Ssn (1996)

by Clancy, Tom

  There was only one way to interpret that. The captain knew as soon as he heard it that his helicopter had been shot down. His first thought was to get a rescue helicopter out to find any survivors. His second thought was for revenge.

  The five Harpoon missiles continued on their way toward the Chinese task group. The plan had been for each missile to strike a different ship, but that plan had depended on the Seahawk to act as a spotter. Without the final data from the SH-60, the Harpoons turned on their active seekers when they neared the programmed area and searched for whatever targets they could find in the water.

  The first two Harpoons to hit closed in and slammed into the lead Hainan. They struck directly below the waterline. The entire boat, which displaced less than five hundred tons, was literally picked up out of the water and thrown upside down. Very little was left of the small craft after the two Harpoons exploded.

  The third Harpoon homed in on the boat farthest from the pack. The missile streaked in and detonated in the bridge of the ship, killing over half of the seventy-eight sailors on board. The rest died slowly, of smoke inhalation and the fires caused by the burning fuel, ammunition, and aluminum.

  Two more Harpoons, as if they were guided by vengeance, crashed into the same ship that had launched the SA-14s at the helo. One of the missiles hit in the fore section, the other in the aft portion. Between them they tore the thin metal hull apart.

  Three ships hit, three ships sunk. In other circumstances, that would have been an excellent record. In this case, however, the important thing was not how many ships had been destroyed. What mattered was the two ships that survived, with their missiles intact, to launch against Benthic Adventure.

  The remaining Hainan attack craft were in trouble. They lacked good data on the location of the American surface group, but they lacked time as well. They had no idea how long it would be before another salvo of Harpoons appeared on the horizon. Playing it safe, the two commanding officers gave the orders for the two craft to launch their missiles in the overall direction of Benthic Adventure and then turn back and head for China. They had lost more than half of their group, but their mission would still be a success if they could destroy an American naval vessel—or, even better, Benthic Adventure herself.

  Mack was notified of the latest developments in his stateroom. The communicator appeared in his doorway, a message printout in his hand.

  “Captain,” the communicator said, “we just received a message from Gettysburg. They report that the Chinese task group has shot down their Seahawk. They also report that three of the Chinese craft have been destroyed, but the remaining two have managed to squeeze off four missiles in their direction. They have requested our help, sir. They ask that, if we are within range of the missile craft, we engage them while Princeton and Gettysburg focus on the incoming antiship missiles. If we are unable to get an exact fix on their location, Gettysburg asks us to radio back and they will launch their Tomahawks at the targets.”

  The thought of a 1,000-pound Tomahawk missile warhead blowing apart a small Chinese craft brought a momentary smile to Mack’s face. Then he thought of the crew on board the Seahawk and suddenly it didn’t seem so amusing.

  He grabbed a pencil and paper and drafted a quick message.

  BASED ON YOUR REPORT, CHINESE FAST ATTACK CRAFT ARE BEARING 279 AND 283 FROM CHEYENNE. RANGE IS NOW 66,000 YARDS. WILL COMMENCE HARPOON LAUNCHING AS SOON AS PRACTICAL.

  “Send this to Gettysburg,” he said, “and then have the navigator plot a course to those two Chinese ships.” He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. Cheyenne would worry about the two noisy Romeo submarines later.

  Tubes one and two were reloaded with Harpoon missiles and the intercept course to the attack craft was again verified. As soon as Cheyenne was in optimal firing position, at one hundred feet beneath the surface, the Harpoons were ejected from Cheyenne’s torpedo tubes on the manual fire-control solution, and they headed toward the surface and then toward Masters 85 and 86. Once their engines ignited, there was no stopping them.

  The missiles found their targets within minutes. The data provided via Cheyenne’s BSY-1 fire-control system was remarkably accurate, and even had the Chinese craft tried to evade, it would have done them no good. As it was, they were confident that with their own HY-2 missiles tracking toward the American surface group and keeping them occupied, they were out of danger.

  Their first clue that they were wrong was also their last. The two Harpoons closed quickly, impacting amidships, just below the waterline, one missile per Hainan.

  Minutes later, the sea was once again calm as the remains of the two attack craft slipped below the surface.

  “Now,” said Mack calmly, “about those two Chinese submarines ... ”

  Tubes one and two were reloaded with Mk 48s.

  On board the American cruisers Princeton and Gettysburg, an air of tension ran through the control rooms. Their SPY-1B multifunction radars were doing exactly what they were designed to—track the incoming Chinese missiles and calculate optimal intercept locations for the cruisers’ SM-2 surface-to-air missiles. The four Chinese missiles were closing in at just under the speed of sound, which left only a few minutes of reaction time.

  Less than thirty seconds after the Chinese ships had launched their four HY-2s, the fire-control systems had their data and the two Aegis cruisers began launching their SM-2 SAMs at the incoming missiles. Gettysburg was the first to fire, her fore Mk 41, sixty-one-cell launcher shooting off six missiles one after another. Six more SAMs leapt from the deck of Princeton, all twelve heading straight for the speeding Chinese HY-2s.

  Within seconds, the SPG-62 missile illuminators on board the cruisers began directing the American missiles. These illuminators, four of which were on each ship, switched guidance controls from missile to missile, providing minute flight changes so that the missiles would know exactly where to fly in order to intercept the incoming targets.

  Approximately ninety meters above the surface of the sea, thirty miles from Benthic Adventure and her escorts, the first SM-2s began to detonate around the incoming Chinese targets.

  The first explosions occurred near two of the HY-2s, throwing them off target and then destroying them with shrapnel from the warheads. The remaining two HY-2 missiles were destroyed outright by the American SAMs targeted in their direction.

  Three minutes after the launch of the Chinese HY-2 missiles, what was left of all four of them lay scattered on the surface of the sea, floating briefly before slipping beneath the waves.

  On board Cheyenne, Mack had no idea how things were progressing above the surface, and no chance to try and find out. Cheyenne outmanned, outgunned, and simply outperformed the two Romeos, but that didn’t mean he could afford to treat them lightly.

  Mack ordered one Mk 48 targeted at each Romeo. With their antiquated Feniks sonar systems, he doubted that the Romeos would even detect the torpedoes before they had acquired. If one of them were to miss, however, he knew that Cheyenne would still be out of range of the Chinese weapons and could re-attack at will.

  After establishing firing point procedures, the Mk 48 in tube one was launched at Master 83 and the one in tube two at Master 84. His officers and crew had recently had far too much practice at this, and performed their duties as flawlessly as ever.

  The Mk 48s closed the gap and detonated beneath the unaware Romeos, sending both to the bottom, but Mack’s pride and pleasure in their performance was short-lived.

  Cheyenne had just secured from battle stations and begun to head back to her escort position near Benthic Adventure when she received a sonar detection indicating that she had trouble.

  “Conn, sonar. We just picked up two possible submarine contacts on the towed array.”

  Five minutes later, the sonar supervisor had an updated report for Mack, who had gone to his place in the sonar room.

  “Captain, I’m classifying the possible submarine contacts as one Akula II class SSN based on its tonals, and
one Kilo class SSK based on his single 6-bladed screw. Both are headed in the direction of the Ticonderoga group. The Kilo just started running at three knots. The Akula’s bearing is remaining constant. Captain—I’m pretty sure that they heard us.”

  Mack acknowledged the report. He was certain that the sonar supervisor was correct, and that the Chinese submarines had heard them. Launching two Mk 48s, both of which detonated at their intended targets, was bound to attract some attention.

  Mack had a hard decision to make. Cheyenne could take on the two enemy submarines herself, with a fair chance of surviving—but a fair chance wasn’t good enough for Mack. Not when he had a better option.

  Cheyenne worked best when she worked alone. The Los Angeles class 688Is were designed to work covertly, without help from any other vessel. Cheyenne could work in tandem with other ships, but her biggest strength was her independence.

  But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t accept assistance when it was offered ... and when it was needed. And as much as he hated to admit it, Mack believed that Cheyenne needed some now.

  “Radio Gettysburg,” Mack ordered the communicator, “and give them our best locations of the Kilo and the Akula II. Tell them that we will handle the Akula, ask them to send some SH-60s to help us out with that Kilo. And man battle stations,” he added to the OOD.

  “Aye, Captain.”

  In order to transmit this information to Gettysburg, Cheyenne needed to come to periscope depth, which made her much easier to detect by the Chinese submarines. But Mack felt he had to take that chance. Two helicopters and Cheyenne were better odds against the two Chinese submarines than Cheyenne by herself.

  As soon as word reached Princeton and Gettysburg, two of the SH-60s were launched in the direction of the Kilo. They dropped line after line of sonobuoys, some of them directly on top of the Chinese submarine. Right now, however, Mack could not pay attention to the Seahawks’ fight with the Kilo. He needed to concentrate on his silent foe, the Akula II.

  The one thing that was bothering Mack was that the Akula hadn’t fired yet. He was sure the Chinese captain had a pretty good idea of where Cheyenne was, especially after Mack had launched his two Mk 48s and then went to periscope depth to radio for assistance.

  With both submarines within torpedo range of each other, Mack could only assume that the Akula captain was waiting for exactly the right moment to strike. What Mack didn’t know—and what he couldn’t know, especially given Cheyenne’s successes in these waters, and the notoriety she had gained from killing so many Chinese submarines—was that the Akula wasn’t hunting her at all. The Akula captain was hunting Benthic Adventure. He had wanted to avoid Cheyenne at all costs.

  That little bit of caution was going to cost him his mission, his command, and the lives of himself and his crew.

  “Captain,” the fire-control coordinator reported to Mack, “we’ve got the firing solution to the Akula II, Master 90.”

  Mack immediately ordered firing point procedures. On his command, tubes one and two were immediately readied and fired.

  The Akula captain quickly realized that he had been discovered and that his sneak attack had failed. Hearing the American torpedoes enter the water, he did the only thing he could ... he turned and ran.

  The Akula was fast. It turned and increased speed to over thirty-five knots as the Mk 48s closed in on its tail. And its captain was smart. As he fled, he launched several noisemaker decoys in an attempt to throw the Mk 48s off course.

  But neither the submarine’s speed nor its captain’s experience was enough. The first Mk 48 fell for the decoy. The second continued on, until it finished the job.

  The incredible explosion tore open the hull of the Akula and sent it to the bottom. The explosion was so loud that it almost masked the two subsequent explosions that soon followed—the sound of two American helicopter-dropped Mk 50s exploding under the hull of the Chinese Kilo submarine.

  As soon as the two latest kills were confirmed, Cheyenne and Princeton exchanged radio messages congratulating each other on yet another successful combat operation.

  Once things began to calm down, a helicopter was flown out to the location of the downed SH-60. The remains of the destroyed Seahawk could be seen clearly from the sky. There were no survivors. Wartime losses were to be expected, but they were never without pain and sadness.

  With the danger eliminated, Cheyenne was free to return to her position, directly west of the Ticonderoga cruiser escort group. Mack gave the order to move out in front once more.

  He was beginning to understand why “May you live in interesting times” was considered a curse in China. Things had been too interesting for too long. With luck, they would be allowed to take things a little bit slower before their next mission.

  He knew, though, as the crew of the downed SH-60 had found, that in war luck was a rare and fragile thing.

  11.

  Battle Royale

  Something was wrong. Cheyenne had completed her refit, and once again had as many Mk 48 ADCAPs on board as McKee could give her—which was still less than Mack would have liked.

  But that wasn’t what was bothering him. He was still thinking about their battle with the Chinese Hainan attack boats that, along with the four submarines, had been sent after Benthic Adventure.

  The thing was, both Cheyenne and the surface group had been lucky. Mack knew that, and he’d admit it if he had to. But luck alone didn’t account for everything. Since they had destroyed the Chinese surface and submarine group sent to attack Benthic Adventure, all aspects of the escort mission were proceeding far better than planned, and that was what was bothering Mack.

  Cheyenne, Princeton, and Gettysburg had not picked up any Chinese submarine or surface contacts for quite a long time now, and while Mack was happy to get the rest, it just wasn’t right. The Chinese navy relied almost entirely upon numbers to accomplish their missions, and yet they had sent only five surface ships and four submarines to attack one of their prized targets.

  Mack didn’t buy it. Something was wrong with that picture. Cheyenne should have detected at least several more Chinese surface or submarine contacts probing Benthic Adventure’s defenses.

  Where, thought Mack, had the Chinese navy gone?

  He was about to find out, and he—along with the entire American command—was not going to like the answer.

  At Zhanjiang Naval Base in southern China, a massive force of over sixty ships and submarines was being readied. Their mission was simple: destroy the American aircraft carrier Independence and her entire Battle Group.

  The Independence Battle Group consisted of a rather large contingent of ships. This force included three Ticonderoga class Aegis Cruisers, Bunker Hill (CG-52), Mobile Bay (CG-53), and Port Royal (CG-73); two Arleigh Burke Aegis destroyers, John Paul Jones (DDG- 53) and Paul Hamilton (DDG-60); three Spruance ASW destroyers, Hewitt (DD-966), O’Brien (DD-975), and Fletcher (DD-992); and three Perry class frigates, Rodney M. Davis (FFG-60), Thach (FFG-43), and McClusky (FFG-41). Patrolling beneath them was Columbia (SSN- 771), a Los Angeles class submarine like Bremerton and Cheyenne.

  Within hours of their preparation, American satellites had detected the change in operating tempo at the Chinese naval base. While naval intelligence was not exactly sure what was going on, they did know that it was something major.

  As soon as the ships began to leave port, naval intelligence alerted Independence of this major movement. A force that size could only have one mission in mind—attack the American carrier group, destroy Independence, and sink the remainder of her escorts.

  When Independence received this message, she immediately went to her highest defensive level. At the same time, the Navy started trying to provide the carrier all the backup available. USS Cheyenne was one of the first ships outside the Independence Battle Group summoned to assist in her defense.

  Cheyenne was running deep, and the only way the Navy could reach her was through the extremely low frequency band of communicati
ons. ELF messages took so long to send that they were invariably short—just long enough to alert the submarine to proceed to periscope depth for a longer message.

  “Captain,” reported the communicator, “we just received an emergency message via ELF requesting us to come to periscope depth in order to receive an urgent message.”

  “Come to periscope depth,” Mack ordered the OOD immediately.

  It took several minutes to make it to periscope depth. As soon as Cheyenne was shallow enough she began receiving the important message via SSIXS.

  Mack looked at the printout and immediately ordered the communicator to summon a meeting in the wardroom. Mack wanted the combat systems officer, executive officer, navigator, sonar officer, and the communicator there in ten minutes. Mack himself headed straight for the wardroom.

  When the officers were assembled, Mack wasted no time. “We have just received an emergency change of orders,” he said. “Naval intelligence believes that the USS Independence is about to come under a massive attack by the Chinese navy. Several hours ago, over sixty Chinese surface ships and submarines left Zhanjiang Naval Base headed in a southerly direction.”

  The room had grown quiet. Mack hadn’t been the only one to notice that the Chinese hadn’t gone after the recaptured prospecting ship as heavily as expected, and now many officers’ suspicions were being confirmed.

  “Independence is currently sailing in the southwestern portion of the South China Sea,” Mack went on. “She has been instructed to move slightly east in order to head toward deeper water where her weapons systems and aircraft can be used to the best advantage. We have been ordered to leave the Benthic Adventure convoy and head southwest. We are to meet up with the Independence Battle Group south of Vietnam. Our orders are to protect Independence at all costs.”