The very first report he had on this contact still stuck in his mind. The pilot said he could see no big turrets that would be obvious on a cruiser or anything larger. He did note several smaller guns, and at one point seemed to indicate the ship’s forward deck was covered with cargo hatches. Could this be another fast German commercial raider disguised as a merchant ship? They had been a persistent nuisance, like Raider-C, the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis. That ship looked like nothing more than a tramp steamer until it opened up with its six 5.9 inch naval guns.
On the other hand, the report from Anthony seemed to suggest this was a fairly large ship, and all those descriptions spoke of the threatening nature of her design and silhouette. He had to make up his mind, and decided if this was commercial traffic, all he had to lose by ordering a strike was a little aviation fuel. Yet if this were a German raider, then he stood to lose very much more if he let her slip away.
“Signal Furious,” he said quietly. “Have them spot an Albacore squadron first thing in the morning. We’ll keep steady on this intercept course and close the range somewhat tonight. Grenfell’s fighters can send out two radar equipped Fulmars to keep watch, but I want them at the extreme range of their equipment. Let’s not lose anyone else until we can coordinate a decent strike plan, and for that we’ll better light. Tomorrow morning we’ll get out there and have a look at this contact with something that can settle the matter if this is a German ship.”
“Very good, sir,” said Bovell. “Up here that won’t be far off. I’ll see that the men are ready.”
~ ~ ~
Just after dawn on August 2nd, Admiral Volsky had little time to wonder what his weapons might do to successive generations. Rodenko's radars had spotted a substantial incoming contact, twenty four planes inbound at a fairly low altitude.
“It looks like we were too late getting a missile on that first contact,” said Karpov. “They have seen us and this is an obvious strike wave. We should engage it at long-range with the S-300 system as before. They will never know what hit them.”
Admiral Volsky considered that advice, but his thoughts strayed to his ammunition stores. His S-300 missiles were located up front, on the elevated forward prow of the ship, and mounted in vertical launch tubes, sixty-four missiles in all. He had used one to shoot down the enemy radar picket, and if he used the system again now in a normal barrage of sixteen or twenty-four missiles he would expend more than a third of his missile inventory for this battery. Once they were gone the ship would have to rely on its medium-range missile defense, or close in gun systems should they be attacked from the air again.
Modern combat at sea had been compressed into a few violent minutes and seconds where opposing forces would fling their arsenal of missiles at each other, with a decision final enough to end the conflict within the hour. Yet it was not hours, but long days, months, even years ahead for them that he had to think about now. Once these missiles were expended there would be no others to replace them. Yet he could not allow a single one of these planes to launch a torpedo that might have the slightest chance of striking Kirov. Their war had begun in earnest now, and he had little choice but to fire.
“Mister Fedorov was correct,” he said in a low voice. “The British can only assume we are German, and they are acting accordingly. Of course, we will have to defend the ship, but I’m afraid if we keep on this course there will just be more of the same ahead for us.” He shrugged, somewhat disconsolate, then turned to his weapons watch officer. “Mister Samsonov,” he said, his voice intoning an obvious authorization.
Samsonov's systems could track and target a hundred separate contacts, but considering the large explosive warhead on these missiles, the Admiral decided to limit his outgoing salvo to a barrage of six. If these planes were flying in formation, he might take down several with a single missile.
“Arm six S-300 missiles, Mister Samsonov. Only six,” he repeated. “You may fire when the range is appropriate.”
“Sir, I have seven missiles left in the first module, shall I use them all?”
“Six please. Hold one missile in reserve.”
“Aye, sir,” said Samsonov. “Engaging target in ten seconds.”
He was toggling switches, selecting out his missile bank, and locking in the radar signatures being fed into the Combat Information Center. A moment later he fired. There was a warning claxon and again they watched the nose of the ship ignite in a wash of billowing smoke as missiles catapulted up from their enclosures, ignited their engines and lanced up and away into the gray sky ahead of them.
As before, the British pilots in their old biplane Albacore's had little time to think when they first caught sight of strange white contrails streaking in toward their position. Nikolin was listening to see if he could pick up any radio communications from the strike group, and clearly heard the voices of men shouting as the missiles struck home. “Bloody hell,” he heard them say. “What in god's name is that?”
Seconds later Rodenko noted the missiles struck home and sent the signal contacts spiraling off in all directions as if they had thrown a stone into a beehive. The salvo had taken a bite out of the main group of eighteen planes he had been tracking, and of these only eight now remained. The others were dancing about with evasive maneuvers, and a second group had branched off and was now also scattering in all directions. Nikolin could hear them calling to one another, their voices strained and desperate, trying to make sense out of what had happened.
The planes were now about seventy-five miles from Kirov, their crews straining their necks this way that, eyes scanning the gray sea ahead, thinking to see an enemy ship blazing away at them with its antiaircraft guns. Yet the seas were dark and empty, and the pilots were frantically steering their planes into any covering clouds they could get to, unaware of the fact that this made no difference to their fate whatsoever. Kirov was seeing them with other eyes, it's radars penetrating even the thickest cloud cover to clearly pinpoint their positions on Rodenko's screens.
“Have the contacts changed heading?” asked the Admiral.
“We've shaken them up, sir,” said Rodenko, “but they are still inbound.”
“One more missile, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral.”You may finish off that last tube now.”
Samsonov fired, and the last S-300 rocketed away toward the unseen enemy. Minutes later it exploded taking down yet another plane, and the Admiral was pleased to learn this last missile had had the effect desired. Nikolin turned to him, his eyes bright with a smile.
“I believe they're breaking off, sir,” he said. “I can hear them!”
“Confirmed,” said Rodenko. “They are turning. The contact is moving away from the ship now, outbound on a heading of zero-nine-five. They are still within range, sir.”
“That will be all, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral. “Secure the S-300 system and await further orders.”
“Finish them off, Admiral,” said Karpov. “Destroy them now, or they may be back to bother us again.”
Volsky looked at him. “Perhaps, but they will be some time trying to discover exactly what has happened to them just now. I do not think they will bother us again today. Helm, increase speed to thirty knots.”
“Speed thirty knots,” the helmsman replied, and Kirov’s powerful engines increased rotations and churned the seas with a frothing white wake. As she did so one of the escorting Fulmars had a good look at her with its Type 279 Radar, and tapped out a fix on her position, course and speed.
~ ~ ~
What in god’s name was out there, thought Wake-Walker? His 828 Squadron had been cut to pieces. It was worse than that. Of the nine planes in that squadron, only one was left. Three more Albacore in his 827 Squadron had also been destroyed. His first thought was that the strike group had lumbered right over the contact without even seeing it, and had been cut to pieces by lethal and accurate antiaircraft fire. But when the report came in from one of the escorting Fulmars that they still had a reading on the ta
rget at a range of seventy-five miles, his mind spun off into confusion.
His strike group was badly shaken, clearly demoralized, broken up, and turning for home. It was apparent that they had no idea what they had encountered. Not one had reported seeing any ship, or any enemy aircraft. Several claimed they saw something streaking in at their planes from below until the whole formation was torn apart by one explosion after another. It was as if the Germans had them bore sighted all along, and were picking them off with some lethal new gun system. Yet not even the fearful eighty-eight millimeter dual-purpose gun could fire seventy-five miles!
What was happening? What in the name of heaven was he stalking now on the gray Arctic seas? As soon as he had recovered the strike wave he went down to the flight deck himself to get first-hand reports from the pilots. The men were still shaken, and he sent them off to the briefing room where he later learned that they had seen nothing whatsoever, nothing except the strange sets of white contrails clawing through the sky. It was as if a great dark Panther had reached out with its paw and gored them, swiping his planes out of the air. His aircraft hangers would be twelve planes short now, and there were a lot of empty chairs in the briefing room. He heard the men trying to explain, yet unable to sort it all out.
“We saw them streaks in the sky, sir,” one said. “Then it was as if we flew right into a storm of steel. Explosions and shrapnel everywhere. The formation was nice and tight, sir, and most of the lads up front were gone in seconds. Blew the hell out of the lead planes, it did. I saw two had their wings cracked right off and bang away they went down into the sea. After that we was all diving for cloud cover and looking for the ship. But there was no ship, sir! I was damn near down on the deck after our dive, and there was nothing I could see in any direction. Maybe it was a submarine, I thought. Could the Germans have some type of new U-boat with flak guns mounted up top, sir?”
“And no sign of enemy aircraft?” the Admiral asked his weary, frightened men.
“No sir,” said Stewart-Moore, the 827 Squadron leader. “No sign of enemy aircraft at all. What could they possibly have out that far anyway, sir? We were well beyond the range of German fighters from Norway, and there’s no Me-109 I ever heard of that could chop us up like that in one pass—not ten of them.”
“Could the Germans be using a rocket, sir?” Captain Bovell knew something of the new rockets being used now in artillery divisions of many armies.
“That’s it!” said Langmore, the leader and odd man out surviving the blast that had devastated his 828 Squadron. “Rockets! They looked for all the world like incoming rockets, but they moved like lightning. Came right in on us as if the damn things had eyes. I was well up above the main body when they hit. Just lucky I suppose, or I’d be in the drink along with all the others. It was horrible, sir.”
The Germans must have some awful new weapon, thought Wake-Walker. Bovell was right. There was no question that it wasn’t a plane, and there were no German flak subs that he had ever heard of. Only a rocket made sense as he pieced together the descriptions from the others. Yet they were still seventy five miles from the contact Grenfell’s Fulmar spotted on radar as the planes turned for home. Seventy five miles? What rocket could travel that distance, and strike with such precision? Could the Germans be experimenting with rocket systems aboard one of their cruisers? He resolved to get word off to the Admiralty as soon as possible.
~ ~ ~
When this intelligence did come in, it created quite a stir. The Admiralty passed it on to Bletchley Park, and asked them to see if they could ferret out anything more on the matter. Then they set their minds to working on exactly what this new weapon could be. Too many cuff stripes around the same question at a table often created what Tovey like to call an “Admiral’s Stew.” When he finally got word of the fate of 828 Squadron off Victorious, he couldn't imagine what the Germans might be up to.
Home Fleet was a day out of Scapa Flow, steaming west and ready to make their turn northwest to come up on the southern outflow of the Denmark Strait into the Atlantic. It was here that Admiral Holland had stood his fateful watch with Hood and Prince of Wales when Bismarck ran through. And it was here that Tovey would take up his patrol as well.
“Bletchley Park says they think the only ship the Germans might have operational at this time would be the Admiral Scheer,” he said to Brind. “Eleven inch guns? That I can deal with. Rockets with the range and accuracy of this nature? Clearly impossible.”
“Somewhat bewildering,” said Brind. “But consider, sir, most of the German fleet is laid up for refit or repair right now. Suppose they're all getting fitted out with this new weapon system?”
“My god, Brind. We would've heard something about it. Yes, we've known the Germans have had an interest in rocketry for years. If these reports are accurate, and this German ship was able to swat down Wake-Walker’s Albacores at a range of seventy-five miles, then this speaks of a highly sophisticated detection system as well. Think of it! The ship would need to spot the incoming squadrons well before they fired. They would have to track them with absolute precision to be able to hit anything at that range. Why, it would be like a sharp shooter knocking a man's hat off at a range of ten miles! How the world could they make advances of this nature without us knowing about it?”
“The German radar must be better than we realize, sir.”
“That's well over the horizon, Brind. They would have to have aircraft up with long-range radars to see out that far.”
“Our own type 279 radar is good up to 100 miles under decent conditions. Admiralty suggests they may have a pair of spotter planes up to either side of the ship setting up kind of triangulation. That would improve accuracy considerably if they were reading three signals and somehow managing to coordinate them.”
“Yes I suppose that's possible, but guiding the rockets in like that? Almost every rocket in use today is unguided, like the Russian Katyushas. This is something altogether new. It changes everything. We’ll have to throw out the book and completely reevaluate the way we operate with our carriers now. If they can cut our torpedo squadrons to pieces like this before they get anywhere near the target, then ships like Victorious and Furious are practically useless as an offensive threat. We can use them as radar pickets and scout detachments, or to provide air cover over our own fleets, but not for very much else. Trying to throw Swordfish torpedo bombers, or even these new Albacore at the enemy is just throwing lives and planes away, not to mention the torpedoes.”
“Then again this could have been the lucky hit, sir. And if Wake-Walker had vectored in his squadrons from different approaches, the Germans might not have been able to track them as well, particularly if they are using some sort of triangulation system.”
“Good point. I suppose only time will tell. But for the moment, it's beginning to look again like this bloody business is a job for the battleships. They can fling all the ack-ack rockets they want at King George V and they won't put a scratch on us.”
Brind had another thought. “This may be a wild shot, sir, but what about Graf Zeppelin? It was a converted cruiser, that long forward deck reported on this contact might've been a landing strip, it explains how Jerry could have airplanes up triangulating like this, and the biggest gun reported to be on that ship is in the range of the weapon that struck the destroyer Anthony.”
Tovey considered that for some time, and then said: “You might be onto something there, Brind. We've heard nothing about Graf Zeppelin, yet we know the Germans have her in the works. You might pass that one on to the Admiralty and see what they think of it. In the meantime, Graf Zeppelin or not, my fourteen inch guns may have something to say about it soon enough.”
Chapter 17
August 3, 1941
Kirov raced south into the Denmark Strait, and behind her a dark, rolling front of bad weather surged in her wake. The British had been chastened, but not put off in the chase. They saw no further aircraft squadrons vectoring in on their position, but did not
e a single plane popping on and off their screens, a little under a hundred miles out. Admiral Volsky sent up a KA-40 helo to assist their over horizon coverage in the face of the oncoming storm, and they noted the British task force was still bearing on their heading, matching their speed knot for knot. As if anticipating their course, the angle of the enemy approach had change earlier, however, and they managed to cut twenty-five miles off the lead Kirov had for the moment.
They rounded the northernmost headlands of Iceland, and continued southwest, paralleling the distant icy coast of Greenland. With the KA-40 up, Rodenko had a good fix on the shadowing British task force, noting that it had broken into two groups, one out in front slowly gaining on their position, and a second body falling behind.
“What do you make of this?” Admiral Volsky asked Karpov.
“They are deploying a screen,” said the Captain. “They want to make sure they can adequately protect their carriers.”
Fedorov could not help overhearing the conversation, and though he thought it risky to contradict the Captain, he cleared his throat and ventured to speak up. “If I may, sir, we know the exact composition of this task force. It's been matching our speed for the last six and a half hours now, and we're running at thirty knots. The only ships in that force that could move out in front like this would be the destroyers, they could make thirty-five or thirty-six knots, which is why that leading group is slowly gaining on us. I believe they may have decided to try and catch us with these fast destroyers, sir. They did the same against Bismarck, detaching destroyers assigned to convoy duty to catch up with her and harass her until the bigger ships could come up.”
“More of those tin cans?” said Karpov. “We should've sunk that first destroyer when she came upon us earlier. That would have given them pause.”
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