Shattered Trident

by Larry Bond

  Suddenly, Jerry was jerked back to the predeployment briefing by Simonis’s loud voice. He was a little shocked to find out he’d missed all of Joanna’s presentation. Chagrined, he looked over at Thigpen’s steno pad and saw his XO had taken copious notes.

  “L-hour is tomorrow at 1200 local time,” Simonis announced. “Commander Mitchell, North Dakota sorties first. You’ve got the farthest to go and you’ll have to fly at flank speed for a good portion of your transit.”

  Jerry nodded as he acknowledged the order. “Understood, Commodore.”

  “Commander Nevens, North Carolina will leave four hours later. Followed by Texas and Oklahoma City. In seventy-two hours you have to be in the launch boxes articulated by Dr. Patterson. H-hour is 1200 local time on 18 September. At precisely that time, each submarine will fire two nuclear-armed torpedoes on the assigned courses and at medium speed. You’ll then promptly put your ass to the blast, come shallow, and run like hell. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” answered the four commanding officers.

  “Very well,” replied Simonis. “Now I suggest you finish up any preparations you may have left before you deploy tomorrow. I’ve augmented the duty staff and they’ll assist you with whatever you need. Just call and get things moving, we’ll follow up with the paperwork later. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “All right, I’ll see you all tomorrow morning at Santa Fe’s memorial service. Afterwards, we’ll honor our shipmates by ending this war. Dismissed!”

  14 September 2016

  1800 Local Time

  By Water

  Halifax, Nova Scotia

  The Great Pacific War of 2016

  Posted By: Mac

  Subj: New—Book Review: Navies for Asia by Dr. Sajin Komamura

  One of the most vexing issues about the current conflict in the seas surrounding China is how did it start? At the time, it seemed to spring forth out of nowhere. And while we know a little more now about the opening moves—Operation Trident, the mining of Liaoning, the sinking of Vinaship Sea—there is still a gap in our understanding of the intent, the motivation behind the war. Well, I’m ashamed to admit that the impetus behind the formation of the Littoral Alliance, as well as its covert submarine war, was right under my nose, available months before the first shots were fired.

  A careful examination of the official statements and military strategy of the Littoral Alliance will show they are in perfect harmony with a recent book written by Dr. Sajin Komamura, an economics and history professor at the University of Tokyo. Dr. Komamura’s book, Navies for Asia, is a masterpiece of argumentation as to why the nations surrounding the Chinese littorals need to band together, in a formal alliance, to resist the aggressive tendencies of the People’s Republic of China. Furthermore, Dr. Komamura strongly believes this alliance must be free from the restrictions affiliated with existing security agreements with the United States, whose national interests are not necessarily in concert with Asian countries’.

  Dr. Komamura’s formal argument is quite powerful and explains fully how the Littoral Alliance came into being. And yet for all its brilliance, there are two fatal flaws that seemed to have gone totally undetected by senior civilian and military officials of the nations within the Littoral Alliance. The first flaw is an assumption made by Dr. Komamura, and to his credit it is an explicit one, that a military conflict with China is inevitable. This is a powerful, and insidious assumption, as it predisposes the alliance away from investigating the potential uses of their collective diplomatic and economic power. Indeed, while Dr. Komamura extols many of the “virtues of the NATO alliance” in Europe, he misses several key political and diplomatic aspects of that alliance that effectively helped deter a war with the Soviet Union.

  The second flaw deals with the total exclusion of the United States from their alliance. I’m Canadian, and there are times when my neighbor to the south aggravates me with their policies. However, in the grand scheme of things, belonging to a formal alliance that includes the U.S. has largely been for the good. The sheer military power of the U.S., both conventional and nuclear, was critical to NATO’s deterrence credibility. Yes, there have been periods of tension in the past between other members of the NATO alliance and the United States, but tension forces us to think hard about an issue. It’s a natural brake that helps prevent rash decisions, even if it makes the decision-making a messy and frustrating process. At the end of the day, deterrence is served.

  By adopting Dr. Komamura’s writings so completely—indeed his book is often referred to as the Littoral Alliance’s “bible”—the alliance policy-makers have severely restricted their options to purely military ones. Is the book Navies for Asia a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. Did it have to be this way? Regrettably, it did not.

  25

  END GAME

  15 September 2016

  0900 Local Time

  Squadron Fifteen Headquarters

  Guam

  They’d held the memorial service for Santa Fe early in the morning, just before the squadron sailed. Who could say when the four boats would all be in port at the same time again? And everyone needed to begin healing. As important as their mission was, it would keep for a few hours.

  There were far too many people for the base chapel. The submarine crews, minus their duty sections, from North Dakota, Texas, North Carolina, and Oklahoma City, and the families from Texas, Oklahoma City, and of course Santa Fe attended. Adding in the Squadron Fifteen staff, it came to over fifteen hundred people. North Dakota and North Carolina were homeported out of Pearl Harbor, so their families were not present, and Jerry missed having Emily beside him.

  So they’d taken over a nearby parking lot, setting up chairs, awnings, a podium, flags, and sound system. Volunteers from the Squadron Fifteen boats had made short work of the preparations, so that by the time the last torpedo had been locked in its tube, everything was ready for the service. The mess crews on the four submarines worked all night to prepare the refreshments. They wanted to do this right.

  It was going to be a warm day. It got into the eighties in Guam, even in September, so it was a short service, but that was fine. The crews had places to be.

  The navy hadn’t lost a ship for a long time, but they hadn’t forgotten how a memorial service should be done. Honoring a fallen shipmate, admittedly an entire crew in this case, was a tradition the navy clung to fiercely. The base chaplain had begun the service, followed by readings from each of the Squadron Fifteen skippers. Captain Simonis gave a short speech about service and sacrifice, and that the greatest sacrifice was made by the ones left behind—the families.

  Joanna Patterson, at the direction of the president, read a short message praising Santa Fe and its crew, who had accepted the risks inherent in their work, and, in faithfully carrying out their duties, “had upheld the finest traditions of the U.S. Navy.” She’d held it together while reading the president’s message, but the deputy national security advisor wept silently through the rest of the service.

  The base band played the navy hymn, and then serenaded the attendees as they enjoyed the refreshments. Jerry had sought out Joanna, who gave him a quick hug, wished him luck, and told him to be careful. Simonis found him as he was talking with Patterson. Upon seeing the commodore waiting, she quickly excused herself. Joanna knew the two had business to discuss. Simonis approached Jerry and offered his hand.

  “Good luck, Jerry. I’m sorry about sending you back to the same patrol zone, but North Dakota has the best chance against that Akula. I’m assuming Samant’s still annoyed, so it makes the most sense to send someone with experience up against him.”

  “Oh, he’s still pissed, Commodore. That’s a safe bet. I’ll do my best to stay out of his way.”

  “Just do what’s needed and come home. I don’t want to lose another one of my boats.”

  Less than an hour after he returned to North Dakota, they were under way. Half an hour later they were submerged, with a flank bell on,
speeding for the South China Sea.

  * * *

  Jerry had begun running drills as soon as they were clear of the harbor. The memorial service had left his crew thoughtful, and he needed their heads fully in the game. Feeling sorry for Santa Fe, or worse, sorry for themselves, was a good way to get dead. Better they were sweating the next drill, or mad at him for working their tails off.

  He ran snapshot torpedo exercises that morphed into damage control drills. He inserted Chakra’s recorded acoustic signature into the sonar’s computer, exercising his team until even his most junior sonarman knew exactly which tonals would show up first.

  He also had the torpedomen run rapid reloading drills. With only one tube available, if he had to shoot, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t the only chance he’d get.

  In spite of the long distance, North Dakota was still close to its assigned station two hours ahead of time. They’d decided to wait inside a box five miles square, centered on their designated launch position. That meant they were never more than half an hour from the launch position at ten knots.

  In the infantry, a unit would simply dig in for protection and concealment, but all the crew of North Dakota could do was stay quiet, mill about smartly, and wait.

  Thigpen and his fire control team had plotted every bit of information on Chakra’s patrol patterns, but there was no observable pattern, and besides, their launch position was dictated by geography and hydroacoustics. For this torpedo shot, tactics had to take a backseat.

  He’d run the boat at Condition II, port and starboard watches, since leaving Apra Harbor. An hour before launch time, Jerry ordered general quarters. At thirty minutes before H-hour, he went to periscope depth for a final look around. After three slow sweeps with a photonics mast, Jerry was satisfied there wasn’t a soul near him. They headed back down to launch depth.

  18 September 2016

  1140 Local Time

  INS Chakra

  South China Sea

  “New contact, number seven three, bearing zero four nine. Hull-popping noises, contact is likely submerged,” blared the intercom speaker.

  Samant quickly grabbed the mike. “Sonar, is the contact the American submarine?”

  “Captain, contact is very weak. We can’t tell what it is yet.”

  Samant threw the mike onto the desk and bolted to the sonar room. Opening the door, he thrust his body between the two operators. “Show me what you have.”

  Lieutenant Rajat pointed to the slight trace on the waterfall display. The tonal was weak, unstable. The lieutenant was right, it was too hard to tell whether the new contact was a submarine or a ship, but the hull-popping noises meant a submarine was changing depth. And if it was a submarine, it was probably an American. All of the Chinese boats he’d detected thus far had been much farther to the north. Until proven otherwise, he had to assume it was an American attack submarine.

  Jain’s voice came from behind him. “What is it, Captain?”

  “We don’t know for sure, Number One, but I think our nemesis is back,” answered Samant.

  “What!? We haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in over a week! Why would he be back now?” Jain asked, surprised.

  “I have no idea, Number One, but please be so kind as to bring the boat to action stations.”

  USS North Dakota

  “Captain, new sonar contact, designated Sierra-one three. The contact is in the forward end fire beam of the TB-33, bearing is two two zero, but it’s really sketchy, sir,” reported Chief Halleck.

  Jerry chuckled cynically and rolled his eyes. “Figures.”

  “Do you think it’s your buddy Samant?” questioned Thigpen.

  “Who else? You couldn’t get any more inconvenient if you tried. It looks like Murphy is working overtime!” Jerry grumbled. “Attention in Control, I’m about to come left to get Sierra-one three out of the forward end fire beams of our towed arrays. Things could get ugly quick, so keep alert. Carry on.

  “Pilot, left fifteen degrees rudder. Steady on course east,” ordered Jerry.

  “Left fifteen degrees rudder, steady course zero nine zero, Pilot aye.”

  INS Chakra

  “Captain, contact seven three is classified as an American SSN. Contact is altering course, turning away from us,” Lieutenant Rajat reported over the speaker.

  “I knew it!” Captain Samant’s exclamation made Jain and several others in the central post jump. “I had a feeling he’d be skulking around here somewhere, he knew we’d have to head south eventually to find more targets! Has he detected us yet?”

  “At this range and in these water conditions, it’s likely, sir. He’s moving away from us at low speed,” said Jain.

  “Of course he is,” Samant remarked acidly. “He’ll try to stay at the edge of his sonar’s detection range, following us, and then, when we find a potential target, he’ll do his best to interfere. I wouldn’t put it past him to put a radio antenna up and warn a ship we were attacking!”

  Jain, his first officer, suggested, “Sir, if he’s moving east, let’s just move westward and break contact.”

  “Absolutely not!” Samant shot back. “He’ll use his acoustic advantage to trail us, and we won’t be able to tell whether he’s there or not until it’s too late. I don’t want to play underwater tag with this man for the rest of the war. Let’s scrape him off our shoe so we can get back to business. I’ll make him regret his career choice,” Samant promised grimly.

  “Helm, left twenty five, steer zero four five, increase speed to twenty-five knots. Sonar, go active and track the American.”

  USS North Dakota

  “Confirm target zig by Sierra-one three. He’s changing course and increasing speed, Skipper. WLY-1 has Skat-3 active transmissions.”

  “Then there’s no point in going east now,” Jerry remarked. “Pilot, hard left rudder, steady course north. All ahead two-thirds, make turns for ten knots. I want a little more energy if I have to maneuver suddenly.” Even as he said it, he realized that even after all this time, he still thought in aviator terms.

  “Sonar, go active as well, and track Chakra. I want the best information we can get on his position and speed.”

  Jerry marveled at the situation. Submarines rarely used active sonar, because it revealed their position. But in this situation, stealth was the last thing on either captain’s mind.

  He could see Chakra’s position on the VLSD. A projected course line ran from her toward and past North Dakota. Jerry’s turn to the north had shifted the line behind him; his intention was to open the range between the two subs. Now, as they watched, Chakra’s course line swung to the left again and steadied in front of the American boat’s bow.

  The computer’s estimate of the closest point of approach was no more than a hundred yards, the approximate length of either sub. “I don’t like the look of that,” Thigpen remarked.

  “At least it’s not an intercept course,” Jerry answered.

  A few moments later, sonar confirmed the Indian sub’s course change. Going active was the right move, Jerry thought. Passive tracking takes too long for this business.

  “Pilot, make turns for fifteen knots.” Jerry could see Thigpen’s worried reaction to the speed change, but the XO remained silent, and Jerry took that as a compliment.

  North Dakota’s speed built up quickly, but Chakra’s projected vector continued to stay just ahead of North Dakota. That’s his active sonar tracking, Jerry thought. He can see small changes in my course and speed as well. Good. It also showed Samant didn’t want to ram them, just make a dangerously close pass.

  “Two minutes to CPA,” Thigpen reported. “We’re still well within our box.”

  “Then we’re done maneuvering for now. No surprises until after they are clear. Attention in Control, stand by for rapid maneuvers by both boats.”

  INS Chakra

  As he closed, the American’s sonar pulses became noticeably louder. It was an unusual sound, but Samant welcomed the noise. He felt he could
almost gauge the boat’s distance and direction through the hull.

  “Closest point of approach in thirty seconds,” Jain reported. His first officer was tense, but all business.

  The active sonar gave them an unrealistically clear picture of the American sub’s position, course, and speed. In Perisher, he’d had to keep this all in his head based on periscope observations, but then again, this was going to be harder than lining up for a simple torpedo shot against a frigate.

  Jain’s voice was steady. “Loss of active signal! We’re in his baffles! Ten seconds, Captain. Five seconds. At CPA … now!”

  Rajat reported, “Captain, the U.S. boat is slowing and turning to the right. He’s changing depth, going deeper.”

  He’s trying to open the distance between us as we pass, Samant thought. I don’t care. I’ve got the speed I need to compensate. The correction came to him instantly.

  Samant ordered, “Left thirty, steer zero zero five, make your depth one three zero meters.”

  “We’ll pass two hundred meters astern, and we should be slightly higher than him in depth, perhaps twenty meters,” said Jain, looking at the fire control console.

  “Perfect.” Samant smiled.

  USS North Dakota

  “He’s turning to the left again, Skipper, blade rate’s unchanged.” The chief paused for a moment, then added, “Sir, he may have changed depth.”

  “Continue the descent,” Jerry ordered. There was little else he could do. If Samant had immediately turned back toward him, then they were dangerously close. No zigging or zagging.

  Jerry flashed back to Captain Rudel’s maneuvering duel with Severodvinsk. He’d been just the navigator then, as he watched Seawolf’s captain skillfully maneuver his boat during the Russian sub’s insanely close passes. Rudel had done his best to stay out of the Russians’ way, and yet they still collided.