~ ~ ~
Aboard Kirov Karpov watched the results on radar, with Rodenko reading out these same numbers to tally the score. It was most disheartening.
“They seemed to react very quickly,” said Rodenko. “Look how they dispersed in all directions, not like the first two groups, which held formation the whole way in.”
“It seems they learn fast,” said Karpov. “Just like the British. How long before they come in range of the Klinok System?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Very well. Secure the S-300 system, Samsonov. We will shift the defense to our intermediate range systems now. I want to retain some long range defensive umbrella, and our S-300 missile inventory has reduced to just nineteen missiles. This is not the way to adequately repel an attack of this scale, but given our missile inventory, it is all we can do at the moment.”
Kirov’s systems were fully capable of defeating a force the size of Admiral Hara’s strike wave, though in modern combat the application of firepower in the defense would be much greater. If these had been sixty American strike planes off one of their nuclear carriers, the ship would have fired with everything they had. In modern combat it was always a do or die proposition, and the careful, measured application of defensive firepower was likely to only produce one result—a sunk ship. The tension mounted as they waited, watching the slow advance of the enemy on radar.
“They seem to be reforming at 12,000 feet,” said Rodenko.
“When will they spot us?” asked Karpov?
“At that height? The horizon is all of 130 miles away for them. They can see where our missiles contrails are leading now, and soon we’ll be big enough to pick out with an unaided eye on the sea.”
“One disadvantage of our missiles, eh?” said Karpov. “They lead the enemy right to our doorstep.” He stood up, looking at the ship’s chronometer. “With your permission, Admiral, I will begin the next engagement in ten minutes with the Klinok system.”
Volsky nodded. “Carry on, Captain.”
The Klinok missiles could strike targets at almost 20,000 feet, and the strike wave was right in the middle of this range envelope, moving inside forty miles. Sometimes called the Kinzhal as it was a variant of the older 3K95 missile system. The Klinok, or ‘Blade,’ had once been an export version of the weapon, but this latest variant was given that name when installed on the newly remodeled Kirov. A cold launch system, the missiles were ejected via gas catapult before their engines fired, and then sent on their way and controlled by two radars, one for long range acquisition and the second for target prosecution.
Each underdeck canister in the system held eight missiles, though the radars had been designed to prosecute no more than four simultaneous targets per canister. Klinok was, therefore, designed to double team each contact, allowing for two missiles to vector in on the target to assure its destruction. But given the circumstances, Kirov did not have the luxury of expending its vital munitions in such an extravagant manner.
“Ready, Samsonov? These will be single fire scenarios. No barrage. I want each missile to track and acquire before we fire the next, clear?”
“Aye, sir. Switching to single fire mode and all systems report ready.”
“Hold fire until they are inside twenty kilometers.”
“The radars were acquiring targets well beyond that, but the missiles would be much more effective inside that shorter range envelope.
Samsonov began to key missiles to targets with quick taps of his light pen on the screen. This was modern combat. He was not hunched in the pilot seat like his enemy, listening to the roar of his plane’s engines as they surged ahead through the wild missile fires, their hands and feet tight on the yoke and throttle, faces set and grim. Instead he sat in an air conditioned room, tapping glass to glass on a computer controlled data screen, quietly completing all his missile assignments.
Karpov turned and nodded in his direction.
“You may begin.”
~ ~ ~
When the next round of missiles came they seemed sleeker, more deliberate, their contrails fine lines in the sky as they reached for the planes. First one came, and it sought out a D3A Val. The pilot spun away, tipping over and trying put his plane into an evasive dive, but the missile would not be fooled. It maneuvered in a tight turn and struck the plane full on, obliterating it in a bright orange and black explosion.
Another and another came up for them, a slow, deliberate procession of contrails in the sky. Hayashi heard a shout of ‘bonzai’ in his ear and saw three A6M2 Rei-sen fighters veer off to head for the missiles, as if they might dogfight them. Their powerful engines and superior speed sent them surging ahead of the main body of strike planes, where they quickly gained the attention of the lead missile. The computer brains in the missiles adapted, re-acquired, and targeted the Zeros. All three planes died spectacular deaths, one by one, and then three more vapor thin contrails arced up at them as the deadly game continued.
Kirov traded eighteen missiles for planes in the attack. Every missile fired found a plane, but the inventory also fell to a dangerous low of only nineteen missiles remaining. Eight Vals, four Kates and six brave Zeros died, leaving only the three that had been assigned to Hayashi as his personal escort. Before it was over Hoashi, and Ichihara were dead, both squadron leaders off Shokaku, but all the other buntaicho leaders survived. The strike wave had been largely destroyed. Only twenty-eight strike planes and three fighters remained, and the Japanese would have had a much more satisfactory result by simply bailing out to save their pilots once they crossed into the lethal target envelope of the missiles, but that factor was simply not in the equation for them. They pressed on, thirty one planes now able to see and target their enemy for the first time.
They were ten miles out and coming fast, and Hayashi heard Sakamoto shouting orders to his widely dispersed shotai. The dive bombers would come down from their present altitude, though Sakamoto was taking his section up to 15,000 feet to overview the attack. The last eight torpedo bombers were taking an everyman for himself strategy, and diving to lower altitudes to approach from all compass headings.
Hayashi and his three fighter escorts were somewhere in the midst of it all now, and he signaled to those planes nearest to him. “Stay with me. We’ll all go in together, brothers, Jinrai Butai!”
There was an agonizing wait as the planes drew ever closer to the dark ship below them, then Sakamoto gave the order and the Aichi D3As tilted their noses into the gleaming sun and started to dive with shouts and curses and exclamations of bonzai! The attack was finally pressing home, with fewer than half as many planes that took off from the carriers.
~ ~ ~
Karpov immediately engaged the same system he had used earlier to repulse the first surprise dive bomber strike—the deadly Kashtans. The missile element of the system sent up sixteen rockets in two barrages of eight. Traveling at nearly 3000 feet per second, they were quick to the targets just after the planes began their dives.
The first planes were hit, some by two missiles at once, and sent spinning wildly out of control. One had a wing sheared off, which in turn was struck by another missile and incinerated. In all the sixteen rockets claimed another twelve Vals, leaving only eight intrepid planes who got close enough to try and drop their bombs. Of these the lethal Gatling Guns rattled out death and destruction for three. Five bombs were actually released, two were from Squadron Leaders Ema and Sakamoto, and they straddled Kirov with two near misses that shook the ship very hard and sent steel fragments into systems along the lower port side weather deck. The other three bombs fell wide off the mark, while the AR-710 main Gatling gun systems were quickly engaging the eight torpedo bombers with sharp, deadly bursts of riveting fire. Of these, six were knocked down on approach, and only two got close enough to release their torpedoes, which ran wide of the mark, being poorly aimed in the frantic energy of the battle.
Then Hayashi and his three Zeros came screaming in, and the Kashtans rotated their lon
g black barrels to train on the targets. The horrid whir and sharp rattle of the guns split the air and the whine of the oncoming planes seemed a terrible agony. Two of the three Zeros were struck and on fire, their engines riddled with 30mm shells, power lost and sent into steep unrecoverable dives. But Hayashi kept on, he was very close now and should have quickly released his bomb, but his face was set in a deadly mask and he opened the throttle full out, forsaking his dive brakes. Then he felt his lumbering plane hit first on one wing, then another, astonished to see segments of both wings sheared right off. The stick jolted in his hands but he was no longer concerned to aim or deliver his bomb. Instead he struggled with all his might to keep the plane aimed at the enemy ship, and then the last of the Thunder Gods, the brave Jinrai Butai, the last plane off Zuiho, rode his flaming D3A right into the heart of the ship.
Lt. Ema had managed to evade the awful close in Gatling fire, only because his plane had not yet been targeted, and he was skimming low on the water, craning his neck over his right shoulder when he saw Hayashi’s brave dive. There was a massive explosion, just aft of the second tower where the Fregat 3D radar system rotated fitfully to trace the battle out in milky green screens on the main bridge. Smoke and fire broiled up from the heart of the ship.
“Bonzai, Hayashi!” he yelled “Bonzai!”
The first to find and hit Kirov was now the last, and Hayashi had scored one more vindicating blow in trade for the lives and planes of Hara’s entire strike wing.
The battle was over.
Part V
DAMAGE CONTROL
“When we mourn those who die young —
those who have been robbed of time —
we weep for lost joys.
We weep for opportunities and pleasure
we ourselves have never known.
We feel sure that somehow that young body
would have known the yearning delight
for which we searched in vain all our lives.
We believe that the untried soul,
trapped in its young prison,
might have flown free
and known the joy that we still seek.”
~ Josephine Hart, Damage
Chapter 13
Hayashi and his plane struck the ship about seventy-five meters from the stern, smashing right down onto the armored roof of the aft auxiliary command citadel. The “battle bridge,” as it was sometimes called, this facility had been used by Admiral Volsky to regain control of the ship during the ‘Karpov incident’ in the North Atlantic. It served as an auxiliary command center for the ship in the event the main bridge was damaged or otherwise out of action. It had control stations for every vital ship system, including a combat information center, helm station, communications, radar and sonar, and it was also protected by an armored shell of 200mm Kevlar coated hardened steel armor, just as the main bridge. That was the only thing that prevented the plane from plunging right into the guts of the ship at that point.
The armored roof buckled, then collapsed under the intense kinetic impact of a plane weighing over 5,600 pounds, and the immolated D3A ravaged into the citadel, her bomb then exploding in what was essentially an armored box with 200mm reinforced steel for walls and flooring. Nothing in the box survived, the equipment, computers, ship’s stations, were all completely destroyed, but the box itself held as designed, and the explosion was prevented from doing further damage below decks. The facility was not in use at the time, but three duty officers there were killed instantly.
The explosion was largely directed upwards through the already penetrated roof, and seared fragments of the D3A and the exploding bomb, became a rain of shrapnel that shot up like grapeshot and caught the spinning panels of the Fregat-3D radar system, severing control wires, smashing sensors and immediately darkening the ship’s primary long range defense radar.
Kirov groaned with the hit, but it was not to be a fatal blow. That said, a fire started in the blackened battle bridge, and fire was the nemesis of every ship at sea since the Greeks had first used it as a weapon in ancient times. Damage control parties scrambled to the scene and the ship shuddered, still at high speed until Volsky gave the order to slow to twenty knots.
On the Tin Man HD display they could see that the Fregat system was no longer rotating, and one of the fire control radars for the Klinok system silos mounted under the aft deck was a blackened wreck as well. It had been on the roof of the aft citadel.
It wasn’t long before Byko had an overall assessment. The fires would be contained within an hour, but the battle bridge was a total loss, destroyed beyond their capacity to ever repair. Three men were dead, seventeen injured. All things considered, it was good news. If Hayashi had struck another fifty meters forward he would have blasted right into the rear of the main tower, where two hidden steam vents stood in for what was once a smokestack on older warships. With no armor to speak of there, his plane would have plummeted deep into the ship, perhaps not stopping until it struck the armored shell that surrounded the ship’s reactor core.
“We’ll need time, sir.” Byko pleaded on the intercom. “There were two other near misses, one very near the reactor core amidships. Thank God they didn’t hit us, but I would advise we put divers down for a quick assessment. You can’t continue to run at this high speed. These fires are serious.”
“Tell him we have reduced to twenty knots and will slow to one third if he cannot contain the fires. When the divers are ready, have him call the bridge.” Volsky folded his arms, a worried expression on his heavy features.
“Gentlemen,” he said gravely, “that was nearly the end of us. It was well fought, Karpov, particularly considering the situation with our missile inventories. Yet we have long known of the determination and reckless bravery of the Japanese. This attack was a perfect example. They were willing to die to a man to get this one single hit, and God help us if we ever forget it in these waters again.”
“The Japanese Navy was perhaps the most skilled fighting navy in the world at this moment, sir, said Fedorov. Their equipment was not the best, but their knowhow and tactics were second to none, and no one will ever question their bravery. I believe we have just taken the first ever kamikaze attack of the war. That did not happen until much later in the war in the old history.”
Historically the Tokubetsu Kogekitai units had not even been formed yet. The first attacks were not made until October of 1944 when Masafumi Arima, even now aboard the carrier Shokaku, led an attack much like this one against an American carrier task force. One of the planes struck the USS Franklin, a large Essex class carrier, and Arima was immediately elevated to the status of a demigod by the war propagandists. The Special Attack Unit was formed that month. Shortly thereafter the cruiser Australia was hit, and a few smaller ships, but the first official attack by the special Kamikaze unit itself hit the USS St. Lo, a light escort carrier in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
“Well now they have the idea a few years early,” said Volsky. “Who knows what they will do to the course of the war? What does Byko say about our radar?”
“The Fregat system is off line, sir. We won’t know how bad the damage is for some hours, at least until they put the fire out and can get men up on the aft mast. The smoke there is too thick now. We lost the Klinok aft fire control radar as well, so it may be wise to move any missiles in those aft silos to the forward deck.”
“Have Martinov see to it,” said Volsky, squinting out the window and frowning at the smoke and fire aft. “That will be sending up a charcoal marker into the sky to designate our position for miles in every direction. Where were those pursuing ships, Rodenko?”
“I last noted them about twenty-seven nautical miles behind us, sir. I am trying to switch to the active phased array systems now in place of the Fregat, but some of my panels are yellow lighted, and not responding.”
“Most likely the aft panel that was on the citadel there,” said Karpov. “I doubt it survived that hit.”
“Most likely, sir,”
Rodenko agreed. “That will leave us with panels forward and to both sides of the ship, and it will only give us a 120 decree arc of coverage to port and starboard. Without that aft panel and the Fregat system, we now have a hole directly aft where we are relatively blind on radar.”
“We still have the Voskhod-2 Top Mast radar,” said Karpov. “It’s not a fully integrated 3D system, but it has excellent range and we can still use it and route signals to the CIC.”
The Voskhod or ‘Dawn’ radar system had once been a main 3D defense system, but the new Voskhod-2 had handed over that task to the updated Fregat system and was now used primarily for long range weather forecasting and general surveillance. Then Fedorov had another idea. “We also have the KA-40, sir. We can mount an Oko panel and get good returns that way.”
“Fedorov,” said Volsky. “How long before that pursuit force might get in range to cause us any concern?”
“All they need to do is get inside 30,000 yards to start lobbing shells our way again, sir. That would be a little under fifteen nautical miles out. So they only need to cut twelve miles off our lead. At our present speed of twenty knots, they will do that in about ninety minutes. They can probably see our position now with the smoke column, and I have little doubt that they are heading this way.”
“Ninety minutes,” Volsky mused. “Considering the damage we have already sustained, I will take no chances with these ships. Mr. Karpov, the instant that pursuit force puts rounds within a thousand meters of this ship, use your best judgment and hurt them. Hurt them badly. We cannot have this madman in a battleship on our heels at the moment. Understood?”
“You can rely on me, sir,” said Karpov, and every man on the bridge knew it was no boast.
Kirov III: Pacific Storm k-3 Page 13