by Andrew Watts
As had been the case since the dawn of submarine warfare, their chief strategic advantage was stealth. Submarines were able to get into hot zones and gather information, insert special forces, take on intelligence operatives, or quietly observe future targets. If Commander Wallace had it his way, the USS Columbia could stay far enough away to track the largest Chinese fleet ever to set sail.
If and when the cease-fire ended, Columbia would be ready. They would unleash their weapons and inflict maximum damage to the enemy with minimal risk to the sub. With luck and skill, Wallace would maneuver his submarine to remain undetected and reattack, picking off both warships and transports as they made their way east across the Pacific, a shark slowly eating away at a school of fish until there was nothing left.
There was a part of him that was revolted by the thought of firing on Chinese transport ships. Warships were one thing. But the transports, filled with soldiers and sailors with families at home and futures ahead of them, that gave him pause. An internal conversation that he wouldn’t voice to his men. But he also knew that when the time came, any revulsion he felt would be set aside. The wheels of war were now turning, and anything other than ruthless efficiency allowed the enemy to have their way.
The same kill-or-be-killed instinct that applied to animals in nature had governed enemy tribes as long as man had formed them. As soon as this cease-fire ended, his duty, however cruel it might be, was to destroy the enemy before they had the opportunity to inflict death and destruction upon his brothers in arms. The Chinese were bringing cargo vessels across the Pacific. Those ships were filled with men and munitions that would be used to kill Americans. He would sink them.
Perhaps, with luck, he would never have to take such action. Perhaps the world leaders would come to their senses. For now, he would run silent and—
“Conn, Sonar. Multiple splashes in the water. Believe it to be air-dropped, sir.”
Commander Wallace frowned. Sonar should be providing direction and distance.
The conning officer said, “Bearing and range, Sonar?”
“Twenty thousand yards is the closest. But, sir…they’re saturating that area. There must be twenty splashes, and they keep coming. Building a big buoy field out there.”
The conning officer walked towards the navigational chart in the center of the space.
“Sir, it looks like that buoy field is forming a barrier parallel to the course of the Chinese convoy. Gonna be hard for us to get anywhere near them.”
The XO said, “Well, what the hell is spitting the buoys? Do we have aircraft noise?”
“Negative, sir. Might be a high-altitude maritime patrol aircraft?”
The captain rubbed his chin, looking at the chart. “How far away?”
The sonar tech called out a bearing and range to the nearest sonobuoy’s drop. “I’m assuming it’s a sonobuoy, sir. They’re sure dropping a ton of them. P-3s don’t even drop this many.”
The XO gave the captain an uneasy look. They were standing close enough that no one could hear their conversation.
The captain whispered, “XO, if they want visuals, this might be our shot.”
“Sir, the range to that buoy field—”
“Is only going to decrease as the convoy approaches. I sure as hell don’t like it. But this might be our most conservative option for gathering ELINT and FLIR.”
The XO looked between the captain and the data indicating where the latest sonobuoys had been laid and let out a breath.
The captain said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
The XO said, “If this was any other group of targets, I wouldn’t hesitate to come up at this range. But the intel reports…there’s something different about their ASW equipment.” He paused. “Sir, I think we should take a look. But we’ll need to be cautious.”
The captain nodded. He turned to face the bridge team. “This is the captain, I have the conn. Lieutenant James retains the deck.” He waited for his statement to be acknowledged, then said, “All stop. Take us up to PD. Let’s get a look.”
“Aye, sir.”
Moments later, the camouflage-painted periscope was raised mere inches above the wavetops. The cameras and sensors fixed to the periscope rotated around twice, then the periscope retracted back down beneath the sea.
The bridge was deathly quiet, the men rapt as images of the ocean’s surface replayed on the screen. The video showed a white-gray sky with several dark silhouettes on the horizon to the northwest.
“Stop. There. Go back. Okay. Stop. Take it back to two-six-five.” The video was rewound until the heading showed two-six-five on the magnetic compass.
The XO said, “At least a dozen masts on the horizon. Looks like a few Type 52s and Type 55s too. What’s that one?”
“Frigate. Type 54. And there’s the carrier.” To the west, the silhouette of the large aircraft carrier was easily recognizable, the ramp on its flight deck protruding from the bow. The ships were very close together. Closer than most surface groups liked to operate.
The captain looked at the chart and then back at the video screen. “Where are they?”
“Where are what, sir?”
“The aircraft. What’s dropping those buoys?”
All eyes studied the screen.
That captain narrowed his eyes. “Zoom in on the horizon. There. What is that?”
“What’s what, sir?”
“Above the group three immediately aft of the carrier.”
The officer of the deck said, “What…the fuck…is that?”
“Is that a blimp?”
“Thing looks like a floating battleship.”
“Or a cloud. Sir, I think that’s just a cloud.”
“So the Chinese are dropping sonobuoys from blimps?”
“It’s not a blimp. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Sir, that doesn’t look like any blimp I’ve ever seen.”
The XO walked up and pointed at the screen. “You are talking about this? Looks like a cloud.”
“I don’t think so. It’s angled too sharply. Looks man-made. Okay, back up the video and play it in real time.”
The video rewound and then played again. It was hard to tell whether the object was moving or not due to the relative motion of the camera angle. The periscope camera had performed two spins, so everything they were watching was moving.
“Look, there’s another one. At heading two-seven-five. Aft of the formation.”
“Are you sure?”
The captain sighed. He wasn’t. The image was grainy at that distance. His eyes might have been playing tricks on him. He walked over to the chart again. “Sonar, Conn, any more buoys hit the water?”
“Conn, Sonar, negative, sir. Nothing since the last field prior to the periscope, sir.”
The captain said, “I want to take another look.”
“Sir, I don’t think we should push our luck,” the XO said.
The captain gave his XO an uneasy look. “This is what we were sent here for.” Then he said, “Up periscope.”
This time, everyone on the bridge held their breath as the image came on the screen. The captain gripped the periscope and took it through one rotation.
“Down periscope!” the captain yelled. “Take us down! Make depth six hundred feet.”
Echoes of the command and then the floor tilted forward beneath their feet, the men leaning back to keep their balance as the depth gauge ticked down.
On the monitor, the most recent periscope image had been frozen.
A giant dirigible was right on top of them.
Admiral Song watched the digital updates from the dark combat operations center on board his carrier. The three-hundred-foot-long dirigibles moved at speeds of up to one hundred knots—about the speed of a slow-moving single-engine airplane. That velocity, however, was more than enough to overcome headwinds and keep up with the ships in the battlegroup. More importantly, it could keep ahead of the submarines attempting to hunt them.
Wh
ile the aircraft was optionally manned, their standard operating procedure used a line-of-sight datalink connection for control. Each dirigible was connected to the Jiaolong-class mother ship, which operated as their ground control station. Their payload was equivalent to a C-130 transport aircraft, which allowed them to carry a deadly antisubmarine warfare package: hundreds of sonobuoys, dozens of torpedoes, and even an advanced dipping sonar system. The whisper-quiet flight operations allowed for near-silent dips, a nightmare for their underwater prey.
The Jiaolong-class ships and their dirigibles had been designed to provide ASW for very large battlegroups. They were fitted with the most advanced sensors, including radar, electronic support measures, and FLIR. Using a line-of-sight datalink connection posed challenges at long distances from the motherships. To counter this challenge, new tactics had been developed, and the antisubmarine warfare drone operators had to stay vigilant in their quest to sanitize the fleet’s path. Each ship in the battlegroup, as well as each dirigible, was fitted with a special datalink antenna that would receive and transmit the encrypted information at high speed between the dirigibles and the controllers on the mothership.
This system created a network of nodes from which the dirigibles could reliably operate far from their motherships. The datalink was so advanced that all eight drones could be simultaneously controlled from a single ship, sending video imagery and acoustic data through the node ships for processing.
The eight dirigibles of the fleet operated as pack hunters. At any given time, two of the monstrous airships flew well ahead of the fleet, using their near-silent dipping sonar as a passive sensor to detect American subs at long range. Meanwhile, two other dirigibles laid dense buoy fields along each side of the convoy. Two other dirigibles were used to cover the rear of the formation. The final two were either resupplying or having maintenance performed. The dirigibles used a rigid-shell variable-buoyancy design, with inner membranes that were filled with helium using pressurized tanks. Four stabilizers formed a giant angled tail section, allowing for directional control. Two side-mounted propellers and two rear props for extra thrust. They could stay airborne for days without refueling, constantly sweeping the ocean for enemy submarines. They were overly susceptible to the effects of foul weather, but the Chinese had created procedures to mitigate that risk.
The sonobuoys themselves were an advanced new design. Their battery life was short, but the smaller batteries allowed the engineers to use that saved weight for other purposes, such as computing power and more advanced acoustic sensors.
During antisubmarine prosecutions, the Jiaolong dirigible ASW drones used a sophisticated mesh network controlled by artificial intelligence computers. As the convoy of ships moved forward and the sonobuoys either ran out of battery life or became useless due to their lagging geographical position, one of the dirigibles would fly in, hover over the buoy at low altitude, and pick it up with a mechanical arm. The dirigible would store the used buoys in an onboard chamber and drop them off on one of the Jiaolong’s unused flight deck platforms. Here, the buoys would be recharged and then reloaded onto a dirigible that was ready to go to work.
The Jiaolong received and processed the massive amount of acoustic information from the drones dipping sonar and many sonobuoys. The entire system had been developed in secret over the past fifteen years. During the Cold War, antisubmarine warfare had relied upon skilled operators to listen, analyze, interpret, and make decisions. Humans had to guess where a target might be based on small bits of acoustic data. Data that might or might not be accurate.
This new Chinese system completely transferred the analysis and decision making to computers. Machine learning allowed the dirigibles to identify the most likely positions where an enemy submarine might make its approach. The computers concentrated their sonobuoy and dipping sonar placements in these areas, covering wide swaths of ocean, far ahead of where submarine captains might expect them to be. And they were lethally efficient.
Inside Jiaolong, one of the ASW officers monitored the latest report from the drones.
“The American submarine is forty-five thousand meters to our east. The ASW drones are prosecuting the target.”
“Very well,” came the reply from the senior officer.
Another American submarine had fallen into their web.
USS Columbia
Commander Wallace had watched with horror as his periscope showed the Chinese aircraft right on top of their position. Soon his sonar room was reporting splashes all around them.
The captain said, “Conn, get us safely east of here. Whatever the hell they have up there, we don’t want to be in this area.”
The conning officer said, “Increase speed to all ahead two-thirds. Come right to zero-two-zero and make depth six hundred feet.”
Commands repeated throughout the bridge, and the crew began leaning in unison as the submarine responded to new commands.
The navigator said, “Sir, shallow water to our east.”
“Understood.”
A high-pitched ping echoed throughout the submarine’s metal hull. Whispered cursing from the crew.
“All ahead flank, come right to one-seven-zero,” the captain called out, doing the conning officer’s job for him.
“Conn, Sonar, another splash in the water one thousand yards, bearing one-eight-zero.”
Commander Wallace took in the new information. They had put another buoy down in the water right in front of where he’d intended to take his submarine. At least, he hoped it was a buoy…
“Make new heading zero-nine-zero.”
“Zero-nine-zero, aye.”
How the hell were they putting buoys down in exactly the right spot? It was like the Chinese knew the command Wallace had given. He now realized why the other two submarines that had faced this convoy had not come back.
Another loud ping echoed throughout the hull. More cursing. Wallace noticed that one of his young officers, an ensign who had been aboard no more than a month, was no longer at his station. He was now walking around the compartment, muttering something to himself over and over, his eyes darting every which way. The kid looked like he was cracking up. Wallace made eye contact with the XO and nodded to the ensign. The XO quickly nodded back and had the chief of the boat escort him out of the space. The XO then took his station.
“Conn, Sonar, we have another splash.”
“Bearing and range?”
The voice sounded deflated. “Right on top of us, sir.”
“Conn, Sonar, transient! Torpedo in the water!”
The torpedo’s pinging began. These pings sounded different than the previous ones, which had come from a sonobuoy or dipper, and they sounded painfully close.
The pings became more rapid.
“Sir, the torpedo has acquired us.”
“Launch countermeasures! Left full rudder—”
But Commander Wallace knew that it was too late.
The dirigible launched its torpedo with targeting information that had been derived from a total of seventeen acoustic devices that held contact on the USS Columbia. The targeting information had been processed and refined, and the artificial intelligence computers calculated where the submarine would be when the torpedo was released, with ninety-eight percent probability.
The lightweight torpedo dropped from a height of one hundred feet, its parachute barely having time to open before making contact with the water. The seawater-activated motor kicked on, and it let out a few pings to acquire its target, then increased the frequency of its pings as it began homing.
On board the aircraft carrier Liaoning, Admiral Song received his report.
“The enemy submarine has been destroyed, sir.”
21
Raven Rock Mountain Complex
Pennsylvania
Day 13
David Manning sat in a private conference room reading over the morning intelligence reports with Susan Collinsworth. She had flown up to Raven Rock to brief the new director of the C
IA and military leadership. They wanted to know what the hell this new Chinese ship was capable of. Her brief would be based on the SILVERSMITH team’s analysis of ISR imagery taken from Colonel Wojcik’s reconnaissance aircraft, as well as the results of a conversation they were about to have with three experts.
Thousands of the US government’s political, military, and intelligence leaders were being housed at Raven Rock and a series of other emergency complexes along the Appalachian Mountain Chain. Raven Rock was where the highest-level military plans were being made.
“We lost contact with another sub?” David asked, reading the daily brief.
Susan frowned, nodding slowly. “The Columbia.”
“Why are we sending submarines anywhere near that Jiaolong-class ship? Shouldn’t we keep them at a standoff distance until we have a way to fight the threat?”
“The Pentagon now agrees with that assessment.”
“Wonderful. And it only took three sunken subs to get them there.”
The door opened and in walked their three specialists. One wore a lab coat and rimmed glasses. David recognized him as the representative from DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. The second man was an air and missile defense expert. The third was the expert on naval warship technology.
David put the folder down and stood as introductions were made. Susan began the conversation with disclaimers on the classification level and stressed the obvious importance of their task. Then she opened a manila envelope and placed a series of images on the table.
She said, “Gentlemen, what you’re looking at is known as the Jiaolong-class warship. The Chinese are referring to it as a battleship.”
The three men took turns passing around the photographs, exchanging whistles and hums. They were intrigued.
“Looks like they’re using merchants as a hull template. Smart. We’ve been looking into that. You can buy ’em much cheaper than the cost of making a destroyer.”