by Joe Buff
Beck knew America only ever had five SSGN guided-missile nuclear-powered submarines; the purpose-built one was long gone to the scrap yard, and the four modern ones had been modified from Ohio-class ballistic-missile subs, so-called boomers. But Russia had been building SSGNs in quantity for decades — the Kursk, one of eleven sister ships in the Oscar II class, was an SSGN. In any armed conflict with the United States, these SSGNs were intended to trail American carrier battle groups and then take out the carriers and their escorts using salvos of supersonic antiship cruise missiles.
The von Scheer could serve a similar purpose, or direct some or all of her missiles at targets on land. The Russians were very good teachers of SSGN tactics against the U.S. Navy — and against the convoys that navy would try to protect. Beck had learned much from them recently too. But one key aspect of SSGN operations had deeply troubled him and still did.
Once an SSGN begins to launch her missiles, even submerged, she tosses aside any vestige of stealth and gives her position away completely. A murderous counterstrike would be quick in coming from a ferocious First World opponent, especially during tactical atomic war. Beck seriously questioned how he could keep the von Scheer’s very first salvo from being her last, once the engagement with the enemy began.
Beck turned his mind back to Stissinger. In battle, Sonar and Weapons reported to the einzvo. Stissinger would play a crucial role in attacking hostile targets and evading inbound fire. His fire-control technicians and weapons-system specialists worked consoles along the Zentrale’s port side; other men were stationed in the von Scheer’s large torpedo room below.
Stissinger was a stickler for detail with his men. They seemed to like to work for him because they always knew exactly where they stood. He trusted his chiefs and gave them the independence they needed to do their supervisory jobs properly. He inspired his junior officers by keen example, and made sure they constantly got better and steadily matured at their jobs. The ship’s other two full lieutenants, the engineer and the navigator, had readily accepted Stissinger’s new seniority above them — they were professionals too.
Perhaps most important of all to Beck, Stissinger was loyal. In the last two months he’d always taken orders well from Beck when Beck was first watch officer. Stissinger displayed an ideal blend of obedience and initiative; his initiative showed in the shrewd and efficient ways he got things done. He never transgressed the boundaries of what Beck told him to do or not do. As einzvo, Beck thought, Stissinger ought to be excellent at helping him run a tight ship.
I’ll soon know how well Stissinger and the officers and chiefs and men stand up to the rigors of nuclear combat…. And I’ll see how well this von Loringhoven holds up under pressure too.
Beck waited to begin the first task in his mission orders. If there had been some misunderstanding between nameless, faceless persons on shore, this impending meeting could lapse into a sudden, vicious exchange of nuclear fire. It was bad enough that he still hadn’t had the chance to put the von Scheer’s latest dockyard work through proper testing under way.
“Einzvo!” Werner Haffner called out. He sat at the forward end of a line of eight sonar consoles that lined the starboard bulkhead of the control room.
“Yes, Sonar?” Stissinger asked.
Beck caught himself. He’d almost answered Haffner himself, from old habit. Get a grip. Von Loringhoven still watches, calm and catlike. And the crewmen observe my every move, reacting to each inflection in my voice, taking cues from me on what to think and feel and do.
“New passive sonar contact on the starboard wide-aperture array,” Haffner reported. “Bearing is one-three-five.” Southeast. “Range is ten thousand meters.” Five sea miles. “Contact is submerged.”
“Contact identification?” Stissinger asked, doing his job.
“Nuclear submarine,” Haffner said. “Possibly two nuclear submarines.”
“Why was first detection made so close?” Beck broke in. Sound-propagation conditions had improved in the last few tens of sea miles. The von Scheer’s passive listening sonars were very powerful. Beck was testing Haffner and Stissinger as their first real wartime mission began.
“Contacts have just rounded Tiddly Bank, Captain,” Haffner said. “Previously were obscured by intervening terrain rise.”
“Very well, Sonar.” The correct answer — Beck had been watching the shallow water of the bank on the gravimeter. The two new contacts’ positions popped onto his main situation plot.
Von Loringhoven, standing patiently in the aisle, nodded complacently.
This civilian doesn’t appreciate how precarious things are. Are these new contacts simply sticking to the plan, or were they lying there in ambush to outnumber me two to one? Has Russia even changed sides and I’ve been too out of touch to know it?
“Einzvo,” Beck said. “Give me new own-ship course leg to determine contact course and speed. I want target motion analysis, to validate the instant ranging data from our wide-aperture array.” It was always best to cross-check the systems and algorithms — especially at the start of a cruise.
Stissinger conferred with Haffner, studied his screens, and ran software. He passed the recommended course change directly to Beck’s console through the ship’s fiber-optic local area network.
“Pilot,” Beck ordered, “steer zero-one-zero.” Almost due north. The chief of the boat, during battle stations, was the ship’s pilot. He sat at a two-man computer-assisted ship-control position at the front of the compartment. He and a junior officer — aided by the autopilot routines — managed all the ballast and trim tanks, and handled von Scheer’s rudder and bow planes and stern planes as well.
The chief of the boat acknowledged. Hearing his voice, Beck had another flashback, to a different chief piloting a different submarine. To squash the poignant memories quickly, he peered past Stissinger’s head at the waterfall displays and sound-ray traces dancing on the sonarmen’s screens.
Soon Haffner and Stissinger had the data Beck wanted. Arrows attached themselves to the contact icons on Beck’s main plot; their direction and length indicated each contact’s course and speed.
“Pilot,” Beck ordered, “slow to three knots.” Bare steerageway, to maximize hydrophone signal-to-noise sensitivity.
More information began to come in to the sonarmen.
“Good tonals now,” Haffner stated.
Stissinger turned to Beck. “Submerged contacts are two Russian Project 945A submarines, Captain. Course is directly toward our rendezvous point. Speed fifteen knots.”
“Very well, Einzvo. Navigator, plot a course for the rendezvous point.” The rendezvous was halfway between the Tiddly Bank and the Thor Iversen Bank to its north.
Von Loringhoven pursed thin lips. “Sierra Twos, to use the NATO nomenclature. Twenty years old, but upgraded, quiet. Eight torpedo tubes, with plenty of tube-launched antiship missiles, and mines, and those nasty Shkval rocket torpedoes, and regular eels.”
Eel was German Navy slang for torpedo.
“Well able to protect themselves,” Beck said as casually as he could. “Stealthy.” Shkvals scared Beck. He’d had enough of such things when the fuel for his own Mach 8 missiles exploded; both missiles, unfueled, still sat in their launching-tube canister aft.
“Yes,” von Loringhoven said. “Sierra Twos are stealthy. With the latest refits and upgrades, they’re very, very good…. A lot of that, you know, is thanks to long-term dividends from Russia’s American spies. The Walker gang, Ames, and so on. Plus the other traitors, the ones the Americans haven’t caught.” The diplomat chuckled.
Beck brought the von Scheer directly under the two Russian submarines. They’d reached the rendezvous before he did, so they sat halted while von Scheer still needed to move. Even so, with them holding the sonar advantage, they didn’t react to his presence at first.
Recognition codes, from the data disk in Beck’s orders, were exchanged between the von Scheer and the two Russian fast attacks. All three submarines us
ed covert acoustic communications. Messages — either data or voice — were digitized and transmitted as a series of pulses in the one-thousand-kilohertz band, forty or fifty times above the range of human hearing. The frequency of the pulses changed thousands of times each second to prevent interception by enemy hydrophones.
A message came back from the more senior of the two Russian captains. He had the courtesy to send the message in German. “Greetings. You are very quiet. We did not even hear you until you signaled.”
“Good,” Beck said. “Einzvo, return the greeting. Say something complimentary, like thanks for helping Germany build such an excellent submarine. Then tell them to proceed due west and follow the deception plan.”
Stissinger acknowledged and smiled. Beck gave the helm orders to keep von Scheer under and between the two Sierra IIs. The titanium-hulled Sierras maintained a steady depth of two hundred meters, shallow for them. The von Scheer hugged the bottom terrain, for stealth, at a depth that varied from three hundred to four hundred meters in this part of the Barents Sea.
“Those captains would kill to get their hands on our blueprints,” von Loringhoven said.
“Are you worried?” Beck said.
“No. Just making conversation… They’d love to see what good German engineering did beyond what the Russian experts could give us.”
“And what our own American spies could steal for us, that Russia doesn’t know about?”
“That too, mein kapitan.”
Beck and von Loringhoven stood at the horizontal digital plotting table at the rear of the control room. The navigator and his assistants maintained a constant track of the ship’s position, based on inertial navigation systems checked against dead reckoning.
All three submarines, still moving in formation, had increased their speed to twenty-five knots to make better time as they neared deeper water.
“Any minute now they’ll start,” von Loringhoven said. “We’re coming up on the North Cape — Bear Island barrier.”
Beck nodded. The North Cape was the northernmost tip of Norway. Directly ahead, west, lay the Norwegian Sea, leading to the G-I-UK Gap. The North Cape — Bear Island — Svalbard Gap came first, stretching from mainland Norway to tiny Bear Island about two hundred nautical miles due north. Bear Island sat on the sprawling Spitsbergen Bank, shallows leading farther north to the gigantic, desolate islands of mountainous Spitsbergen; Svalbard was one of those islands. As usual, in March, most of Spitsbergen was frozen hard into the polar ice cap; the edge of the solid ice in late winter extended close to Bear Island this year.
Bear Island and Spitsbergen were Norwegian possessions — which meant that they were occupied by Germany.
“I bet those Russian captains are grateful these are friendly waters now,” von Loringhoven said.
“I’m sure they are,” Beck said.
Norway had been an active part of NATO. The North Cape — Bear Island — Svalbard Gap was once the West’s forward line of defense against the Soviet Northern Fleet’s subs and ships. Looked at from the other direction, it also formed the gateway into the Barents Sea, where American carrier battle groups would be in easy striking range of Russian naval bases, and air-defense radars, and Russian airfields. Now, instead, the barrier gap and the airfields of Norway were German.
Even so, the Russians needed to keep up appearances in order for the subterfuge to work. And once again, the feeling of risk and danger for Beck was heightened.
A failure to communicate, by a bureaucratic dunderhead at one of our shore-command centers, could mean I’m about to be blown to bits by friendly — German — forces.
Beck reminded himself that, running submerged in wartime, a submarine had no friends.
“Contact on acoustic intercept!” Werner Haffner shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” Beck snapped. “Put it on speakers, and identify.” Young Haffner was the excitable type.
The control-room speakers came alive with the sounds of the nearby ocean: crashing waves and wind-driven sleet squalls, whale songs of different species, swishing schools of polar cod, and the occasional tumbling iceberg.
“Both 945A contacts have gone active,” Haffner stated. His reedy voice was level.
Everyone in the Zentrale waited nervously for something more to happen. Are things going according to plan, or has it all got muddled by the fog of war and both Germans and Russians are about to start shooting?
After an interval on tenterhooks, a deep-toned ping filled the air in stereo. The rumbling made coffee cups shake in their holders. A few crewmen jumped in surprise or fear; Beck gestured for them to be steady. After a pause, there was a different series, three high-toned pings that pierced Beck’s skull.
Stissinger shook his head as if his ears hurt. “The 945A to starboard is using the single deep tone, Captain. The 945A to port is using the three-part high-pitched tone.”
“Very well, Einzvo. Any signs of weapon-launch transients?” Beck wasn’t taking chances.
“Negative, sir.”
“Very good. Sonar, engage acoustic-masking signal-processor feedback routines…. And turn down the speakervolume.”
In sixty seconds, the deep-toned ping and then the three higher-pitched ones repeated.
“Actively suppressing echoes with out-of-phase emissions,” Haffner said. “Wide-array transducer complexes and electromalleable rubber tiles all functioning nominally.”
Stissinger turned to Beck and translated Haffner’s technobabble into practical terms. “Nobody should be able to steal an echo off our hull, Captain.”
“In theory. That’s why we’re doing this in German waters first.”
The two Russian submarines were pinging at full power, not to search for contacts, but to announce their presence to anyone in earshot, like a foghorn. According to recent international notices to mariners, this was how neutral submarines were supposed to safely transit choke points in declared war zones, if they chose not to run on the surface for identification instead. To make sure the submerged submarines were genuine neutrals exercising their rights of innocent passage — and not enemies pulling a bluff — the belligerent side in control of the constricted waters would send small probes to study the intruder’s acoustic signature and visual appearance from very short range. Or they might use airdropped sonobuoys, augmented by blue-green laser line-scan cameras. The laws of war did not allow combatants to board and inspect warships of neutral countries — only merchant ships could be subjected to such blockades or quarantines.
Stissinger reported that the two Sierras were slowing. Beck ordered the pilot to reduce speed so as not to draw ahead and increase his own vulnerability. Beck used his light pen on the gravimeter display to show the pilot a fold in the bottom terrain in which to nestle the von Scheer.
“Captain,” Stissinger said a few minutes later. “Our on-hull sensors are detecting scattered blue-green laser light. Assess that friendly surveillance probes are examining the two Sierras.”
“Very well, Einzvo… Everyone stay focused. This is a dress rehearsal. Next time, across the Norwegian Sea, we’ll all be using live weapons. Get used to the tension now. We’ll be informed soon enough if our signature down here is too blatant.”
Stissinger acknowledged crisply.
Beck waited to learn if the von Scheer was stealthy enough. If things went wrong, in this mock infiltration of a German-owned barrier, and the problems couldn’t be corrected easily, he would have to get his ship through the G-IUK Gap somehow, some other way — or die trying.
Beck had a wild thought that the von Scheer had already been found out and localized, and the Allies were truly desperate, and a massive enemy air-launched strike would tear in at the von Scheer any second — and collateral damage to meddling Russian fast-attacks be damned.
But no enemy air strike materialized.
“New message received, sir,” Stissinger said. “All clear to proceed. The two 945A ships are accelerating.”
“Very well. Pilot, have
engineering make propulsor RPMs to keep pace.”
“Jawohl… Engineering acknowledges.”
“Use extra care to keep proper station as we follow the bottom down off of the continental shelf.”
“Understood.” They would soon reach water more than three thousand meters — ten thousand feet — deep; these Russians couldn’t go below six or seven hundred meters.
All three ships sped up, maintaining formation.
“The 945As now steady at twenty-five knots.”
“Very well, Einzvo.”
“Sir,” Haffner said, “at this speed the Russian vessels are giving off machinery noise again.” He passed a diagram of the decibel levels to Beck’s console. Beck, a former sonar officer himself, read the frequency power spectrum quickly.
“Own-ship status?”
“Own ship is ultraquiet, Captain. No sound shorts. Assess our flow noise is masked well by the moving pair of 945As.”
“Very well, Sonar.”
Beck hoped this trick worked next time, crossing the G-IUK Gap, when the stakes were so high and the play was for keeps.
It would take two days to go from Bear Island to the G-IUK Gap. The more time passed — running drills, making plans, waking, sleeping, eating — the more Beck had to wonder.
The Allies know that Russia is helping Germany. What if they pay extra attention when Russian fast-attacks go by? Intell says that so far they haven’t, so as not to antagonize Moscow… but that was before the fire in the underground U-boat pens, with heat and smoke up the chimney… and Norwegian partisans, who must know the von Scheer has sailed.