by Jeff Edwards
The Stern Planesman, Seaman Viktor Petrovich Ermakov, repeated back his orders and pulled back slowly on the steering wheel shaped control yoke. Eyes locked on the plane angle indicator, he leaned slightly closer to the Helmsman seated to his right. “I’m sick of this recycled air,” he said quietly. “In a few moments, I’ll be topside with the kapitan, breathing real air for a change!”
Before the official start of the exercise, the Kuzbass was scheduled to surface in order to give the sensor operators on board the TU-142 an opportunity to practice using their video cameras and infrared cameras to detect and track a real submarine.
Once the boat was on the surface, depth control would be handled by the controlled flooding and pumping of the trim and drain tanks, leaving the Stern Planesman with nothing to do. Aboard the Kuzbass, as aboard most Russian submarines, the Stern Planesman became the topside lookout when the sub was on the surface. Which meant that Viktor would soon be up in the conning tower with his commanding officer, enjoying sunshine and non-recycled air.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” the Helmsman said. “We aren’t more than twenty kilometers from the ice pack. It’s nice and warm down here, but the air up topside will be colder than a Siberian whore.” He chuckled. “Your sosiska will freeze and fall off!” A sosiska was a thin Russian sausage.
Viktor elbowed his friend in the ribs. “You’ve been drinking the water from the reactor again, haven’t you? You’re hallucinating. My sardelka is fat and juicy! It is a man’s sausage!”
The Helmsman snorted. “You’ll see how fat and juicy it is when that cold air hits it.”
Viktor laughed, but kept his eye on the depth readout. He cleared his throat. “Passing sixty meters.”
The Diving Officer nodded. “Very well. Zero your bubble. Take all planes to horizontal. Level off at four-zero meters.”
The Watch Officer pulled a communications microphone from its cradle in the overhead angle irons. “Sonar—Watch Officer, coming shallow in preparation for going to periscope depth. Report all contacts.”
The answer came from an overhead speaker a few seconds later. “Watch Officer—Sonar, we hold three contacts at this time, all evaluated as fishing boats, and all bearing to the South. Target number one, surface, bearing 176 degrees with slow left bearing drift. Target number two, surface, bearing 194 degrees with moderate left bearing drift. Target number three, surface, bearing 212 degrees with slow left bearing drift.”
“Watch Officer, aye.”
The Watch Officer reached up and grasped the hydraulic control ring that encircled the upper hull penetration for number one periscope. He rotated the control ring about ten degrees to the right. With a muffled thump, the scope hydraulics engaged, and the periscope began to rise from its form-fitting well beneath the deck.
As soon as the optics module slid clear of the deck, the Watch Officer leaned over and flipped the periscope grips into place. A second or so later, when the scope had risen about a meter, the Watch Officer crouched and placed his left eye against the black rubber collar surrounding the eye piece. He followed the still rising optics module, starting from a crouch and turning the scope as he duck-walked his way through an entire 360 degree revolution.
Kapitan Kharitonov observed his Watch Officer’s periscope procedures without speaking, noting with silent approval that the young lieutenant managed to complete a full visual sweep by the time the eyepiece had reached eye-level above the deck and he could stand normally.
The Watch Officer thumbed a control button, increasing the optical magnification of the scope and began a second visual sweep. At forty meters, the head of the periscope was still well submerged, but enough sunlight filtered down to that depth to backlight any sizeable object on the surface of the ocean. The lieutenant was checking for shapes and shadows: the telltale silhouettes of any ships or boats floating on the surface.
In a perfect world, sonar would detect any surface vessels well ahead of time, allowing the sub to steer clear, but it’s nearly impossible to hear a boat or ship drifting with its engines cut. In the past, more than a few submarines had collided with quiet surface craft, usually with devastating consequences to both vessels. A little extra caution during this procedure could easily make the difference between safety and disaster.
The Watch Officer increased the magnification of the scope again and conducted a third sweep. When he was finally satisfied that the surface near the submarine was clear of collision hazards, he pulled his face away from the periscope. “Diving Officer, make your depth twenty meters.”
The Diving Officer nodded. “Make my depth twenty meters, aye!” He turned and began issuing orders to the individual watch stations. Five minutes later, he had the boat holding steady at its new depth and trimmed to his satisfaction. “Sir, my depth is two-zero meters.”
Kapitan Kharitonov nodded. “Raise the radio mast.”
The Watch Officer acknowledged the order and flipped a switch on an overhead panel. The muffled whine of hydraulics announced the raising of the radio antenna mast. A green status light illuminated on the panel. The Watch Officer looked at his kapitan. “Sir, the radio mast is deployed and locked.”
Kharitonov nodded. “Very well.” He lifted a radio microphone from its cradle and verified that the channel selector was set to the designated frequency for the exercise. He held the mike to his lips, pressed the transmit key, and spoke. “Volk-shentnadtsatiy, this is Kuzbass.”
Volk-shentnadtsatiy, Wolf-sixteenth, was the call sign of the Tupolev TU-142 anti-submarine warfare aircraft that would be attempting to track the Kuzbass for the next few hours.
The radio speaker rumbled with static, but there was no reply.
After about a minute, he keyed the mike and tried again. “Volk-shentnadtsatiy, this is Kuzbass.”
Again there was no answer.
“We are at the proper coordinates, at the correct time, and on the designated frequency,” Kharitonov said. “Perhaps our esteemed shipmates in naval aviation have forgotten how to locate the ocean.”
Most of the members of the control room crew chuckled.
Kharitonov looked over at the hole where his master dive clock should have been. “Or it could be that some gutless idiot has stolen their clock and they don’t know what time it is.”
There were fewer laughs this time. His men knew that, joking aside, their kapitan was still torqued over the missing clock.
Kharitonov keyed the mike again. “Volk-shentnadtsatiy, this is Kuzbass. Do you read me?”
This time, there was a response. “Kuzbass, this is Volk-shentnadtsatiy. I read you clearly.”
Kharitonov’s eyebrows went up. “Volk-shentnadtsatiy, this is Kuzbass. I am at periscope depth and preparing to surface for your camera and infrared sensor runs. Do you read?”
The reply came almost immediately. “Kuzbass, this is Volk-shentnadtsatiy. Understand you are at periscope depth. Can you mark your position with a smoke float?”
Kharitonov frowned. A smoke float? If those flying idiots were any good at their job, they wouldn’t need a smoke float to locate a submarine.
He sighed. “Watch Officer, launch a smoke float for our cloud-hopping shipmates.”
The young lieutenant repeated the order and carried it out. “Smoke float deployed, Kapitan.” He grinned. “I used an orange one so they won’t have any trouble finding us.”
Kharitonov returned the grin. “Good thinking, Lieutenant.” He started to key the microphone when an ear-splitting squeal erupted from the radio speaker. He grabbed the gain control and cranked the speaker down to minimum volume. The painful sound was diminished but still audible.
He was about to call for a technician when one of the radiomen stuck his head into the control room. “Sir! Our communications are being jammed!”
Kharitonov’s ears were still ringing, but he heard the man without difficulty. “Are you certain?”
“Positive, sir,” the radioman said. “We’re getting broad spectrum jamming on all naval commun
ications frequencies.”
“Understood,” Kharitonov said.
The air crew of that plane really were idiots. Obviously one of the operators had hit the wrong button by mistake. No doubt they’d realize the error before long and shut down their jammers.
An intercom speaker crackled in the overhead. “Control—Sonar, torpedo in the water! Repeat, torpedo in the water, bearing zero-four-four! Recommend immediate evasive maneuvers!”
Kharitonov’s brain went into high gear immediately. The torpedo report had to be a mistake, but he couldn’t take that chance. “I have the deck,” he shouted. “All ahead flank! Left full rudder!”
The boat heeled over instantly as the Helmsman executed his orders. “Sir, my rudder is full left! All ahead flank!”
“Very well,” Kharitonov said. “Launch countermeasures!” He paused for a half-second. At flank speed, hydrodynamic force would mangle the periscope and the radio antenna. “Down scope! Retract the antenna mast!”
The deck began to vibrate as the turbines brought the screw up to maximum speed. Something had to be wrong with the sonar equipment. The torpedo had to be a mistake. But no … he could hear it now, right through the hull, the unmistakable dental drill whine of high-speed propellers. It wasn’t a sonar error. It really was an incoming torpedo. The sound was quickly growing to a howl.
“Countermeasures away!” the Watch Officer shouted.
The intercom speaker flared again. “Control—Sonar, we have startup on a second torpedo! Repeat, we have two inbound torpedoes! Classify both torpedoes as 400 millimeter type UMGT-1!”
Those were Russian torpedoes, air launched. They had to have come from Volk-shentnadtsatiy. Why was their own aircraft shooting at them?
“Emergency dive!” Kharitonov said. “Full down bubble on all planes!”
Before the Diving Officer could acknowledge the order, the intercom speaker crackled again. “Control—Sonar, no takers on the countermeasures. Both torpedoes have acquired.
Outside the hull, the howl of approaching torpedo screws rose to a deafening shriek.
Kharitonov opened his mouth to order an emergency rudder change, but his voice was drowned out by the explosion of the first torpedo. He couldn’t tell where it hit, but the shock of the impact slammed into him like a speeding car, lifting him off the deck and throwing him sideways against the housing for #2 periscope. He felt several of his ribs break.
The submarine heeled well over to port in response to the explosion. Kharitonov tumbled to the deck where he lay in a haze of shock and confusion, his body too stunned to even draw breath.
His left wrist was turned at such an angle that his old watch, the Vostok Komandirskie, was positioned just a few centimeters from his face. He stared stupidly at the heavy stainless steel timepiece, his addled mind not really registering its presence. Slowly his eyes slid back into focus and his brain began to process information again. Somewhere beyond the numbing silence of his damaged eardrums, he thought he could hear the thunder of rushing water.
He blinked, and his body began to think about moving again. He could dimly perceive the first ghostly twinges of pain, and he realized that he had been temporarily shielded from the reality of his injuries by shock. It would all come back to him; he knew that. His body’s defense mechanisms could delay the inevitable for a little while, but they could not prevent it.
He couldn’t stay down here any longer. He needed to get to his feet, get his brain working, regain command of the situation. He had to save his boat.
But something caught his attention. It was his wristwatch. The second hand was frozen in place. The watch had stopped. The all-powerful bulletproof masterpiece of Soviet craftsmanship had given up the fight. It was almost funny if one only knew when to laugh.
Then the second torpedo struck, and the world disappeared in a fury of fire and water.
CHAPTER 13
ICBM: A COLD WAR SAILOR’S MUSINGS ON THE ULTIMATE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
(Reprinted by permission of the author, Retired Master Chief Sonar Technician David M. Hardy, USN)
The 14th and 15th centuries were periods of great experimentation in the field of rocketry, and several major advances came about as a result. An English monk named Roger Bacon developed improved formulas for gunpowder, greatly increasing rocket flight ranges. In France, poet, historian, and inventor Jean Froissart discovered that the accuracy of a rocket’s trajectory could be improved by launching it through a straight length of pipe, or tube. His idea became the precursor of the modern bazooka.
Meanwhile, rockets continued to become more common on the battlefield. French troops led by Joan of Arc used rockets in the defense of the city of Orleans in the year 1429. The French also used rockets during the siege of Pont-Andemer in 1449, and at the assault on the city of Ghent in 1453.
By the 1500s, rocket warfare began to fall into disfavor. Advances in artillery made the smoothbore cannon an increasingly attractive alternative for the armies of Europe and Asia. Nevertheless, the 16th century brought a new development to rocketry: one that would ultimately open the door to both space travel, and nuclear warfare.
In 1591, a German fireworks maker named Johann Schmidlap began building ‘step rockets’ in order to lift his fireworks to greater altitudes. Schmidlap’s earliest step rockets had two stages, consisting of a large sky rocket (first stage), which carried a smaller sky rocket (second stage). The larger first stage would propel the rocket as high as it could go before its engine burned out. The engine of the smaller rocket would then ignite, and the second stage would separate from the husk of the first, and continue to climb to higher altitude.
Schmidlap’s goal was simply to build more impressive fireworks, but his multi-stage rockets would become the foundation for manned spacecraft, and nuclear missiles.
It should be noted that the idea of multi-stage rockets may have originated with Conrad Haas, an Austrian artillery officer who described the concept in a manuscript written between 1529 and 1569. Johann Schmidlap may or may not have been aware of the works of Conrad Haas, but—regardless of his possible influences—Schmidlap was the first to put the concept into practical use.
The next great breakthrough in rocketry occurred in 1687, when Sir Isaac Newton published ‘Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). Although the text was not geared specifically toward rockets, Principia Mathematica outlined ‘Newton’s Laws of Motion,’ and described the natural principles that allow rockets to function. This work has been credited with elevating rocketry from blind trial and error into the realm of science.
Thanks in part to the work of Sir Isaac Newton, rocket warfare experienced a revival in the 18th and 19th centuries.
After a series of successful Indian rocket attacks against the British Army in the late 1700s, artillery expert Colonel William Congreve began designing rockets for the British military. Congreve’s rockets proved to be highly effective weapons. British ships used Congreve rockets to bombard Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the assault from the deck of a British warship, was inspired to write the poem that became America’s national anthem: The Star Spangled Banner. When he penned the famous line about the rockets’ red glare, Francis Scott Key was referring to the British Congreve rockets that were pounding the besieged American fort.
In 1903, a Russian schoolteacher by the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published a report in which he suggested the switch from traditional solid rocket fuel to liquid rocket propellants. Tsiolkovsky theorized that the range and speed of a rocket are controlled by the velocity of its exhaust gasses, and he calculated that liquid rocket fuels would provide higher gas velocities than solid rocket fuels.
Tsiolkovsky’s writings influenced the research of Robert Goddard, who began building liquid fuel rockets in the early 20th century.
Unlike solid fuel rockets, which require few (if any) moving parts, a liquid fuel rocket is a hig
hly-complex machine. In place of a simple combustion cylinder and exhaust nozzle, a liquid fuel rocket requires feed-pumps, turbines, oxygen tanks, and an intricate network of piping to connect them all. And where a solid fuel rocket needs only an ignition source, a liquid fuel rocket requires precise control mechanisms.
The task before Goddard was daunting, but he believed that the potential benefit was worth the difficulty and risk.
On March 16, 1926, after a long string of failed attempts, Robert Goddard managed to successfully launch a liquid fuel rocket. Powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen, his rocket flew for about two and a half seconds, reaching an altitude of 41 feet before landing in a cabbage patch about 180 feet from the launch pad.
By current standards, it was not much of a flight. It didn’t even approach the performance of the least successful solid fuel rockets in history. But a liquid fuel rocket had flown. Like the Wright Brothers, with their first faltering airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, Robert Goddard had proven that his strange machine could fly.
While Goddard was still struggling to get a liquid fuel rocket into the air, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, another great rocket pioneer was making his own mark upon the face of history. In 1922, a German/Romanian physicist named Hermann Oberth submitted a 92-page doctoral dissertation on rocket science. His dissertation was rejected as ‘utopian,’ and his doctoral degree was withheld.
Oberth responded by publishing his dissertation in 1923, under the title ‘Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen’ (“By Rocket into Planetary Space”). Oberth went on to expand the work to 429 pages, re-publishing it as ‘Wege zur Raumschiffahrt’ (“Ways to Spaceflight”) in 1929.
Oberth’s writings inspired scientifically-minded people of many nations. Rocket clubs and associations began springing up all over the world.
Of particular note was a German rocket association, called ‘Verein fur Raumschiffahrt,’ the Society for Space Travel. The club’s membership included Wernher von Braun, Hermann Oberth, and Arthur Rudolph, and many others who would go on to play major roles in the field of rocket science.
