by Clancy, Tom
The destruction was not so complete on board the second Chinese Luda, but still the damage was enormous. The Harpoon’s 510-pound warhead had detonated at the aft end of the vessel, and the destroyer had lost nearly a quarter of its personnel.
When the Chinese naval commanders received word that both of these powerful Chinese warships had been hit, their immediate assessment was that a lightning strike of F/A-18s had taken part in these ships’ destruction. Worried that more American aircraft were operating in the area, the Chinese were afraid to send any aircraft to patrol the seas and, since they had already withdrawn their Akulas, they had no assets in the area capable of detecting Cheyenne.
Mack had no way of guessing at the Chinese naval commanders’ thinking, but when no enemy vessels showed up hunting Cheyenne, Mack secured from battle stations. Traveling at four knots, Cheyenne quietly slipped farther away from the area.
Mack and the officers of Cheyenne were amazed that here, as close to the Chinese shore as any American warship had ever ventured during this war, there were few operational enemy warships. Mack had had no run-ins with any targets that represented any type of threat to his submarine, and for the first time in a long time, everything was under control and working perfectly.
As Cheyenne neared the southern exit of the Formosa Strait, Mack realized that this delousing and reconnaissance operation had revealed the condition the Chinese navy was in. As soon as Mack passed back into the South China Sea, he brought Cheyenne to sixty feet and raised the communications mast.
Word was soon passed throughout the Navy that Cheyenne had completed her mission of delousing in the “perilous” strait. Warning also was sent concerning the moored minefield, along with the exact locations of the minefields, and the safe zones. Mack also made a point of sending word that Cheyenne and her crew had added three more kills, one Kilo submarine and two Luda destroyers, to their long list of successes.
As soon as the communications mast was lowered, Mack headed back to his stateroom to get some well-deserved rest. He had returned the conn to the OOD after ordering the navigator to set course for Tsoying Naval Base, Taiwan.
This mission had been very successful, but Mack couldn’t count on the next one going so well. He was looking forward to returning to the submarine tender McKee. This war was far from over, and he was sure that he was going to need all the weapons he could get.
13.
Typhoon Hunt
The combat systems officer and engineer officer and their other division officers remained on board Cheyenne to take care of the weapons loading from McKee and reactor start-up preparations. Captain Mackey, along with his executive officer, operations officer, and navigator, proceeded to the headquarters of the Tsoying Naval Base for their pre-underway briefing. They weren’t sure why the briefing wasn’t in McKee’s war room where their previous briefings were held. Although the hospitality of the Taiwanese was fantastic, it was still hard to be sure whom they were talking to when the Chinese were just across the strait.
Upon entering the conference room on the second floor, the captain was happy to see that security personnel from the CTF 74 staff were conducting an electronic sweep of the room, hunting for listening devices. This had been standard practice when the foe was the Soviet Union and now it continued as standard practice no matter who the foe was or where the meeting room was.
After Cheyenne’s officers arrived, and before they could settle into their places, a couple of heavies preceded what appeared to be a distinguished Chinese gentleman. He was Chinese; he turned out to be President Jiang. The heavies were two of his bodyguards.
Mack wasn’t too sure about this. A war patrol briefing with the Chinese there?
Noting Mack’s concerned expression, President Jiang told him to rest easy. He had only wanted to meet the famous Cheyenne captain Bartholomew “Mack” Mackey, and to thank him for his feats of fortune on behalf of all his people on the mainland. In direct defiance of the renegade Li Peng, songs were being written about Cheyenne in nearly every province of his country, children walked to school chanting “Cheyenne, Cheyenne,” and Wyoming had become the main subject of United States geography lessons.
After an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries, Jiang left as quickly as he had arrived. Mack, who had been taken completely by surprise, was pleased to see him go. Cheyenne’s commanding officer wasn’t much for Chinese politics.
His war was a different story; Cheyenne was following orders. It didn’t matter much who the enemy was since the Russians were supplying submarines to nearly every Third World country that could afford the bill. Mack and his officers had become intimately familiar with the Romeos, Kilos, Alfas, and Akulas by now.
When President Jiang left, the briefing began. The Chinese had heard of Jiang’s surfacing in Taiwan, so they spent some of their dwindling currency on the purchase of a Russian-built Typhoon-class SSBN. Apparently they couldn’t trust their own Xia SSBN to be much of an intimidation factor, what with numerous CSS-N-3 ballistic missile test-launch failures, so they took delivery of a North Fleet Typhoon that had already completed its under-ice transit and was nearing the South China Sea. The briefing officer also mentioned that the Typhoon probably had some North Fleet Akula II SSNs “riding shotgun.”
That’s a waste, Mack thought to himself.
The Typhoon had been built with its double-hull construction not just for survival against torpedo attacks, but also to allow it to punch through the polar ice cap and launch its missiles with near impunity. The Mk 48s would have to be accurately placed to damage the SSBN. Screw damage would be assured; but the Typhoon also had dual spinners, in addition to the two main screws, with their 90,000 SHP (shaft horsepower), for enhanced slow-speed maneuverability and depth control in and around the ice keels.
The Typhoon’s ability to “ice-pick”—to hover in place under the ice for months at a time—would also make the Typhoon hunt more than a challenge. The lack of IUSS in the South China Sea didn’t help much, either. Mack decided he would probably have to use some Mk 48s in the “swim-out” mode as off-board search sensors in the patrol-area locations where Naval Intelligence estimated the Typhoon could be located.
Naval intelligence, Mack knew, was basing this on estimates that the Typhoon’s SS-N-20 SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) were not capable of short-range ballistic trajectories like some of their earlier missile systems—especially on the Yankees—were. The Typhoon could launch at Taiwan from the Arctic Ocean where it would require the United States to detect and track the missile trajectory. By the time it was determined where the missiles were headed, it would be too late.
The captain decided that after today’s reactor startup Cheyenne would stay critical every time in port so long as there was a threat of ballistic missiles. If the Typhoon launched, there would not be time to conduct pre-critical checks, reactor start-up, and engine room light-off before the missiles detonated in the sky over the Tsoying Naval Base.
Upon returning to the ship, the combat systems officer reported the weapons loading complete, including two Harpoon missiles, just in case. Mack wasn’t happy that torpedo space was traded for Harpoons, but at least they weren’t loaded in the torpedo tubes.
After departing her mooring alongside McKee shortly before dark, Cheyenne got under way and headed to the north off Kangshan on the surface. Since the Russian RORSAT satellites had been sweeping the area for the Chinese, the intent was to fool the satellites into believing that Cheyenne would be patrolling to the north, when actually she would be doing an end around to the east of Taiwan, where the water was deeper. Cheyenne no longer had her running lights energized, nor the submarine ID beacon. She was running “darkened ship.” But she was not alone in running without any lights to give away her position.
The stillness of the night was broken by the staccato noise of gunshots—smaller caliber in the after port quarter and somewhat larger caliber in the after starboard quarter. These sounds were followed by the distinctive impa
cts of ricochets off both sides of the sail.
The source of the gunfire maneuvered past Cheyenne at high speed, essentially on the same course. There were two attack craft, and their passage could be heard by the bridge watch standers who had ducked down behind the safety of the high-tensile-stress steel.
“Officer of the deck, Captain,” Mack said. “Rig the bridge for dive and lay below ASAP. I have the conn.”
Never before had the bridge been rigged for dive so quickly. The spray from the opened main ballast tank vents nearly engulfed the men as they made the final closure of the bridge clamshell. Cheyenne was already passing forty-five feet when the last man reported being down, bridge hatches secured. Mack had finely timed the dive to ensure that the upper bridge-access hatch was shut before the surface of the sea reached that height.
When the ship stabilized at 90 feet in only 130 feet of water, Captain Mackey used the sound-powered phone to explain to the crew what had happened. A Chinese (Soviet-built) Komar class fast attack craft was in a running gun battle with a Taiwanese fast attack craft. The 25mm (Chinese) and 76mm (Taiwanese) gunfire was what they had heard and what had bounced off the sail.
Cheyenne had needed to submerge quickly before the Komar launched its SS-N-2 surface-to-surface missiles and the Taiwanese craft reciprocated with its Otomat missiles. The chances of the missiles inadvertently homing in on the “innocent” Cheyenne’s sail had been too great. Similar incidents between the South and North Korean gunboats fighting it out nearly twenty years before had not been lost in the archives of submarine history.
Some of the crew had sustained minor injuries during their rushing to lay below. The OOD, looking at his bleeding fingers and those of his compatriots from the bridge, tried to bring a little levity to the situation. “Does this mean,” he asked, “that we’re eligible for the Purple Heart?”
The executive officer answered that it would be the first for submariners since World War II, but that it was worth a try. The joking in the crew’s mess and the wardroom that night served to ease tensions, as each man from the bridge was presented with large cardboard Purple Hearts attached to their spaghetti bibs. The ship’s yeomen had made them up from pictures in the Awards Manual, using the color scanners and printers in the ship’s office.
Once Cheyenne submerged, Mack reversed her course to the south. He had decided that the squeeze of the shallow water of the Formosa Strait would be too much if they continued to the north submerged. Besides, the RORSAT deception was OBE (overcome by events) by now. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. The rest was up to Cheyenne’s sonars and their extraordinary operators.
Mack also ordered the ship to periscope depth until they were clear of the shallow water. He would remain in the control room with the navigator and the OOD—who, along with Mack himself, were the officers with the greatest responsibility—to prevent bottoming.
“Conn, sonar, we have that Chinese Komar bearing 355, emerging from our starboard baffles. Designate Master 123.”
“Conn, ESM, the Komar’s radar is painting the Type 18, signal strength three.”
Mack ordered the chief of the watch to “man battle stations, Harpoon.” He followed that with the order to the torpedo room to change the load of torpedo tube one to Harpoon. Torpedo room personnel were already rearranging stows to get one of the Harpoons lined up.
Mack elected not to expend Mk 48s on the Komar. Cheyenne would launch the Harpoon on ESM bearings while continuing to the south, an “over-the-shoulder” launch that Mack had loved practicing in the fire-control trainer.
Five minutes later, the Harpoon was loaded and tube one made ready. After Mack ordered ESM bearings matched and the Harpoon fired, he saw it depart the water ahead of the ship and execute its sweet turn to starboard, racing toward the bearing of the Komar. The Harpoon hardly had time to accelerate to its maximum speed before the seeker found its target, crashing into the bridge of the Komar, tearing it in two as the missile’s momentum and its explosive combined to create total destruction. A flash in the night, then nothing, as if the Komar had literally disintegrated.
After a day’s quiet transit, Cheyenne arrived in the first patrol area. Located two hundred nautical miles east of Macclesfield Bank, Mack had decided this would be the most likely Typhoon patrol area.
On arrival near the northeast corner of the area, Mack ordered the OOD to launch an SSXBT. The information it gathered on temperature versus depth through the water column would be sent by wire to the BSY-1 for use by the sonar and fire-control systems. It also would provide layer-depth information, which Mack wanted. He could use that data to allow Cheyenne to effectively hide beneath the layer, or even a second deeper layer.
During dinner in his wardroom—a dinner they all ate quickly—Mack addressed his officers. “We have our work cut out for us again. With quiet Akulas and the Typhoon staring us in the face, we’ll need to be even more innovative in our attacks than we were when we went up against the seven Akulas. We’ll have to flush out both the Akulas and the Typhoon.”
Cheyenne had gotten a break earlier. Sonar had reported weak tonals from an Akula to the south, the same tonals as had been detected on the only Akula to have gotten away from her in the Paracels. Apparently, running out of assets, the Chinese had been able to do nothing else but assign that one and the remaining interfleet transfer ones to the Typhoon’s protection.
This was fine with Mack. Not only did it give him a second shot at that Akula, but this one was a dead giveaway, if the Typhoon were nearby.
The initial range had been established at roughly 80,000 yards in the third convergence zone by the section fire-control tracking party. This time, Mack would wait until he ordered the OOD to man battle stations, torpedo.
There was still nothing from the other Akulas or the Typhoon. Just the lone set of low-frequency tonals. These were coming from the same one with sound shorts to its turbine generator.
Just in case the other Russian submarines were somewhere nearby, Mack passed the order for the torpedo room to “Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening the outer doors.”
A short while later, the OOD reported to the captain, “Tubes one and two are ready in all respects. Both outer doors are open.” Cheyenne was getting so good that they were taking liberties with the battle stations versus the section fire-control parties.
“Very well, officer of the deck,” answered Mack.
Fortunately, the Akula was not tracking on any particular course. This meant he was loitering in the vicinity of the Typhoon, as Mack had hoped. This also allowed Cheyenne to close the range while the Akula did the maneuvering to allow the three BSY-1 computers to compute the fire-control solution before the Akula could detect the launch of Cheyenne’s Mk 48s. The other Akulas and the Typhoon remained silent.
Other than the signature obtained earlier, the Akula was quiet. Cheyenne was not able to detect it with either her spherical or conformal arrays. The course changes and the TB-23 inputs to the sonar consoles and to the three BSY-1 computer consoles made the solution possible for the section fire-control tracking party. When the BSY-1 operators and the section fire-control coordinator were satisfied with the TMA (target motion analysis) solution, Mack ordered battle stations manned.
As was routine for Cheyenne, Captain Mackey ordered, “Firing point procedures, Master 124.”
The combat systems officer at the weapons control console reported the target course as random, speed three, and range 15,780 yards.
“Sonar, conn, stand by.”
“Conn, sonar, standing by.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, aye.”
“Tubes one and two fired electrically,” the combat systems officer reported.
“Conn, sonar, units from tubes one and two running hot, straight, and normal,” came the report from the sonar supervisor as the two torpedoes executed their wire clearance maneuvers and acce
lerated to medium speed for the inbound run.
“Very well, sonar,” responded Mack.
The next report wasn’t long in coming.
“Conn, sonar, the weapons are accelerating.” This was confirmed by the combat systems officer, who reported acquisition by both units. Cheyenne had detected a second Akula when it accelerated to flee the situation, but there was still no sign of the Typhoon.
The captain of the Typhoon, a capital ship of the former—and, perhaps, future—Soviet Union, was not about to give up his hovering. He hovered quietly with main engines secured and his two pressurized water reactors at the lowest possible power in order to generate as little steam-flow noise as possible. He had even secured the spinners, allowing his ship to swing with the current. This particular Russian captain intended to make admiral, following in the footsteps of his father.
The two Mk 48s from Cheyenne continued on course for their targets, but only the torpedo from tube one had targeted the original, noisy Akula, old Master 74. Mack had retargeted the other Mk 48 at the second Akula as soon as it sped up, allowing Cheyenne’s sonars to detect it. Sending the second torpedo toward this Russian submarine was merely Mack’s way of welcoming it to PACFLT.
“Conn, sonar, explosions bearing 195 and 178.”
Mack was hoping that the loss of two of his Akula escorts would rattle the Typhoon captain, but he maintained his posture, quiet as a titmouse in a church. Mack knew the Typhoon was out there, but he hadn’t flushed it yet.
What Mack didn’t know was that there was another Akula out there as well, one whose captain had more experience with the U.S. 688 class than his lost North Fleet fellow captain. The Akula, like the Typhoon, was refusing to be baited.
“Conn, sonar, still nothing from the Typhoon.”
The captain ordered an Mk 48 prepared for “swim-out” and off-board sensor tactics. This deployment was often extremely useful, especially under-ice, where the torpedo could seek out icepicking SSBNs and send the information back to Cheyenne over the guidance wire. But Mack still wished he had the capability of a slower search speed and a frequency higher than that which could be detected by the Russian acoustic intercept receivers.