Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  "Sir dead ahead! Three enemy destroyers closing fast."

  Gill looked and cursed, the three Chipanese destroyers on the far side of the formation were carving in fast to intercept him. He was in much the same position as Rana a few minutes earlier. Come to think of it, what had happened to Rana? He hadn't heard from her since she'd swerved to one side to keep the other three destroyers away from Ranjit. There were two important differences though. Rana had still her torpedoes on board and a full load of 4.5-inch ammunition. Ranjit's torpedoes were gone and that wild firing pass on the rocket cruiser had burned almost half her ammunition supply. This was going to be bloody.

  "‘All guns, take the Chimp destroyer in the middle." Try to take her out first and that would even things out. His own guns crashed and for an insane second Gill thought that the shells had fallen over the side for as his guns fired, white columns erupted all around his ship. Then, he realized it was much simpler and much more dangerous than a mass misfire. The Chipanese destroyers had opened up as well and their first salvoes were deadly close. It really was going to be a good question whether Ranjit could survive her first major battle.

  INS Nilgiri, First Division, The Flying Squadron, South China Sea.

  Avoiding fire by chasing salvoes was a perilous game. It depended on the gunners the other side being so stuck in their routine that didn't realize what was going on. In theory, chasing salvoes was a master-stroke, one that allowed a ship to survive under the worst possible odds. In reality, it just bought the Captain a few minutes to think of something better. In Nilgiri's case, that hadn't been many minutes although the wide dispersion in the Chipanese salvoes had bought a couple more. The problem was, buying time meant that time ran out.

  The 6.1 inch shells that slammed into her couldn't have been better placed. The first impacted between the 4.5 inch turret forward and the Jabiru launcher immediately behind it. Fortunately for Nilgiri, the missile magazine was empty and the brass-cased 4.5 inch shells weren't ignited by the blast. So, Nilgiri was saved from the earlier sudden demise of her sister. The second shell hit the navigation radar on top of the pilot house, passed through it and exploded in the CIC underneath. Fragments from the blast scythed through the bridge, killing Captain Simons, Weaps and the rest of the bridge watch. Another knocked out the missile guidance radar forward, cutting the waveguides and power supplies to the main search radar complex amidships. The last hit aft, wrecking the Rotodyne flight deck and jamming the hangar doors shut. That one salvo left Nilgiri blind, deaf, defenseless and brainless.

  Nilgiri swerved to one side, reeling under the shock of the four 123 pound shells. Five seconds later, three more crashed on board. One landing right forward, its splinters finishing off the destruction of the frigate's 4.5 inch gun turret. The other two landed almost beside each other, tearing through the deck to explode in the ship's machinery spaces. Without her gas turbines, Nilgiri was powerless and defenseless. Even worse than the direct damage was the secondary effects of the shells. The two amidships hits had sent their fragments flying through the ship's sides. Flooding from those was already inundating the whole midships section. Between them, the six hits had also started three fires. One, the paint locker up forward was inconsequential and could be left to burn itself out. The other two were both in the machinery spaces and were fed by gas turbine fuel sprayed onto the flames by the severed piping there.

  The Damage Control Officer was the only line-of-command officer left alive. Fortunately he was in the best place to assess the devastation wrought on the frigate. She wasn't intended for fleet actions; she was a convoy and amphibious group escort. She had neither the internal subdivision nor the fire-fighting capacities of her larger sisters. The ship rocked with another hit, this one into the hangar starting another major blaze. It was obvious she could neither fight nor be saved. The DCO used his new-found position of seniority to issue just one command as Nilgiri's skipper: "Abandon Ship!"

  Fairey Defender Rotodyne Avashi-Two, South China Sea.

  "They never told us it would be like this!" Lieutenant Lall looked up from his display scope, his face appalled at the carnage underneath. At the Naval Academy, battles had been described as stately processions, with divisions of ships maneuvering to perform specific actions. It was nothing like the wild chaos underneath. The two formations of ships had hit head on and splintered into a series of frantic duels that merged and separated as the Indian and Chipanese formations mixed. The Rotodyne's search radar was having problems distinguishing between the two sides. As damage had mounted, the ship's IFF systems had been knocked out. Without IFF, the radarscope had no way of telling which ship was which.

  The three Defenders were orbiting clear of the battlezone. Avashi-One was the surveillance aircraft, carrying drop tanks to extend its range as it relayed formation data back to the ships beneath - although how much use that was to them now was an arguable question. Avashi-Two and Avashi-Three were acting as back-up and escorts. All three Defenders had AIM-9 Sidewinders on their wingtips and a full load of ammunition for their nose-mounted 30mm cannon. Avashi-Two and Avashi-Three also carried four air-launched MOG missiles on their underwing hardpoints. That gave them some anti-ship striking power. As its name Multi-role, Optically-Guided suggested, MOG was a multi-role system. Like all such systems, its proficiency in any one role was compromised by the requirements of the others.

  Avashi-Two and Avashi-Three were tasked with defending Avashi-One in case the Chipanese tried to attack it. It was unlikely. The eight Kayaba helicopters were staying well out of the battlezone and, in any case, they had no known air-to-air capability. Even if they did, the Defender was more than 250 mph faster than the Kayaba; if the enemy helicopters started to approach, it could simply leave the area. Suddenly, Lall was seized by a frightening thought. "What are you thinking of doing?"

  His pilot grinned a bit sheepishly. "Our ships are in trouble down there. They don't need battle information from us any more, they do need all the help they can get. Avashi-One isn't under threat and can take care of itself. We could always give our ships some support."

  "What with? MOGs?"

  "Why not? The Ozwalds say that a MOG has the hitting power of a 9.2 inch shell. That's a lot bigger than anything else down there."

  Lall wasn't impressed, he never had been dazzled by MOG. He'd done his radar training in America where the emphasis was on building a specific system for a specific role. Multi-role meant too many compromises. It needed a lot of thought and careful consideration before adopting the idea. "You'll note they stopped saying that after we'd bought them. Still, if the MOGs fail to perturb the Chimps, we can always bare our buttocks and fart in their general direction."

  The pilot snorted into his mask. "That's banned under the Hague Convention. I'll run the idea by the others and if they want to go, we'll clear it with Avashi-One.."

  "Shouldn't we ask the Admiral?" "What Admiral?"

  HIJMS Aoba, Flagship, South China Sea Squadron, South China Sea

  "Enemy aircraft approaching, Sir, From the Southwest, range approximately 70 kilometers. Speed estimated at 650 kph. Raid count, small, two or four aircraft at most."

  What NOW Kurita wanted to wail. After the unending stream of missiles that had pounded my squadron, there was to be an air strike? "‘Skyhawks, they have to be Skyhawks, and that means the Indian carrier is out there somewhere."

  "‘Sir, we have no positive identification. We know there are three enemy Defenders out there, this could be them.'*

  "No, they're Skyhawks, probably an armed reconnaissance mission. Trying to find us. They'll probably have a couple of Bullpups each, no more. But the rest of the air group will be behind them sooner or later.

  "ESM reports air-to-surface radar emissions, Sir. Tentative identification Seaspray. That's consistent with a Defender Rotodyne.

  "They're Skyhawks." Kurita's mouth set in determination. In any case, they'd know soon enough. Then, as he watched the display, he saw four tracks leap over the fleet towards
the approaching aircraft. Asahi had finally shaken off the torpedoes chasing her and was running her machinery dangerously into the red in an attempt to catch up with the rest of the squadron. She'd also taken the opportunity of reloading her Nodachi launcher and had four SAMs ready to go. One malfunctioned shortly after launch, its gyros tumbling to send it spinning helplessly into the sea. Another simply missed its target. The other two worked perfectly, blotting both of the approaching aircraft from the sky.

  Bridge, INS Ranjit. First Division, The Flying Squadron, South China Sea.

  He'd made a mistake, a bad one. Now Ranjit was paying for it. He'd concentrated his gunfire onto a single destroyer instead of splitting it between two. His intent had been to finish his target as quickly as possible before switching to the others and he'd done that. The Chipanese destroyer he'd targeted had been torn apart by the intense gunfire. She was already on her beam ends and going down fast. Only, that had left two other Chipanese destroyers undisturbed. By the time he'd switched fire to them, they'd already hurt her badly. He'd returned the compliment and another of the Chipanese destroyers was suffering from Ranjit's remaining 4.5 inch guns but that didn't help too much.

  "Captain Gill, Sir, Engines reports that we're losing power fast. It's not just the hits, it's the fragments from the near misses. They're tearing up steam lines and causing floods. A couple of minutes more and the engines will be offline."

  And that meant no power and Ranjit's guns were power-operated. They had an emergency manual cycle but that would sacrifice her main advantage, her immense rate of fire. Not probably too much to worry about though. Her magazines were running dry and two of her turrets were already out of action due to battle damage. As if to emphasize the point, Ranjit lurched again as more shells from the destroyer to starboard tore into her. The Chipanese were firing slowly and deliberately. They must also be running short of ammunition, they'd probably burned most of theirs in the air defense effort. Even so, a slow rate of fire just prolonged Ranjit's agony. Still, as long as her guns kept firing. ....

  "Sir. To port, look!"

  The second Chipanese destroyer Ranjit had savaged was surrounded by shell bursts, white columns, liberally mixed with the black and red of direct hits. Out of the smoke shrouding the sea erupted two long, low gray shapes. Ghurka and Ghauri had arrived. Their own 4.5 inch guns started to tear apart one of the destroyers tormenting Ranjit. Even as Gill watched, the two split apart. Ghauri closing on the already crippled destroyer while Ghurka poured on more power to engage the remaining Chipanese destroyer.

  HIJMS Mutsuki, South China Sea Squadron, South China Sea

  Mutsuki had lived a charmed life. Hit four times by missiles and twice by gunfire, she was still largely undamaged and her fighting power was intact. Even better, her missilemen had braved the storm of gunfire and reloaded her Nodachi launcher aft. She had four missiles ready to go when the Indian destroyer erupted out of the smoke and headed for her. The Nodachi had much less anti-ship capability than the Jabiru but that mattered little. The four shots would buy enough time to retarget the destroyer's main guns.

  The four Nodachi missiles rippled down Ghurka's hull, almost evenly spaced along her length. The first hit just aft of the forward 4.5 inch gun turret, jamming the mount in train. The second scored a direct hit on one of the 37mm quadruple mounts. A third impacted just ahead of the aft Jabiru launcher but the empty magazine gave the explosion space to vent itself harmlessly. The last hit the empty Rotodyne hangar. Ghurka twisted under the impacts, slowing down and turning into the shots from her attacker. Then, she was surrounded by 3.9 inch shell bursts as she replied with her aft 4.5 inch twin mount.

  Bridge, INS Rana, First Division, The Flying Squadron, South China Sea.

  There was a typical sequence from one of the hundreds of action films that poured out of Bollywood, the network of film studios that surrounded Bombay. It consisted of the two male leads fighting each other into helpless exhaustion over a woman while the heroine stood under a waterfall, singing that it did not matter who won the fight since she was going to run off with somebody else. Hanging on to the bridge rail for support, Captain Dasgupta saw that the three ships in this group were all in much the same state as the men had been after that fight.

  The torpedoed Yahagi had already gone. She'd rolled over and sunk a few minutes after being torpedoed. The other three destroyers, Rana, Kisaragi and Katsuragi were exhausted and helpless. Firing had ceased simply because all three ships were dead in the water. Their engine room spaces had been opened up by direct hits and fragments from near misses. The turrets themselves were damaged, some destroyed by direct hits, others jammed in train by the shock of near misses.

  In another way, the fight was still going on. The gunnery crews were working to get Rana's B turret operational again. They were splicing cables and trying to restore some semblance of supply for the shells. Other crews were working in the engine rooms, trying to bring the boilers and turbines back on line. The question now was whether they could manage it before the Chipanese crews could succeed in their repairs.

  "Engine room here." Dagsupta grabbed the intercom system, still miraculously working, wincing in pain while he did so. He'd been badly cut by the flying glass when the bridge viewports shattered and hurt again by fragments from a near miss by the bridge. "Bridge. What's happening?"

  "We've restored stream pressure on number one boiler Sir, and we've got number one turbine back on line. We can start picking up speed soon. I can give you five knots now, perhaps ten in twenty minutes. I wouldn't push it harder than that, things are held together with spit and Band-Aids down here."

  "Very good engines, VERY good. Thank you." Dasgupta had only just put the microphone down when it buzzed again. The weapons officer was on the line.

  "Weaps here, Sir. B turret is back on line. Manual loading and training only and we'll have to use the on-mount optical fire control but we've got both guns."

  "Excellent work Weaps. Stand by to open fire. Number One, we're operational again."

  "Make a course to get clear of this mess Sir? There's no point in doing more."

  Dasgupta looked at his Number One in disbelief and fury. "Number One, I'll have no man call me Langsdorff. This ship is a warship, as long as we have steam to move with and guns to shoot, we fight. There is an amphibious group back there with 15,000 sailors and soldiers depending on us for protection. The more harm we do to the enemy now, the less they can do if they get past us. And, anyway, by the look of things, both sides here are so badly hurt, a few more blows might be decisive. Do you understand?"

  "Yes Sir."

  "Good, then bring us round behind the destroyer to port, Kisaragi. Take us into her blind zone aft and we'll start dropping shells into her from where she can't shoot back. I said we fight. I said nothing about fighting fair."

  HIJMS Aoba, Flagship, South China Sea Squadron, South China Sea

  Wherever he looked, there were shattered ships. Over to starboard, there was a group of five destroyers exchanging fire, three were dead in the water. One Japanese destroyer had already sunk and the Indian destroyer looked like she might slip under at any time. Another Japanese destroyer was sinking in front of him. Yashima was a riddled, floating wreck, her crew frantically trying to stop the flooding from spreading through her riven hull. All that was left of Asama was a stained patch of water covered with floating wreckage. Off to port was yet another group of destroyers; all three looked to be on the verge of sinking.

  Half an hour ago, the sea had seen two groups of fine ships. Now there were just floating wrecks, each marked by a column of black smoke. This couldn‘t go on. It just couldn‘t.

  Kurita swung his binoculars back to the group of destroyers to port. At first he didn't believe his eyes but he looked again and it was true. The Indian destroyer was moving. Even as he watched, she painfully, slowly, crawled around and headed for the Kisaragi. Her B turret flashed and a column of white water erupted, short of the target for certain, but the sight
finally made up Kurita's mind. The Indian destroyer was moving and fighting again. They just would not give up.

  "Signal all surviving ships. Make course North by North West, best available speed, destination Haiphong. We've finished here.'"

  "Sir, we can't! Aoba can make twenty knots, Asahi is undamaged, so is Mutsuki. We've won here, the Indians are fought out, they can't stop us. Their amphibious fleet is at our mercy. We can't turn back now."

  "Have you seen how the Indians fought? They came straight at us, they didn't care whether they lived or died." Very Japanese thought Kurita although he didn't say so. "Do you think they would have done that and left their amphibs uncovered? Of course not. The Second Division must have arrived overnight and brought the carrier with it. That means we are faced by another task group as powerful as the one we have just fought here, one with its magazines full and its ships undamaged. Our ships are wrecks and our magazines are empty.

  "Remember those Skyhawks? Their naval aircraft are searching for us and they will find us soon if we do not head for home. We can't fight an air attack any more than another missile barrage. We go home. Anything else would be useless."

  A ripple of disgust, not very well hidden, passed around the bridge of the Aoba. Kurita ignored it for he knew that his duty now was to save the ships that were left from destruction at the hands of the second Indian squadron that he was so sure had to be closing in on him. He felt the pattern of sea and waves change as Aoba began her turn to the north west. He'd won a great victory, the first to be scored by the Japanese Navy in many years. It was enough and to carry on would throw that victory away.