First Salvo

by Charles D. Taylor

  Admiral Pratt considered the location of his Hawkeye recon aircraft in relation to the Russian bombers. Identified as Backfires, they were electronically advanced, missile-firing craft. “Are we jamming?” Pratt asked Clark.

  Clark looked over from his position, brows furrowed nervously. “You mean those closing jets?”

  “Are there any others?” Pratt snapped.

  “No, sir. Nothing within the zone.”

  “My understanding was that they were in an attack profile, using target-acquisition radar and with a satellite backup. Why don’t we just send up some balloons with arrows on them to point to the battle group.” Pratt’s voice was rising evenly, the pitch controlling the atmosphere in the command post. “We should be jamming everything they can use. There is no reason in my book—and that’s the one you are operating under now—for them to receive one pulse of information from any one of their satellites. No reason that anything should get back to their targeting computers except whatever garbage we want to send them. No reason there should even be a reason for them to activate the target-acquisition radar in those missiles of theirs.”

  Pratt rose to his feet and placed himself directly in front of the displays. He left no room for doubt that he expected the attention of every man in the room. “Those Russian aircraft are coming in because the Soviet Union has just declared war on the United States. It will be a while before we get word. In the meantime, they are following the normal pattern they have utilized in the past because we’re so complacent about it that they think we’ll just wait to see if their pilots will wave when they go by. Before you know it, I’ll have to tell the computer to take over the decision-making process for this entire battle group because the staff did not anticipate this war.”

  The faces looking back at him reflected shock. Perhaps I can convince some of them war has been declared, Pratt thought. Jesus, I hope so. I want to see their pale faces. I want to see the cold sweat on their foreheads. I want to see the fear in their eyes. I want them to think about their families back home and imagine that the ICBMs might already be in the air—even though this is still a drill.

  “I want a direct voice order sent to that on-scene commander. Better yet, I’ll do it.” Pratt turned to his communications officer. “Which circuit do I want?”

  “Twenty-seven, Admiral.”

  Pratt picked up the speaker in one hand while he punched in 27 on the black box. “Call sign?”

  “Bulldog Two.”

  Pratt pressed the key on the mike. “Bulldog Two, this is Archer himself. Over.”

  “This is Bulldog Two. Over.”

  “This is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill. Commence jamming on all Soviet frequencies as follows—satellite recon, search, anything else you can damn well find. Is that understood? Over.”

  “Roger, Archer. Will comply. Out.”

  He turned to Clark, who was obviously waiting for the next bombshell. “Who’s controlling the intercept?”

  “We have a flight of F-14s on the way, sir.”

  “I certainly hope so, but what I asked is who the hell is controlling the intercept?”

  “They’re reporting to Bulldog One.”

  “And what are his instructions?”

  “They will track at a distance, sir.”

  “Like hell they will. Just as soon as they’re within lock-on, they will commence a head-on attack, vectored in by Bulldog One. They will await a firing order from me.” He nodded toward his communications officer. “Now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pratt turned to the air-status board. “Take me out to full scale on that board. Use a satellite picture if you have to. There has never been a Russian attack designed against one of our battle groups that didn’t have a second or even third flight directed at the same target. Saturation,” he bellowed, pounding his fist into his palm for emphasis. “Saturation is their doctrine.” He continued to slam his fist down. “Attack from different angles and altitudes and fill the air with missiles. That’s what they do. Don’t wait for them—look for them! And while you’re finding those other flights, I want to put our electronic-countermeasures plan into effect—jamming, deception, everything we can do to confuse their missiles.”

  He gave them time. There was no doubt they knew their business. It was just that they had never carried the exercises through to completion before. They had always assumed enough warning to react, but that wouldn’t happen now. The Russians will keep the pressure up. Wear us down, Pratt thought. Put us at ease. Then, blam, and we’ll feel just like Custer. But that’s what he also liked about the Russians. They were predictable. They followed doctrine, making it easier to handle them. It was more a question of how well Pratt and his men could defend the battle group when the air was full of missiles. Could they limit the number of hits?

  “Next—subsurface picture, Mr. Loomis.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have four submarines closing—a wolf-pack approach, I assume.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have them all tracked?”

  “Three of them, sir. One has broken off. We still have him in the passive listening mode, but no course or speed.” He looked more confident than Clark. “I expect a second to break off soon. O’Bannon has orders to detach two frigates as soon as the second one goes.” Again, doctrine said a Russian wolf pack would do just that as they came in for attack. It also said that they never limited themselves to a frontal attack. There had to be one or more submarines coming in from another direction.

  “Have you opened up your detection range in other directions?” Pratt asked.

  “Yes, sir. No contacts out to fifty miles.” Fifty miles was nothing for a forty-knot submarine!

  “Run a line of sonobuoys every twenty-five miles just like they taught you in school, Mr. Loomis. You’ll find them. Next!” Here his voice rose again. “I want you to put everything in the water you can think of that will make noise. I want those bastards so confused they won’t have the vaguest idea where this group is or what we’re going to do next. If we’re keeping their aircraft busy, those subs will become useless so fast…” His voice trailed off.

  He saw recognition gradually spread over various faces, some that had been unsure of his intent only moments before. They would react instantaneously should there be any indication the Russians had orders to complete their missions. No longer would there be a chance of a lost moment, a lost moment that might mean the survival or loss of a carrier battle group.

  “Kharkov—where is she now?” That was the Soviet carrier that had been patrolling the southeastern sector of the Med for the past week. Her Forger aircraft ranged to only three hundred miles, and Pratt was determined to haunt her as soon as she showed any interest in closing the battle group. Saratoga had been detached with full battle group escort to keep tabs on the Soviet carrier, but Pratt knew that when the time came Sara would be the first to bear the brunt of the first salvo. Kharkov and her escorts would then once again become his responsibility. Quite possibly the Soviet carrier Minsk would also be out of the Black Sea to bother Sara by then.

  “Kharkov’s still hanging offshore of Alexandria, Admiral, covering pretty much the same area as yesterday. This morning’s satellite photos indicate that she’s expanded her screen to include two Udaloy-type destroyers and one ASW cruiser. I expect that means she’s getting ready to turn west.”

  “What kind of tail do we have on her now?”

  “Two attack subs, one either side of an east-west heading, and satellite recon, of course.”

  Chin in hand, Pratt surveyed his display board. The screening force around Kharkov was above standard for a Soviet carrier group. That meant only one thing to him— they were planning to change from an antisubmarine group to an attack force. “Set up a scouting line, north-south orientation, running between Tobruk and Crete. They’ll have some attack subs leading the way, and I’d hate to see them get past there before we locate them.”

  “Yes, sir. Ho
w about Saratoga? Won’t she have to worry about that group too? I should include her.”

  “Message her, of course. But,” he included Loomis in his gaze, “they have Minsk up there also, and I expect that’s the one Sara’s going to have her hands full of, especially when they empty out of the Black Sea.”

  “Nothing’s coming out, sir. The Turks have everything closed up,” offered Clark.

  Pratt smiled grimly. “Wanna bet?”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “You want to bet on that? I’m saying that within twenty-four hours the Russians have the Turkish straits completely under their control. So much so,” he grinned, “that they’ll probably be charging the Turks tolls to use their own waterways.”

  Clark looked down at his shoes, then back at Pratt. “I don’t follow you, sir.”

  “Don’t feel bad about that one. There was no way you could see the intelligence reports I got hold of the other day. That little skirmish with the Greeks was beautifully directed by our friends in Moscow just to put everybody a little off their feed. The outcome of the whole thing couldn’t have been better for them. The Turks and the Greeks were supposed to wear down each other’s military strength to the point that the Russians could waltz in long enough to drain the goddamned Black Sea if they wanted. The only things in their way are the choke points and the Greeks around the Aegean. They’re both quite a bit weaker today… just what keeps the Kremlin happy,” he concluded.

  He turned back to his status boards again. “That’s John Hancock out in that screening line with O’Bannon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Loomis responded.

  “Designate Hancock as OTC (Officer in Tactical Command) for that little scouting line.” Now was the time for Nellie to try some of the new tactics they’d played with back in Newport.

  “Sorry, sir, O’Bannon’s senior.” Loomis hit some buttons on the computer in front of him. “Commander Nelson is next in line, though.”

  “What circuit are they on?” Pratt requested, his voice tired.

  “Seventeen, sir.”

  Pratt punched the button for 17 as he hefted the radiophone to his ear. He got through to O’Bannon immediately.

  “This is Archer himself. Request that tactical command shift to Hanock for duration of this exercise to experiment with new tactics.” It was that simple. Give an order. It seemed, though, that he had to take over each time he wanted to convince his subordinates that he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Pratt sat back in his chair to watch.

  ABOARD U.S.S. JOHN HANCOCK

  Wendell Nelson smiled inwardly when he heard Pratt’s voice. Without moving from his chair, he called to his OOD. “Expand ship intervals to fifteen miles. Alter base course to one three five. They’ve been hiding a bunch of subs off the Libyan coast and there’s no better time than now to set them loose.” He lit another of his never-ending string of cigarettes and puffed quietly as he prepared the geographic picture in his mind. Easing out of his chair, he called over his shoulder, “I’m going into combat for a few minutes to show them a new trick or two. Ask the XO to report to me there.”

  It took Nelson just five minutes to show his executive officer what they were going to do, and not much more time for the watch to understand. It was another thirty minutes before the destroyers could launch their helos, and a bit more than an hour before the ASW aircraft from Kennedy were fused into the search pattern.

  Nelson was back in his captain’s chair in the pilothouse soon after the search began, cigarette in hand, his legs calmly crossed. There was no need for him to supervise the three-pronged sweep. He knew what it should be and he could visualize in his mind’s eye how they were establishing it as he overheard the reports from combat.

  The system had been initially developed under his direction, by a team of Naval War College students using a computer in Newport. It was a complex geometric pattern based on time sequences of various screen elements on station, combined with the ranges of their sound gear. Their movements were programmed. ASW planes would establish a barrier of sonobuoys covering a fixed line. To one side of that line were the widely spaced ships moving at high speed, sweeping fixed, cone-shaped areas before them. On the other side were helicopters dipping their sonar in a predetermined area.

  A submarine, if the captain and crew are in concert with their complex equipment, can avoid an active sonar sweep unless the searching unit is already on top of them. The intelligence originally programmed into the Newport computer identified each uncovered area, and part of the assumption was that the enemy sub would naturally head for those empty spaces. As the destroyers swept through the sonobuoy screen, the helos would hop to their rear, dipping their sonar in the open areas that had not been covered by the ships. The planes would then split up, each group sewing a line of sonobuoys on two sides to complete an imperfect rectangle approximately ninety by fifty miles.

  Nelson impatiently listened to the reports. Occasionally he would go down to combat to check the electronic display of the search. It was remarkably accurate for a first effort, especially considering that there were more than five thousand square miles to be covered in less than three hours. If the subs were out there, he had to get them!

  Within the next half hour, there were five contact reports, each one classified within moments as a submarine. Now for the hold down!

  “This is Hedgehog.” Nelson spoke calmly over the tactical circuit to his small force. “We will now commence the terror aspect of our new system.” He rolled the word “terror” over his tongue as if he savored the idea. “Our friends down below are already surprised enough that we found them so easily. I want every unit to have a turn running attacks. At each instance, one destroyer will stand off to the side and explain over the underwater telephone exactly what we are doing. The subs each have someone who can understand English, and if they don’t, I think they’ll get the idea fast enough. We’re going to make this part of the Med sound like Coney Island. I want anything in the water that will make noise. And I want grenades dropped at the right time to signify hits from each attack—whether or not you think your solution was correct. Every unit will take its attack solution as gospel and complete every step except for the actual firing. I want computer tapes from each of you after we finish. Should there be any reason to think our friends might do something stupid, I will be the only one to give the firing order. You will treat this as actual—not an exercise.”

  ABOARD U.S.S. JOHN F. KENNEDY

  On the Kennedy, Admiral Pratt listened to the tactical circuit between his recon aircraft and interceptors.

  “Bulldogs, Bulldogs,” called the intercept officer on the circling Hawkeye, “your targets are dead ahead at one four zero miles, speed mach one point four, course two six five, two thousand feet above you, and they have no idea you’re down there. Report your lock-on.”

  Almost in unison, the pilots announced target acquisition. Their on-board computers developed a solution that was then fed into their missile-control systems. Once fired, the Phoenix missile could be guided by the fighter plane until it acquired its target or the recon aircraft could override and take over direction.

  “Stand by to fire, Bulldogs.”

  Pratt knew that the instant the F-14s locked on to the Soviet planes, a warning signal went off in the enemy cockpits, accompanied by an automatic jammer on the missile frequency. He also knew the Russian pilots had to be aware their missile jammers were only a partial defense, for the recon planes could guide the missiles onto target. He waited for the next transmission.

  “Archer, this is Bulldog One. Targets have commenced evasive action.” There was a slight hesitation. “They must be damn sure our birds have been fired. Ho! They’re on a roller coaster ride.”

  Pratt picked up the mike. “Bulldog One, this is Archer. When your Bulldogs have visual contact, I want them in on a wing-tip escort. I want those Backfires to understand they’ve been had.” He paused for a moment as he surveyed the air-status board, se
arching for the next Russian flight. “Bulldog One, you’re already painting the next group. You have F-18s reporting shortly. Follow identical procedure.” Pratt had no more than relighted his cigar when Loomis called out, “Admiral, Hancock’s got submarines coming out his ears.”

  Pratt punched the numbers for the 17 circuit again. “I give up,” he growled. “What’s Nellie’s call sign?”

  “Who?”

  “Hancock, what’s their call sign.”

  “Hedgehog, sir.”

  “For your next project, you can make a list for me, for everyone in here. This is driving me crazy.” Though the communications officer would prepare a special call-sign board for the admiral, he had the feeling that no matter what the situation, Pratt would still be growling about his call signs. “Hedgehog, this is Archer One. I understand you have made contact. Over.”

  “Affirmative, Archer. There may be one or two who’ve gone silent for a while, but we have everybody who wanted to make life difficult. I am prosecuting now. Over.”

  Dave Pratt relaxed at the sound of Nellie’s soft, mellifluous voice. The man could maintain his calm under any conditions. “Give each unit a chance to conduct an attack, and have them do it over again if you have any doubts. Once you’re satisfied, you may release airborne units. Keep contact if possible until they reverse course toward the Libyan coast. I assume you have your search-and-attack phases on tape. Over.”

  “Roger, Archer. We did make a couple of small changes now that we’ve seen how it really works. I think we can distribute to all ASW computers now. We’re not going to have this chance again.”