'Advance to Contact' (Armageddon's Song)

by Andy Farman

  By the time they arrived at the RV the sound of Warrior engines could be heard, it was small comfort to the young Captain that they had avoided the greater losses that would have resulted from being hit on the flank and possibly being rolled up. They had lost three men and delayed the enemy for less than half an hour, not an outstanding performance in anyone’s book, and that it would have worked against less experienced troops was no comfort. Since dawn he had lost half of his men, they had no targets for the anti-tank weapons because of the infantry on foot, and he couldn’t see the situation changing. Once it got dark the enemy would laager up, like the wagon train circling its wagons, except the cowboys wouldn’t be hiding behind them, they would be outside and dug in where they could protect the armour, and patrolling aggressively trying to find the Indians.

  “Perhaps we should get the cars and join the rest of the brigade?” the sergeant suggested. They had the commandeered vans and family cars from the village for transportation, and as he thought about it Nikoli had to agree that it was an option, but he wasn’t ready to give up quite yet. Removing his map he gestured for the sergeant to sit beside him. He pointed out their present location and then tapped his finger to the northwest.

  “There is the forest, it is to one side of the NATO line of advance. Behind their infantry are their APCs and tanks, behind them their artillery and behind those are the logistical support.” He said, becoming more decisive as he thought about it. “We’ve tried sitting in front to delay them, and we nearly got run over, so…we hide up until they are passing and then take out their supply train.”

  “It’s certainly a better idea than what we’ve done so far, Captain.”

  “Okay then, let us get to where we hid the cars and get going.”

  RAF Gütersloh, Germany: 1823hrs, same day.

  The tarpaulin was pulled back to reveal the single item being carried on the civilian lorry's flatbed. RAF Policemen had the driver and his mate out of the cab and stood in the open as they searched the vehicle just outside the entrance to the RAF Station. The two civilian’s apprehension at the way a police dog handler’s German Shepherd was eyeing them hungrily, was entirely genuine. In addition to the canine threat, an RAF Regiment soldier was pointing an LSW very deliberately at them from a concrete sangar.

  Eventually a corporal approached them having telephoned the Lufthansa Head Office to verify their credentials.

  “That’s a big tyre you have there, Herr Koenig.” He said in passable German. He handed over their invoice and identity cards but retained the vehicle keys.

  “Our maintenance troops will take it from here. If you will follow me into the Guardroom, its warmer and you can have a coffee whilst we unload.”

  The driver looked as if he was going to object to a serviceman driving his rig, but a string of saliva was hanging from the corner of the German Shepherds mouth and its ears were erect in anticipation, so the objection died before it had even been uttered. Having checked that the invoice bore a signature of receipt he shrugged and the pair allowed themselves to be steered through the gate.

  One hour later the vehicle pulled back up to the gate and an airman jumped down from the cab, leaving the engine running and waved. The snow had stopped and there were gaps in the clouds, a rarity of late, but it threatened a cold and icy night, so the Corporal advised them not to rush on their way home and brief goodbyes were exchanged.

  As they had been carrying what were technically war stores, the driver had a pass permitting them to use the autobahn, but they didn’t use it on the way back, sticking to side roads instead. Ten miles outside of Bielefeld they pulled into a field and drove the truck out of sight of the road, stopping beside a civilian car. They weren’t to know that at the same time they were pulling out of the field in the car, a man walking his dog twenty miles away was peering down to see what the dog was trying to unearth from beneath a mound of shovelled snow. The real Albert Koenig and his drivers mate would take some time to identify, both bodies were naked and the exit wounds had removed most of their facial features.

  North of the Faeroes: Same time.

  Captain Pitt was giving very serious consideration to going to his bunk and closing his eyes, instead of sitting here in sonar pretending to just rest them. There was a red mark on his forehead, he had slipped into that state of half sleep and weird dreams, that end as the head drops forward suddenly, leaving one looking around quickly to see if anyone has noticed. On the last occasion his forehead had met the rim of the coffee mug and there was now a wet patch on his right thigh from the cold contents that had sloshed out with the impact.

  He glanced at the sonarman beside him and realised that at some point the watch had changed, because there was a different man in that seat now.

  It slowly dawned on him that the new occupant of the seat next to his was sitting as still as a statue, and it brought to his mind a gun dog pointing, which wasn’t far from the truth. The sophisticated towed array was picking up out of place noises and feeding it up the cable to the sonar suite where her computer sifted out the ordinary and highlighted the unusual.

  “I’m getting faint pump sounds, far off. But I think there’s someone else out there too, a lot closer…coming on real slow like.”

  The weariness dropped away from the Captain, and he re-seated the headphones that had become skewed at some point. Pump sounds meant nuclear power plants, and the soviets hadn’t cracked the problem of quietening high-pressure pumps yet to the point of near silence. It wouldn’t be a nuke that the man heard; it would be a diesel boat. “What am I listening for?”

  “It’s like someone far off, panning for gold, sir.”

  Eventually his untrained ears caught the sound, it actually did sound like wet sand on tin, but he frowned as he tried to make out what was causing it, he couldn’t but his sonarman could.

  “I heard this before, last year in the Gulf. I was in the Boise and we followed an Iranian Kilo for a week. She’d been tied up for the previous six months and they hadn’t cleaned the barnacles off of the blades. You gotta have a clean boat or it don’t matter none how slow you go, or how good your systems are, you’ll get heard.”

  “Is it the Victoria?”

  He got an emphatic shake of the head from that.

  “I’ve heard the Victoria, and that boat out there is a diesel, but it ain’t her sir.”

  “Range, bearing and speed?”

  “Just an estimation sir…7000 yards, zero five zero, three knots, designate as Sierra Two Four. The only thing I’m certain of is the speed sir and that fact that she’s down here below the layer with us, or we wouldn’t have heard her…I’d allow some error in the rest.”

  Pitt clapped him on the shoulder and left the sonar suite, he had a nagging doubt, a worry about the closer contact. What if it was Victoria, and she had sustained battle damage to her propeller, which was what they were hearing? But if that was the case then why hadn’t one of the other enemy vessels, which he knew were out there, attacked her!

  He put himself in the shoes of the senior soviet captain; he knew that NATO would have submarines in blocking positions, and more than just one. His best chance of achieving his ultimate goal of stopping the convoys was his guided missile submarines, so he’d use his SSKs, his quiet diesels to feel the way ahead, keeping the missile boats safely at the back.

  “Okay people let’s set this up, we’ll go up slowly above the layer and send two Mk-48s out at intervals, bearing zero six zero, a thousand yards between them and on low speed settings. Keep them above the layer and go back under ourselves. When number one is at seven thousand yards we turn them in and drop them under the layer, keep them on passive and see what happens.”

  USS Twin Towers rose slowly from six hundred feet to ninety-seven and launched two torpedoes along the bearing the captain had decided on, and then descended to four hundred feet to listen once more. Captain Pitt used the time to put his head under a cold tap and wolf down some sandwiches and coffee brought from the galley. H
e was feeling more human by the time his weapons officer informed him the first torpedo was approaching the required range. Both weapons turned to port and descended below the layer, and then things happened fast.

  “Captain…two has acquired…one has acquired also, both have the same contact!”

  “Con, sonar…designate new target as Sierra Two Five, classify as improved Kilo class…range 5900 yards, bearing zero five nine, speed three knots!”

  He looked at the plot, it wasn’t right, not at all what he had expected unless the sonar had the barnacled diesel all wrong as regards position.

  “Override on number one…keep it heading the way it was before acquisition.” Number two was still being held under control at low speed, its sensors on passive mode but two minutes later its quarry began to accelerate.

  “Con, sonar…Sierra Two Five has heard number two…noisemakers in the water…transient, transient…Sierra Two Five has launched two weapons along the bearing to number two!”

  Pitt called to his weapons officer.

  “Weps!”

  “Sir?”

  “Go active on both weapons, cut the wire on two but keep number one under our control, remain at low speed and reload tube two with Mk-48.”

  “Aye, aye sir… active mode on both weapons…cutting loose number two but retaining control of number one at low speed, reloading tube two with Mk-48!”

  “Captain, number one has acquired Sierra Two Four!”

  “Con, sonar…classify Sierra Two Four as Whiskey class, range 6700, bearing zero five two, speed three knots!”

  “Weps, accelerate number one and cut the wire.”

  “Aye sir, cutting the wire on number one!”

  “Weps…reload tube one with Mk-48.”

  “Aye, aye sir…reloading tube number one with Mk-48.”

  To the northeast the improved Kilo, the Kilo (I), had defeated the Mk-48s first attack after it went for a noisemaker. The torpedo came through the cloud of bubbles being generated by the deception device and started to turn to starboard, the way the Kilo (I) had gone but corrected its turn and came to port instead.

  “Con, sonar…number two has acquired a fresh target…range…range 3000, Captain there’s a third boat out there, bearing zero three three, speed three knots, heading…its coming right at us, designate as Sierra Two Six, classify as improved Kilo class…her outer doors are opening!”

  How the hell did they get so close, thought Pitt?

  “Flood three and four…open outer doors… match bearings with Sierra Two Six and shoot, then cut the wires and reload with Mk-48!”

  “Con, sonar…transients, transients…torpedoes in the water, range 3000, bearing zero three three…time to impact two minutes forty!”

  “Three fired electrically sir…weapon running normally…Four fired electrically…weapon running normally…wires cut, closing outer doors!”

  The time had come to run, until the torpedoes heading their way were defeated, after which they would re-engage.

  “Hard a-starboard, bring us around to…two one three…all ahead flank…make your depth fifty feet.”

  The best way to defeat a torpedo was to run from it as fast as you could, and head for the noisy surface above, where every bit of distraction could be used to throw the weapons off target.

  The Captain had forgotten one item, and it was trailing behind them on the end of a six hundred-yard cable.

  “Con, sonar, towed array is still deployed!”

  Pitt kicked himself mentally for not hauling it in as soon as the first torpedo had acquired, adrenaline may be coursing through him, but tiredness has a way of making you forget things. The array would slow them by several knots, and although he could order the cable cut they may very well need it again before they saw Newport News and its replacement. He nodded to the O.O.W and the cable began to wind in.

  “Con, sonar…time to impact one minute five!”

  USS Twin Towers had completed her turn and was making 18knots with the speed increasing with every turn as the reactor opened up. Captain Pitt gripped the back of one of the planesmen’s seats and altered his stance as the bow rose.

  “Con, sonar…lost contact with number one…sound of explosion at zero five one!”

  A glance at the digital plot showed the track of the old Whiskey boat and the Mk-48 converge and then the returns faded. The contacts were no longer as solid as they had been when the Seawolf class hunter/killer had been poodling along at three knots, as their speed increased so their sonar reception degraded accordingly. Sierra Two Five, the first Kilo (I) had disappeared from the plot, but they had the second still only due to the sonar from weapons three and four deflecting off its hull. Her captain was apparently of the old school, accelerating towards the threat to close the gap before the weapons had enough time to arm, and ejecting noisemakers to try and throw off number two, which was approaching from the stern. It was a gutsy move and Pitt wondered what the man was like, did he agree with this war, or was he just doing his duty despite his personal feelings? Thirty seconds later both three and four struck within seconds of each other, and five seconds after that number twos track converged with theirs, all three Mk-48s had armed.

  “Con, sonar…fifty seconds to impact!”

  “Depth?” Pitt commanded.

  “Two hundred twenty feet, sir!”

  “Full rise on the planes…give me 110% on the reactor, and none of that Dylithium crystals shit!” Despite the tension there were one or two smiles, but not from the captain who was doing the math in his head. He had to shift his feet, leaning for’ard as the deck canted higher.

  “Close all watertight doors…Chief of the Boat!”

  “Captain?”

  “Ensure all hatches and bulkheads door lights show dogged!”

  “Aye, sir…all hatches show sealed, Captain!”

  “Weps…at one hundred feet launch the five and a half inch counter-measures…and as soon as we enter the layer, come right to three two zero!”

  He looked at the depth gauge, it seemed to crawl upwards, and then he, and everyone else aboard heard the sonar pings upon the hull over all the machinery noise. Bingbing…bingbing…bingbing. Both torpedoes were locked on and their combined sonars sounded a double beat upon the American. The countermeasures launched either side of the hull and immediately began producing gas bubbles as they gyrated in the USS Twin Towers wake.

  No matter what task the crew was performing, they were all conscious of the fact that death could be seconds away.

  Bingbing…bingbing…bing…bing.

  “Con, sonar…nearest weapon has gone for the starboard countermeasure.”

  The Captain nodded but kept his eyes in the depth gauge, they were entering the thermal layer, and above them were the noisy waves and suddenly there was silence from the hull.

  “Coming right to three two zero, Captain.”

  “Cox’n…ease off on the dive planes, we don’t want to broach.”

  Almost a minute past and Pitt allowed himself to relax a tad. I think we’ve seen the last of those particular torpedoes, he told himself, time to slow down and re-engage before… He didn’t get to finish that particular train of thought.

  Bing………bing…….bing…bing..bing.bing.bingbingbingbing

  “Hard left rudder….brace for impact!”

  The Russian USET-80, 533mm torpedoes had both gone for the noisy counter measures as the submarines sonar returns became distorted by the layer, giving confusingly contradictory range and bearing data. However, the second weapon, travelling a little behind the first, had curved upwards, almost vertically into the cloud of bubbles and out the other side, straight into the thermal layer where it turned hard to port with the intention of reacquiring. Travelling at 50knots it had emerged above the layer before the USS Twin Towers, but pointing in the opposite direction. It acquired the submarine as it completed its turn and swept toward it, still travelling at twice the speed of the vessel. Captain Pitt had just ordered the hard turn to port
when the torpedoes short-range side scan sonar received a solid return, it was designed for events such as near misses and it performed its function, triggering the proximity fuse. 661 pounds of TNT detonated just fifty feet from the Twin Towers stern, fracturing her single propeller shaft as the unleashed energies were transferred to the vessel’s hull. No one aboard remained on their feet as the whole vessel bucked with the force of the detonation, steam lines ruptured, electrical fires started in three compartments and the vessel was plunged into darkness as circuit breakers overloaded.

  Normal lighting had been restored by the time Captain Pitt came to, with an unpleasant taste of blood and shattered teeth in his mouth. His face felt odd but when he tried to bring his right hand up to it he gagged with the pain and vomited onto the deck plates. His wrist hadn’t just broken; he had a compression fracture from automatically putting his hands out to save himself from the up rushing deck. White bone, jagged at the end was protruding through the flesh of his forearm, and on the deck plates before him was a pool of congealing blood, smeared by his own face. He felt hands turning him over and almost screamed aloud as feeling returned to his left arm, it was broken also but not as dramatically as the compound fracture of the right wrist.

  “Steady Captain, you face butted the deck and you ain’t likely to be voted best looking anything for a bit. Stay still while we check you over, sir.”

  His vision was blurred and he realised he probably had a concussion, but he thought he recognised the Bosuns mate.

  “I need a damage and situation report first.”

  “Sir, we’re sat on the surface, the Chief of the Boat got us here, everyone one else was out of it, mainly everyone that is. We had some fire but it’s out now…flooding in the engine room but the pumps are handling it. We’re dead in the water as far as propulsion goes, but we got electrical power back. There’s lots of injured like yourself and five dead, sorry sir.”

  “Where is the Chief, I need to speak to him.”