Before the shock and surprise had set in, Caio Duilio took a hit. The torpedo had run up beneath the battleship’s hull, exploding to send a massive shock dome of water that was intended to break the ship’s back. These were not torpedoes that would aim to strike a ship on the side and simply blow holes in the torpedo bulwark. The old ship was severely shaken by the heavy explosion, her hull breached at the bottom of the ship and water flooding in.
A destroyer was unfortunate to be the third victim. There were fourteen hovering about, largely on the flanks of Iachino’s formation, and the Folgore was the fish that was speared, with an explosion that did break the ships back, sending the ship into the dark sea within minutes. Admiral Iachino’s battleship Littorio took the fourth hit, right on her rudders and screws, with catastrophic damage there. The Vodopads had acquitted themselves, but Iachino believed he had been hit by lurking submarines!
Outraged by the attack, he bawled orders to his destroyer captains, which immediately set the ships frothing about and pinging wildly with their sonar sets to look for the suspected British submarine. None would be found. The culprit was fifty kilometers away, and a grim smile slowly settled onto Admiral Volsky’s face when Rodenko reported four more hits, and two on primary contacts. Within ten minutes Rodenko was able to report that a second capital ship had dramatically slowed and appeared to be wallowing, then a third.
The Italians had suffered a severe blow, and all without ever seeing an enemy ship. Conte Cavour was still burning badly, her boilers involved, and unable to make more than 12 knots. She had fallen out of Iachino’s battle line and was now attended by four destroyers. Cruiser Pola was gone, Caio Duilio wallowing with a near broken back aft of her mid section. Now Littorio had lost all propulsion on three screws, and had severe rudder damage that sent her into a wide, slow circle.
Iachino was forced to transfer his flag to the nearest ship, battleship Veneto following right behind the Littorio. Admiral Bergamini had also decided to move to the battleship Andrea Doria, which had only taken one rocket hit and had managed to control the resulting fire. Now three battleships were decidedly out of the action, and it was a naval disaster of the highest order. Iachino knew he would be foolish to proceed under these circumstances, and set about issuing orders for heavy cruisers to take the stricken battleships in tow. He would form a new covering force with his remaining three battleships, Roma, Veneto and Andrea Doria, but this fight was over, all thoughts of seeking the enemy now banished from his mind. Instead it would be all he could do to try to get these wounded warriors safely back to a friendly port before he lost a battleship.
But that was not to be.
Pleased with his torpedo attack, Admiral Volsky informed Tovey that if he so desired, the battle was now his, and Tovey was quick into action.
Chapter 17
HMS Invincible was an awesome beast when it bared its fangs that morning. Tovey had rejoined Cunningham’s fleet, then decided to scout on out in front with Invincible and a couple fast heavy cruisers. He took York and Kent, leaving Berwick with Cunningham, though he also borrowed a fist full of destroyers. The remaining three British battleships increased speed, and the hunt was on.
Tovey signaled Captain Bridge aboard the Eagle and told him to prepare to launch everything he had. When he finally heard the high mast call out enemy ship sighted, he was eager for action. All thoughts of time travel and altered history were gone for the moment. He would make some new history here in the anger from the nine 16-inch guns of Invincible.
He had been late to the party when Admiral Holland got himself into trouble up north, and he had been unable to find and chase down the Hindenburg when it fled south after that dastardly attack on the Faeroes. He did manage to sight the German task force, but wisdom had advised him to wait for King George V and Prince of Wales, but they were too slow to catch up to the action.
This time things would be different. He looked over his shoulder, almost expecting to see the young officer he had taken under his wing there with eager excitement in his eyes, Christopher Wells. But the man was long gone, now serving as the Captain of the carrier Glorious with Somerville’s Force H.
Never mind. Now it was time to fight. He opened the action at long range, more to announce his coming than anything else when he finally found the Italian Fleet. Iachino immediately answered with the guns from Veneto and Roma, his two best ships. Tovey got lucky with the first hit, adding insult to the injury Iachino’s fleet had already sustained. A 16-inch round struck the Andrea Doria forward, very near the main turret there, the blast canting one of the three 12-inch guns upward with the violence of that explosion. The shell penetrated deep, setting off the forward magazine, and Iachino’s fate was sealed.
He stared, wide eyed at the massive explosion on Andrea Doria, cursing under his breath. Damn the British! Damn them to the deepest hell, because that is where they are sending my ships, and the only place I am ever likely to get my revenge!
He stayed in the fight. His honor demanded it, though all the while he fretted that the enemy would unleash another barrage of those rocket weapons upon him. None came. Roma acquitted herself well, framing the British battleship with good, accurate fire, but getting no hits. Thinking his battleships finally had the range, and knowing he still outgunned the British with Veneto and Roma, Iachino took heart, until his lookouts reported a large formation coming up from the southeast. Cunningham’s fleet had arrived, and the distant flash from the dark shadows on the horizon told Iachino the enemy was firing.
Then the last straw came when flights of British torpedo planes came buzzing in off the Eagle and Hermes. The skies were soon filled with hot fire and smoke, even as he felt his ship roll heavily from a near miss of a heavy round. He gave his destroyers the order to make smoke, and reluctantly turned. Only his speed could save him now. Andrea Doria was lost. The British gunners would make short work of her, but his two fast battleships might yet escape.
The next minutes were a wild gauntlet of attacking Swordfish torpedo bombers trying to cut off his retreat, vectoring from every side and forcing him to make hard turns to avoid the torpedoes. The adrenaline of the moment chased the bile of defeat from his throat, but he knew he was as badly beaten as any Admiral at sea. Only one British battleship had the speed to stay with his retreating covering force, and Iachino was in a hot gun duel with Invincible for the next twenty minutes. The British ships unique gun turret placement allowed all three to fire if Tovey simply made ten point turns. His central turret, forward of the two vertical stacks, could then easily engage any target he was pursuing. So as Invincible approached, the ship seemed to be tacking this way and that, like an old sailing ship. even though he was outnumbered two battleships to one, he was able to use nine main guns against only six from the rear turrets of the fleeing enemy. He would score two more hits, neither enough to slow Iachino down. Then his radar operator picked up the main Italian fleet, and this was reinforced by a message from Kirov, giving him the position and size of the formation he was now approaching.
Good enough, thought Tovey. We’ve given them one hell of a beating, haven’t we? His destroyers were out dueling with the Italian destroyer screen, and his cruisers were following in his wake, but now he could see they were up against a large number of Italian ships, too many to wisely engage with his much smaller task force. So he decided to break off, turn about, and rejoin Admiral Cunningham. When he returned to the scene, he could see that Queen Elizabeth had taken at least one good hit, with a small fire amidships, but the British had beaten the Andrea Doria to a pulp. Cunningham had already given the order to cease fire, humanely, and he had ordered several of his escorting destroyers to rescue the Italian crew gone into the sea.
For their part, the airmen off Eagle and Hermes were unable to get a hit on Iachino’s remaining fast battleships, but two flights found the main body, and bravely charged in to put another two torpedoes into Conte Cavour, and one more into the foundering Caio Duilio. The Italians would lose more t
han half of their battlefleet that day, with Caio Duilio, Conte Cavour and Andrea Doria all going down with the stricken heavy cruiser Pola. Two cruisers vainly tried to tow away the Littorio, but her rudders were so badly damaged by the Vodopad torpedo hit that the ship could not be steered. The British fleet was soon on the horizon again, and rather than suffer an ignominious pounding at the hands of the enemy. Iachino sullenly ordered the ship to be scuttled, saving as much of the crew as he could.
He made for the safety of the Strait of Messina, and half way there he was overflown by flights of dark winged German Stukas. The action was now drawing within the circle of their combat radius, but he shook his fist at them with anger.
“Where were you an hour ago!” he shouted at the planes. “Where was Regia Aeronautica?”
It was a catastrophic defeat for Italy, and a victory that gave the British Mediterranean fleet back everything they had lost in the aborted attack at Taranto. Only Roma and Veneto escaped, attended by a flock of cruisers and destroyers. Iachino himself was sacked upon his return to Naples, and he was so humiliated that he left the service of the navy, disappearing from the pages of this cruel alternate history, never to be heard from again.
Yet the battle for Tovey and Cunningham had only just begun. Another powerful fleet had been making its way south through the rising waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Russian Submarine Kazan had hoped to find it in the Sicilian Narrows, but instead the fleet went by way of Naples and Messina. Now the line of steel grey ships was emerging to greet Iachino’s battered flotilla as he reached that place.
The sleek hulled new battlecruisers Strasbourg and Dunkerque led the way, with an escort of the lightning fast French super destroyers. Behind them came the pride of the French Fleet, the battleship Normandie. And after they led the last of their escorting cruisers through the narrow channel, another shadow darkened the waters, the storm clouds licking the steel flanks of the ship as it emerged—the Bismarck. Behind that formidable ship came an ever greater shadow, the hulking mass if the mighty Hindenburg, the battlecruiser Kaiser in her wake with the light carrier Goeben.
There the decks were awash with the cold sea, but the Germans were still making ready to launch. Marco Ritter was waiting near his BF-109, and when he saw the Stuka formations overhead he shouted out to his young protégé, Hans Rudel.
“Come on Hans! Can’t you see the crows are on the wing!”
Ritter smiled, pointing to the dark formations overhead, riding the tops of the gathering storm clouds.
It was far from over.
* * *
Argos Fire saw the planes on radar, forming up over the southwestern cape of Sicily, dark and threatening, like the storm clouds behind them. In spite of the impending bad weather, the Germans decided to strike while they could, and the force they were sending was considerable.
Goering had been building up German air strength on Sicily for the Malta campaign for some time. By January of 1941, Fliegerkorps X had 80 Ju-88A4 bombers in LG1 and 12 Ju-88D5 reconnaissance planes at Catania. These were augmented by 80 Ju-87R1 Stuka dive-bombers of StG 1 and StG 2 at Trapani on Sicily. This model was a special long range naval strike variant that would prove a formidable foe, with two 300 liter drop tanks on the wings that more than doubled the fuel and improved the range to just over 960 kilometers. They had been pounding Malta for some days, but now would get their first crack at the Royal Navy. These planes were joined by another 27 He-111H6 torpedo bombers of KG 26 at Comiso, and 34 Bf-110C4 fighters of ZG 26 at Palermo, with another 24 Bf-109s from Gr 12.
60 of the Stukas were up that day, soon to be joined by the small contingent of Stukas from the Goeben. They would be joined by 40 JU-88s, 20 He-111s, and covered by all 24 Bf-109s, and a dozen Bf-110s. In all, this came to 125 strike planes protected by 36 fighters, more than twice the size of the Italian air strike. The preliminaries were over, and the main event was now about to begin.
“That’s one hell of an air strike coming our way,” said MacRae.
“The Russians are firing now, sir,” said Dean.
“Let’s hope they still have a few arrows in their quiver….” MacRae thought for a moment. He had 50 Aster-30 missiles that could join the long range air defense, but he had said nothing of these to the Russians, and had not sent them any IFF data on those missiles. Now, seeing the obvious threat coming at them, he felt foolish. The Russians were out there with the Naval Ensign flown by Nelson himself on their mainmast. They were fighting right alongside the Royal Navy, and the thought that he held on to the enmity between Britain and Russia in the 21st Century now seemed an embarrassment.
I’d best let that go, he thought. No sense dragging that war into this one. If the Russians are willing to square off against the Germans, then by god, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“Mister Dean… Have Haley contact the Russians. Tell them we are prepared to cover intermediate air defense zones out to 100 kilometers. We can fire after they conclude their initial barrage.”
“The Aster-30s sir?”
“I’ve a feeling we’ll need them. All hands!” He raised his voice now. “Prepare to oppose incoming air strike. Ready on all systems. We begin with Viper-30.”
* * *
Volsky got the message just after he had fired his initial salvo of 12 missiles from the Klinok system. They had seen the incoming strike on the Fregat system as soon as it emerged from the storm infested cloud cover over Sicily. Apparently many of the formations had formed up over the mountainous terrain there, and they were now moving at good speed to make their strike.
“I was afraid of this,” he said to Rodenko. “They were probably forming behind the mountains, getting up just ahead of that storm front.”
“Agreed, sir. That’s why we didn’t see them earlier. The terrain on Sicily provides them with lots of dead zones in the radar coverage, but I have over 150 contacts now.”
“Then we had better get busy. As before, Mister Samsonov, but give me six S-400s, wide dispersal please. I want to give them something to think about. Perhaps they heard what happened to the Italians. You may fire at once.”
There was a tense expression on the Admiral’s face now. Air power… It was the one factor in this whole situation that could change everything. If the British fleet could not be protected, then everything they won against the Italians might soon be lost. The problem he faced was evident in the strength of the incoming attack, but more than that, he was worrying about their SAM inventory now. Then, shortly after the first missiles were up and on their way, he received a message from the Argos Fire.
“Ah,” he said to Rodenko. “It seems this Captain MacRae has decided to come clean and empty his pockets after all.” He smiled.
“Sir?”
“That ship is a refit of a British Type-45 destroyer, Mister Rodenko. That class carried both Aster-15 and Aster-30 missiles. The British made no mention of the latter, did they.”
“No sir, we only received IFF data for their Aster-15. You knew they had these missiles?”
“It was a very educated guess. So now it appears they’ve had a better look at the situation and suddenly remembered they have the number 30 missile under their forward deck as well. Good enough. We’ll be forgiving. Mister Nikolin, signal the Argos Fire that they may now cover for long range fires. We will resume inside 80 kilometers with our Klinok system. You may designate it the SA-N-92 in your communication.”
They watched as the first six missiles exploded in the midst of the enemy formation. The naval engagement with the Italians had opened at about 275 kilometers east of Sicily, but moved within the 240 kilometer range before it was concluded. Now the enemy air strike was coming from the vicinity of Syracuse and Catania, with planes spread out over an arc that was 50 kilometers wide. The six S-400s had found a segment of that arc infested with Ju-88s from Catania, about 220 kilometers out, and Rodenko soon reported nine kills and three other planes aborting. They had traded the six missiles for twelve German planes, but now there
were only 14 more S-400s in the magazines. One of Germany’s most successful aircraft, they would build 16,000 JU-88s before this war ended…
* * *
“Looks like the Russians are getting stingy with those long range missiles,” said Dean. “They only fired six.”
“Aye,” said MacRae, “which tells me they must be running thin. Alright then, we fire at 100 klicks. Full cell salvos of 4 missiles each. Ready on cells one thru six. Target that formation coming in here.” He tapped the thick cloud of radar contacts approaching from Syracuse, and a minute later the missiles began to fire.
Aster-30 was a very capable system, the very same one that Kinlan’s air defense battery had used to get up after those incoming MIRVs from a Russian ICBM, though he had been using a special Block 2 version designed for that kind of defense. The missiles aboard Argos Fire were a derivative of the Aster PAAMS system, developed to seek and destroy incoming enemy missiles. As such they were very fast, agile weapons even when hurtling at their top speed of Mach 4.5. They could target virtually any kind of airborne threat with a high probability hit to kill ratio. During the “end game” when it would close for the kill, it had a lateral thrust pulse propulsion mode that allowed it to make incredible turns to get after an evasive target. It also used what was known as a directional blast warhead, where larger warhead fragments are directed towards the target on detonation. In short, it was going to get hits and kills, though the ratio was going to be closer to 1 to 1 than the Russian S-400, which had a very wide fragmentation radius when it exploded near a target.
The German Stukas of StG 1 were the unfortunate crows to be hunted down that day. They saw the incoming streaks in the sky, remembered the warning that had passed to them from the pilots off Graf Zeppelin, but no warning was good enough to protect them from what was coming at them. The reality of being hunted by these fast, lethal missiles was something no pilot would ever forget. The Vipers began to explode, sending the remaining Stukas wheeling in evasive maneuvers. The planes were chased by the hot fire of the missiles, and one by one they went down. Of the 30 Stukas in that formation, sixteen were killed with direct hits, and the missiles also got six Bf-109s that had vainly tried to swoop into the swirling engagement, their guns blazing on defense. Two more Ju-88D5 reconnaissance planes that had been assigned to fly point on this mission also went down. StG 1 had been all but destroyed, though it still had fourteen brave pilots in the sky, and they were slowly trying to reform after the attack, cursing and calling to one another on their headsets.
Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) Page 15