He waited until the next target data came down. “Elevation thirty,” he said in his deep throated voice. “Bearing 152. Range 26,500.” Then he took one last look in his optics and grinned. “Make it twenty-six four! Fire!” Anton was going to fire the long end of a 400 meter bracket salvo aimed at the heart of the enemy formation. Hans Hartmann in Bruno would fire the short end. They would therefore have two points of reference to adjust subsequent fire.
“Attention…” came the voice of Eisenberg over the intercom from the main gun director. “Shellfall! ... Bruno short; Anton Straddling!”
Axel grinned. That extra hundred meters had done the job. That was a good long shot for a straddle on the second salvo. Now he knew what he had to do as Eisenberg’s voice sent down the next bearing and elevation to announce his settings. “Adjust, adjust!” Faust shouted at his gunners. “Track two degrees right, and steady on elevation!” At any minute they would get the order he was waiting for: “Rapid fire!” Eisenberg’s voice called out, and Faust clenched his fist as Anton’s guns boomed again.
“Nobody hits anything at this range,” said gunners mate Albert Lowe.
“Think like that and you never will,” said Faust. “Scharnhorst hit that British aircraft carrier at this range, and we can do better!”
They did do better, but just barely. The next salvo, the third from Anton, was right near the lead capital ship they had been targeting, and the bright orange fire that Axel saw through his rangefinder was not the enemy guns returning the insult. They had scored a hit, and he knew it was his, because Bruno had fired five seconds later and he now saw both those rounds fall right after his own. He could feel it in his bones. They had beaten Scharnhorst’s record for the longest hit ever obtained by a battleship at 26,465 yards, which was 24,200 meters. HMS Invincible had also bettered that mark when it scored a telling long shot against the Italians, but no one knew these things in the heat of the action. They would only be calculated later, once the after action reports were all typed up and compiled… and by the men who survived.
Chapter 29
Queen Elizabeth was struck forward, right near her number one turret, and the resulting damage was plain to see when a large secondary explosion blasted from the gunwale, obscuring everything forward of the conning tower with a heavy black smoke that was so thick it defied the wind.
The 16-inch shell had penetrated the deck, just missing the heavier 11-inch side armor on the turret and striking the upper portion of the barbette instead. Here the armor was much thinner on this older class ship, between four and six inches above the main belt armor where the penetration occurred. It was a design flaw that had been corrected in the newer King George V class, which had barbettes with twice that armor thickness at 12.75 inches, but that did not comfort the stately Queen at that moment. The round had detonated one of the four magazine areas where the powder bags were stored, and with near catastrophic results. The bulkheads between the magazine and upper shell deck were blown apart and every man there was killed instantly. The working room just beneath the upper gunhouse was devastated, and the side of the ship itself was rent asunder with the blast.
On the bridge, Captain Barry struggled to keep his footing, instinctively flinching and raising an arm to shield his face when fragments of shrapnel flayed the conning tower. The ship shuddered and rolled with the force of the secondary explosion, and then the heavy black smoke obscured all. The sound had been deafening, and now he could barely hear the hoarse shouting of a man on the voice tube. He felt a warm wetness on his neck, and reached up to the side of his right cheek, his fingers wet with blood trickling from his ear. In spite of the shock he shouted an order, his voice seeming a bare whisper in the chaos of that moment. “Starboard twenty!” He was turning his wounded bow away from the heat of the action.
Captain MacRae saw the sea erupting around the British ships, heard the booming report of their guns, and was taken with the savage power of a close quarters battle at sea. His was a ship that had been designed to fight an enemy it should never see, except in the digital traces on the radar tracking screens. The sight of the smoke and fire, the resounding crack of the big guns, the brilliant orange flame blooming from the distant silhouettes when they fired, were all as exhilarating as they were terrifying. Then he saw the result of the hit Axel Faust had guided home on Queen Elizabeth.
“That looks bad,” said Mack Morgan when they saw the huge eruption of black smoke on the horizon ahead.
Argos Fire was well behind the main British formation, thinking to lead the enemy ship off their pursuit, but the enemy had not been fooled. They kept to an intercepting course against the main body, slowly turning to run parallel, and then converging by small five or ten point turns to gradually close the range. At that moment they were still behind the British, and just barely on the horizon from the perspective of Argos Fire. The enemy was closing the range on the British with their 15 knot advantage in speed, and there was no way the fleet would escape from the battle that was now being joined.
Queen Elizabeth was making no more than 14 knots, her forward hull opened very near the water line to allow the heavy swells to surge in. It had the saving effect of flooding the whole region, and preventing further explosions, but the ship would soon be down at the bow, a wounded water buffalo, and the wolves were rushing in to finish her off.
Malaya was directly behind when the explosion occurred, but did not match the turn made by the other ship, her Captain Arthur Pallister instinctively knowing it had been a near fatal blow. Three cruisers and three destroyers were ahead of the Queen, and carried on as the battleship fell off the line to the starboard side. The cruiser Berwick, behind Malaya, followed in her wake, but one of the two trailing destroyers turned to attend to Queen Elizabeth.
“That was quick shooting,” said MacRae, “Who’s the culprit, Mister Haley?”
“Radar traced shellfall from the number two ship in this formation here, sir.” Haley was fingering the Hindenburg.
“Well, we’d better answer that. No one raises their hand against the Queen on my watch, by god. Target that ship with a GB-7. Let’s see if we can get their attention.”
“Aye sir.” The missile was keyed and away, making a lightning swift run to the target that seemed only brief seconds, still accelerating to its top speed when it struck home and exploded, right amidships, but on the heavy belt armor of the ship. As with the hit on Normandie, the missile would not penetrate the 360mm armor, over 14 inches thick, but the large excess fuel reserve would cause a fire.
“That looks worse than it probably is,” said Morgan.
“I don’t think we can penetrate the armor on these ships, sir. We can’t fire in Mode A. If we don’t hit the superstructure, these ships will simply shrug off our missiles and put out the fires.”
MacRae nodded, inwardly kicking himself for firing without thinking this through. The GB-7 was a sea skimmer, defaulting to that attack profile unless reprogrammed for a popup maneuver. They had to strike above that belt armor.
“Reprogram the next three to mode B,” he said. “Two missiles—same target.”
The whine of a heavy shell headed there way sent a chill up his spine. They watched as two neatly spaced geysers fell about 500 meters ahead of the ship, much too close for comfort.
“Come right thirty degrees and ahead full,” MacRae said quickly. “We’d best slip back over the horizon.”
A minute later they returned fire, the missiles arcing up, then diving for the sea to make the run in to the target, over 25 kilometers away. This time they would pop up just before the attack, and plunge into the heart of the ship. One would strike a 5.9 inch gun turret there and do serious damage, the second would plunge into the superstructure, blowing through the outer wall and three bulkheads, but in a section of the ship that was largely empty at the moment, the starboard side crew’s quarters, forward of the number one stack and behind the conning tower. The fire there thickened the smoke already streaming from the stack as the
ship raced on at 30 knots. It was a hard blow, and Hindenburg bled from the enemy lances, but it was not fatal. Crews were already scrambling to get water into the blazing compartments. A launch mounted just above the point of penetration could not be saved, and the secondary gun director had to be abandoned due to the heavy smoke, but otherwise the ship was still functioning and capable of staying in the fight.
“Well,” said MacRae, seeing shells still falling in his wake as Argos Fire sped away at its top speed of 32 knots. “We won’t be able to take a peek at the damage, but something tells me that wasn’t enough yet, Mister Dean.” They now knew that they were not going to sink their target, or even drive it off, unless they were willing to throw considerable more firepower at the enemy.
“I’ve one arrow left,” said MacRae. “We’d be better off putting that on one of their cruisers or destroyers.” He gave Elena a sidelong glance, but said nothing more.
They were now well off the starboard side of the British fleet, and drawing closer to those ships. MacRae could see them firing, Berwick’s 8 inch guns blasting away, but even those shells, with much heavier throw weight than the missiles, would not seriously harm or deter the Hindenburg.
* * *
Aboard Queen Elizabeth the situation was going from bad to worse. The forward turret was inoperable, and the flooding had spread through gaping holes on the innards of the ship to begin swamping the lower decks of B Turret as well. When they most needed it, the ship had lost half its firepower. The two aft turrets had been firing at the lead ship in the German formation, and the bridge crew took heart when they saw they had scored a hit there. It was well forward of Anton Turret on the Bismarck, holing the deck and plunging through the bow section, but on an angle that saw it cut through the ship and exit to the sea.
Queen Elizabeth was slowly falling behind, and was on a divergent course away from the rest of the formation. Up ahead Captain Barry saw the Malaya bravely carrying the fight to the enemy, but now the French ships had joined the action and the Normandie was taking aim at that ship while the other two battlecruisers targeted the Calcutta and Coventry, outmatching them with their heavier guns and armor.
He saw three destroyers angling in on his position, their bows white with the haste of their charge, and he knew they were thinking to put their torpedoes into his ship and end her reign on these waters. Then he marked the fall of shells off the bow of one destroyer, and the flash of a hit there by secondary armament.
“Good show,” he breathed. “One of our 4.5 inchers has found the mark. He was correct, but the gun was not aboard Queen Elizabeth. Argos Fire had seen the enemy ships maneuvering on radar and began using both her single barreled 4.5-inch turrets to put deadly accurate fire on the onrushing destroyers. The radar guided shells were finding the mark, and the sheepdog bravely tried to hold off the wolves, or in this case the big cats prowling to get at the battleship’s flanks
The French destroyer Lynx was the ship Barry had seen, hit three times in as many minutes, and burning forward. He saw the defensive fire shift to the second destroyer, Panthere, but then the urgency of the ship’s condition pulled him away.
“Sir, we’re starting to list to port side, and the bow is down five degrees.” A harried young Lieutenant reported, his face blackened with the smoke from that first massive explosion.
“Counterflood,” said the Captain, though he knew that by trying to correct his list he was only going to worsen the flooding problem. It was only a matter of time, and there comes a moment in the heat of battle when a ship’s Captain realizes this, and thinks of his men. He could order them into the life boats, try and save as many as he could, or he could stay in the fight as long as possible, hoping the time might by him a hit on the enemy ships.
“Signalman! Notify Malaya we’re foundering forward and not likely to correct the problem any time soon.” It was a hard message for the young ensign to bear, but the man saluted, and was off at the run to the W/T room.
Then Queen Elizabeth shook again with the heavy jolt and explosion of another big round. This time it was Bismarck that had laid its hands upon her, a 15 inch shell plunging into the ship near the funnel. The explosion batted the long cantilevered seaplane catapult away at an odd angle, flames licking the steel trellis as it moved with the roll of the ship. Shrapnel from the explosion struck a ship’s bell, and the sound rang out, a mournful note of pain.
It was then that Captain Barry saw something in the western sky, bright fiery lights with tails of smoke high up, but diving for the sea like meteors. He watched, spellbound at the scene as they pulled out of the dive, coming low over the restless sea.
* * *
Argos Fire saw them coming as well. The radar had identified the missiles as Russian P-800 Onyx systems, a weapon that was not on the IFF list given to him by Admiral Volsky. So the old man was keeping something under his hat as well, he thought with a smile. The missile warning was sounding loudly, and he gave a sharp order to terminate the alarm. Argos Fire wanted to get after the missiles with her Sea Vipers, but MacRae kept a firm hand on the reigns.
“Belay that Air defense system,” he said with a growl. “That has to be the Russians. Where are they, Mister Healy?”
The Lieutenant looked over his shoulder, the surprise in his face plain enough. “I don’t have them sir. No other surface vessel on that heading within range of our SAMPSON system.”
“Then he must have better eyes than we thought. Mister Dean, what’s the range of those missiles?”
“Sir… I’m reading them as SS-N-26, the Russian P-800 Onyx—eight missiles—range 300 kilometers for high altitude flight profile, 120 for low altitude trajectory. But sir, Lieutenant Healy has radar tracks and the point of origin is no more than fifty kilometers west of our position.”
“What’s that you say? Fifty klicks west?”
“Yes sir. We should be seeing the Russian battlecruiser on SAMPSON, but he’s just not there. I have no contacts on that heading whatsoever.”
“Well fancy that,” said MacRae, watching the missiles screaming in towards the enemy ships. “Who the hell is firing those missiles?” He looked at Morgan now, instinctively eyeing his intelligence master as if he had the answer to everything on a note pad in his shirt pocket, and only had to look.
“Beat’s me,” said Mack. “But it reminds me of a lady I was courting once. My cab was late on our first date, but she turned up late too, and that’s when I fell in love with her.”
* * *
“Missiles report target lock, sir,” said radarman Yevgeni Gorban. “They should be down on their terminal run now.”
The Captain ran a hand over his close cropped hair, eyes looking up as though he were seeing it all through the hull. Gromyko had fired, and instinct serving him well, he had quickly maneuvered off his firing axis, diving as any submariner would.
Kazan had been a long time coming, all the way from the Cape of Good Hope where they had rendezvoused with Kirov. It was a long, silent journey, passing several convoys which they identified as British ships, but making no contact. Admiral Volsky had told him to keep his presence here a secret as far as was possible, and with a submarine as stealthy as Kazan, that was an order Gromyko could easily fill.
The boat had sailed right through the British operations aimed at the Cape Verde and Canary Islands, moving like a silent murmur in the sea. It was not until they had reached the Western approaches to the Strait of Gibraltar that Gromyko spent some time consulting his charts. He had entered there many times before, drifting silently through the channel, and always at night. He found the strait was patrolled by three French Destroyers that were now operating from Gibraltar, but they had not heard a whisper of the quiet passing of Kazan. Once in the Alboran Sea, Gromyko increased speed to make for his assigned patrol post off the Sicilian Narrows, over 1400 kilometers to the east.
By the time he reached that place the Franco-German fleet had already decided to make their transit at Messina, and even as they emerged to dr
ive off the British Fleet, Gromyko decided to move east between Malta and Sicily and see what he might find. He had been ordered to maintain operational silence, and communicate only in the event he found it necessary to use his weapons.
As he approached the scene, his sonar man Chernov painted the picture for him. The British fleet had split into two groups, one on a course to Alexandria, the other heading south with Kirov. The enemy fleet he had been told to find did not seem interested in either squadron, moving east until something happened that surprised Gromyko. Chernov thought he heard a very familiar sound as he monitored the seas, and when he put his profile computer to work on it he was proved correct—a Daring Class destroyer!
That report sent Gromyko’s head spinning. What was going on here? Had they slipped again in time? Were they back in their own miserable war again? That was quickly disproved by Gromyko’s report.
“No sir,” he said, “I still have a firm hold on the ships we’ve been tracking. This new signature joined the British Squadron heading for Alexandria.”
“Daring Class? You are certain of that?”
“It sounds a little different, sir, but all my data points are very close. Give Lieutenant Gorban an antenna and he could verify.”
“Make it so,” Gromyko said to his Executive Officer Belanov. “The boat will come to periscope depth, and ahead one third.”
They had raised an antenna, and Gorban confirmed that he had readings for a SAMPSON radar on his IFF board. “It’s a British Type 45, sir, at least from the radar it’s using. And from the looks of things it’s hot in the thick of a good fight. What is this all about, Captain?”
Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) Page 25