by Jeff Edwards
“Yes, sir, this is Captain Bowie, over.”
“Let’s dispense with the radio jargon, shall we, Captain? I don’t know much about it, and this is hardly the time to learn.”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Bowie said. “By all means.”
“Good,” the president said. “Now, may I call you Sam?”
“Um … I don’t really answer to that, sir. Most people call me Jim.”
The president’s chuckle came over the line. “Was Colonel Bowie a relation of yours?”
“Not as far as I know, sir. But I grew up in San Antonio, so the nickname was pretty much inevitable.”
“It’s a good name anyway,” the president said. “Your namesake was a warrior and a patriot. It’s a compliment to have your name associated with his.”
“I’ve always thought so, Mr. President,” the captain said.
The president paused for a few seconds. “Now Jim, as you’ve probably guessed, I don’t make it a habit of calling my Navy captains at sea. You don’t call me in the Oval Office, and I generally try to return the courtesy.” He laughed briefly at his own attempted joke. Then he chopped it off, and the humor was gone from his voice. “So the fact that I’m calling you in the hour before battle must tell you something of how important this is.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said.
“I know that this mission has personal importance to you. The lives of your crew are at stake, and—obviously—your own life as well. The recent loss of the USS Benfold is also, no doubt, on your mind—as it should be. Your comrades-in-arms have fallen at the hands of the enemy that you are set to face, and if there is an element of vengeance in your thinking, I don’t believe that anyone could criticize you.”
“I must admit that it’s a factor, sir.”
“If you said otherwise, I’d be inclined to doubt your word,” the president said. “But there is a larger picture here, and the stakes are greater than you perhaps imagine. If Germany manages to deliver that submarine despite the concerted efforts of our Navy, it will seriously damage the credibility of our naval deterrence. It will also prove to many of the nations who are watching that German military hardware, and German military tactics, and German military training are the equal to—if not superior to—our own. To say that this will alter the balance of power in Europe would be a gross understatement. But even that is not the worst of it. I’ve spoken at length to Prime Minister Irons, and she makes no secret of the fact that she is preparing for war with Germany. I don’t believe I need to remind you of what happened the last couple of times England and Germany went to war with each other.”
“No, sir.”
“We may have a chance to prevent that war,” the president said. “If you can send that last submarine to the bottom, we can paint this whole thing as a military disaster for Germany. Really rub the German government’s nose in it: in the United Nations, in the media, and in the eyes of the man on the street. If we can do that, I think I can talk Prime Minister Irons into accepting a symbolic defeat of Germany, in lieu of the real thing.”
The noise level was dropping rapidly now, and that was a good thing, because the president’s voice became softer. “I hate to put the pressure on you, Jim, but this may well be the most important naval engagement of our time. It’s the bottom of the ninth, and you’re our last batter.”
“We’ll do our best to put it over the back fence, Mr. President,” the captain said.
“I know you will, Jim. May God bless USS Towers and all who sail in her. Good luck and good hunting.”
The speaker warbled again, and Navy Red dropped sync. The president was off the line.
CIC was silent for nearly a minute, and then Captain Bowie clapped his hands together. “TAO, let’s get Firewalker airborne. Then tell the engineers to drop the port screw off line and set Quiet Ship.” He looked around CIC. “It’s show time, folks. Time to kill us a submarine.”
CHAPTER 51
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF (OFF THE COAST OF SIRAJ) TUESDAY; 22 MAY
0358 hours (3:58 AM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
The helo pilot’s voice came over the Navy Red speaker in Combat Information Center, “SAU Commander, this is Firewalker Two-Six. I am up for Towers control. My fuel state is three hours plus four zero minutes. Three souls aboard. My load-out is one Mark-54 torpedo and a mixed rack of sonobuoys, over.”
“Roger, Firewalker,” Chief McPherson said. “Proceed to your fly-to points and begin seeding your buoys. You are at the edge of Siraji airspace, so keep your eyes peeled and don’t wander outside our missile envelope. You might get some company up there, over.”
“This is Firewalker Two-Six. Copy all. Roger, out.”
The chief switched her comm-set from Navy Red to the USW tactical net. “Sonar—USWE. Go active. Stay sharp and change your equipment lineup every couple of minutes until we find the combination that gives us contact.”
“Sonar, aye.”
The chief looked at the CDRT and ran through the tactical situation in her mind. She wanted to be sure that she hadn’t missed anything.
Navy Red warbled. “Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. I hate to follow the president’s pep talk with bad news, but intelligence estimates indicate that you are steaming into a Siraji minefield, over.”
The XO looked up. “A minefield? How much more good news can we stand?”
“Tell me about it,” the captain said. He keyed up Navy Red. “COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. Understand my unit is steaming into a minefield. Request estimated boundaries of the field and any known safe transit lanes, over.”
“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. I am transmitting boundaries of the minefield to you now. There are currently no known safe transit lanes, and I do not have time to get a mine sweeper up there before you encounter the field, over.”
The XO snorted. “This just keeps getting better.”
The TAO said, “Captain, the parameters of the minefield just showed up in the link.”
An irregular geometric shape appeared on the Aegis display screens, a series of thin red lines connected at each end to form a lopsided trapezoid off the coast of the port city of Zubayr. The NTDS symbol for Towers showed the destroyer a little less than a mile and a half south of the edge of the minefield.
“Nothing like cutting it close,” the XO said. “They could have waited another six minutes or so, and we’d have found out by ourselves.”
The captain keyed up Navy Red. “COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. I am in receipt of your minefield coordinates. I would have liked to have known about this sooner. I almost steamed into this thing blind, over.”
“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. Sorry about that. We just confirmed this info about two minutes ago. You were the first to know, over.”
“COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. Roger, out.” The captain punched out of Navy Red and walked over to Chief McPherson at the CDRT. “How are we looking, Chief?”
The chief tapped the screen with her fingertip. “Farthest-on circles put Gremlin Zero Four somewhere south of this line, Captain.” She indicated a dotted arc on the display, just south of the minefield. “Assuming he’s been traveling at maximum submerged speed since he torpedoed the Benfold, he could be inside our own Torpedo Danger Zone in the next ten minutes or so.”
“Are you expecting to gain contact immediately?”
“Not really, sir,” the chief said. “So far, he’s depended a lot on deceptive maneuvering; I’d be surprised if he makes a straight run for home. But he might just want to surprise us, so we’re prepared for it.”
She pointed to a series of small green circles, each with a lightning bolt–shaped line coming out of its top at a forty-five–degree angle. “Firewalker Two-Six is laying a passive sonobuoy field to the south. When Gremlin Zero Four breaks the barrier, he’ll be inside torpedo range.”
“I hate to wait until he’s that close,” Captain Bowie said. “Are you sure we can’t get
ASROC to work here? I thought the new shallow-water configuration was supposed to be pretty effective.”
The chief shook her head. “It is, sir. But this water is too shallow even for the modified ASROCs. They’ll end up buried in the sea bottom.”
“Is there any way to reprogram the ASROCs?” the XO asked.
“I wish we could, sir,” Chief McPherson said. “But it’s not a software issue. It’s a physics problem. We call it dynamic overshoot. An ASROC missile drops its torpedo from an altitude of about ten thousand feet. Even with the parachute pack to slow it down, when it hits the water, an ASROC-launched torpedo is moving fast. The saltwater batteries start the motor up almost immediately after the weapon splashes down, but the torpedo is still sinking fast. The computer takes control of the rudder fins and elevator fins and starts leveling off the torpedo as quickly as it can—sort of like a pilot trying to pull an airplane out of a steep dive. If the water is deep enough, the torpedo levels itself off and goes into its search pattern. If the water is too shallow, the weapon slams into the sea bottom before it can level off. Maybe the bottom is soft mud, and it buries itself. Maybe the bottom is hard-packed sand, and the torpedo is demolished by the impact. Either way, the torpedo is history.”
The XO scratched his chin. “And this water is definitely too shallow?”
“Yes, sir,” the chief said. “An ASROC torpedo will hit the water, run its motor for maybe ten seconds, and then crash into the bottom. It’ll make a bunch of noise, but it won’t do anything useful.”
The XO’s eyebrows went up. “If the water is so shallow, what’s going to keep our tube-launched torpedoes from hitting the bottom? Or any torpedo dropped by the helo?”
Chief McPherson held up two fingers. “Two things, sir. First: over-the-side torpedoes and helo-dropped torpedoes hit the water with only a slight nose-down angle, so they’re much closer to being level when the motor starts up. And second: they don’t fall as far, so they don’t build up much inertia. Our torpedo tubes are only about twenty feet above the water. The helo drops its torpedoes from an altitude of only a few hundred feet, not ten thousand feet like an ASROC. They’re not moving all that fast when they hit the water, so they don’t sink very far before they can level off.”
“I see,” the captain said. “And there’s no way to program the ASROCs to drop their torpedoes from a lower altitude? Or maybe program the ASROC torpedoes to strike the water at a shallower angle?”
“Sir, it would take a complete redesign of the ASROC missile,” Chief McPherson said. “A team of engineers with a billion-dollar budget could probably figure out how to do it if they had a couple of years to play around with the idea. But there’s nothing we can do here and now.”
“So we’re stuck with over-the-side torpedoes,” the XO said.
“Afraid so, sir. We’ll have Firewalker running interference for us. If we get lucky, he’ll be able to put a torpedo on Gremlin Zero Four before the sub knows what’s up.”
“Or he’ll get blown out of the sky by a sub-SAM, like Antietam’s helo did.”
“That’s one of the risks, sir. But by the time the sub is close enough to shoot at Firewalker, he’ll also be close enough to shoot at us. We’re all going to be in the line of fire.”
“We can’t afford to forget about Vipers,” the XO said. “The 212B can carry three Exocet missiles. They’re supposed to fire them one at a time, but these bastards have shown a preference for launching them all at once.”
“There were four subs left when we got into this fight,” Captain Bowie said. “That makes twelve Exocets. We saw them shoot nine, so there are three left.”
“There might be three left, sir,” the TAO said. “We’ve sunk three out of the four submarines. There’s an excellent chance that this guy has launched one or more of his birds.”
“Forget percentages,” the XO said. “Until he’s dead, as far as I’m concerned, this guy is armed with Exocets. Hell, with the kind of luck we’ve been having, he’s got a couple of extras lying around for a rainy day.”
Chief McPherson half-smiled. “Good thing it doesn’t rain much in the Middle East, sir. Or we’d be screwed.”
The XO glared at her for a couple of seconds, and then turned to the Tactical Action Officer. “TAO, I want Aegis ready-auto, CIWS set to auto-engage, and the Electronics Warfare guys standing by to jam or launch chaff. Set Tac-Sit One; I want all four .50-caliber mounts manned, and both 25mm chain-guns. Make sure that the 5-inch gun is loaded with HE-rounds. We have no friendly units within weapons range. If anything out there so much as farts, I want a missile, a torpedo, or a 5-inch shell shoved up its ass before its sphincter can slam shut.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” The TAO keyed into the tactical command net and began issuing orders.
* * *
Towers steamed back and forth, a wounded but determined sentry guarding the harbor against the approaching enemy. The crew settled in for a long wait, but less than twenty minutes had passed when the call came from the Electronics Warfare module. “TAO—EW, I have six active J-band radar seekers! We have in-bound missiles from the coast. First cut looks like Siraji HY-1 Silkworms.”
The TAO was about to acknowledge the report when the Electronics Warfare Technician cut him off with a follow-up report. “TAO—EW. Make that twelve! We have a second flight of six. I say again, we have twelve in-bound Vipers! Request permission to initiate jamming protocols.”
“EW—TAO. Initiate jamming and stand by on chaff. Break. Air—TAO, can you confirm inbound Vipers?”
“TAO—Air. That’s affirmative, sir. We just picked them up about two seconds ago. Twelve inbounds!”
“TAO—aye! Break! All Stations—TAO, we have in-bound Vipers! I say again, we have missiles in-bound! This is not a drill! Weapons Control, verify that we are in Aegis ready-auto and CIWS is set to auto-engage.”
“TAO—Weapons Control. Affirmative, boss. We are locked and cocked. Bring ‘em on!”
“TAO—EW. Standing by on chaff. Recommend new course three-one-zero to minimize our radar cross-section.”
The TAO looked up at the Aegis display screens. Twelve hostile-missile symbols had appeared, and all of them were rapidly closing on the Towers. “TAO, aye. Break. Bridge—TAO. Come right to new course three-one-zero.”
“Bridge, aye! Coming right to three-one-zero.”
All around CIC, operators began glancing up from their own consoles to steal looks at the big screens. Twelve missiles? They’d never trained for that many at one time.
“This is going to get ugly,” an unidentified voice said.
“All right, people,” the captain said. “Stay focused. Do your jobs, and everything will be okay.”
Suddenly, three of the missile symbols veered away and disappeared off the display.
“TAO—Air. Splash three.”
“Maybe that jamming gear is finally going to pay for itself,” the XO said.
The TAO frowned. “Why only three? We’re transmitting a broadband jamming strobe. It should be hitting all of those Vipers at the same time. If Silkworm missiles are impervious to jamming, we shouldn’t have gotten any of them. If they’re vulnerable to jamming, we should have gotten them all.”
“Not necessarily,” the XO said. “Remember, Siraj has been under an arms embargo for nearly two decades. Their arsenal is composed of what they had prior to the embargo, supplemented by whatever hardware they’ve been able to smuggle in. Those Silkworms they’re launching may span three or four generations of technology.”
“Launching chaff,” the EW announced. His voice was followed by a rapid series of muffled thumps. “Six away.”
“So far, so good,” the TAO said.
The captain keyed his mike. “Weapons Control—Captain. How much longer until the Vipers come within our missile-engagement range?”
“Vipers are entering the Auto-Engage Circle right … about … now, sir.”
The Aegis computers transmitted pre-launch programming data to eighteen SM-3 mi
ssiles, two for each of the enemy missiles remaining. This shoot-shoot-look-shoot-shoot doctrine would remain in effect until Towers expended fifty percent of her available SM-3 missiles. Then the Aegis computer would automatically fall back to a shoot-look-shoot-shoot doctrine, firing only one initial missile at each incoming Viper before checking to see if it had been destroyed.
On the forecastle, nine armored hatches flipped open in rapid succession, and nine SM-3 missiles blasted free of their launch cells and climbed into the darkness on actinic pillars of fire. The combined roar of the solid-fuel missile boosters reverberated through the ship like the rumble of an earthquake.
At the exact same instant, nine other armored hatches popped open on the after-missile deck, and nine more surface-to-air missiles leapt into the sky. Dividing the missiles between the launchers was a standard consideration built into the Aegis computer program. By assigning the missiles in equal or nearly equal proportions from both launchers, the Aegis computers could maintain a measure of redundancy.
The Air Supervisor’s voice came over the net. “Splash one! Splash two! Splash three!” As he watched, the tally of destroyed missiles continued to mount. A few seconds later, he said, “Looks like we got ‘em all!”
“Round One goes to Towers,” the TAO said quietly.
Round Two was only seconds in coming. “TAO—EW, here comes the second salvo! I have six active J-band radar seekers! Wait! Six more! I have twelve in-bound Vipers.”
The Air Supervisor confirmed the report immediately. “We’ve got them on SPY! I confirm, twelve Vipers in-bound!”
Captain Bowie keyed his mike. “Air—Captain. Backtrack the trajectories of those Vipers! I want to know where they’re coming from. Break. Weapons Control, stand by on guns. As soon as we get some coordinates, I want you to pound the hell out of those missile launchers!”
“With pleasure, sir!”
The twelve new hostile-missile symbols appeared on the Aegis display screens and began to close on the ship’s symbol at alarming speed.
“TAO—Air. We’ve got party crashers, sir. Two Bogies inbound from the north. No modes, no codes, and no IFF.”
