Counter Poised

by John Spikenard

  As they entered, George asked, “How did you like it?”

  “Wow! That was the most incredible ride of my life!” Pappy exclaimed. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m missing something. Tell me again, Captain, how do you intend to use these fighters? Without a recovery net, it seems like every mission would be a suicide mission because when that dude stops, he’s headed straight for the bottom!”

  “All right,” said George. “I can explain, but it’ll take one more comparison first.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ve compared traditional submarines to aircraft and concluded they’re like dirigibles, right? As far as their maneuverability is concerned, they suck. Sub-fighters are more like fighter jets. Their maneuverability is great.”

  “Boy, I’ll say!”

  “Now let’s compare traditional submarines, namely attack boats, to surface ships. Submarines are big, lumbering behemoths with tremendous firepower. We employ them against other big, lumbering behemoths, and we shoot it out with huge, long-range torpedoes like Mark 48s. What does that remind you of, Mister World War One?”

  “Nothing,” replied Pappy, obviously tiring of the captain’s guessing games.

  “All right, you’re giving up on me now so I’ll just tell you—battleships!”

  “Battleships?”

  “That’s right. Battleships were big, lumbering behemoths with tremendous firepower. They were employed against other big, lumbering behemoths and shot it out with long-range sixteen-inch guns rather than torpedoes. I’m sure you remember your naval history—Jutland and all that?”

  “Yeah, sure. Crossing the T was everything.”

  “That’s right. Everybody’s thinking was oriented toward battleships. Victory ultimately went to the admiral who could maneuver his line of battleships across the bow of the enemy’s line of battleships, forming, in effect, a T. The victorious admiral then had the powerful and plentiful broadside guns of his ships pitted against the much fewer bow guns of the enemy so he could blow them away! So right up until World War Two, everybody kept building bigger and more powerful battleships. But what happened then?”

  “Aircraft carriers,” Pappy responded, suddenly coming out of his doldrums and getting interested again. “During World War Two, aircraft carriers took over as the primary fighting ship. After that, entire battles were fought without enemy fleets ever even seeing each other. It was the end of the battleship era.”

  “That’s exactly right, and what I’m doing is changing submarine warfare the way the aircraft carrier changed surface warfare. Until now, submarines have been like battleships. From this day forward, the USS Louisiana is an underwater aircraft carrier. Remember how I told you the wings on these fighters enable them to maintain depth at less than five knots? You saw that for yourself, right?”

  Pappy nodded in agreement.

  “Well, if the Louisiana is moving at five knots as well, then the relative motion between the two is zero. One of our fighters can literally hover over the deck and land. They can take off the same way. When we detect a sonar contact, which may be an attack boat, we’ll launch a fighter to investigate. With our towed array, we can get an accurate bearing on the contact in order to initially direct the fighter to an intercept. In fact, since we have a pretty capable sonar system in each sub-fighter, we’ll be launching reconnaissance missions even if the Louisiana does not have any sonar contacts herself. The fighters will be able to listen above or below thermal layers, which are blocking our sonar, or listen beyond our sonar range, which may be limited by salinity conditions or biologics. When the fighter returns, it lands on the deck, and the crew reports the locations and types of contacts they detected. The Louisiana only has to maintain enough headway for the fighter to maintain depth and have a little maneuverability. It simply hovers over our moving deck, aligns with the mounting brackets, and then lands.”

  “How does the pilot know where to land?” Pappy asked.

  “Remember those markings I told you about, which we’re paintin’ on the deck?” asked Dwight.

  “Oh yeah. I guess I had a little ‘information overload’ out there.”

  George continued, “The pilot simply looks out the porthole and visually aligns the fighter with the markings on the deck. Once he sets her down, the sonar operator uses the locking lever in the fighter to engage the brackets and clamp the fighter securely to the deck, forming a water-tight seal over the escape hatch.”

  “Okay, sorry, I should have remembered that.”

  “It’s okay, Pappy. There’s a lot to absorb at one time.”

  “I’ll say! Remember, you guys have been thinking about this for ten years. I just got here!”

  “You’re doing great.”

  “Thanks, but I have another question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Precisely! I was wondering what the fighter does when it intercepts an enemy contact. Dwight mentioned something about rockets?”

  “Each fighter carries a new type of weapon in a pod mounted right on the side of the fuselage. The weapon is an underwater rocket.”

  “Aha! So I was right, we did take the rocket idea from the Shkvall after all!”

  “Okay, I guess in a way you’re right. It’s a solid rocketpropelled projectile with a short range—no more than one hundred yards—and a small, five-pound, contact warhead in the nose.”

  “A range of only one hundred yards and only a five-pound, contact warhead? What good is that?”

  “It can do a lot of good, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. Have you ever heard the term ‘weaponeering’?”

  “No I haven’t, what is it?”

  “It’s used in the aviation community when they are planning an air strike against a particular target. It’s the process of determining how many aircraft are required and what types of ordinance they should carry to achieve a desired result. If the target happens to be a warship, the desired result can be one of several things. First, the ship could be sunk. Second, although the ship is not sunk, the weapon systems on the ship could be knocked out of commission. This is known as a ‘firepower kill.’ Third, the engineering section of the ship could be damaged so badly, the ship cannot maneuver or make headway. This is known as a ‘mobility kill.’ It was determined long ago that it requires far fewer weapons on target to achieve a firepower kill or a mobility kill than it does to actually sink a ship.”

  “Well, that certainly makes sense, Captain. And I can see how in some circumstances, a firepower kill or a mobility kill is all you need.”

  “That’s exactly right, and since our little sub-fighters are limited in how much ordnance they can carry, we are going to employ those same principles when defending the Louisiana. We’ll go after mobility kills. All we need is one rocket fired into the screw of an enemy submarine to achieve our desired result. There’s no need to sink her.”

  “What about a firepower kill?”

  “A firepower kill essentially requires sinking her because a submarine’s weapons systems are internal.”

  “Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. So mobility kills are the way to go. I understand that, but these are rockets, not missiles, meaning they are unguided once they are fired. That has to be a pretty accurate shot to hit the screw, doesn’t it?”

  “Not if you’re sitting right behind her and shoot from one hundred feet away!”

  “Sir?” Pappy looked at George as if he was crazy.

  “You have to remember your sub-fighter is completely silent, and the enemy is not. That means you can maneuver ‘at will’ and take your shot from wherever you wish. When you pick up the enemy on sonar, follow the bearing to find her. If you need range information, go ahead and ‘ping’ her with your active sonar. It doesn’t matter if it alerts her to your presence, because she can’t do a darn thing about it. She’s like a big lumbering battleship, except she has no anti-aircraft weapons. She only has Mark 48s, her equivalent of sixteen-inch guns. Shooting a Mark 48 at you would be like tryin
g to swat a bee with a tree trunk! You can easily outmaneuver it, and fly on in and sting her.”

  “But still, Captain, how do I aim exactly at the screw?”

  “Use your underwater spotlight. When you get within range, you will see her visually. You have portholes to look through, while the enemy doesn’t. Just visually proceed to the enemy’s stern and blow away the screw. There’s nothing they can do to stop you. Their idea of maneuvering is a joke! Once you’ve blown away the screw, all they can do is blow ballast and bobble to the surface until someone comes along and picks them up.”

  “Is a five-pound warhead adequate?”

  “These rockets travel at high speed and have tremendous momentum. Even without a warhead, one of them would probably deliver enough energy on the target to achieve the mobility kill. It could knock a blade off or so severely mangle a blade, the screw would be useless. The warhead is for extra insurance and to provide us with the option to use the rockets against other types of targets. With only a five-pound warhead, we ensure that the blast will not affect a sub-fighter shooting from one hundred feet away.”

  Pappy was stunned by this entire explanation. The fact that it was possible to travel at 150 knots underwater and pull four Gs was one thing, but what affected him more was the realization that this paradigm shift in thinking had never occurred to him, even though equivalent shifts had been made in aviation and surface warfare. Pappy just shook his head. How stupid can I be? This is what real ingenuity is all about!

  Pappy remembered a story he had read many years before. He had probably read it in junior high school, but remembered it vividly to this day. The story was about a village that relied upon a well for all its water. As the population of the village grew, the village needed more water. So all the great minds of the village were put to the test to create new ways to dig the well deeper so more water could be extracted. People from the village went to great universities and studied well digging so they could make miniscule improvements in the efficiency of the well. Finally, however, even the greatest minds could not dig the well deep enough to produce enough water for the village. All hope was lost, and the villagers were about to give up when a small boy stepped forward, pointed at the ground, and said, “Why don’t you just dig another well over here?”

  Pappy sadly shook his head. I have the mind of a villager, and the captain has the mind of the boy.

  “By the way,” George added. “We do have a variant of the rocket with a more capable warhead.”

  “I knew it!” exclaimed Pappy. “Five pounds just can’t be enough!”

  “Well actually, it’s still five pounds, but it’s a shaped charge, which gives it armor-piercing capability. If we really need to go for a total kill—that is to sink someone—this warhead gives us that capability.”

  “Wow. That’s really something!”

  “One more thing,” said George. “To use these sub-fighters to full advantage, you really have to think like a fighter pilot…and that means thinking in three dimensions.”

  Pappy looked somewhat confused. “But submariners already think in three dimensions. We’re not like surface ships, which operate in only two dimensions because we also change our depth.”

  “That’s true, but we normally change depth very slowly, and in tactical situations, we do it to try to get above or below a thermal layer to hide from enemy sonars. What I’m talking about is real-time use of the vertical dimension to reposition your fighter relative to a contact. And I’m talking about using the classic fighter maneuvers like the Immelman and the Split-S.”

  Pappy was still confused. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  “It’s like this, Pappy. Let’s say, for example, you are on a head-on collision course with a contact at several thousand yards. Our normal way of thinking is to turn right or turn left to avoid the collision and maneuver around the contact. In a sub-fighter, instead of doing that, you could pull the nose up forty-five degrees, climb two or three hundred feet, level off, and pass over the top of the contact. You could then perform a Split-S maneuver where you roll inverted and pull the nose down to fly the second half of a loop, bringing you back down to the level of the contact closing on him from astern. You have to remember—not only can we fly horizontal circles around these guys, we can also fly vertical loops around them.”

  Pappy finally grasped the point the captain was making. “You’re right. I could also dive and fly below the contact and then perform an Immelman, which is like the first half of a loop. At the top, you just roll back upright and once again, you’re directly behind him. It’s going to require reorienting our thinking…I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s great. I know you will.”

  Pappy looked at George and said, “One more question for you, Captain: you’ve talked about using these sub-fighters to destroy the enemy. Who is the enemy? Where do we draw the line concerning who we shoot at?”

  The captain looked at his XO and said, “Until we have safely deployed our deterrent warheads, everybody is the enemy. We have signaled the U.S. with a message that should let them know that they are not our target. If they insist upon continuing their efforts to find and sink us in order to maintain the political status quo, then we have no choice. Until we are in a position to complete our mission to deter future terrorist attacks, everyone trying to stop us is the enemy.”

  Chapter 29

  The work at Platform Alpha progressed rapidly. The overcast sky the first day was welcome and enabled twelve of the twenty-four nose cones to be offloaded before nightfall. Dwight had equipped the rig with large shrouds, which were lowered from the main deck to the water line on all sides to form an enclosure under the rig. Interior lighting within this enclosure enabled the work to continue throughout the night. By daybreak of the second day, all of the nose cones had been offloaded from the Louisiana, brackets for the sub-fighters had been welded to the Louisiana’s deck, and one of the fighters, SF-2, had been mounted on the deck.

  The captain, XO, and Dwight sat down for a steaming cup of morning chicory coffee. Dwight sat with his eyes closed and his nose close to the steaming brew—temporarily oblivious to the world around him. George and Pappy exchanged glances and smiles. Finally, Dwight sat back and opened his eyes, only to see two guys with big grins staring at him!

  “Hey, what’s with you guys?”

  They laughed. “Oh nothing, Cousin,” replied George. “It’s just nice to see a man who really enjoys his coffee!”

  “Hey, very funny. You know I’ve seen you get off on this stuff, too!”

  “Very true, Dwight. Like you, I do love my chicory coffee!”

  George and Dwight laughed, while Pappy sipped the coffee, trying to determine what was so special about this Louisiana specialty. Dwight snickered as he watched Pappy tentatively sample the elixir and cautioned, “Watch it, Pappy—that’s habit formin’!”

  As they settled in, Dwight turned to George. “Tell me, Cousin. Have you had any second thoughts?”

  “About what? Anything in particular? About the way I made the approach to Platform Alpha?”

  “Very funny. About the whole deal—the whole shebang! Any regrets?”

  Pappy stopped sipping while glancing sideways at George, wondering what he was going to say. The captain projected such an air of confidence and certainty that no one on the crew sensed any doubt or regret whatsoever.

  George sat back with a look of irritation on his face that made Dwight wonder if George was about to let him have it! Much to his surprise, George started speaking softly.

  “Dwight, life is a series of compromises. Every day, we’re presented with a number of decisions. For each decision, we choose a particular path; and for each path chosen, there’s at least one path that we give up. There are hundreds of thousands of such decisions in a lifetime, and we can’t go back to see what would have happened on a single one of those paths if we had chosen differently.”

  The office was eerily quiet. Dwight and Pappy silently waited fo
r George to continue.

  “We all know that. But we’re human, and we can’t help wondering about those other paths. By making this decision, I threw away a career. I threw away a lifetime of study and work to get where I was. To many people, I betrayed an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Are you asking me whether I feel bad about that?”

  Dwight simply stared at his mug of coffee. With a sense of embarrassment he replied, “Uh, yeah, I guess that’s what I was asking.”

  “Well, we can’t have it both ways, Dwight. I made a decision. We made a decision. Everyone on my crew gave up things in doing so. But I, for one, have no regrets. I could have continued on in my navy career to command other submarines and perhaps to command fleets of submarines. But for what end? The submarine service has become useless for defending this country against its greatest threat. The path I’ve chosen achieves something the entire country has been unable to achieve—security against nuclear terrorism. That’s something no one else can claim.”

  “Hear, Hear!” said Pappy, raising his coffee mug in a gesture of salute to George. “I agree. Damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead!”

  They both turned to Dwight as if to challenge him, but he quickly joined them in toasting the mission. “Hey, I agree a hun’erd percent! If I didn’t, none of us would be sitting here on this platform today. I say, let’s get the job done!”

  “Agreed!” responded George. “So what do you have on the schedule today?”

  “Looks like the sky’s gonna to be clear today. It’s too bad that submarine of yours is so long—it sticks out from under the rig at the back end. That means you’ll have to submerge until nightfall, and we’ll have to see if we can get the fighters mounted tonight.”

  “That’s okay,” responded George. “We’re ahead of schedule thanks to the overcast yesterday. We can work topside today in your hangar, continuing to dismantle the warheads under John’s supervision. We need time this afternoon for John to train the teams we’re sending out from here. I would suggest you and your Platform Alpha crew get some rest today because it’s going to be another long night. I want to finish everything up tonight and get out of here before dawn if possible.”