The Submarine Al Akrab, 1630
The Captain sipped his tea, not tasting it, hardly feeling it in his mouth. His eyes were intent on the depth gauge. He held his face immobile, while trying to still the seething tension in his stomach. He watched the depth gauge as the Musaid directed the planesmen into a smooth level transition at 125 meters. The pinging sound from above was grating on everybody’s nerves, the incessant pinging physical evidence of their enemy’s acoustic energy field advancing through the black depths, probing for them, reaching out to touch just once the steel hull of the submarine that was now slipping south a bare fifty feet off the ocean floor. The depth was not extreme, but neither was it comforting. The old hull made occasional soft popping sounds, and the compression mist was beginning to form around the overhead of the control compartment.
“Sir,” announced the sonarman from his console. “Coral Sea’s doppler has changed.”
“What?! Are you certain?”
The Captain threw the mug of tea into the trash can as he moved quickly to the sonar console.
“Sir. Yes. It is certain. The propulsion noises are about the same, perhaps louder. Screwbeats are up, too. But the doppler line has changed. He is moving away from us. It is certain.”
The Captain’s face tightened. The mission was dissolving in his face. He had one option left.
“Attack director, set tubes three, four, five, and six to slow speed, long range. Prepare to fire on bearing only. We will make a pursuit shot.”
The weapons officer hastily entered the settings. The “slow” speed for the big, Russian torpedoes was thirty five knots, but the twenty knot speed differential allowed them to run for almost twenty miles. They still had no accurate range information on the carrier, but they had a chance of a hit if they fired now and let the big fish rush down the
bearing as the carrier hauled away to the east, transmitting a clear beacon of sound back to the submarine’s sonar and the torpedoes’ own guidance systems.
“Torpedoes are set; tubes are ready, Sir!”
“Very we—”
The Captain’s order was interrupted by the sudden rattling, buzzing noise of the destroyer’s torpedo decoy noisemakers. It was a sound none of them had ever heard, including the Captain. The Deputy panicked.
“Torpedo!” he yelled. “They have fired a torpedo at us!”
“Silence, you fool,” yelled the Captain, whirling on him. “That’s not a torpedo! Sonar, quickly, what is the bearing?”
“Sir,” shouted the sonarman. “The bearing is coincident with the destroyer.”
“Steady bearing!” croaked the Deputy, his fingers in his mouth. “It comes straight for us!”
The Deputy was clearly unnerved, and the Captain could see that the Control room crew’s composure was shaken by the loud buzzing noise erupting over the speaker. The speaker! He reached up and turned it off. The buzzing noise stopped, and he leaned down again to look at the trace on the sonar. It was broadband noise, loud, deliberate. But definitely not a torpedo. He had heard the sound of American destroyers’ electric torpedoes at the Soviet ASW school. They sounded like an electric drill, but nothing like this. He put his hand on the sonarman’s shoulder to steady him, and was about to order the release of the pursuit torpedoes when the depth charge went off.
The underwater blast was huge, hammering the submarine violently, knocking all the lights out for an instant as switches were dislodged, and producing a cloud of dust and small debris in the control room. Several men screamed in panic when it hit, only to look around sheepishly once it was over. The only real casualty was the sonarman, who was disabled, his ears ruined by the huge audio overload, his face in tears from the pain. The chief sonarman pulled him off the console at once and took the phones himself. At the diving planes, the Musaid held onto the shoulders of
both planesmen, urgently coaching them to hold the depth level.
The sonar showed a massive blur of amber light to the east of them as the depth charge plume broke the surface and generated yet more noise into the water. The Deputy was yelling again.
“It was a torpedo! It was a torpedo! It hit the bottom instead. We are—”
He was silenced by a wicked, backhanded slap to the face from the Captain, the force of which sent the Deputy off his chair and sprawling onto the deckplates. The Captain towered over him amidst the confusion in the control room.
“Control yourself, or I will put you in a tube and fire you into the sea! That was a depth charge, you idiot. The old destroyer carries depth charges. Her torpedoes cannot work in shallow water.”
He straightened up, his face dark with rage.
“But mine can. Attack director, verify the settings on the pursuit torpedoes. Musaid, get damage reports from engineering!”
“Settings verified. The system is in order!” yelled the weapons officer.
“Fire tubes three, four, five and six in pursuit mode, on channel one fire control data. Prepare to fire tubes one and two on wire guidance. This destroyer needs to die!”
The submarine jolted once, twice, and twice more as the fish were fired by water impulse into the sea. The Captain reached up and turned the sonar audio speaker back on. Above the buzzing decoy noise everyone in the control room immediately heard the harmonic whine of steam turbines spinning up as the torpedoes came alive instantly, surging forward and up towards the surface as the guidance systems took control, turning left in great arcs to the bearing of the target, the carrier to the east.
The giant steam fish were not stealth devices, which was why submariners called them screamers. Once fired, they broadcast approaching death in a howling whine to anything listening in their path. Four thousand pounds going at
nearly forty miles per hour, they were capable of smashing a ship even without their one ton warheads.
“Bearing to the carrier!” barked the Captain, crouching over at the sonar console. The plot was forgotten now.
“Sir. Bearing is 095. Fish appear to be in pursuit; no circle runners,” reported the chief.
The young sonarman with the best ears, what had been the best ears, huddled next to the console, rocking back and forth on his haunches. A medic had been summoned to give him demerol against the pain shrieking in his head.
“Bearing to the destroyer. Quickly!”
“Sir, the bearing is 080, but changing.”
“Keep that bearing data on channel two. Attack director, prepare to fire tubes one and two on wire guidance, data on channel two! We will wait until he steadies.”
USS Goldsborough, 1642
“Hydrophone effects, bearing 255! Multiple screws! Screamers inbound! Screamers inbound!” yelled an excited voice over the 29MC speaker from sonar control.
The report galvanized everyone in CIC, including Mike, who jumped out of his chair.
“What’s our course?!” he shouted.
“240!” yelled the surface supervisor.
“Bridge, Combat, torpedoes inbound! Come left with hard rudder, flank speed, to 210!” Mike yelled over the bitchbox to the bridge.
Basic rule: torpedo coming from ahead, turn across the bearing, and steady up within thirty degrees of the bearing. If the torpedoes were aimed ahead, they had to miss. Unless they were active homers or wire guided.
The report of torpedoes inbound was repeated over the ship’s announcing system, and Goldsborough shook herself violently as the snipes poured on the steam, her propellers kicking out huge gouts of white water from under the stern, the rudder barely able to hold over in the face of seventy
thousand shaft horsepower beating the water. Men who were not strapped into their console chairs were tossed over to one side of CIC as the ship heeled and then dug in to come up to speed.
“Hydrophone effects increasing, sharp up doppler, bearing 253!” reported sonar control.
Mike had a horrifying thought. The bearing drift was now left, and he had turned left. He had assumed the fish were aimed at Goldsborough. Was he turning right into them?
“Mark your head!” he called.
“Sir, our course is 215, coming to 210, speed is twenty two, and increasing.”
“Captain!” yelled the weapons officer. “Recommend we fire one torpedo down the bearing, initial search depth 200 feet!”
The weapons officer held his finger over the firing button.
“Permission granted, fire one torpedo down the hydrophone effects bearing, set for 200 feet.”
There was a whooshing sound from the starboard side as the air flask propelled the MK 46 torpedo thirty feet over the side. “Hydrophone effects bearing 249, amplitude increasing!” reported sonar again, the speaker’s voice rising in pitch.
“Bridge, Combat, emergency flank bell. Tell the snipes what’s coming!”
“Bridge, aye, we did. We can’t see any tracks yet, but we’re looking!”
Mike felt a momentary surge of relief. If the torpedo tracks were not yet visible, they might have another minute to cross the tracks. The guy had fired way off. Unless. Unless—he had fired at the carrier!
“Bearing to the carrier,” he called.
“Sir, carrier bears 135 from us, range thirty six thousand and opening!”
Mike did the arithmetic. Shit! That’s what he’d done. Fired at the carrier. A pursuit shot! Mike grabbed the bitch-box switch.
“XO! Tell Coral Sea to make an emergency turn due north, torpedoes coming in his wake now!”
Then he punched in the bitchbox button to sonar.
“UB, prepare to roll three depth charges, set for shallow, repeat, set for shallow: fifty feet. Linc, I want to drop them in the path of the torpedoes—he’s fired at the carrier. Go, man, go!”
Goldsborough was shaking from stem to stern as she came up to 27, then to 28 knots. In his excitement, the helmsman had overshot the ordered course, and was throwing everyone around as he compensated.
“Hydrophone effects bearing 248, amplitude increasing!” reported sonar. “Charges set for fifty feet, ready, Cap’n.”
The hydrophone effects bearing had steadied. Goldsborough was crossing their track just about now.
“Roger, roll three in ten second intervals, now, now, now!”
“Sonar, aye; rolling one!”
Mike grabbed the 1MC microphone.
“This is the Captain speaking! We’re avoiding a torpedo attack. The submarine has fired torpedoes at the carrier, and we’re going to roll three shallow depth charges in their path to disrupt the attack. Stand by for—”
There was huge, blamming sound, and the ship vibrated even more violently as the first charge went off, close enough to punch a swell of hydrostatic pressure under the destroyer’s stern and lift her screws nearly out of the water. Astern an enormous blast of dirty gray water erupted into the sky.
“Rolling two!”
This time everyone braced, and were again treated to a wrenching whump, followed by the eruption in their wake. Over the noise, Mike heard the ominous sound of a forced draft blower winding down. Something must have given way down below under the shock of the depth charges.
“Rolling three!”
Mike closed his eyes in a tight grimace as the ship was hammered again.
“Combat, Bridge, Coral Sea acknowledges and is coming left. He says a helo is lifting off in three minutes.”
“Roger that, XO. Have the OOD get an OpRep out ASAP; tell the beach this guy is here, no shit. Positive sub!”
“Here, no shit, positive sub, aye!”
“Hydrophone effects bearing 255! Right bearing drift, we’re across—”
The 29 MC was drowned out by one, two, three booming blasts astern of the destroyer as three of the torpedoes ran into the boiling vortices of the depth charges, went tumbling out of control, and exploded as their guidance systems decided that they had made a contact hit on their targets. Goldsborough again lurched as the shock waves came in from astern, although they were not as powerful as the depth charges had been. The ship was vibrating badly now as the screws became unbalanced, one turning at twenty eight knots, the other losing power rapidly.
“Goddamn, Combat,” yelled the Exec from the bridge over the bitchbox. “End of the world back there, Cap’n!”
“What’s happened in the plant?” called Mike.
“Hydrophone effects, bearing 030,” reported sonar. “And we’ve lost the fanfare!”
“Shit! One got away,” Mike said through tight lips. He punched the bitchbox switch.
“XO, call the carrier. Tell him we intercepted three of the torpedoes, but one got away and is chasing him. Tell him to continue due north, emergency bell!”
“XO, aye, and we’ve lost vacuum in number two engine room after the depth charges went off; Cap’n, we’re gonna have to slow down and lock that shaft!”
“Combat, aye. Ben, he’s gonna fire at us next. Come to speed fifteen, and come back west to 250. We’ve gotta get contact on that bastard. Tell the Engineer to do what he has to.”
“Hydrophone effects diminishing to the east, Combat. That thing’s still running, but with marked down doppler.”
“Is our fish running?”
There was a pause, as the sonar operator below shifted focus to the west.
“Affirmative, our unit is in search mode, bearing 245. In search mode. Wait one, our unit has exploded, Sir!”
“Did it acquire?”
Mike waited while they checked with the acoustic operator.
“Negative, Sir, the unit’s sonar never changed mode. She’s probably hit the bottom, Cap’n.”
“All right, maybe it kept him off balance. Look hard, guys, and be ready for more torpedoes.”