by Clancy, Tom
“Conn, sonar, two torpedoes in the water, more SET- 53s, bearing 165.”
The fire control coordinator reported the range to Master 1 as 18,000 yards.
Mack wasn’t worried. Clearly, the Chinese had done this out of desperation. They wanted to go down fighting, and their only hope was to get lucky—and a torpedo in the water was a chance to get lucky; a torpedo unlaunched was nothing.
Cheyenne had closed to within striking range, but Mack didn’t give the orders to shoot yet. There were still two chances for the Chinese to get lucky, if those SET-53s really had a range of 20,000 yards. Captain Mackey once again gave the orders to prepare for a possible torpedo hit, and also to take evasive action by launching two ADC (Acoustic Device Countermeasure) Mk 2 decoys.
The decoys, which were launched out of what were in effect mini-torpedo tubes, accomplished exactly what they were intended to do and decoyed the torpedoes in a direction other than that of Cheyenne. The Chinese torpedoes ran out the length of their course without hitting anything solid. Their momentum spent, they settled to the ocean floor, taking Han 402’s hopes with them.
Though Mack had trained nearly his entire career for firing on an enemy submarine, he had never really expected it to happen. But Mack, like the others aboard Cheyenne, was a professional. He was calm as he gave the command, “Firing point procedures, Master 1, tubes one and two.”
A BSY-1 operator reported the relevant target data to the captain.
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two,” Mack said, his voice cool and steady.
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, aye,” the fire control coordinator repeated the command.
The Mk 48s were launched from the weapons control console and were ejected from their tubes. Their Otto fuel engines came to life, powering their pump jets.
“Tubes one and two fired electrically,” said the combat systems officer at the weapons control console.
As soon as the torpedoes entered the water, the Chinese submarine began to turn. Mack guessed that they were going to try a ninety-degree turn away from the Mk 48s, but the seeker heads on the ADCAPs were doing what they had been designed to do: hunt down an enemy submarine. They stayed with the Han as it twisted and turned.
“Both torpedoes have acquired Master 1,” reported the combat systems officer. Both Mk 48s had found the enemy submarine with their own sonars and no longer needed to be guided by Cheyenne’s fire-control system via their guidance wires.
“Cut the wires, shut the outer doors, and reload tubes one and two,” ordered Captain Mackey.
“Conn, sonar, two explosions, bearing 162.”
A cheer erupted in the control room, but Captain Bartholomew Mackey did not join in. The sailors were celebrating the fact that Cheyenne had just achieved her first blood, but Mack knew that more than that had just happened.
War with mainland China was now a fact of life.
A short time later, Mack secured from battle stations and ordered Cheyenne to proceed to periscope depth. Using SSIXS (Submarine Satellite Information Exchange System), Mack communicated their actions to the higher-ups in the Department of Defense and the Navy. As Mack had suspected, message traffic indicated that their encounter had not been an isolated incident and Cheyenne soon learned that what seemed like an all-out war had been started by China in an attempt to assert its position in the new world order.
Cheyenne’s orders were again confirmed and she was to remain on course, sprinting and drifting until arriving at Pearl Harbor so that she could resupply and join other American units in the South China Sea. There was one important change in her orders, however: she was now allowed to attack any Chinese naval vessel she encountered so long as her trip to Pearl would not be overly delayed.
The remainder of the trip to Pearl was a tense one. Every moment that passed increased the likelihood that they would once again face combat. Running at four hundred feet toward the submarine safety lanes southwest of the Big Island of Hawaii, the OOD brought the submarine shallow to copy over the floating wire any news that might have occurred since their last venture toward the surface. The news was not good.
Two Spruance class destroyers, the USS Fletcher (DD 992) and the USS John Young (DD 973), were operating in conjunction with the Coast Guard cutter Midgett (WHEC 726). One of the SH-60 Seahawks from Fletcher had dropped a line of sonobuoys about 150 miles south of Honolulu and detected a possible sonar contact. All vessels had been told of the friendly submarine traffic in the area, but the contact the Fletcher’s Seahawk detected did not match any of the sonar profiles of the submarines expected to be operating nearby.
Another Seahawk from John Young was en route to the area. Its orders were to assist in determining what type of contact the sonobouys were tracking.
Cheyenne went to periscope depth. Word came to them over the periscope communications antenna, on the “Navy Red” encrypted circuit from one of the helicopters, that there was a possible enemy submarine operating in the area, which turned out to be forty-two nautical miles north of Cheyenne’s current location. The message also indicated that Cheyenne’s assistance would be greatly appreciated. Mack acknowledged the pilot’s request, and then ordered Cheyenne to return to operational depth and proceed toward the reported datum.
Forty-seven minutes later Cheyenne’s towed-array sonar detected the sonar contact. They were still out of range and could not tell much about the contact. They knew only that it might be a submarine, and that, if it was a submarine, it was attempting to be as quiet as possible. The sonar supervisor designated this new contact as Cheyenne’s Master 2.
On the surface, the two U.S. destroyers and the Coast Guard cutter were hunting the sonar contact. The surface ships were attempting to keep their distance from the contact, wary of a possible torpedo attack. The Seahawks did not have to worry about that, and at 1340, moments after the surface ships had confirmed that the contact was indeed another Chinese nuclear submarine, Cheyenne heard the sounds of two Mk 50 torpedoes entering the water.
“Conn, sonar, torpedoes in the water ... Mk 50s, bearing 017. The Seahawks just dropped weapons on the submarine contact, Master 2.”
A short time later the small helicopter torpedoes went active. Cheyenne heard two noisemaker decoys being launched, followed by the loud cavitation of the Chinese submarine as it attempted to outrun the Mk 50s—to no avail.
“Conn, sonar, two explosions, bearing 023.”
“Radio, Captain,” Mack said. “Send congrats to the helo pilots over Navy Red; they just sank themselves an enemy submarine!”
Cheyenne’s crew was justifiably jubilant at having witnessed the destruction of a second Chinese submarine. Perhaps it had not been as exciting as their initial taste of combat, but it had boosted their confidence in their naval brethren hundreds of feet above them.
More than that, though, they were buoyed by the fact that every aspect of their first mission had gone off without a hitch. Mack ordered Cheyenne to proceed to Pearl. Once there, they would complete their mini-refit and prepare Cheyenne for her next operation: her transit to the home waters off China—the South China Sea.
2.
South China Sea Station
Captain Mackey looked around the small wardroom, meeting the gaze of each of the officers assembled before him. “The price of success,” he said. “The Navy was so pleased with our operations while en route to Pearl that they decided to send us directly into harm’s way. Cheyenne has been ordered to rendezvous with the USS Independence (CV-62), which will be heading in the direction of the recently occupied Spratly Islands. Independence is currently steaming in the Indian Ocean. We are to meet up with her one hundred miles northwest of Natuna Island. Upon crossing the Pacific Ocean we will chop (change operational commander) to the Seventh Fleet.”
Mack kept his voice and his gaze steady. Such transfers were common between fleets, but this one carried the connotation of an increase in risk. The Third Fleet was remaining on station closer to
home; the Seventh was on the front lines of this new war.
“Naval intelligence reports that there are large numbers of enemy warships operating in the area,” Mack went on. “We will, without a doubt, come into contact with many of these. Our first priority, however, remains meeting up with Independence. We will take this dangerous mission one step at a time. Remember, they have the home-court advantage.”
He looked around the wardroom one last time. “We’ll depart as soon as our refit is complete.”
If only that were true, Mack thought. But the truth was, they would be leaving before they were completely outfitted. As was always the case during peacetime, materiel was never ordered in large enough quantities to satisfy the demands of wartime operations. There were too many ships steaming into Pearl for supplies, and not enough weapons and ammunition to go around.
More was on order, of course, and it wouldn’t be long before Pearl was fully stockpiled, but by then Cheyenne would be halfway to the South China Sea.
Cheyenne’s loadout included sixteen Mk 48 ADCAPs, six Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and four Harpoon antiship missiles for medium-range attacks on surface ships. The loading was a long process. The Mk 48s had to be slowly and carefully lowered into the loading hatch one at a time, and the Tomahawks in their loading canisters were loaded directly into Cheyenne’s vertical launch tubes.
If Mack had had his way, though, the loading process would have taken even longer. He’d take Cheyenne out as soon as she was ready, of course, but he would have been happier if she’d had a full complement of weapons.
The transit to the rendezvous with Independence would take Cheyenne in a southwesterly direction through the Pacific Ocean and past the Marshall and Solomon Islands, both sites of grisly combat operations over fifty years ago. She would then pass by the Caroline Islands and cut through the Celebes Sea before entering the Sulu Sea and, finally, the South China Sea.
Naval intelligence had confirmed that Cheyenne had sunk the second of the Chinese Han class of nuclear attack submarines, number 402, and that she had been witness to the destruction of what turned out to be Han number 404 south of Honolulu. These two confirmed kills, along with the Han destroyed earlier by the submarine escorting Nimitz, meant that the Chinese navy had only two remaining nuclear powered submarines. Or at least, Mack reminded himself, only two that the United States knew about.
Addressing that lack of intelligence was a part of Cheyenne’s mission. Once in China’s home waters, Cheyenne’s orders were to gather intelligence on Chinese naval operations while making her way south in the direction of Indonesia. There, 100 miles northwest of Natuna Island, their old friend USS Independence would be waiting for them.
Thinking about their mission and the tools they’d have available to complete it, Mack adjourned the meeting. The loadout would be complete in less than two hours, and he wanted his officers and sailors ready for imminent combat operations.
Somewhere in the central Pacific, a Chinese Luda class destroyer sat quietly, dead in the water. One hundred meters below it lay its partner in crime, a Romeo class diesel attack submarine. Their mission was simple: sink as many American vessels as possible. They had heard the news of China’s losses in the Pacific Ocean, so they were pleased to detect a merchant ship, The Southwest Passage, an American merchant vessel two days out from Japan, en route to one of the Hawaiian Islands.
The merchantman was not a big ship, but she was flying the American flag, and that made her a target. As soon as The Southwest Passage came within eighty miles, the destroyer captain launched one of his two Harbin Z-9A helicopters in order to confirm the identity and nationality of the ship.
The merchantman did not, at first, realize the danger she was in, and her captain kept her on course. When the Chinese helicopter finally buzzed the bridge, however, he radioed their observations in to the U.S. Navy and received orders to alter their course to avoid, as the Navy radioman described it, “a possibly life-threatening situation.”
Unfortunately for the merchant ship and her crew, it was already too late. Without warning, three Chinese HY-2 missiles, variants of the Silkworm surface-to-surface missile family, came streaking across the sky, directly into the hull of The Southwest Passage. All three impacts came within seconds of one another, two in the aft section of her hull, the third closer to the bow.
The Southwest Passage went down like a rock, not even pausing to break up. All hands were lost, most of them dying in the explosions.
Aboard the Chinese destroyer, the captain was well pleased with the results. They had struck back successfully at the Americans. Even better, he had used only his destroyer in the attack. With luck he would be able to keep his submarine a secret, saving it as a surprise for a bigger fish, perhaps even a U.S. warship.
Having just passed Midway Island, Cheyenne was about to begin turning southward when she received word of the attack on The Southwest Passage. Since getting underway submerged from Pearl, Mack had maintained the floating wire communications antenna streamed to get any information that the Navy might wish to pass along to them. He had expected intelligence updates, and information on the latest developments, but he hadn’t been expecting news like that.
According to the message, the attack had occurred due south of Cheyenne’s current position. The coordinates were located approximately one day’s travel at full speed—or about a day and a half at their current rate of twenty knots. Mack didn’t hesitate. His orders allowed him some latitude, and he was prepared to take full advantage of that.
Reading the message a second time, he gave the order to turn Cheyenne and head full speed toward the destroyer’s reported position. In the absence of a formal declaration of war, the Chinese government would undoubtedly brand the destroyer a renegade. Which was fine with Mack. He intended to bring them to justice ... American style.
Twenty-six hours later Cheyenne received her second surprise. They had picked up a target, but it wasn’t the destroyer. Instead, there was another signal masking the one they’d expected.
Sonar quickly identified it as a diesel submarine, Romeo class. The Chinese submarine must have been having a problem with her snorkeling system because she was recharging her batteries on the surface—and making a tremendous amount of diesel noise in the process. It was another two hours before they picked up the Luda destroyer running at about thirteen knots.
Mack ordered battle stations manned. “Quite a day for going hunting, don’t you think?” he said to the diving officer.
“Sure is, Captain. It’s not often you find an enemy submarine on the surface with its pants down like this one.”
For targets such as these, the Harpoon surface-to-surface missile—or, in this case, submarine-to-surface missile—was without a doubt the weapon of choice, especially since both the Chinese submarine and the destroyer were operating so noisily. Cheyenne was able to determine their positions precisely and easily, something that was highly uncommon at this distance.
“Conn, sonar. Master 11 is bearing 013. Master 12 is bearing 002.” Master 11 was the Romeo-class submarine ; Master 12 was the destroyer. Neither of them had any idea what was about to be sent their way.
Over the next ten minutes, the BSY-1 computers were able to determine rough ranges of forty-three nautical miles to Master 11, and forty-two nautical miles to Master 12. Cheyenne didn’t need the actual range. As long as the targets were within reach of the Harpoons, it was the accurate bearings that counted.
Mack was pleased with the target acquisitions. “Torpedo room,” he called from the conn. “Remove the torpedoes and reload tubes two, three, and four with Harpoons. Leave an ADCAP in tube one.”
The response was immediate. “Remove the torpedoes and reload tubes two, three, and four with Harpoons, leave an ADCAP in tube one, aye, sir.”
Mack would have loved to shoot off all four of his Harpoon missiles, but that was cowboy tactics. The two known targets were making so much noise that he had to keep in mind the possibility tha
t there was a third—and much more quiet—enemy in the area. He needed to keep one torpedo ready to shoot in case he ran into one of the remaining Han class attack submarines they knew about—or, worse, an enemy they didn’t know about and weren’t prepared for.
The Luda destroyer was the bigger target, and it was more mobile than the surfaced Romeo class submarine. Mack decided to target two Harpoons to the Luda and only one to the submarine. At his command, Cheyenne decreased speed and began to creep silently through the water.
“Tubes two, three, and four are loaded with Harpoons,” reported the combat system officer. Cheyenne was now ready to fire her missiles.
The UGM-84, the submarine-launched variant of the Harpoon, came “wrapped” inside a buoyant capsule that was shaped to fit inside a torpedo tube. Upon firing, the UGM-84 would rise to the surface and, after ejecting the nose to the capsule, would ignite its rocket booster. Then, after dropping its booster, the Harpoon’s turbojet engine would light off and the missile would accelerate on course toward its target. As the UGM-84 neared its target, the radar seeker head would switch on and the Harpoon would commence its final approach.
For this mission, Mack ordered each Harpoon programmed to make a “pop-up” maneuver before attacking its target. This would confuse any antimissile systems the enemy destroyer might have on board. Cheyenne was only going to have one easy launch window at these two Chinese vessels. Mack wanted to make sure that his shots counted.
“Firing point procedures,” Mack ordered, “tube two, Master 11; tubes three and four, Master 12.”
He gave the order to fire the Harpoons two minutes later. They were launched to the surface by the weapons control console and the sonar man heard the rocket boosters ignite. “Reload tubes two, three, and four with Mk 48s,” Mack commanded.
