'Advance to Contact' (Armageddon's Song)

by Andy Farman

  Without the electronic cloak concealing the ships, the Soviet A-50 had the exact position, course and speed of every vessel locked down to within five metres. The Floggers that had ditched all but their air-air ordnance were keeping the Rafales, AV-8Bs and Sea Harriers occupied whilst the A-50 controllers sent in the Backfires followed by the slower Floggers to hammer down the defences on the northern side of the NATO task force. If they succeeded in exposing the heart of the force, the carriers, then they would be free to return and clear away the multi-role and dedicated ASW ships from the doorway to the Atlantic once more.

  To the northwest of the ships, four F-16s regrouped and climbed back to their previous stations, signalling the AWAC and JSTARS the all clear. One of their number was limping south, making for Andøya. The last fragments of the sixth F-16 in the escort were just splashing down into the unforgiving seas far below.

  The mixed formation of Etendards and Rafales had been turned around and re-launched in a way that would have impressed Grand Prix pit crews, and now loaded with air-air weapons the controllers vectored them towards Bodø.

  Twenty-three Backfires went to zone three afterburner and headed for the outer picket ships, the weapons officers selecting Zvedzda KH-31 anti-radar missiles first. Designated by NATO as the AS-17 KRYPTON, it was one of the fastest low level missiles in the world. Designed as a counter to America’s AEGIS and Patriot systems, its kerosene driven ramjet would propel the missile and its 220lb warhead along at 3,120 feet per second at an altitude of thirty feet. At 30,000’ it was capable of twice that speed.

  Bernard studied the screen, now receiving information from the ships radars. Ninety-two of the anti-radiation missiles in three waves appeared on the screen to the north of his ships, out of range of his defences, as yet. To the northeast the AWAC was exceeding its designers’ specifications with its throttles firewalled as it powered its way back on-station. He barked an order and figures appeared on the screen, which he took in at a glance.

  “All ships…hold fire, hold fire!” Turning to his communications officer he said earnestly. “Tell the AWAC they have exactly thirty seconds to resume fire control of my ships…not a second more.”

  Twenty-seven seconds later the AWAC was back on the job and it was the A-50 controllers turn to curse as the NATO ships' radars ceased generating. The KH-31 missiles flew directly at the last co-ordinates their processors had for the sources of radar energy, but warships in combat do not sit still, they were no longer there.

  SS-N-26 Yahont-M anti-shipping missiles came off the Backfires' racks next, they were a different story all together and the AWAC launched air defence missiles from the ship's launchers. Old Soviet inventory SA-N-1 Goas, French Crotales and Mistrals, American ship launched Sidewinders, Standard 1s and 2s along with British designed Sea Sparrow missiles sped away from the ships.

  On the NATO ships, as reloads from the magazines were either automatically loaded into the launchers, or sent up by elevator for manual loading, chains of seamen manhandling fresh missiles from makeshift storerooms replaced them. Unfortunately for the Kashin class Polish frigate Warszawa, on the outer picket, her magazines were only two thirds full when she had left port ten days before and she quickly ran dry. Without a flank defence system along the lines of the Phalanx, the Polish frigate could only crack on all speed, zigzag and fire chaff bundles from her mortars to try and throw off the four big missiles that were locked on to her.

  On the inner picket line, none of the crew on the decks of the French air defence frigate Cassard heard any part of anyone else’s fight; such was the almost continual roar of missiles from their own launchers. However, in the Cassard CIC they received a report from their lookouts of a large, fireball rising into the sky to the north and on checking their tactical displays, the Warszawa was no longer there.

  The missing vessel created a slight dead zone in the overlapping fields of fire, not much, just two miles at its narrowest point, like a finger pointing toward the French frigate on the inner picket line. The A-50 saw it and vectored in fifteen Floggers that still had SS-N-26s unexpended and which also carried a pair of FAB-500 iron bombs each.

  Although only the elderly Polish warship had thus far succumbed, her neighbours to the west and east had not escaped totally unscathed, the Danish corvette Olfert Fischer suffered a malfunction in her six-cell vertical launch system. The flow of Sea Sparrow missiles from the magazine was halted for a critical thirty seconds whilst the system rebooted, and only her small size saved her as the chaff clouds produced by the stern dispenser produced a radar target far larger than the vessel. Two SS-N-26 Yahont-M anti-ship missiles flew into the chaff clouds, the first 440lb warhead shredded the afterworks as it detonated in the cloud and caused a small fire, the second killed the damage control party two minutes later, as they fought the fire, and holed her at the waterline.

  Warszawa’s other neighbour suffered damage in the Backfires' attack, the French frigate Latouch-Treville’s Phalanx gun hit one of the missiles close inboard. A kilometre out the missile’s sensors had detected the frigate's FLIR targeting system, locking on to it and accelerated the missile from 1.3 mach to 2.7. The Phalanx took 2000th of a second to register the new speed but a full second to adjust the weapons point of aim, by which time it was moving like a blur toward the thin aluminium skin of the warship. A single depleted uranium round struck the missile, shredding the warhead and fusing circuit, so the big charge failed to explode. The missile's solid rocket booster and ramjet assembly however, still struck the frigate whilst travelling at over twice the speed of sound. It smashed into the side of the bridge, travelling completely through and on into the sea 200m beyond, leaving a huge gaping hole edged with jagged metal at the forward end of the superstructure where moments before eight human beings had been.

  With all weapons expended the Backfires headed on back to their fields to refuel and rearm, skirting the North Cape at low level. The lead regiment had just ten seconds warning from the A-50 of a new threat bursting out of the cover of the fjords into Soviet radar coverage just two miles ahead of the supersonic bombers.

  None of the Backfires had any chaff or flares left after evading the fighters on their way in, and their attacks against the task force. Only two survived the ambush by the recently turned around and re-launched Super Etendards and Rafales, fleeing north and shouting a warning to the other regiments that followed behind.

  Cassard had become ‘The thin red line’ on that part of the task force's northern flank, as the Danish corvette Olfert Fischer was down at the stern and had lost all electrical power due to flooding in the engine room. Auxiliary generators on deck were powering the pumps that kept her afloat, but they could not power her fighting systems.

  Ignoring the French admiral’s orders, the Pole's dedicated anti-submarine warfare frigates Naczelnik Tadeusz Kosciuszko and General K. Pulaski had left the centre of the formation and steamed north at flank speed.

  Below decks aboard the Cassard, naval ratings sweated and grunted as they manhandled missiles from makeshift stores to the magazine to keep it filled, without the additional stores the ship would have been down to its last ten reloads at this point.

  The sudden lull in fire from the Danish corvette was duly noted aboard the orbiting A-50, which ordered a pair of Floggers to egress across her position after releasing Yahont-Ms at the French air defence frigate.

  Only smoke from the fire on the afterworks rose from the corvette as the Floggers rolled in hot for a run at her bow. The Floggers flew in close-trail the length of the crippled war ship at a height of 300ft, releasing their iron bomb loads in a text book perfect attack. The pair of FAB-500 bombs that straddled her, stove in her thin sides but it was the second pair, penetrating the into the ships bowels and detonating in her fuel bunkers and forward magazine that blew her into a thousand fragments.

  Cassard’s point defence Phalanx gun exploded an SS-N-26 a kilometre out before switching its aim to the Flogger that had released it. The Ukrainian figh
ter-bomber was jinking to left and right as it made its bomb run, but the gun's software had over two hundred attack profiles in its memory, it tracked the aircraft for a heartbeat before firing a twenty-one round burst…and fell silent.

  Armourers scrambled to reload the weapon even as fragments of aircraft fell on the ship, the Flogger clipped the vessel's radar mast as it passed over the ship, its port wing sawn off by the single burst and crashed into the sea a hundred metres to the south.

  Two more Floggers began their runs whilst the armourers strained to reload the weapon and aboard the AWAC an ‘offline’ icon appeared over the point defence system of the ships schematic.

  Provided that the Mistrals took out the incoming missiles and fighter-bombers in this wave then it should not be a problem, but the defence evasion program in the SS-N-26 missiles was proving to be more advanced than NATO had allowed for.

  The armourers winced as their ship released missiles at the new threat, they had loaded only a hundred rounds into the Phalanx magazine, a two second bursts worth, and shaking fingers had mis-fed one round that they were struggling to extract before they could resume loading. The senior rating had to steady himself as the ship rolled unexpectedly, if he hadn’t known better he would have said it was caused by the wash of another ship passing close by.

  Naczelnik Tadeusz Kosciuszko and General K. Pulaski surged past the French frigates stern heading north, and once clear they commenced producing chaff clouds from their mortars, their only form of missile defence.

  At 6,700lbs, the air-launched version of the SS-N-26 Yahont was 1,898lbs lighter than its ship launched cousin, but still so heavy that the Floggers could only carry one apiece. Both incoming Floggers released the weapons at 29 kilometres, before setting up for conventional bomb runs as the big ship killers accelerated to 1.3 Mach initially. The weapons would react to radar and IR lock-on by the defenders, varying speed between 2.7 and 1.3 Mach whilst making both dummy and radical 4g turns along with changes in altitude. Minimum engagement range for the defenders was four kilometres down-range, and this pair of missiles defeated ten Mistrals to close the range to within five kilometres of that point.

  Above and to the west of the battle the AWAC’s senior controller, Lt Col Ann-Marie Chan, breathed a barely audible “Oh shit,” on seeing the ‘offline’ icon on the Cassard’s point defence system joined by another from her chaff dispensers. Just forty kilometres south of the air defence frigate lay the carriers and there was still a regiment and a half of Floggers with unexpended SS-N-26s.

  Half a kilometre to the northeast of the Frenchman, the ex-Perry class frigate Naczelnik Tadeusz Kosciuszko altered course due west and her single screw whipped the sea to foam as she sought to place herself between the Cassard and the fast approaching threat. Even as Admiral Bernard ordered the air defence destroyer Duquesne north to bolster the defence lines the AWAC senior controller tried to avert disaster striking the almost defenceless Polish warship. Her captain had not made an error; he was buying the French time by offering his own vessel as an alternative.

  “Jesus H…!” exclaimed Lt Col Chan. “We need to warn this guy off…hey, Kolanski…you speak Polish?”

  “No offence ma’am but I’m from Sonora, Spanish is my second language, not Polack. My great granddaddy was the last in our family to speak Polish.”

  Passing the magical 4000m mark, the Yahont-Ms found the target originally designated for them was being eclipsed by another, half a kilometre closer but their processors analysed it as being worthy of their attention nonetheless. The leading missile was dummied by chaff and exploded harmlessly astern of the warship, but the second popped up and dived in at an angle of forty degrees, its short stubby wings tearing off as it pierced the decking.

  Aboard the French frigate they saw the Polish ship stagger, and the sound of the missile’s impact rolled across the gulf separating the two ships. Thick black smoke soon obscured the after half of the Naczelnik Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The warhead of the missile had not detonated but its rocket motor was still firing, igniting the Polish ship's fittings and even aluminium in her structure.

  Turning his ship beam-on to the wind, the Polish captain attempted to lessen the spread of fire to the rest of the vessel, ringing down for a dead stop. Burning electrical insulation produced thick black sooty smoke, which quickly clogged the filters of the respirators that all but the dedicated firemen of the damage control party wore. Internal lighting failed almost immediately following the missile strike, making the task of fighting the fire doubly difficult. In the crew quarters where the missile had come to rest, the after bulkhead melted through and collapsed, allowing the superheated jet to play on what lay behind and above it, the large water main that fed the hoses.

  When the mains failed the damage control parties struggled back toward the sunlight, abandoning the lower decks to the fire.

  The stricken frigate's sister ship, General K. Pulaski and the French frigate Cassard closed with her to render assistance, but the seas were too high to come alongside and feed hoses over. Playing hoses on the ship’s upper works merely delayed the inevitable; the water was needed below decks.

  The Naczelnik Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s captain ordered the crew to abandon ship, leaving the ship to the fire in her bowels that could not be fought.

  One hour later the flames would eat through her upper hull as well as engulfing the aft part of her superstructure, a short time after that they would reach the magazine. Sixty-two souls would go to the bottom with her when she blew up, victims of asphyxia from the smoke that filled the ship within minutes of her being struck.

  East of the task force the last Flogger flying interference for the bomb and missile carrying aircraft fell into the sea, freeing up the Rafales, Etendards, AV-8Bs and Sea Harriers to set to with the formations attacking their ships, few had missiles left but they all had cannon.

  The Spanish and British Harriers went south, to form a gauntlet that those enemy aircraft that were running for home would have to pass through. The French headed west, closing with the Floggers threatening their ships and causing most to ditch their anti-shipping ordnance and evade at wave top height.

  Ten minutes later, F-16s out of Bodø hunted down the last Floggers to egress the area and headed for the A-50 far to the north.

  The huge airborne control platform shut down its radars and ran east with its escort, marking the end of one phase of the second battle of the North Cape. It was only 7.08am local time.

  Nevada Desert: 1723hrs, 10th April.

  Henry Shaw had remained in the situation room since being alerted to movement in the Murmansk area, many hours before. He overruled the Chief of Staff and cancelled two briefings that the President was supposed to attend, ordering that the man should remain undisturbed.

  The war of attrition in Earth orbit was thinning out satellite assets on both sides, and it had been decided that future reliance on them for command and control in the battle would be imprudent. However, communications satellites had conveyed the datalink from the AWAC, and in rather less detail from the Charles De Gaulle during the E-3’s enforced absence.

  “Why wasn’t I woken Henry?”

  General Shaw turned at the accusing tone in the President's voice. He was pulling on a jacket as he entered the room, and everyone present stopped what they were doing. The general cast a meaningful glance around the room and they all left, with the exception of course of the Secret Service agent, who managed to do a fair to middling job of merging unobtrusively with the water cooler.

  “With all due respect Mr President, if you have access to some means of influencing the outcome of conflicts far away, I hope you’ll share it. Otherwise you would have been sat here watching and just as powerless as I was.” The chief executive's indignant posture relaxed and he put out a hand to guide himself as he eased himself down into a chair.

  Henry Shaw took in the pale face and shadows below the eyes.

  “You look like shit…did you get much decent sleep?”

/>   Fire returned to the older man’s eyes.

  “Do not forget who it is you are talking to general.”

  Henry nodded in a conciliatory manner.

  “Sorry…Mr President, you look like shit, did you get any good sleep?”

  It brought a chuckle.

  “I had a hard paper round as a boy… and you General, are a son of a bitch. I don’t know why I keep you on. A few weeks ago I didn’t even like you.”

  “Now…you like me?” said General Shaw turning back to the console before him. “Wow…you politicians sure know how to mask your feelings!”

  “So how did we do up north, Henry?”

  “Sir, we won…so far anyway.” The plasma screen came alive, showing the North Cape, Scandinavia and northern Russia from one hundred miles west of Andøya, to a hundred miles beyond Murmansk in the east. The time on the screen showed 04:01:23 GMT.

  “The first thing you will see sir, is surface combat units west of the Kola Inlet and the location of a sizeable submarine force, submerged. Also, airborne command and control aircraft, tankers, plus all their escorts lifting off from fields east of Murmansk.”

  The President interrupted him.

  “Where did this information come from, I don’t see any satellite IDs up there, and the only AWAC is way west and not radiating, according to the screen anyway?”

  “It’s all humint, real time assets on the ground, that is intelligence people or troops, long range recon types, and a submarine sat on the bottom somewhere nearby. Once the aircraft take off, they will disappear along the last known heading. An hour later, the world and his brother lift off from fields west of Murmansk…and by the way, Sweden entered the war on our side.”