by FARMAN, ANDY
“Our friends are on their own for the time being but that boomer cannot be allowed to slip away…we may have a slim advantage in that neither PLAN vessel is apparently aware we are here, that of course will change once we launch though.”
“Captain, sonar…aspect change on Xia, sir?”
The weapons officer got busy and the captain turned his attention back to the sonar department, looking at his watch as he did so, barely a minute had passed since the Chuntian had appeared so the only surprising thing about the Xia’s reaction was that it hadn’t happened several vital seconds before.
“Go, sonar?”
“Xia still increasing turns, now at twelve knots and rising…vessel coming around to starboard…now heading zero seven seven, sir.”
The Chinese ballistic missile submarine was turning across the Hood’s bow, a clear confirmation that the Boomer was unaware of them but then the hull rang as the Xia’s sonar went active, sending out several pounding beats of sound to check who else was in the neighbourhood.
“That’s torn it.” muttered his Number One.
“It helps with our solution though.”
The Xia’s helm went back over as soon as she detected the Hood. She came around to a course leading directly away from the Royal Navy submarine.
“Captain, we have solutions on both vessels.”
He nodded, pausing for a moment to question his own tactics before deciding that they were indeed correct.
“Bring us up to fifteen knots on a heading of zero one eight, assign one and two to the Chuntian, three and four to the Xia but do not cut the wires on three and four, we’ll guide as long as we can, however, reload one and two with Spearfish straight away.” In the background his orders were repeated aloud and he stood calmly, allowing the vessel to respond as ordered.
The deck tilted beneath his feet before levelling as the required heading was achieved.
“Captain, heading is now zero one eight at fifteen knots.”
“Very good, flood one through four, open outer doors and shoot.”
As soon as the weapons were away he turned his attention towards the engagement between the Chuntian and the Tucson, the US vessel was defensive and had launched two weapons at the Chinese vessel whilst running from the torpedoes that were homing on them. The Tucson’s weapons were not under guidance from the weapons operators, she had cut the wires and reloaded straight away so the weapons were pinging and therefore visible to the enemy vessel. It is far easier to avoid a threat you can see than one you cannot, as the case would have been had operators been guiding the weapon.
HMS Hood would guide her weapons in using the information available to the Royal Navy weapons operators, and although her captain doubted they could steer them all the way unseen it was the best he could do for the American vessel at present.
Ahead of them the Xia was still building speed when she released a whole series of noisemakers, the sound of her screw disappeared as the Hood’s sonar’s were drenched with the counter measures masking sound.
As the information on the boomers movements tailed off to nothingness the captain moved from the weapons operator’s positions to that of the sonar department.
“What’s she doing?”
Several minutes had now elapsed since the Xia had launched the first noisemaker and that device had just ceased to produce gas bubbles, it was now sinking silently toward the distant ocean floor.
“Sorry sir, too much racket.” The operator made some fine adjustments but then gave a half shake of the head.
“Nothing at all, she’s kept the noisemakers between us to hide, sir.”
That wasn’t too smart thought the captain, carrying on in a straight line wasn’t hiding because they knew her heading, unless…
“Come right to One Three Zero…standby countermeasures!”
The weapons officers turned in his seat to pose a question. “A hard turn might cut the wires captain, shall I do that anyway?”
“No, not at present Gavin, I am actually trying to prevent that from becoming necessary.”
His weapons officer did not understand, but then a sonar operator enlightened everyone except the captain who had already guessed correctly.
“TorpedoTorpedoTorpedo…high speed screws bearing zero one two. Two torpedoes just emerging from the bubble cloud!”
“Launch counter measures…bring us up to two hundred feet but keep this heading.” The captain looked over at his weapons officer who was wondering just how his captain had known the Chinese had launched weapons directly back the way they had come.
“It’s what I would have done in his shoes, Gavin.”
With Hood heading towards the noisy surface of the ocean the Chinese torpedoes went for the Hood’s noisemakers.
Hood’s own torpedoes stayed under their operators control as they entered the bubble cloud created by the Xia’s counter measure, the operators used the torpedoes as an extension of their hydrophones although the Spearfish systems were nowhere as sensitive as the submarines sensors. They waited in anticipation of regaining contact with the Chinese ballistic missile submarine but as the torpedoes emerged out of the bubbles into clear water once more they only detected another cloud of bubbles ahead.
“What speed was the Xia making when contact was lost?” the captain enquired.
“Twenty four knots, sir.” His Number One stated. “There was no indication that she was slowing or had finished accelerating.”
“Humph!” The captain exclaimed disparagingly.
“Our intelligence sources stated her top speed was only twenty two knots.”
The Hood was still making fifteen knots, a long way from her best speed but any faster would certainly ensure the control wires to the Spearfish would break.
“She’s drawing away captain, do we increase speed?”
With a shake of the head the captain dismissed the idea.
“I think perhaps that is what he wants.” Turning to the helmsmen he gave brief instructions.
“Come left again to Zero One Eight but maintain this depth and speed.” He was trying to put himself in the opposing captain’s head, trying to predict where the boomer would be in five minutes time but he couldn’t allow himself to get tunnel vision. “Sonar?”
“Yes, captain?”
“What’s going on with the Tucson and Chuntian?”
“Captain the Chuntian is bearing three one one, heading two eight four at twenty four knots, range six thousand three hundred metres, depth two four five, …the Tucson bearing three five zero, heading zero at thirty one knots, range twelve thousand, depth four zero zero sir.”
That was good, the Chinese attack submarine was running from the Spearfish but she would now know that her charge was in peril from the Hood.
The commanding officer of Her Majesty’s Submarine Hood had an easier job of putting himself in the place of the Chuntian’s captain, he’d be getting out of the way of the Spearfish and then coming after the Royal Navy submarine with all guns blazing.
“Are one and two reloaded?”
His weapons officer nodded and replied. “Yes sir, thirty seconds ago.”
It was another minute before their torpedoes entered the bubble cloud created by the last series of noisemakers the Xia had dumped in its wake, but this time on passing through to the other side the operators could hear distinct propeller noises, as blades churned away at the ocean at the same depth and heading as previously detected.
“Contact re-established captain, she’s making turns for twenty seven knots, bearing zero one eight, heading same, range four thousand two hundred!”
The captain felt a flush of relief; an awful doubt had existed in his gut that the big missile boat would simply have vanished. He glanced at the board, the range to the target that had been given was from torpedo number one and he added the distance from Hood to that weapon, six thousand nine hundred metres.
“Weapons, go active on both torpedoes, accelerate them and cut the wires.”
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sp; “Aye aye sir, going active on weapons one and two…accelerating and cutting the wires…closing bow doors for reload of tubes three and four captain.”
“Very good…keep this heading and give me thirty four knots for two minutes.”
“Aye sir, maintaining heading of zero one eight and making turns for thirty four knots for two minutes.”
The captain paused to allow his orders to be carried out, feeling a vibration in the deck as the Hood’s single screw began thrusting the vessel through the water at its maximum speed.
As the submarines speed increased the sonar reception deteriorated and with nothing to listen for in real time a leading sonarman took the opportunity to rewind the recent recording of the Xia and analyse it with a practiced ear. He knew the intelligence assessment on its speed and as that was clearly in error he sought for some clue to the secret of its true performance. A discovery came swiftly, but not to the question he had set.
Filtering out the sound of the pounding screws he listened keenly to the sound of the vessels reactor pump and then to an earlier recording.
“Captain, sonar!”
The captain approached the leading sonarman’s station where a set of headphones was offered.
“Yes, Kentleigh?” the captain placed one headphone against his right ear and enquired. “Exactly what am I listening to?”
“That’s a recording taken four days ago of the Xia with all but the sound of her reactors high pressure pump filtered out.”
The captain listened to a slow and faint noise that sounded rather like asthmatic wheezing. He nodded to the sonarman who pressed a key on the workstation in front of him. He heard a metallic click in the earpiece as the soundtracks were switched and then the same rhythmic wheeze; he listened hard and concluded that it was the same.
“Okay I’ll bite, what’s your point?”
“Sir, the second recording is only five minutes old.”
The self-discipline that the captain exercised at all times in front of the crew almost, almost, snapped. The sound of the high-pressure pump operating on a vessel travelling at only three knots could never ever sound the same as one working flat out.
“Come left to zero degrees and make your speed three knots.” He ordered before patting Kentleigh on the shoulder. “It seems that the Peoples Republic have themselves quite an effective submarine decoy which we knew nothing of before, well done.”
As Hood’s speed dropped off the sonar department sought to re-establish contact, the operators listening for some give-away noise amid the natural hubbub of the Pacific that could only be man-made.
Of the Tucson there was no trace, the US attack submarine had defeated the weapons sent against it and gone quiet, shrouding itself in silence as it began a stalk of the killer of its sister ships but she was now miles away and of no immediate assistance to HMS Hood.
They knew the Xia could not be far away, and in fact she had stopped running and launched a torpedo shaped Ghost Lamp, a pre-programmed decoy that was designed to emit sound waves that exactly mimicked its parent. The Xia had as a sensible precaution a Ghost Lamp programmed to run at their own top speed and loaded at all times in a torpedo tube where it required only the tube to be flooded and the bows doors opened. This Ghost Lamp had promptly failed, leaving a trail of bubbles behind as it sank into the stygian darkness below the boomer.
A second Ghost Lamp had been hurriedly prepared and launched, emitting an almost identical acoustic signature to that of the Xia. The Chinese weapons officer, working furiously at his console, had only moments to load the necessary sound files into the decoys memory, and he had patched and pasted quite literally the first available ‘pump noise’ file in the Xia’s sonar history library.
Xia herself had gone deep behind the cover of her noisy countermeasures and reduced her speed to a slow walk, listening with satisfaction to the western attack submarine thundering past in pursuit.
HMS Hood’s sonar department listened to the mournful pinging from west, northwest of two of their torpedoes as they swam zigzag courses in an effort to reacquire the Chuntian. They noted grimly an explosion to the north, northeast as a Spearfish silenced the Ghost Lamp that had suckered them in for a while, and they recognised the Chuntian as she headed their way at ten knots, too slow to be waking the neighbourhood but not slow enough to avoid detection by a western sonar suite. Chuntian’s solid fix on Hood’s position had faded as the British submarine lost way and her captain was desperate to re-establish contact. Coming in at ten knots would allow his own sonar operators to work whilst hopefully prompting a reaction from the Hood.
The British captain ordered another course change once three knots had been achieved, bringing the vessel right around to a heading of Two Seven Zero because he was certain that they had overshot the Chinese missile boat, but that was the only factor he was certain of.
“If you were the boomer then where would you be, Kentleigh?”
The operator took a moment to answer, consulting the details he brought up on the screen before responding.
“There’s a thermal layer another two hundred feet below us, I’d be under that by a good margin, sir.”
The captain considered it.
“Okay, and on what heading?”
“In the opposite direction to the one we were on.” Kentleigh replied.
“I’d want to get as much distance as possible between us.”
The Leading Sonarman had answered with a calm confidence and the captain decided to run with it.
“Come left again to One Nine Eight…make your depth seven hundred feet and take us there slowly.”
The Hood turned onto the ordered heading even as she sank away from the light of the surface above her. She had not reached the required depth when the sonar department reported again.
“Captain, sonar…aspect change on the Chuntian, now making turns for twenty eight knots.”
“Range, bearing, course and depth?” he asked.
“Sorry sir we are in the layer now so there’s nothing consistent on the panel.” The captain understood, the thermal layer made accurate sonar readings impossible on anything on the opposite side.
His Number One stepped close, speaking in a low voice so as not to distract the crewmen’s concentration.
“What do you think sir, she can’t have heard us?”
“No I don’t think so, although I think her sonar suite is an awful lot better than intelligence gave it credit for I reckon she is dangling herself as bait to try and tempt us into launching on her, thereby giving away a position that she and the Xia can both launch on.”
“And if we don’t fire on her…” his Number One mused. “….they get to close the engagement range, considerably.”
The captain nodded in agreement and spent a second longer in thought before reaching a decision and clapping his second in command on the back.
“There is another course of action we can take that they don’t seem to have considered though.”
“Sir?”
“We are resigning from the Silent Service, forthwith.” He laughed at his Number Ones expression and then turned to address the control room.
“In a few seconds we will be below the thermal layer, I want the Spearfish in tubes one and two readied for shots at the Chuntian and three for a snap shot at the Xia…the Spearfish in tube four will also be for the Xia once a proper solution is worked out…so let us take advantage of the layer while we have it and open bow doors.”
Behind him the Weapons Officer instructed the Torpedo Room to flood tubes one, two and three and open the outer doors. All eyes were on the captain, whose own were directed at the sonar operator he was stood beside.
Anticipation has a way of stretching time, and like the track runner in the blocks who knows the seconds between the words “Get set.” and the starters gun, can seem as long as minutes, so the officers and ratings felt time slow down.
At last Kentleigh nodded emphatically
“Clear of the layer sir.”
“Thank you.” The captain raised his voice.
“Go active on the sonar, three pulses only and standby torpedoes.”
Had the Chuntian been moving at a stealthy three knots she could have locked down the Royal Navy submarines position to within two feet when the waves of active sonar pounded out, but she was at flank speed and was therefore aware of the sources approximate direction only, and she would not even know for certain she had been launched on until she slowed, so her captain ordered his vessel to come back to ten knots, finishing the sprint well short of where he had originally planned.
The Xia on the other hand did the opposite, she was like a burglar tiptoeing towards a house over the back garden in the dead of night when suddenly the security lights come on, she froze for a heartbeat and then bolted, but at 7000 tons submerged that description was in rather relative terms.
“Contact bearing one eight zero, range seven four zero zero, depth eight zero zero.”
The operator had only reported a sonar echo reported the position of something large enough to reflect sound waves back at them, something large like a whale, a large school of fish or a submarine. There were no allied submarines in the area apart from the Tucson and she was too far north at the moment.
“Tube Three, match bearings and shoot.”
A slight tremble through the deck plates evidenced the launch and lights on the Weapons Officers panel confirmed the fact.
“Weapon running correctly, sir.”
“Thank you…sonar?”
“Sir?”
“Tell me about the Chuntian?”
“Sir, bearing two nine eight, heading one seven zero, range nine thousand, speed twenty four knots and slowing, depth four nine zero…five zero five, she’s joining us below the layer sir.”
“Tubes One and Two then please, while she’s still too fast to hear the launch…shoot!”
