Attack of the Seawolf mp-2

by Michael Dimercurio

  * * *

  At 1845 Kurt Lennox came into the control room, his black-rimmed, bloodshot eyes giving away the fact that he had been unable to sleep for days. Each minute stretched into hours, each hour a month. Lennox, Vaughn and Bartholomay stood over the chart table as if gathered around a campfire on a cold night.

  “How much longer to international waters?” Lennox asked.

  Vaughn walked his dividers across the chart, measured the distance, then grabbed a time-motion slide rule and spun the inner circle twice.

  “About ninety minutes,” he said, “assuming we speed up to full when we hit the task force at the channel midpoint.”

  “Goddamned long time,” Bart said.

  “It’s a big goddamned channel,” Vaughn said, looking at the chronometer, wishing they had just one lousy torpedo.

  P.L.A NAVY DESTROYER JINAN

  Weapons Department Leader Chen Yun held up the binoculars and looked out the bridge windows at the water to the west. The wind blew the rain against the windshield, the sound like a sandblast rig from the shipyard. Outside the windows, the bay water was black, the sky turning dark brown as the light faded.

  The water of the bay was choppy, the whitecaps phosphorescent in the dim light. The ship was on course north, two kilometers astern of a Jianghu frigate, which was two kilometers astern of another frigate.

  Chen walked to the surface search radar display and put his face down to the hooded display, the rubber of the hood cold on his forehead. The circular scope was green, the rotating beam lighting up the land around them. The point of Lushun was sharp and clear to the north. The hump of Penglai was more distant, its shoreline fuzzy in the rain. Close to the center of the circle, a group of islands lit up and slowly faded with each rotation of the radar beam. Chen adjusted a range-display knob, setting the radius of the display circle to eight kilometers. The points of land vanished, the scope taken up with twelve dots arranged in an oblong rectangle, the center of the display on the east elongated edge of the rectangle. The dots were the twelve other ships of the task force, all steaming one behind another along an eleven-kilometer by two kilometer racetrack, pacing back and forth over the deep channel through the Bohai Haixia.

  Chen didn’t like it. A Udaloy-class destroyer was not meant to march back and forth in formation as if on a parade ground; it was built to prowl the open seas in search of submarines, and when they were detected, to kill them. The ship should have been steaming independently, in a forward deployment, searching over open water for the submarines. To bottle them up here at a choke-point was stupid. Certainly that was fine for the frigates, but to put a sub-hunting Udaloy here made no sense. Even if they detected the subs now, the Udaloy would have a tough time getting to them in the restricted waters of the channel.

  The water to the west, from the direction of enemy approach, was a free-fire zone for their SS-N-14 Silex missiles. That at least had been done right. The most lethal weapon in the task force was the SS-N-14, a rocket-launched depth charge. Usually one per customer would be enough to kill any sub. But if they needed to launch torpedoes down a west bearing line, they could not do it from the eastern branch of the pace pattern because they could acquire on the ships of their task force to the west, the ones pacing south.

  And they were prohibited from shooting in the east direction because the aircraft carrier Shaoguan was patrolling the end of the channel to the east, and it would not do to hit the carrier with a volley of Type 53 torpedoes.

  It made no sense, confining a deadly Udaloy to this battle tactic, but then, who was he to say? Chen was still in his late twenties, barely out of the Second Surface Vessel Academy at Canton. He could not hope to match the tactical minds of the fleet commanders and task force commanders or of Ship Commander Yang Pei Ping, the Jinan’s captain. They must have agreed to this force deployment. Still, the tactics course at the academy had always insisted that fast ASW destroyers like the Udaloy operate in open water, leaving choke-point entrapments to lesser ships like the Jianghu frigates. And what about the fleet deployments to the south? The fleet commander had stationed most of the fleet at the entrance and exit of the southern passage, the Miaodao Strait, expecting the subs to try to leave through the narrow channel.

  Chen didn’t see it. If he were a submarine commander trying to make his way out he’d keep to the wider channel. But perhaps the fleet commander had satellite surveillance or some reason to believe that the subs would come out via Miaodao.

  Chen swallowed his frustration. His life since adolescence had led up to this moment, and not only was his ship put in the secondary task force, a halfhearted contingency force, but they were doing the job of a PT boat. He walked to the port bridge wing and searched the bay to the west with his binoculars.

  “BRIDGE, COMBAT CONTROL,” a speaker blared out from the overhead, its rasping volume startling Chen, who put his binoculars down and concentrated on the announcement. “WE HAVE BROADBAND SONAR CONTACT ON MULTIPLE SUBMERGED HOSTILE TARGETS TO THE WEST.”

  Chen felt the rush of excitement spinning him to an accelerated speed. With one hand he grabbed the microphone of the ship’s announcing system: “GENERAL QUARTERS, CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE.”

  With his other hand he grabbed the handset of the tactical net radio and clicked the button for transmitting, tried to make his voice slow and distinct.

  “Task force flag, this is destroyer Jinan reporting initial detection of multiple submerged hostile contacts, bearing west, supplemental report to follow, over.”

  “JINAN, THIS IS TASK FORCE FLAG, ACKNOWLEDGING INITIAL DETECTION, OUT,” the tactical net’s speaker crackled.

  Commander Yang Pei Ping hurried into the bridge, his face set in a mask of concentration.

  “I’ve been in combat control, Chen,” he said.

  “They are tracking twelve contacts. A dozen submarines!”

  “No. That’s impossible,” Chen said. “Is it a trick?”

  “Perhaps the Americans sent a fleet of submarines to rescue their ship. From the destruction at Xingang it is beginning to make sense. Are general quarters manned?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. Arm the SS-N-14 Silexes and the Type 53s. Prepare for a Silex launch of the entire battery to the west.”

  “Yes, Commander, but the range to the targets is unknown. We can’t throw away missiles without a firecontrol range. Perhaps the Commander would consider using the active sonar to locate the mean range.”

  “No,” Yang said, dismissing the younger man. “Passive sonar only. Orders of the fleet commander. He does not want to fill the channels with active echo ranging signals that might impede our longer range detection of threats. The more we transmit, the more noise in the water and the less we’ll hear.”

  “Sir, I don’t mean to doubt the fleet commander, but an active sonar transmission will determine beyond a doubt if any of these hostile contacts are … decoys.”

  “There are no such things as decoys, Chen. These are submarines.”

  “We’d get a range to the ships much quicker going active, sir. The subs could be driving up close any moment. We need to release weapons, at least fire torpedoes to the west.”

  “Chen, the tactics are being evaluated in combat control. Your function is to help me drive the ship, not comment on strategy. We’ll continue our target motion analysis by turning around when we have the first leg bearing rates. The task force will maneuver in a moment.”

  Yang took up the intercom mike.

  “Combat control, do you have a steady bearing rate?”

  “BRIDGE, COMBAT, YES.”

  “Task force flag, this is destroyer Jinan reporting first leg complete and ready for maneuver, over,” Yang reported on the tactical net, which replied immediately:

  “TASK FORCE NORTH, THIS IS TASK FORCE FLAG, STANDBY FOR IMMEDIATE EXECUTE, BREAK, TURN STARBOARD ONE EIGHT ZERO RELATIVE, BREAK … STANDBY … EXECUTE:’

  “Right full rudder, both engines ahead full speed,” Yang ordered.
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br />   The ship responded, the deck vibrating and tilting as the rudder and gas-turbine engines brought her one hundred and eighty degrees around to the south. At the same time every ship in the task force turned a half-circle, reversing course, the ships now driving their racetrack clockwise instead of counterclockwise, the better to get a parallax range to the incoming submarines.

  Two minutes later it was apparent that the contacts were extremely close. Much too close. Inside the minimum range of the Silex missiles, Chen thought bitterly, resenting the mindless rigidity of his senior officers. If they had gone active, the Silex missiles would have blown up the submarines three minutes ago.

  The task force had lost their opportunity. It was now, he felt, too late to shoot. Once the submarines came between the surface ships and the aircraft carrier they would have to use the fleet’s helicopters to kill the subs — the firing of torpedoes going east toward the aircraft carrier and the fleet commander had been prohibited.

  P.L.A NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER SHAOGUAN

  Fleet Commander Chu Hsueh-Fan put the handset of the tactical net back in its cradle and looked at Tien Tse-Min, who was leaning over the chart table and scratching his chin.

  “Leader Tien, we have detected twelve submerged contacts in the Bohai Haixia Strait. They are heading east and approaching the north task force. The task force will be releasing weapons in the next few moments.”

  Chu bit back a smile now that the notion that the submarines would depart via the south passage was obviously disproved. There would be no more interference from Tien — they could get on with the business of destroying the submarines.

  “No. Your north task force shall not release weapons. The submarines will be coming through the south channel at any moment.”

  Chu could not believe what he was hearing.

  Tien grabbed the tactical net handset and called the southwest task force commander.

  “Southwest task force flag, this is Tien. Is there any sign of a detection, over?”

  “LEADER TIEN, THIS IS SOUTHWEST TASK FORCE FLAG, STANDBY, OVER.”

  “Leader Tien, I do not understand.”

  “Chu, if you were a commander of a sub you would understand. The Americans are launching decoys at us to confuse us. They will wait until all our weapons are depleted and then they will sail through the bay making fools of us.”

  “Sir, decoys or not, no one has decoys that can make a sound like a submarine. There are units that can make noise, even generate a screen of bubbles to fool torpedoes, but these contacts are a flotilla of submarines. Can you expect me to let these contacts go without shooting them?”

  “Commander Chu,” Tien said, “any noise, any weapons, any active sonar, any activity of our forces in the northern passage will make the Americans believe that they have confused us. I am telling you, they are coming out through the Miaodao Strait.”

  “LEADER TIEN, THIS IS SOUTHWEST TASK FORCE FLAG, OVER.”

  “Go ahead. Flag.”

  “WE HAVE DETECTED TWO SUBMERGED CONTACTS CLOSING THE ENTRANCE TO THE MIAODAO CHANNEL AT APPROXIMATELY TWENTY-FIVE CLICKS. CONFIDENCE IS HIGH THAT THESE ARE THE AMERICANS. REQUEST IMMEDIATE WEAPONS RELEASE, OVER.”

  Tien smiled.

  “I told you the Bohai Haixia detections were a feint. A smokescreen to draw our attention to the north.”

  “Sir, if you won’t allow a weapon release for the north task force, we at least need to verify these contacts in the Bohai Haixia with our helicopters, the units with magnetic anomaly detection.”

  “Mag detection won’t work in a shallow channel,” Tien said.

  Chu raged beneath his forced calm. Leader Tien Tse-Min knew just enough about naval matters to be dangerous, but certainly not enough to sink a PT boat, much less a flotilla of motivated and lethal American submarines. The first crack formed in Chu’s professional front.

  “Leader Tien, listen with your ears and launch the helicopters.”

  For a moment Tien just stared at Chu. After a moment he raised his eyebrows and smiled indulgently.

  “Very well. Fleet Commander. I suppose it would not hurt to do some overflights.”

  Chu gave an order into the phone. Down the flight deck below, the jet turbines of twelve Harbin Z-9A helicopters began to spool up, reaching full power a few moments later, the main rotors of the big machines beginning to spin, beating the rainy air of the storm-darkened dusk.

  P.L.A NAVY DESTROYER JINAN

  At 1854, the first of the contacts drove under the task force, the submarines inside minimum weapons range.

  The other submarines likewise were too close to shoot, and one by one they transited under the channel where the task force sailed. Jinan, like the other vessels, allowed the ships to go, knowing that once the subs were outside one kilometer they could shoot SSN-14 Silex missiles at the ships, as long as the Shaoguan gave permission.

  At 1900 ten cruise missiles lifted off from a point at the far west entrance to the channel, their orange flames lighting up the bay as the ten missiles climbed into the clouds and vanished. Immediately Commander Yang ordered the port SS-N-14 quad launcher trained on the position, the range set for forty kilometers, and the battery launched. The first and second Silex missiles were lifting off when the 30-mm six barrel anti-missile guns began to train over to the west. The speaker of the intercom boomed through the bridge.

  “BRIDGE, COMBAT, INCOMING CRUISE MISSILES, SEVERAL CONTACTS, INBOUND AT SUBSONIC VELOCITY. FIRECONTROL RADAR LOCKED ON AND 30-MM GUNS IN AUTOMATIC.”

  Commander Yang acknowledged while the third Silex missile lifted off and climbed to the west, en route to the vessels that had launched the missiles.

  Yang’s binoculars were on the position forty kilometers to the west, where the American submarines, the ones that had launched the hostile cruise missiles, were about to be blown apart.

  “Combat control, bridge,” Yang called on the intercom.

  “Report status of the second leg to the submerged contacts — do we have a firing range set into the computer?”

  At 1906 the sonar operator in the combat control center clicked his microphone to respond, then stopped and listened hard into his headset. He heard a strange screeching noise, then two noises, then five, then seven. His screen filled with angry bright traces, all of them loud and fast. Too late he realized what was on the screen.

  P.L.A NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER SHAOGVAN

  Chu watched as the Harbin helicopters of squadrons one and two lifted off and flew to the west, soon vanishing into the dark and the rain until only their flashing beacons could be seen, then those too were swallowed up by the darkness. As he watched he thought he saw flashes of fire far to the west, beyond the horizon, the cause of the fire not clear in his binoculars.

  He hurried over to his tactical net radio-telephone when the task force commander of the north beat him to it, the radio speaker loud and insistent as the commander’s voice rang out in the room:

  “FLEET FLAG, THIS IS NORTHERN TASK FORCE FLAG, WE HAVE MULTIPLE LAUNCHES OF ROCKETS FROM THE ENTRANCE TO THE CHANNEL FORTY KILOMETERS WEST OUR POSITION. MISSILES ARE BEING TRACKED NOW. WILL RELEASE WEAPONS INTO THE FREE-FIRE ZONE.”

  “Northern Task Force Flag, this is Fleet Flag. Release weapons to the west and report incoming missile status.”

  “FLEET FLAG, THIS IS NORTHERN TASK FORCE FLAG, INCOMING MISSILES ARE SEA LAUNCHED CRUISE MISSILES. WE CAN KNOCK THEM DOWN.”

  “Roger, Fleet Flag out.”

  Before Chu could press Tien to commit to vectoring the southern task forces to the Bohai Haixia Strait, a radio transmission came into the room, the southeast force commander’s voice rushed and urgent:

  “FLAG, THIS IS SOUTHWEST, WE ARE UNDER TORPEDO ATTACK. THE DONGCHUAN AND THE WUZI ARE SINKING. REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIRCRAFT SUPPORT.”

  Tien replied to the task force commander, then looked at Chu.

  “We must divert the helicopter squadrons to the southwest task force. Radio the instructions.”

  “If you send o
ur helicopters to the south, can I at least launch the VTOL jets down the Bohai Haixia?”

  “Keep the jets on deck until we have pinpointed the exact locations of the submarines. Then the jets can deliver the killing blows.”

  It was madness, Chu thought, that whatever facts presented themselves, Tien Tse-Min would see them through the filter of his preordained conclusions about the submarine escape through the south passage. Chu realized there was nothing more he could do but wait for the subs to reach the Shaoguan after the weapons in the south were proved to be a diversion. Then it would be up to the jets, helicopters and ASW weapons of the Shaoguan to neutralize them, even if he had to chase them into the Korea Bay.

  P.L.A NAVY DESTROYER JINAN

  At 1907 the first torpedo smashed into Jinan’s hull at the forward funnel, a geyser of water exploding two hundred meters into the sky, blowing a hole in the ship so big that it looked like a bite had been taken out of the ship’s port side with jaws a halfship length wide. The engines stopped, the gas turbines dying from the destroyed fuel delivery and computer control systems.

  At 1908 a Javelin cruise missile slammed into the superstructure under the starboard bridge wing, entered the interior of the ship and detonated. The resulting explosion and fire set off one of the SS-N-14 canisters on the starboard side, which swallowed the remainder of the superstructure in a fireball that grew into a billowing mushroom cloud, turning from orange to black over the hull of the ship, rising up into the wet clouds.

  Chen and Yang were both smashed into the starboard bulkhead of the bridge when the first torpedo exploded. The Javelin explosion blew a hole in the floor of the bridge, the glass windows still remaining after the torpedo hit. Yang and Chen were alive, even after the cruise missile hit, but the explosion of the Silex battery vaporized the bridge wing where they had collapsed. Their bodies would never be found.

  After the SS-N-14 explosion there was nothing left of them bigger than what could be poured into a thimble.

  At 1911 the second Mark 50 torpedo swam under the keel of the crippled Jinan, the hull proximity sensor firing the detonator train, the ton of high explosive blowing the water under the keel into a sphere of expanding gases. With the water suddenly gone beneath the keel, the ship’s weight supported only by the bow and stern, the ship collapsed, breaking like a bridge carrying too great a load. The hull snapped, the bow section rolling starboard and sinking immediately, the stern half rolling to port and vanishing by the screw, the grotesque twisted and burned metal of the ripped hull sticking straight up into the rainy air, then slowly settling.