well,” said Mulholland, wondering what he was seeing here. He knew the US now had nothing in that area after Admiral Brown had withdrawn his task force. The reports circulating on Brown’s encounter were dim at best. Two destroyers went down, hit by something they figured to be a rocket powered glider the Japanese would called the Okha, or Cherry Blossom. It was a suicide rocket, piloted and dropped from bombers at altitude before its solid fuel rocket engine would send it on to the target. But the odd thing was that there had been no reports of any air contacts before that attack, and the approach came in from the north, well out in the Sea of Okhotsk. Mulholland could not imagine that the Japanese had anything left afloat up here, and so the sudden attack on Babe Brown’s light cruisers was a bit of a mystery.

  Three ships… He got on the radio at once to inform the Task Force flag and was told to continue tracking the contacts until the fleet could send up a flight of Hellcats to have a closer look. He decided to radio Commander Williams on Sutherland as well, and pass on their marching orders.

  A half hour later they could detect the Hellcats coming up from the main body, a tight fist of five fighters designated Redeye One passing overhead about 50 kilometers south of the contacts they were to investigate. Mulholland watched the planes disappear, taking over point duty on this long range recon operation, and he waited on the open channel for a report. He did not like what he heard next.

  “Redeye one to Bullfrog, we have the contacts in visual range. Confirm three ships, and one is a big fellow. Over”

  “Roger Redeye, get down and have a closer look. Bullfrog Over.”

  Mulholland was on the radio himself, a personal habit. He wanted to hear what was reported directly, not through a watchstander, and if he said anything in return he wanted the other fellow to get it right from the horse’s mouth where there was no chance of misinterpretation. He listened to the flight leader chatting with his mates.

  “Fan out and get down on the deck boys. Let’s go make some noise.” The planes were going in low and fast. If they could ID a rising sun on any flag those ships were flying they had authorization to open up in a strafing run. The war might be officially over, but any Japanese warship still found to be at sea was still fair game.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Those planes are getting close,” said Rodenko, an edge of warning in his voice.

  “I’m hearing them on radio, sir,” said Nikolin. “Something about frogs with red eyes.”

  “Frogs with red eyes?” Karpov grinned at him. “Your translation skills are slipping, Mister Nikolin.”

  “I have it now, sir. Redeye…that must be their designation for the incoming aircraft. The frogs are the two ships.”

  “That’s makes a little more sense.”

  “They’re dropping down below 5000 meters,” said Rodenko. “It’s most likely a reconnaissance run.”

  “Most likely,” said Karpov, but the ship was on Air Alert One nonetheless, and Samsonov had both the medium range Klinok and also his Kashtan close in Missile defense systems ready as ordered. The Captain had instructed the other two ships in his flotilla to stand ready, but to hold their fire and allow the flagship to handle the matter.

  The previous day his ships had been approached by three American contacts. Tasarov reported a submarine creeping into a position ahead of his flotilla and considered what to do. The sub decided the matter when it launched two torpedoes, both well wide of the mark after Karpov quickly ordered a sharp fleet maneuver to starboard. Kirov killed the sub quickly with a torpedo from a KH-40 helo sent up on ASW picket. With his phobia about submarines still a demon on his shoulder, Karpov wanted no potentially hostile undersea boats anywhere near the ship from that moment forward. Razorback never called home after that.

  Then two destroyers must have picked up on the engagement and rushed to the scene, making it obvious they intended to attack, They too were sent to the bottom by a pair of Moskit-IIs. They were followed by two cruiser class ships approaching at high speed, and Karpov had considered what he might do next. He wanted to de-escalate the situation, but the cruisers decided to press the matter and started dropping salvos off his starboard quarter. He answered with four P-900s.

  He would say that the Americans were the first to fire, but everyone on the bridge could sense that the Captain had no real qualms about what had happened. Karpov seemed different now, not the man he had become in those long weeks of close cooperation with Fedorov and Volsky. Both had been counterweights to his darker ambitions, and neither man was on the ship now. Only Zolkin remained, but he had been voted down. Somewhere in the Captain’s mind that cold logic was again asserting itself—they could never get home now, not without Rod-25. If that were the case, then this was their world, and Karpov intended to be one of the big fish in the sea he cruised on now—the biggest fish in the sea.

  As he watched the American planes approach he was well aware of the danger they posed yet wondered if they were making an attack run here. The memory of those tense moments aboard Kirov after they had first appeared in late July of 1941 was still clear in his mind. He recalled how Admiral Volsky had calmly waited out the approach of that first aircraft, unwilling to fire, and now he thought to do the same. One of the cruisers he hit the previous day had sunk, and there was still a place in his mind, in his conscience, that gnawed at him. He had already put three ships and a submarine on the bottom of the sea, clearly a provocation deserving a strong response by the Americans. But how would they know his ships were responsible? The Americans would be looking for remnants of the Japanese fleet. They would be cautious at first, or so he reasoned.

  Another side of his mind argued that if he wanted to take his little fleet down to Tokyo Bay and negotiate, a demonstration of his strength was necessary first. Babe Brown had stuck his nose in the matter at just the wrong time, and he paid for it. But Karpov did not expect that the Americans would be so quick to marshal a major naval force and send it north like this.

  “Those planes are getting close,” said Rodenko again. “It will have to be the Kashtan system if we need to engage now, sir.”

  “Steady, gentlemen,” said Karpov. “If they wanted to attack they would not send only five planes.”

  They could hear the sound of the aircraft now, and Karpov had his field glasses up, preferring them to the Tin Man optical HD camera feeds. The planes came in very low, their engines roaring. All eyes were on the Captain, with obvious anxiety as the noise grew ever louder.

  “Steady…” The Hellcats were over them in a flash, their big radial engines growling as they overflew the flotilla. But they did not fire.

  Ka
rpov smiled, picking up the handset and calling Yeltsin on the Orlan. “Well, Captain, he said. I hope you had a good look at those planes. Our history expert is not with us at the moment but those were American World War Two era fighter planes, and the contacts to our south will be a fast carrier task force. If you had any lingering doubts as to our situation, this should dispel them.”

  Yeltsin was convinced, but there was also an edge of worry in his voice. “I’m not sure I’d let them overfly us again like that, Captain.”

  “I’ll handle the matter. Karpov out.”

  “They are circling for another pass,” said Rodenko. “They probably want camera footage.”

  “Mister Nikolin?” Karpov wanted to know if he could determine what the pilots were saying.

  “They seem surprised, sir. Something about a battlewagon… …where are the guns… something about the Russians. One says our ship is too big to be Russian.”

  The planes came round again. Then it happened—one of those quirks of fate, a mischance born of emotion and happenstance. A young man aboard the Admiral Golovko was at his air defense action station, and he was manning the manual sighting interface behind a 30mm Gatling gun, a backup precaution in case the ship lost computer control of the weapon. The system was not engaged. He saw no sign that the guns were responding to targeting radars to track the incoming planes, so he naturally assumed the weapon was inactive. He decided to track the approach of the planes himself, just as he had practiced this emergency drill before. It was, in fact, only the third time he had ever drilled at a battle station, which made him as raw as they came. On all of those occasions the rounds were never engaged in the gun firing chambers. So he would practice squeezing off short imaginary bursts at the target drones while other gunners were firing their live exercises on nearby ships.

  All he had ever aimed at before were a few floating buoys on the water. This time things were much more exciting. As the Hellcats came in a second time he had his eye on the leftmost plane in the formation, following its approach by centering it in the range finder and the squeezing a trigger he thought was inactive.

  It was live.

  The AK-630M dual Gatling system suddenly erupted with a snarl of red orange fire and it blew the wing right off the plane he was tracking, sending it cartwheeling into the sea.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Holy God! They just took down Billy!”

  “Son-of-a-bitch. Climb! Get up to angels ten and come three-sixty around the right side.” It was Lieutenant Tom Haley, flight leader, and he was hopping mad. “Anybody get a good look at that bastard?”

  “Blue X on a white standard,” came an answer. “That’s not Japanese, is it LT?”

  “Not since I last looked, and that was just a few days ago. It sure as hell’s not ours either. So that narrows down the list. Has to be Russian, just like we called it on the first pass. Either that or the Japs are trying to pull a fast one on us by reflagging their ships.”

  “Russians? What the hell are they shooting at us for?”

  “Hell-if-I-know. But we’re sure as hell going to return the favor.”

  “Damn right, sir!”

  Billy Watts had been Haley’s sidekick and wing mate for the last six months, and the thought of him in the drink, bushwhacked on a photo run, was more than he could pass on. He pulled hard and banked right, anger in his eyes.

  “Let’s give ‘em a taste of our Brownings. One pass. Then break for home.”

  “Roger that Comet,” came a reply. Haley’s nickname was an obvious one. “This one’s for Billy.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “Who fired on those planes?” Karpov was red faced with anger when he saw the American plane go down.”

  “It looked like Golovko, sir,” said Rodenko. “AK-630 system.”

  “Nikolin! Raise Golovko and get me that young Captain. I’ll stew him for this.” But before Nikolin could raise the other ship, it was clear the planes were coming round again. Karpov turned, snapping his field glasses up to get a better look.

  “Don’t do it,” he breathed.

  “I don’t think they’ll be taking photos this time,” said Rodenko, and the Captain knew he was correct.

  “Damn!” said Karpov, but he knew he had to act. “Kashtan System. Now Samsonov—before they get in range.” He would not allow four planes to rake his ships with machinegun fire.

  “Sir, aye Sir!” And the missiles fired, fast little air sharks with white tails as they streaked into the sky. They adjusted to lock on, and then accelerated towards the Hellcats.

  Samsonov fired four missiles.

  He killed four planes.

  ~ ~ ~

  Commander Mulholland had been listening to the whole affair, his eyes darkening as he heard the sharp burst of static, the frantic call of a Hellcat pilot calling “Rockets! Rockets!” and then nothing more. He toggled his send button.

  “Bulldog to Redeye. Report status, Over… “Bulldog to Redeye. Report status, Over….”

  Nothing came back.

  Mulholland scratched the back of his neck, the place where it always itched when there was trouble at hand. He was out there to look for it, and damn if he didn’t find some. “Some son-of-a-bitch just didn’t get the message that this damn war is supposed to be over.” It was clear that those contacts had opened up on the recon flight, and he dialed a new comm channel and radioed back to the Flag.

  “Bullfrog One to Flag. Our contact is hostile—repeat—contact hostile. Splash Redeye One.”

  There was a long pause, as if the news he had radioed had been most unwelcome, or difficult to comprehend. “Say again Bullfrog—You say Splash Redeye One? Did we lose somebody? Over.”

  Mulholland thumbed his send. “We lost them all—repeat—splash all units. We have no radio contact and nothing on radar. Redeye One is history. Over.”

  Again the long pause… interminably long it seemed. Then another voice came over the speaker and Mulholland had heard it before, many times, low and slow, calm and steady. But this time there was just a touch of weariness in the voice, and an edge of irritation and anger.

  “Alright Bullfrog. Steady as you go. We’re coming.”

  It was Ziggy Sprague.

  To be continued…

  MAPS

  The Standoff between the major leaguers in the pacific as the Red Banner Fleet sorties from its bases and is attacked by CVBG 5 of the US 7th Fleet

  The complex energy arteries of the modern world.

  The route taken by the Fairchild flotilla escorted by Argos Fire and Iron Duke

  The explosions mark sites targeted by Chinese DF-11, DF-15 ballistic missiles. The red lines show the route taken to penetrate Taiwanese airspace by China’s superb new strike fighters, the J-20 Mighty Dragon.

  SAM coverage over Taiwan during the Chinese attack.

  A dangerous balance of power. Here is the lilneup in our day, but the PLAN adds two carriers in the Liaoning and Taifeng, and a number of new destroyers and frigates to beef up their fleet considerably by 2021.

  The initial action in the early days of the attack is first a strategic missile bombardment followed by penetrating air strikes by China’s new J-20 stealth fighters.

  The flashpoint in the Gulf as an Iranian swift boat fires a missile at supertanker Princess Royal. The ship is towed to Al Fujairah while US Marines land on the Iranian held Island of Abu Musa. Israel strikes Iran and this leads to a major ballistic missile attack on the oil production centers of the Persian Gulf.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  The range of North Korea’s Ballistic Missiles

  Chinese missile capability

  Typical harpoon missile attack profiles in the strike on the Red Banner Fleet. Yet the limited range of the missile limits its effectiveness, particularly in light of the tremendous range of the newest Russian naval SAM systems, the S-300 and S-400 Triumf, the latter reaching out as far as 400 kilometers! These factors play a major role in the outcome of the initial battle.

  Fairchild’s X-3 hyb
rid helos are fast and mean, with tremendous range.

  The British Type 45 Destroyer which was refitted as the Argos Fire.

  Chinese J-20

  Chinese J-16 “Silent Flanker”

  The Saga Continues…

  Kirov Saga: Nine Days Falling — Vol. II

  The war continues on both land and sea as China invades Taiwan and North Korea joins to launch a devastating attack. Yet Kirov and the heart of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet has vanished, blown into the past by the massive wrath of the Demon Volcano. There Captain Karpov finds himself at the dying edge of the last great war, yet his own inner demons now wage war with his conscience as he contemplates another decisive intervention.

  After secretly assisting the Soviet invasion of the Kuriles and engaging a small US scouting force in the region, Karpov has drawn the attention of Admiral Halsey’s powerful 3rd Fleet. Now Halsey sends one of the toughest fighting Admirals of the war north to investigate, the hero of the Battle off Samar, Ziggy Sprague, and fast and furious sea battles are the order of the day.

  Meanwhile tensions rise in the Black Sea as the Russian mission to rescue Fedorov and Orlov has now been expanded to include a way to try and deliver new control rods to Kirov from the same batch and lot as the mysterious Rod-25. Will they work? Yet Admiral Volsky learns that the Russian Black Sea Fleet has engaged well escorted units of a British oil conveyor, Fairchild Inc., and the fires of war soon endanger his mission.

  All efforts are now focused on a narrow stretch of coastline on the Caspian Sea, where men of war from the future and past are locked in a desperate struggle to decide the outcome of history itself. Naval combat, both future and past, combine with action and intrigue as Volsky’s mission is launched and the mystery of Rod-25 and Fedorov’s strange experience on the Trans-Siberian Rail is finally revealed. Can they stop the nuclear holocaust of the Third World War in 2021 or will it begin off the coast of Japan in 1945?