First Salvo

by Charles D. Taylor

  Nelson was of their generation, but he was different; he was tight with this new admiral; he was tall and handsome and looked like a Moorish god in his whites; he made statements such as: “Be goddamn happy you have pilots who can fly helos off your fantail, because if you didn’t, the first sound you’d hear would be the detonation of a warhead fired by a submarine you didn’t know was there—and it would be the last thing you’d ever hear,” or, “Thank your lucky stars that you’ve been set loose from that battle group, because you don’t have enough protection on board to keep yourselves from being blown out of the water with that first salvo,” or, “You don’t have to think about the tactics I’m going to use—just follow directions. The computer will save your ass.”

  They understood Wendell Nelson, grudgingly accepted his truisms, and would follow him. But that didn’t mean they had to like him. They accorded him the respect that Navy regs required and let it go at that. There was no time for comparing notes to see if they could present a united front. Each commanding officer was hidebound to his ship, responsible to his men, and would fight his ship to the maximum of his ability.

  Nelson stretched, then patted his breast pocket and was reminded that he had run out of cigarettes. There was no way he could function without them, not now. He sent the bridge messenger to his cabin for three more packs. There was no telling how long it might be before he was able to get back down there himself.

  There was a bit of the old Navy buried deep within Nelson. He preferred to spend as much time on the bridge as possible. Hell, he loved it. He could operate from there because his was a three-dimensional mind, one that could develop an absolute picture of his strategic environment. He could either picture John Hancock as the center and see the air, surface, and subsurface situation, or he could withdraw himself. He would place his mind in a remote location and develop a holographic image. In it, there was no ocean surface on which his ship sailed, nor a darkness that hid submarines. Rather, the surface was an invisible plane, the air above and the water below equally clear. He could visualize the whole picture; he was omniscient.

  It was in that manner that he would function as a squadron commander, coordinating two divisions, each operating independently of the other. If the computer projections and Nelson’s mind functioned in concert, those two divisions would actually be sweeping the Soviet wolf packs in closer to each other than was judicious. Then he would destroy them—if they didn’t get him first.

  Nelson thanked the messenger for the cigarettes, lit one immediately, and meandered over to the chart table. One of the quartermasters had set up a separate chart for him to insert latest-estimated-position reports. He erased the old locations, pinpointing the Soviet submarines that he was to take out.

  He had no concern for those that were to the west of Malta or to the north in the Ionian Sea. They were covered by the NATO forces that Pratt had established. Garibaldi and her mixed-nationality escorts seemed in control up there. The submarines that Nelson targeted were proceeding from the east in advance of Kharkov and other Russian surface forces, or from the Gulf of Sidra to the south. The frigates were only a picket line, a stopgap measure to slow the advance from the east. Nelson estimated that as many as a dozen Soviet subs might penetrate that line after disposing of the frigates. With the eight that were coming from the south, it was indeed a formidable force. There were no friendly submarines to move ahead of him to counter them. The last order Pratt had given to his own submarine commander was to move eastward, placing himself between the Soviet carrier group and Kennedy’s.

  Nelson compared these subs to a pulling guard, leading the sweep around the end. Their mission was vitally important to the success of Soviet strategy. If the full force of that all-important first salvo was to achieve maximum effect, these submarines were the key. The Backfire bombers depended a great deal on them, the attacking surface forces depended on them, the entire strategy of achieving an initial blow that the Americans could not recover from depended on their success.

  Pratt knew exactly how Nelson’s mind functioned, how the man responded to a threat. The Admiral envied Nelson’s ability to envision the threat by completely withdrawing and establishing that objective mental picture of his. He knew of no other man capable of succeeding in this particular case.

  Nelson lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he had just finished. He sketched some more on his chart, then called his executive officer over. “This is where we’re going to chase them.” He pointed at an imaginary spot about a hundred miles north of Benghazi, Libya. “Have the communications officer prepare a message designating Nicholson’s CO as northern division commander. I want him to move the remaining frigates gradually down in that direction. They’ll either chase the subs in their sector in his direction or draw them down there. I’ll take any help I can get.”

  The executive officer looked at the chart for a moment with a touch of uncertainty, then back at Nelson. “Admiral Pratt still has tactical command of those pickets, Captain.” He was one of those not yet able to figure out how his commanding officer could assume such responsibilities.

  “You’re right. Send another message to Pratt and tell him I will assume command of those frigates immediately.”

  “Uh…” The XO couldn’t swallow that one. In his Navy, junior officers were not in the habit of telling an admiral what they were assuming command of. But the XO simply couldn’t think of what to say.

  “Just send it, and watch what happens. Okay?” Nelson pushed his baseball cap back on his head in a jaunty manner and grinned at the XO. The meaning of his expression was obvious. It said in no uncertain terms, I know what I’m doing and I know my bounds.

  “Right, Captain.”

  “And when you get the comm officer set, zip up the ship for the duration. We’re just about in missile range and they have a better idea where we are than we do them. I’m going to need you to run this ship.” It was the way he wanted the XO to see him—a man above the other captains, but also a man who trusted his subordinates, one who would give them all the responsibility they could handle. The XO was a good officer—Nelson had checked his credentials before he’d ever gotten together with Pratt in Washington. He could have asked for another XO, but this man and his ASW training were superb. What the hell, thought Nelson, I might not be too excited about having me for a CO either. But I needed a go-between with the crew, and they understand this guy. A crew needed a known entity and the XO was it.

  “Contact!” The voice report echoed across the bridge from sonar a split second before the warning bell went off. A missile was locked on John Hancock!

  ABOARD U.S.S. JOHN F. KENNEDY, SOUTHEAST OF MALTA

  When Admiral Pratt settled into his chair in flag plot, the displays before him were accurate within seconds. Commander Clark had been made a staff officer because of his brilliance in strategic concepts. Once Pratt made him understand what was expected, Clark was able to deliver. From the moment he entered the room, Pratt knew there would be no necessity for sharp language again. The only element missing was the satellite picture. But that was balanced by the fact that the Russians were no better off in that respect.

  Clark eased into the chair next to him. “The Hawkeyes are having a rough time of it, Admiral.”

  Pratt’s eyes shot up to the board that displayed the air battle taking place four hundred miles to the east, well to the south of Crete. Colored symbols representing friendly forces were minimal. “Status?” He struck a match to light the stub of cigar between his teeth.

  “Our Hawkeyes picked them up as they passed over Bulgaria and commenced jamming, just in case they decided to fire a few early shots to keep us off guard. But it wasn’t too long after that the Hawkeyes got caught in a pincer between MiGs coming down from the north and some fighters that I guess were sent up by Kharkov. That’s one I guess we didn’t expect. Anyway, our fighters arrived on station a few moments after it all started. Our boys hadn’t been able to do much about fighting back. All they co
uld do was jam and evade, and you know how well they can do that.”

  “Cut the shit, Commander. How many did we lose?”

  “Two of them, sir. They were apparently too close together. We were listening to the net and the controllers were vectoring our Tomcats in when they went off the air.”

  Pratt interrupted. “That’s max range for the Tomcats. They should be in closer.” The cigar remained unlit. He tore off his last match.

  “We still have recon aircraft out there, Admiral.” It was Clark’s turn, his first since Pratt had come aboard. “I gave the orders for them to haul ass out of there, sir, because we wouldn’t have had any Hawkeyes left if—”

  Pratt extended his hands in a gesture of acceptance. “Okay. Okay. No need to outdo my act. I would have done the same thing. Those Russian fighters didn’t have much time on station either, did they?”

  “Very little. It was pretty quick, I guess—old-fashioned dogfight for a second. We lost two, claim four of theirs downed, though I think our men in the rear seat tend to exaggerate. But they accomplished what we sent them out for. The other Hawkeyes got away, and we still have a pretty good air picture as a result.”

  “Very good, you mean,” Pratt mused. “That’s what I was looking for before.” Now he slapped his pocket, looking for more matches.

  “They’ve tried barrage-jamming our picture, but we’re restationed so that LINK is working properly now.” LINK was the process by which the recon aircraft were able to transmit the tactical picture back to Kennedy and Yorktown. It also allowed the controllers in the Hawkeyes to vector the fighters to a target or even to take full control of the craft from the pilot.

  “We’ve been able to take about five or six Backfires out of the picture, but, Christ, they just keep coming, one flight after another.”

  “That’s the idea. Simple mathematics. It doesn’t matter to Moscow how many planes they lose or how many missiles we knock out as long as enough of them get through. They never designed the goddamn things for perfection. If half-a-dozen missiles break through on us for every fifty they put up there, I’ll bet they’d call that a successful attack.”

  Clark pointed at one of the boards. “It looks very successful then, sir.” He handed Pratt a pack of matches.

  The attack was successful indeed. The red enemy symbols on the board, each representing a Backfire bomber closing in on their force, were numerous, merging into a single red blob in some sectors. And converging on the intercept point a little over a hundred miles from the battle group were the Hornet fighters, the last source of long-range defense before Pratt’s battle group would have to undertake its own defense.

  Pratt viewed the situation dispassionately. The perimeter was already over—the pickets had done their job and now it was up to Nelson. He saw that Nelson’s ASW forces had now come under attack. Their success would be measured in a matter of minutes. If their tactics were successful, the Soviet submarines would neither be able to control the cruise missiles nor launch an attack of their own on the battle group.

  The Soviet cruise missiles would be launched shortly. Then it would become an electronic war—missile versus missile, countermeasures versus countermeasures, men versus black boxes. Clark had seen that electronic countermeasures had been instituted before Pratt entered plot. Each ship in the battle group constantly radiated signals that would confuse the incoming missiles, fool the enemy radar into thinking that there were more ships than really existed, that small ships were really carriers, that the carrier was a series of small targets. But Pratt knew there would be more missiles than targets. There were men in those aircraft and submarines who understood American battle group dispositions well enough to know where the carrier was located and which ship was an AEGIS cruiser.

  ABOARD U.S.S. YORKTOWN WITH THE KENNEDY BATTLE GROUP

  Tom Carleton made a tour of Yorktown after his shower. Since she was secured for action, the PA system was used whenever a hatch was opened to another compartment to allow entry. This served two purposes—many men actually had the opportunity to shake their new commanding officer’s hand before they went into battle, and nothing could have done more for morale than to see the captain apparently as confident as if they were about to take an extended liberty.

  By the time Carleton was seated at his station in CIC, his appearance was no different than when he left. He was one of those men who could put on a freshly pressed, custom-fitted uniform and ten minutes later appear as if he’d slept in it. His slacks were rumpled, the buttons on his shirt strained over his more-than-ample belly, and his belt had once again eased itself below his midsection. He was definitely not material for recruiting posters. But nothing in his outward appearance could have adversely affected the crew of Yorktown. He understood what sailors respected and what they reacted to—and they were on his side.

  The computer could have told Carleton how long it would take for the two opposing forces to meet. Kharkov and her escorts were a little over two hundred miles to the east.

  Both groups were making about twenty-five knots, closing in at more than fifty miles each hour. In four hours, they would be on top of each other. In two hours or less, though they would not yet be in sight of each other, they would be within shipboard missile range.

  The proximity of the opposing surface forces to each other would have meant a great deal in the early stages, if they had been the main elements. However, there were submarines capable of moving much faster than the ships on the surface that could alter the situation at any moment. Some of the subs had not been detected since the satellite-intelligence capability had been lost. The overwhelming influence in the modern theater of war was the air-to-surface missiles. At any time now, they could be on their way with some probability of a hit. As each second passed, the odds increased that the initial missiles of the salvo would be launched.

  The link with perimeter aircraft disclosed a large number of Soviet aircraft breaking through the barrier. The picture was revealed clearly on both Yorktown and Kennedy. Though Pratt and Carleton were in direct contact, their responsibilities differed considerably. The Admiral was in charge of overall strategy. Carleton was to coordinate the defense of Kennedy’s battle group.

  The red light on Carleton’s console winked in concert with the buzzer that sounded through CIC, and within seconds of the warning that the attack had commenced, a voice in the darkened room announced to no one in particular, “Missiles away!” It had begun.

  There was a perceptible sigh in CIC, a collective release of tension. The waiting was over. Now they could act.

  “Time to impact—twenty-four minutes.” The voice was cold, impersonal. It was the speaker’s job to announce the information, even if others could note the time simply by pushing a button.

  A tactical signal came over the primary voice net for all ships. On their direct line, Admiral Pratt said, “Tom, I’m shifting the screen around, moving everybody a bit. No reason to make it easy for them. I want you to act independently. There are two of their Alfa-class subs out here that we’ve completely lost.” Those were titanium-hulled attack subs, extremely fast, unusually quiet, and their hull alloys did not distort the magnetic field—making them even harder to locate.

  “Probably went silent,” Carleton responded.

  “That’s exactly what my man Loomis figures. They could pop up anywhere.”

  Carleton gave his executive officer free reign to conn the ship. The ship’s movements made no difference to the computer as long as it continued to provide the necessary functions to back up the system’s operations. Able to detect and track a couple of hundred targets at a time, it now would face its greatest test. The Soviet Backfires were filling the air with missiles, some fired from maximum altitude, others from lower levels. Some of the bombers swooped down to sea level to release their missiles below the acquisition level of most shipboard radars. And there were a select number of bombers in each flight that retained their weapons. They would continue to close in on the group, conductin
g evasive action so that some of them might get close enough to fire at point-blank range—close enough to penetrate the security envelope that allowed ships’ computers time for a target solution for their own defensive missiles.

  Dale, one of the perimeter anti-air-defense ships, was the first to come under fire. While the carrier and the AEGIS cruiser were primary targets, it was imperative to eliminate a ship like Dale. She carried dual missile launchers fore and aft and she could reload the rails of one launcher while the other took the target under fire. She was a guided-missile cruiser that could handle herself under pressure.

  Three incoming cruise missiles were locked on Dale. Sea Sparrows slid onto her rails. Her fire-control radar relayed guidance data as each one was fired. While these small antimissile birds raced for their targets, the launchers returned to load position. Two aircraft were coming in low on the water, intent on the main body to the rear of Dale.

  Again she fired, this time with standard missiles locked on the Soviet aircraft. The launchers automatically snapped back to reload. Sea Sparrows slid onto the forward rails, Standards to the rear. Dale’s radar was cluttered with targets now. Computers determined the threat level as she fired—reloaded—fired—reloaded—

  But now an equally dangerous threat presented itself to the cruiser. ASW helicopters had been prosecuting a contact about thirty miles off Dale’s port bow, which eventually escaped. When contact was regained, the sub was seen to be closing in on the cruiser at high speed. As a radio warning from the helos came to her attention, the ship’s sonar established contact. Within moments, the telltale sound of high-speed screws signified torpedoes in the water.