by Jeff Edwards
“No, sir,” the Sensor Operator said. “This is definitely not hydraulic. This is … oh shit!” He began pointing emphatically toward the window. “It’s coming out of the water! We have missile emergence, bearing zero-five-five!”
All three men watched in disbelief as the missile erupted from the ocean in a fountain of salt water and fire.
“Cruise missile!” the copilot shouted. “It’s gotta be aimed for the carrier!”
The pilot shook his head. “That’s a SAM, and it’s coming after us!” He pulled back on the control stick, breaking the helo out of its hover. The helicopter climbed steeply, snatching the sonar transducer out of the water where it swung crazily at the end of its cable.
Lieutenant Forester threw his aircraft into a violent series of banks and turns that were the closest thing to evasive maneuvering that a 22,000-pound helicopter could manage. “Launch chaff!”
Ensign Dillon flipped up a row of red protective covers and stabbed at two of the buttons underneath. The helo shuddered slightly as two chaff projectiles blasted clear of the airframe.
Before the chaff pods had even blossomed, Dillon was on the radio. “Sub-SAM! We’ve got a sub-SAM! This is Wolfhound Eight-Seven. I say again: we have a submarine-launched surface-to-air missile inbound, over!”
The Sensor Operator watched the missile blow through the expanding cloud of aluminum dust without slowing. “It’s not going for the chaff, sir!” he yelled.
“Heat-seeker!” the pilot said. “Launch a flare!”
The radio warbled with the crypto burst of an incoming message; no one had time to pay attention to it.
Ensign Dillon reached above his head and flipped up the covers for another row of protected switches. His finger jabbed toward a button, but he never made it.
The missile’s infrared seeker rode the heat plumes off the helicopter’s engines like a railroad track. A fraction of a second before Dillon’s finger touched the button, the sub-SAM slipped into the exhaust chamber for the starboard engine as neatly as a key sliding into a lock.
The warhead detonated, blowing the General Electric T700 turbine into a thousand fragments, each one blasting through the helicopter like a machine gun bullet. The flight crew was cut to shreds even before the secondary explosion hit the fuel tanks.
Bits of flaming wreckage fell out of the sky like meteors, and Wolfhound Eight-Seven ceased to exist.
* * *
USS Kitty Hawk:
Commander Ortiz stared at the tactical display. Wolfhound Eight-Seven’s tracking symbol flashed several times and then converted itself to a last-known-position symbol. They were gone. They were really gone. How in the hell could this happen?
He shook his head once and then blinked several times. “Get the admiral up here! And get on the radio to Wolfhound Nine-Three. Tell them to get a torpedo in the water now! I don’t give a damn if it hits anything. We’ve got to put that sub on the defensive before it gets a bead on them.”
Even as he spoke, he saw that his order had come too late. A hostile-missile symbol popped up on the tactical display and began homing in on Wolfhound Nine-Three’s position.
“Goddamn it!” Ortiz shouted. He grabbed a red radio-telephone handset. “USS Wallingford, this is Strike Group Command. Lock on to hostile missile track zero-zero-two and kill that son of a bitch!” Without waiting for a reply, he said, “Break—Wolfhound Nine-Three, this is Strike Group Command. Forget the torpedo! Get the hell out of there, over!”
A friendly-missile symbol appeared on the tactical display next to USS Wallingford. It began to close rapidly on the hostile-missile symbol. The hostile-missile symbol continued to race toward the helicopter.
“It’s too far away,” somebody behind Commander Ortiz said. “Wallingford’s missile is never going to get there in time.”
Ortiz knew instantly that the speaker, whoever he was, was right.
Ten seconds later, the hostile-missile symbol merged with the helicopter symbol, and Wolfhound Nine-Three was gone.
Ortiz was amazed at how clean it looked from the tactical display. No blood. No fire. No screams of terror as burnt bodies fell from the sky. Not even the imaginary canned violence of a video-game explosion. Just two cryptic symbols touching on a video display, joining to create a new symbol: a last-known-position marker for Wolfhound Nine-Three. An electronic headstone to mark the death place of three men.
It took a second to hit him—the tactical display had more to show him than the last positions of two downed helicopters. Something else was staring him in the face. With the two helos gone, there was a hole in the formation. A big one. A gap in the protective screen surrounding the carrier. There was another pair of helicopters at Ready-Five on Kitty Hawk’s flight deck, but it would take five minutes to get them airborne and another few minutes to position them to plug the hole. And they didn’t have five minutes. Kitty Hawk was wide open to attack.
* * *
U-307:
Leaning over the shoulder of the Sonar Operator, Kapitan Gröeler watched the acoustic display. The sounds kept playing themselves back in his mind. The distant rumbles of the exploding helicopters. The serpentine hiss of burned metal quenching itself in the ocean.
They were well and truly committed now. After this, there could be no turning back.
He almost wished that he could have fired the missiles himself, pushed the buttons with his own hands. He had no desire to kill those men. But the act of killing them was far too much like murder, and ordering someone else to do it for him felt like the worst sort of cowardice.
Gröeler’s jaws tightened. This was murder. The men whose deaths he had ordered were allies of his country, both by law and by intent. Moreover, their attempt to halt the passage of Gröeler’s wolfpack was in the spirit of international law and consistent with the stated intentions of the United Nations.
These killings could not even be justified under the auspices of war. The fact that they were a necessary step toward the success of the mission did not make them seem any less repugnant.
At least if he had fired the missiles himself, he could have carried the physical responsibility for the act. The moral responsibility was already his. The orders to carry out this mission had come from the Bundeswehr, far above Gröeler’s rank. But he had made the decision to carry out those orders. And the fact that he had only done so to prevent someone less capable from carrying them out in his place was little or no comfort.
But the missiles had to come from north of the American carrier formation, and Gröeler’s own battle plan demanded that he position his submarine to the south—in preparation for the next phase of the operation. So the onus of murdering the helicopter crews had fallen on Jurgen Hostettler, the young fraggetenkapitan in command of the U-304.
The Americans placed far too much faith in the invulnerability of their aircraft. It was an easy logical trap to fall into: no submarine ever had shot down an aircraft—therefore no submarine ever would shoot down an aircraft. Everyone knew that sub-SAMs were only a rumor: a spook story with which to tease helicopter pilots. No one had ever seen one—therefore they must not exist.
But the Americans had just learned the hard way that sub-SAMs were not the stuff of rumor. Like the dagger they were named for, the Dolch missiles had cut the American defenses to the bone.
With two quick squeezes of his thumb on the firing button, young Hostettler had changed the face of naval warfare. He had also, perhaps, branded himself a war criminal. Only time and the judgment of history could tell.
Gröeler forced his attention back to the sonar display. The hole in the American’s defense perimeter was massive, a veritable autobahn into the heart of their carrier strike group.
He stepped through the door of the Sonar Room into the submarine’s Control Room. “Take us below the sonic layer and then increase speed to all-ahead full. If we are to penetrate the formation, we must be in exactly the right position when their defenses begin to come apart.”
* * *
USS Kitty Hawk:
The deck tilted to the left as the huge ship heeled into a tight starboard turn. To an untrained observer, it might have seemed incredible that 82,000 tons of steel could move so quickly. In fact, the carrier was by far the fastest ship in the strike group, with a top speed of over forty knots. Kitty Hawk was making use of that speed now, building momentum rapidly as she turned to leave her slower escorts behind. That too might have surprised an observer, but strategically the carrier was far more valuable than all of her escort ships combined. And right now, Kitty Hawk was running for her life.
The watertight door at the rear of Flag Plot slammed open, and Admiral Joiner made his way across the slanting deck to his chair. “Ernie, what the hell is going on? Why are we turning?”
Commander Ortiz looked up from the tactical display. “The formation has been penetrated, Admiral. We’ve got two helos down and a hole in our defensive screen the size of Texas.”
The admiral scowled. “How did we lose two helos?”
“Looks like sub-launched surface-to-air missiles, sir.”
“Sub-SAMs? Jesus Christ, I thought those rumors were bullshit.”
Commander Ortiz nodded. “Frankly, sir, so did I. But the Germans have apparently taken the technology past the rumor stage.”
Admiral Joiner looked up at the tactical display. “You did good, Ernie. Priority One is to protect the carrier first. That buys us time to think about Priority Two: how to turn this situation around and kick some ass!” He rubbed his chin. “Let’s establish datum halfway between the last-known positions for the helos. Designate the frigates as a Search Attack Unit and get them down there to run an active sonar search. Then I want you to issue full weapons release authority to all ships for torpedoes and ASROC. There aren’t any friendly subs in the area, so the order is shoot first.”
Commander Ortiz reached for a radio handset. “Aye-aye, sir.”
The admiral’s eyes were still locked on the tactical display. “How much longer before our Ready-Five helos are ready to launch?”
“About three minutes, sir.”
“Get on the horn and tell the flight deck to shake a leg,” the admiral said. “And tell the frigates to keep their eyes peeled for dye markers and flares. Maybe somebody made it out of one of those helicopters.”
* * *
U-307:
The voice of the Sonar Operator came over the Control Room speaker. “Active sonar transmissions, bearing three-zero-five and two-eight-zero. Frequencies consistent with SQS-56 surface sonars.”
“That will be the frigates, searching for U-304,” Kapitan Gröeler said. He nodded. The Americans were performing just as he’d expected. Their tactics were rapid, efficient, and (no doubt) lethal—at least against an adversary who was unfamiliar with them. Gröeler knew their tactics well though, and that made them predictable. And in combat, predictable was synonymous with dead.
He leaned over the plotting table and reviewed the tactical situation. The plot showed his submarine, U-307, at the southern edge of the strike group’s defense perimeter. U-305 would be in position to the west of the carrier formation, and U-306 would be to the east.
He checked his watch. In exactly fifteen seconds, U-305 and U-306 would each fire a spread of torpedoes toward the heart of the formation. Perhaps one of them would get lucky and nail an escort ship, but it didn’t matter if every torpedo missed its mark. They would almost certainly miss the aircraft carrier, but that didn’t matter either.
The carrier couldn’t possibly know how close the torpedoes were, so it would have to turn to evade them. It couldn’t turn west, toward the torpedoes of U-305, and it couldn’t continue east, toward the torpedoes of U-306. It certainly wouldn’t turn north, back toward datum—the last known position of the submarine threat. The carrier would turn south, toward the only safe sector that it could identify. And that would be the aircraft carrier’s final mistake.
* * *
USS Kitty Hawk:
“Holy mother of God,” said Commander Ortiz in a quiet voice. Flashing red hostile-torpedo symbols were popping up all over the tactical display—five of them so far. While he watched, a sixth enemy torpedo appeared.
Blue friendly-torpedo symbols began springing up as the ships conducted counterattacks against the submarines. At the moment, no one held sonar contact on any of the subs, so the ships were reduced to firing down the bearings of the incoming torpedoes.
The sub-surface part of the tactical plot was a few seconds behind real time. The carrier was too noisy to carry its own sonar, so it had to rely on the sonar systems of its escorts. It took a few seconds for symbols and updates to percolate through the Tactical Data Link, which meant that every torpedo that appeared on the screen had been in the water for at least two or three seconds by the time the computer assigned it a symbol.
“This is going to hell in a hand basket,” Admiral Joiner said. “Tell the bridge to take us up to flank speed and get us the hell out of here.”
Commander Ortiz looked up at the tactical display. “We’re at flank speed now, sir. Which way do we run?”
“South!” the admiral said. “It’s the only clear vector. Turn us south, now!”
Ortiz relayed the admiral’s orders to the bridge and then returned his eyes to the tactical display as the big ship began to come about. “We’re being herded,” he said. “We’re being systematically isolated from our screening units.”
The admiral nodded. “Just what I was thinking,” he said. “But I don’t see where we have a lot of options at the moment. We sure as hell can’t turn back toward those torpedoes!”
* * *
U-307:
Gröeler watched the situation unfold on his tactical plot. The Americans were reacting as he had expected, which was to say in accordance with their tactical doctrine. It was good doctrine, as far as it went, but it did have a few weaknesses. He was about to show the Americans what those weaknesses were.
The carrier was running toward him now. It was close; too close to dodge his torpedoes.
According to standing tactical doctrine, it was time to come to periscope depth and take a final peek at his target through the attack scope before shooting. It wasn’t just doctrine, either. The idea was so deeply ingrained into the minds of the submarine force that it had taken on nearly religious significance; you never launch torpedoes without making a last-second visual confirmation. Not ever.
Gröeler knew without looking that his Control Room crew were watching him out of the corners of their eyes. They had practiced this shot in the simulators a hundred times, but it was such a fundamental violation of basic tactical principles that none of them could really believe that he would actually try it under combat conditions. Behind his back, they called it Schießen in dem dunklen: shooting in the dark. The bolder of them compared their kapitan to the knife thrower in a circus—letting fly with deadly blades while a blindfold covered his eyes. They assumed he didn’t know about their little jests, but they were wrong. Where his boat and crew were concerned, very little escaped his attention.
“Stand by to fire salvo one,” he snapped. “Three torpedoes, shallow run, fifteen degree spread.” He checked the current sonar bearing to his target. “Centered on zero-two-zero.”
He took a breath and held it for several seconds. “Fire!”
Three quick tremors ran through the deck as a trio of Ozeankriegsführungtechnologien DMA37 torpedoes were rammed out of their launch tubes by columns of high-pressure water.
An instant later, the Sonar Operator called out, “I have start-up on all three weapons.”
“Estimate fourteen seconds to impact,” the Fire Control Officer said.
“Right full rudder,” Gröeler said. “Ten degrees down-angle on the forward planes.” This was one part of the tactical doctrine that he could not ignore. He had to separate himself from his firing bearing and depth as quickly as possible; without an actual contact to shoot at, the Americans would fire their own torpedoes
down the bearing from which his torpedoes had come. Doctrine again.
“Sir, my rudder is right full,” the helmsman said. “My dive bubble is down ten degrees.”
“Torpedoes two and three have acquired,” the Sonar Operator said.
Gröeler frowned. “What about torpedo one?”
“It’s gone astray, Kapitan. Sounds like it’s a bad fish.”
“Ten seconds to impact,” the Fire Control Officer said.
The Sonar Operator’s voice came over the speaker again. “They’ve detected our weapons, sir. Target is altering course to starboard.”
“Too late,” Gröeler said. “Much too late.”
“Target is launching acoustic decoys,” the Sonar Operator said.
“Too late,” Gröeler said again—a whisper this time.
“Impact in five seconds,” the Fire Control Officer said. “Four … three … two … one … Weapons on top!”
* * *
USS Kitty Hawk:
Ortiz grabbed the edge of a radar console with both hands. “Brace for shock!”
His words were drowned out by the first explosion. The deck of the huge ship lurched violently as the shock wave surged down the length of the keel. The point of impact was on the starboard side, several hundred feet forward of Flag Plot, and at least nine decks down, but the intensity of the concussion was still unbelievably fierce.
A pipe ruptured in the overhead, spewing water in every direction. A third class Operations Specialist screamed as the shower of water shorted out the electronics in his console, making his body the path of lowest electrical resistance. For an instant, his muscles went rigid as four hundred forty volts of alternating current surged through his flesh and internal organs, finding its path to ground through the soles of his feet. Then, a circuit breaker tripped, cutting the power to the console, and he sank lifelessly back into his chair, the air around him permeated with the smells of ozone and singed meat.
The ship rolled heavily to port. Something hit Commander Ortiz from behind, throwing him against his console and then knocking him to the deck. The lights flickered, and it took him a second to realize that the hurtling object that had laid him out was another person—someone who hadn’t been properly braced for the explosion. The lights flickered again and then came back on. The ship had begun settling back toward starboard when the second torpedo found its mark and exploded.