Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (14 page)

“Given that the
Chronology of the
War at Sea
is of no further use to us in the broad sense, we can only make
our decisions now based on the immediate tactical situation. There are two
other contacts to report. One is here, about forty kilometers north of our
position, a group of three fast cruisers, and they have now turned south. They
will be in range in short order. The second is here, about seventy kilometers
north, and vectoring east-southeast on an intercept course. We got very good
footage on that group. It is a
Kongo
class
battleship with two destroyers—most likely the
Kirishima
, as that ship
had been operating with these carriers throughout this period.”

“Well if the broad strokes of the
history are all wrong now,” said Karpov, “what makes you think these details
will hold true?”

“I can’t be certain, of course. You
make a valid point, Captain, but I can make educated guesses here based on my
general knowledge. Our advantage is no longer as precise as it was, but some
patterns in the history do still seem to be holding true, like the composition
of the carrier division we spotted. Battleships screening carrier forces would
need the speed to keep up with them. The
Kongo
class ships can run at 30 knots. The same puzzle pieces are here, but they just
make a new picture now. Those were the same ships that fought the Battle of the
Coral Sea, along with another light carrier. The Japanese still seem to be
pairing them up like that as they did in the history we know. I am also very
sure about the battleship. There was no mistaking its silhouette, and if it is
the
Kirishima
, it may still be captained by Sanji Iwabuchi, a formidable
foe. We would be wise to stay well ahead of that ship.”

“We had no trouble with the two
Italian battleships,” said Karpov. “And for that matter we kept all the British
battleships we engaged at bay as well.”

“True, Captain,” Fedorov returned.
“But these are not the Italians. You saw what happened when their torpedo
planes came in. They died, yes, but they kept on coming just the same. You can
expect this same determination from Iwabuchi. He was adamant. In fact, he
fought the very first action where battleships on two opposing sides faced one
another in the Pacific. His ship was heavily engaged in a night action off Savo
Island near Guadalcanal with the American battleships
Washington
and
South
Dakota
. I have a document detailing that battle and I have prepared a slide
showing the hits sustained by
Kirishima
.” Fedorov displayed a profile of
the ship on the overhead display, and they could see that it was riddled with
red and blue dots indicating locations where the ship had been struck by
shells.

“Take a good long look at this, and
count the large red dots.
Kirishima
was hit by no less than
twenty
16 inch shells, each one with a striking power almost as great as our missiles!
Note that most of these hits were at or below the main deck. The lighter blue
dots on the upper parts of the superstructure were from the 5 inch secondary
batteries, another seventeen hits from those. The ship took damage to her
rudder and engine compartments. They had to flood gun magazines due to the
fires. Her armor was breeched and she was holed below the waterline, but both
the ship and its crew kept on fighting through the whole engagement until her
flood control officer was unable to stop her from capsizing….” He paused,
letting the image speak for itself, and hoping he had made the impression
intended on the other officers, particularly Karpov.

“
Kirishima
sunk during that
battle, in November of this very year. Her captain was pulled alive from the
sea and eventually posted to the Philippines. During the final American
invasion there, he disobeyed an order to withdraw from Manila and stubbornly
defended the city, block by block, leaving it utterly devastated and killing
all of a hundred thousand Philippine citizens in the fighting. He died, some
say by committing suicide, as the American troops closed in on his last
positions. It was later known as the ‘Manila Massacre,’ and the overall
commander, General Yamashita, was executed in 1946 though he had given a direct
order to abandon the city to prevent this from happening. One charge of war
crimes filed against him was that he failed to restrain the subordinate officer
who provoked this fight for the city—Sanji Iwabuchi. And that very same man may
now be sitting about seventy kilometers off our starboard aft quarter. If he
has not heard already, he will soon learn what happened to the carrier planes
that attacked us. I have no doubt that he will be ordered to find us, and do
everything in his power to sink us.”

No one said another word.

Chapter
9

The cruiser
Nachi
was leading the charge
south as the sun began to drift lower, illuminating the rising grey tops of the
thunderstorms off to their northwest.
Myoko
was a thousand meters to the
right,
Haguro
to her left, both a little behind. The three ships had
been reunited again as Cruiser Division Five after
Nachi
spent some time
in the north. Now her Captain Takahiko Kiyota was given overall command of the
division, a competent officer, and ready for battle.

Kiyoya’s
ships were all of the same class,
built in 1927 and 1928, over 660 feet long and just shy of 15,000 tons fully
loaded. They had good armament, in an unusual design with a tight cluster of
three twin 8 inch guns forward, and another two turrets aft. The forward
cluster was only made possible by mounting the number three turret with its
guns facing aft, but it gave the ship some extra firepower in the forward arc
to about 23 degrees on either side of the ship. Clearly, the ships were ideal
for scouting and chasing, built for speed, and fast enough to catch most any
adversary, strong enough to hurt them if they did.

Even the two forward stacks had been
elegantly inclined backwards in a graceful curve, and mated together as one,
with a third smaller stack amidships. When the ship closed on its prey, they
could also bring another formidable weapon to the action, the highly effective
Type 93 “Long Lance” torpedo, with a range exceeding any other in the world at
that time, capable of running all of 40,000 yards before its oxygen based
propellant system would be expended. In action, however, the torpedoes would
generally be fired inside 20,000 yards, but this was twice the range of similar
ship borne systems on most US and Allied vessels.

We will get the first crack at this
enemy ship, thought Kiyota. And it would be good if we handled the matter
before Iwabuchi gets into it. The last thing that man needs is another feather
in his cap. He would signal Captain Mori on
Haguro
and
Yamazumi
on
Myoko
: ‘Assume a heading of 160 on
approach and engage with forward turrets on my signal. Torpedoes to launch at
15,000 meters.’ And for the sake of decorum and protocol, he also signaled
Iwabuchi: ‘Sighted ship, engaging at15:30 hours.’

*
* *

Aboard
Kirov
there was little time to
debate. Karpov wanted to engage the nearest enemy task force at once, though
the Admiral asked about the possibility of outrunning the Japanese ships.

“Not this time, sir,” said Fedorov.
“They can make 34 to 36 knots, so unless you want another gun battle, we must
decided what to do at once.”

“We can engage now with our deck
guns,” said Karpov. “Rodenko has the range plotted for CIC operations.”

They were racing for the north cape of
Melville Island, but the Japanese screening force had used their superior speed
to get a slight lead on them and now the cruisers were aiming to cut them off.
Volsky decided they had no choice but to engage. The art of waiting in defense
had been ably demonstrated when they watched the slow approach of the Japanese
dive bombers, this time they had to take the initiative, and let their
offensive be the shield.

“Should we use missiles on these
ships? Our Moskit-IIs would have quite a shock value.”

“Yes,” said Karpov, “but we have only
nine left, and twenty-six total SSMs in all. We must not forget the battleship
is still out there. I suggest we use the 152mm batteries first.”

“Very well, Mister Karpov. You may
commence your action now.”

Karpov nodded and turned to Samsonov.
“You have your targets keyed, Mister Samsonov. Fire at will.”

“Aye, sir.”

They watched the forward turret rotate
and train on a still unseen target in the distance. “Range, 37,200 meters, and
firing now.”

There came a sharp crack…crack…crack…
with both barrels in the turret recoiling as they fired at three second
intervals, and the radar guided shells were on their way.

*
* *

When
Nachi’s
spotters saw
the dark silhouette ahead wink at them from its forward segment, they called
out incoming fire. Kiyota was surprised at the range of the action. This must
be a battleship to fire at that range, he thought. Could the Americans have a
task force here? Yet only one ship? No escorts? Might it be a British capital
ship running out of Darwin that we did not know about? That made more sense to
him. There was no way the Americans could have slipped through the Coral Sea
and Torres Strait. And no heavy cruiser he knew of
had
guns that could range over 35,000 yards like this. So he had a British
battleship, or perhaps one of their fast battlecruisers at hand, and he rubbed
his hands with the excitement of the chase. But Kiyota was in for another
surprise. He did not expect the lethal accuracy of the enemy rounds.

Two small geysers fell very close to
Myoko
off his port quarter now. Then he was startled to see that ship immediately
struck on its long, sleek foredeck, an explosion just forward of the first
turret, a second right on the barbette, and one of the two guns there was canted
upward when it exploded. Two more rounds just missed the cruiser on its
starboard side.

Two hits on the very first salvo,
thought Kiyota? Yet these were small caliber weapons. The small water splashes
and the effect of the weapons was not characteristic of a main gun from a
battleship. Such range and accuracy! A small gun that could outrange his own
bigger 8 inch batteries was very surprising. He decided to give the order to
make smoke now, and he could discontinue when they were inside 25,000 yards so
as not to hinder his own gunners. Soon artificially induced smoke joined that
from the small fires beginning on
Myoko
, and the whole scene was
shrouded in grey. He had to come fifteen points to port so as not to outrun his
own smoke, and was pleased to see his division smartly turning on cue, a
maneuver that they had practiced many times. The turn would also allow his aft
turrets to begin training on the target, yet he was soon discouraged to see the
smoke had no effect on the accuracy of the enemy fire. His ships were still
being closely straddled. The salvos came in sets of six rounds, with a hit in
virtually every set!

This ship could not possibly be using
optics, he thought. We are barely showing them our main mast at this range. He
made a mental note to make a log entry suggesting that this must be a new
British radar controlled naval gun. Then his own ship was struck with a hard
thud and black explosion, just below the main superstructure foreword.

“Fire below decks!” said Harada when he
receive the report over the voice tube. “Not serious, however.”

Kiyota nodded, raising his field
glasses. It would take them another ten to fifteen minutes to close the range
on this ship before his own 8 inch guns could even come into play! Before that
happened he would stand there, furious to see more and more hits being scored
on his cruisers.
Myoko
had taken two more hits amidships, one on her aft
funnel.
Haguro
was on fire at the bow. He gave the order for the
formation to begin a
ziz-zag
approach, now estimating
the range at 32,000 yards, but to no avail. The enemy rounds still found them,
dogging their every maneuver.
Haguro
had just taken another hit forward
on her number one turret and it looked like a bad fire there.

Kirov
was fighting them like a skilled
boxer, at a long arm’s range but with a stinging jab to the face. Finally, in
great frustration, Kiyota gave the order to fire before the enemy put more of
his own guns out of action. The boom of
Nachi’s
8
inch guns sounded the charge: “Ahead full!”

*
* *

Aboard
Kirov
the crack of the deck
guns punctuated Samsonov’s report, “Target Alpha, two hits—Target Beta, hit.”
For the next ten
minutes they listened as
Samsonov fired a total of sixty rounds, putting 24 directly on targets, with
many others reported as ‘close hits.’ It could have been much worse. He was
firing at a measured pace and not using the full rate of fire the 152mm guns
were capable of
.