by Larry Bond
Jerry did the math in his head while Dunn laid in the new course. “It adds an hour and a half to the transit at five knots. It eats into our margin, but we’ll still be waiting when Patty arrives.”
“That’s fine, Mr. Mitchell. Now use the rest of the transit, including that extra hour, to get some sleep. You don’t look so good, and I want you alert when we recover Patty.”
Reluctantly, Jerry headed for his stateroom. He knew Dunn was up to navigating for Wolfe, but if they hit something, it wouldn’t matter who was on watch, and what Jerry thought of their abilities. It was always the navigator’s responsibility, whoever was in control. Jerry still had to force himself to delegate.
~ * ~
It seemed only seconds later when Chief Hudson was shaking his shoulder. “Mr. Mitchell, can you hear me?”
Jerry’s initial response was a cross between “I’m awake” and “What time is it?”
Hudson ignored his confused mumble. “We’ve been buzzing your phone, but you didn’t pick up. Patty’s being recovered.”
Jerry’s head cleared a little. Good news, but he needed to be there. Should have been there half an hour ago. How long had they been buzzing him?
~ * ~
He was in the torpedo room moments later. They’d already brought the UUV into the torpedo room. Only after she was secured did TM1 Yarborough and the chief begin their work. Unfastening access panels, they opened up the vehicle from just aft of the nose to where the motor compartment filled the last quarter of its length.
Once the all-important disk drive had been removed, the rest of the torpedo gang started servicing Patty. They wiped her down with a little fresh water, started a long inspection checklist, and began replacing her battery packs. The UUV’s high-power lithium-thionyl-chloride batteries filled half her length. They could not be recharged. They had to be replaced by a fresh energy section for each run. This was the main limit on how many surveys Seawolf’s UUVs could make.
~ * ~
It was Will Hayes’s OOD watch when they retrieved Patty, and then Jeff Chandler’s. Near the end of Jeff Chandler’s watch, the XO came into control.
Lieutenant Chandler almost snapped to attention, “Afternoon, sir. Current course two two five at five knots at one hundred fifty feet. En route to retrieve La Verne at. . .”
Shimko waved him off. “Very well, Mr. Chandler.” The XO headed for the chart table. Jerry and most of his quartermasters clustered around several charts of the Barents Sea. One petty officer sifted through a stack of computer printouts while two others annotated a chart. Another was compiling a table of distances under Jerry’s direction, while one petty officer plotted Seawolf’s position and watched the fathometer.
“What do you have for me?” asked the XO.
Jerry stepped away from the chart table, picking up a small map of the area. “Patty found four spots that match the criteria we were given—bottom type and contours, depth, and the rest. We can take a closer look at them after the two-day midpatrol break. I’ve roughed out a plan to cover them all.”
He showed Shimko the small map. “I’m still working the numbers to make sure we can still reach the remaining UUV launch and recovery points as planned. Until we actually start the second set of surveys, all I can do is estimate how long each one will take.”
Shimko agreed, reluctantly. “Just give me your best guesstimate. I’ll brief the Skipper, but I need your recommendations ASAP”
Jerry glanced at the chart table behind him. “Twenty minutes, sir?”
“All right. Did Patty find anything unusual?”
Jerry gestured to the chart table behind him. “A gold mine of hydro-graphic data. I’ve got my guys working through it for obstructions, shoals, anything not on the charts.” He paused. “She also marked over thirty man-made objects. I’ve compared their locations with ones we knew about on the charts. Only a handful match. Most are new or uncharted.”
“Good. The same vessel that plants the sensors can examine those items.”
“Should we use the UUVs to classify some of the bigger ones? We can tell the vehicle to take photos and sonar images when it detects one.”
“No. A lot of that stuff is going to be old—leftovers from World War II or maybe just junk dumped out here. Besides, we have over two hundred new bottom contacts right now. We’d lose way too much time finding out which ones were worth exploiting.” Shimko smiled. “Wise man says, ‘Man who looks for noodle in haystack will be very hungry.’”
Jerry looked disappointed. Shimko reminded him, “We’ve got our own mission to finish, and I’d prefer not to poke around up here any more than we absolutely have to.”
“Yessir, I understand. I’ll have my course recommendations to you in a few minutes.”
~ * ~
Seawolf glided confidently over the seabed at a stately five knots. As they doubled back to the rendezvous location to pick up LaVerne, the bottom crested within five fathoms of her keel, but they were following in Patty’s path now. Jerry was confident of the data from the UUV, and his quartermasters were already adding Patty’s bottom topography data to their charts. They would leave the Barents with better charts than the Russians, at least where the UUVs had been.
The first of eight detail surveys had gone as planned. Lieutenant (j.g.) McClelland, the sonar officer, and Jerry had worked out a procedure to gather additional hydroacoustic information that they needed, while Jerry plotted their precise position. He now had almost every quartermaster aboard working in control. Either they were updating charts or plotting the detailed survey data. Jerry had to fight the urge to use the quartermaster assigned to the control room watch. Their activities took over the fire-control plotting table as well as the chart table in control. And the extra bodies made the space both crowded and stuffy.
Jerry noted and reported the proximity of several newly plotted man-made objects along their course. Patty’s navigational accuracy was precise enough to reassure the entire ship control team that they were well clear of any of them. According to his plot, the nearest object approached no closer than two thousand yards on Seawolf’s port side.
~ * ~
The Russian sensor buoy listened carefully as the sound from Seawolf grew louder. Its sound receivers covered a wide range of frequencies, and now it isolated tones, pulses, rhythmic sounds that were not only man-made, but fit its detection criteria. It still waited, though. It detected and classified the sounds from the intruder within minutes, but would they persist? Would they change?
They didn’t change, but grew steadily louder at a constant rate. The sounds made by Seawolf were no louder than a household appliance, but the buoy had more than enough to work with.
The buoy’s computer was smart enough to recognize this as an approaching vessel, so waited, gathering and recording sounds. Finally, the intensity began to fade, at the same rate it had increased, and the bearing rate changed dramatically. The buoy realized that the submarine was moving away. It had gotten all the information that it was going to get, and it was time to report to its masters.
It uploaded its recordings and all target data, along with a message, into a small float, one of three located at the top of the buoy. The computer verified that the surface was clear of large ice chunks, and then released a catch. The float silently shot up toward the surface.
Seawolf was several miles away when the Russian sensor buoy broke the surface and broadcasted her presence.
~ * ~
7
INCIDENT
4 October 2008
Severodvinsk
Barents Sea, five nm south of the Amga Buoy Line
Petrov was in the aft auxiliary machinery compartment when the summons came over the intercom: “CAPTAIN TO CENTRAL POST.” There was an urgency in the speaker’s tone, and Petrov wondered what new disaster had befallen them. There was no sign of anything amiss in the engineering plant. Chief Engineer Lyachin had just been showing him the improvised repairs to one of the motor generators, and Petr
ov had praised his resourcefulness.
Heading forward from the sixth compartment, Petrov used the process of elimination to try and bound the problem. The reactor and propulsion plant were both functioning within safe limits. If not engineering, then weapons? Unlikely, since they weren’t exercising those systems. Sailors saw him coming and flattened themselves against the passageway bulkheads, or ducked into doorways. The captain was in a hurry.
Sensors? Possible, he thought. Communications? Also a possibility. Each new suggestion made him increase his pace. As he leapt through the watertight doors, Petrov clutched the red case containing his IDA-59M close to his chest. The self-contained breathing apparatus was issued to everyone on board a Russian submarine and was designed to provide fifteen minutes of breathable air. That was long enough for a person to evacuate a compartment filled with thick, choking smoke.
In the central post, Kalinin started his report as soon as Petrov came into “It’s an alert, sir-—an Urgent message from Northern Fleet Headquarters. I’ve ordered the boat to communications depth. Sonar reports no contacts.”
Petrov’s anxiety quickly changed to curiosity, mixed with impatience. He thought, “I hope it’s something other than a drill this time.”
There were several levels of importance or precedence used in fleet messages. “Routine” messages were the administrative trash that he and the rest of his officers plowed through every day. “Priority” messages concerned fleet operations, and were handled quickly, if the communications commander wanted to keep his job. “Urgent” messages had to be passed instantly. If America attacked, the fleet would be warned by an Urgent alert message.
The cautious Kalinin, like any good starpom, would not usually have maneuvered the boat without permission from his captain, but this was an exception. With an alert message, there could be no delay. Minutes might count. Petrov nodded his approval of Kalinin’s actions and asked, “Is Mitrov ready?”
“Yes, comrade Captain. He’s in the communications post and will keep us appraised.”
Petrov watched the depth gauge rise. They’d been loitering near the edge of the sea ice, a hundred meters down. At that depth, Severodvinsk had to trail a long wire antenna to receive any signals at all, and they were limited to simple one-word codes—like “Alert!” That was the tradeoff with extremely-low-frequency communications. A submarine could receive messages at deeper depths, but they were incredibly short owing to the low bandwidth—little more than a “bell ringer” telling a boat to make contact. They’d received just such a message, calling them toward the surface where they could receive a more detailed message using a faster system.
“Slow to three knots.” Petrov’s order was echoed by the deck officer and the watch section engineer. It went against his grain to slow the boat, but it was necessary. As they ascended, they’d start bumping into ice floes on the surface. Severodvinsk’s sail was strengthened, but she wasn’t an icebreaker.
“Deck Officer, make your depth twenty meters.”
Once the top of her sail was close to the surface, they could receive the very-low-frequency transmission through the sail-mounted antenna assembly. Designed for use by submarines under the Arctic ice pack, where raising an antenna was not always possible, this specially designed system used four flat antennas that were flush with the top of the sail.
They’d have to come shallower than twenty meters to get a good signal, but Petrov wanted to make sure there was no one up there first, by raising a periscope and having a look around. He wasn’t too worried about exposing his position. These were Russian waters. Any aircraft overhead would have a red star on the side, and with the ice, it was unlikely there were any surface vessels.
But prudence demanded he know for certain. And then there was always the possibility of a large and virtually silent iceberg. He’d see one of these frozen monsters long before they could detect it with their collision-avoidance sonar. Mikhail Shubin, the deck officer, announced “Twenty-five meters,” and Petrov moved to the periscope. When Shubin announced, “Twenty-two meters, leveling off,” Petrov ordered “Up periscope” almost before Shubin finished his report.
Petrov held his face against the eyepiece and rode the scope up. At twenty meters, the optics barely cleared the surface. The idea was to expose as little of the scope as possible. In a calm sea, a few centimeters above the water was plenty. Waves made it harder. Today there were large swells and it was still raining.
He quickly turned the scope in a circle, first searching on the horizon and the surface of the water, then a second rotation to search above the horizon. The periscope was extended to its full height, and with most of the barrel still underwater the rocking of the boat didn’t make it easy to finish the safety search quickly. Long practice had taught him how to make a fast scan.
As Petrov ordered “Down periscope!” Kalinin checked his watch and said, “Thirty-two seconds.”
The captain reported, “No contacts. Make your depth sixteen meters.” He frowned, an artist rating his latest performance. “That was too long, I had to slow down because of the chop. There must be a gale blowing. There are good-sized waves up there, in spite of the ice.”
The periscope image was recorded on a hard drive and then displayed on a TV monitor in the central post. Kalinin and Petrov reviewed it together, looking for any contacts that might have been missed on the first quick viewing—all standard procedure.
Although a color image, it was nothing but grays, with a dark mottled sky and darker gray water that occasionally lapped over and smeared the periscope lens. This close to the edge of the ice pack, the ice floes were different shapes and sizes, dancing on the waves as they were tossed about by the wind. Under a clear sky, Petrov had seen them splashed with blues and greens. Now they were dirty, almost greasy, uneven lumps.
He’d been born in the north, and he’d served in the Northern Fleet his entire career, but that only allowed him to cope with the environment better than men from the south. No amount of acclimatization would allow a wise man to become complacent when out on the Barents Sea. It was still a cold and hostile place.
“We’re receiving the message.” Mitrov’s voice on the intercom sounded almost triumphant. Communications officers lived for such times. A few moments later, the intercom announced, “Message complete. Decoding.”
Petrov ordered Kalinin, “Get us back down to one hundred meters, but stay at three knots. I’ll be in my cabin. Join me there once we’re at depth.”
He’d barely reached his cabin before the communications commander knocked and almost broke the door down. Mitrov thrust the page at him. “Contact report, sir.”
DTG: 0735 04/10/2008
TO: PLA Severodvinsk, K-329
FROM: Operations Directorate. Northern Fleet Headquarters
Amga warning buoy 11 reports acoustic contact on 04/10/08 from 0231—0240 hours local, probable Western submarine. Location 70° 40’ 15” North Latitude, 046° 48’ 50” East Longitude. Contact moving northeasterly at slow speed. Locate, identify, and report. Trail and disrupt operations if possible. More contact information to follow as obtained.
Petrov looked at his watch as he bolted from his cabin. Mitrov scrambled out of the way. It was 0747. Fleet headquarters had just told him the location of a Western submarine as of five hours ago. He spotted Kalinin en route to his cabin. The starpom saw his captain at the same time, got out of the way, and then fell in behind Petrov.
“We’ve got one, Vasiliy! Those damn things actually work!”
“The warning buoys?”
“Yes!” replied Petrov excitedly as he shot up the ladder.
Seconds later, they both raced into the central post. Eagerly looking around for the deck officer among the watch section, Petrov spotted the red and white armband with the gold star over by the combat information and control or BIUS consoles.
“Deck Officer, make our depth one hundred fifty meters, change course to zero six zero, and increase speed to fifteen knots.” Over his shoul
der, Petrov explained, “That will get us started in the right direction while we compute a proper intercept course.”
As Shubin issued the conning orders to swing Severodvinsk around, Petrov headed straight for the chart table. He threw the message at the quartermaster. “Plot this location.” With the speed of a veteran, the navigation warrant officer found and marked the spot. Petrov compared it with their current position, then ordered, “Change course to zero four five.”
He laid a ruler along their new path, studying the chart, then said, “Just our luck. We are not in the best of positions. The contact’s location is a little over five hours old. Theoretically, he could be right on top of us even if he were doing five knots. Odds are he isn’t quite so close, but we can’t make that assumption.”
Pausing briefly to weigh his options, Petrov tapped his fingers on the chart table. He measured the distance for a second time, frowned, and then tossed the dividers down onto the chart. “No, we can’t afford to make rash assumptions right now. Deck Officer, slow to ten knots.”
