Authors: Joe Buff
“Ru-ling, signal
Wild Boar
and
Cheetah.
‘Good shooting and well done.’ ” Both Russian captains acknowledged with thanks.
Two weeks later
J
effrey sat alone in the Oval Office with the President of the United States, wearing his dress blue uniform with medals. The two men had had long talks before, starting the day that the President awarded Jeffrey his first, unclassified Medal of Honor.
The President was a retired four-star general, who liked to say he was hardly the first senior military leader to rise to the elected civilian rank of commander in chief—look at George Washington, or Eisenhower, to name just two. He’d taken a shining to Jeffrey, especially since he kept delivering important successes in this war. November was the next presidential election, which he reminded Jeffrey of whenever they met, as if suggesting there might be opportunities someday beyond the U.S. Navy for a war hero of Jeffrey’s caliber. The President would be running for his second term; his winning depended on how the American public perceived the war to be going. Jeffrey was helping keep alive the aura of inevitable triumph and peace.
Jeffrey asked about the amnesty offer to the Axis leaders that was supposed to follow the raid in Siberia; sneaking home submerged until just yesterday, and closely sequestered for security since then, he’d had no access to news reports.
The President told him that the South African reactionary leaders, seeing Germany evacuating North Africa after a recent, major defeat there, read the handwriting on the wall and jumped at the chance. They were already in Paraguay, which had agreed to grant them asylum, and a new interim government had been rushed into place. Jeffrey thought this was outstanding.
“I’m declaring next Monday a national holiday, V-A Day,” the president said with a grin. Victory in Africa. “It takes time to plan the parades and celebrations.”
But the advanced German nuclear sub that had been undergoing repairs in South Africa, the ceramic-composite-hulled
Admiral von Scheer,
had put to sea and evaded the Allied blockade and was on the loose somewhere. This put a bit of a damper on things. The German dictatorship refused to even consider an amnesty. They vowed to fight to the end at all costs, making threats about new weapons and alliances that would drive the Allies back and force an armistice favorable to Germany. The President declined to go into further details.
Jeffrey asked about his former lover Ilse Reebeck, and the status of the Axis mole. The president said that Lieutenant Reebeck had been known all along to be innocent; her arrest over a month ago was a ruse to help catch the mole. She’d just returned to her native Johannesburg, and was serving on a reconstruction and reconciliation commission under UN auspices. The real traitor had been identified, and confessed in return for the death penalty being commuted to life without parole. Jeffrey didn’t need to know who the mole was, except it wasn’t a senior official after all. It was a secretary who did it for the money.
Jeffrey’s parents waited elsewhere in the White House, as did Dashiyn Nyurba and his parents, and Captains Bell and Harley and their parents and wives and kids, and Sergey Kurzin’s parents. For security, Secret Service agents made sure that no one saw them. None of the relatives had any idea what their sons, husbands, or fathers had done to earn a meeting with the President, or how two of them were injured or killed—if secrecy held up as it needed to, they’d never find out, either.
“I think this sets a record,” the President said. “Four Medals of Honor in one day. The toughest part for me is always giving one posthumously.”
“I never got to know Colonel Kurzin, sir, but what I did see impressed me.”
“Too bad you can’t tell that to his folks.”
“Yes, sir. I know.” He looked at his hands, confused by mixed emotions. Jeffrey himself was receiving his second Defense Distinguished Service Medal, unclassified, for his superb management of a complicated mission that involved as much diplomacy as combat tactics, some of it public knowledge already.
Someone knocked on the door. “Come!” the President yelled.
It was the White House Chief of Staff. “Sir, the Russian Ambassador is here.”
“Show him in.” The President and Jeffrey stood.
Jeffrey had never met the Russian ambassador before. The man was short and fat and jolly. Some of that good mood, Jeffrey assumed, came from the suddenly improved relations between the United States and Russia. Some of it, though, seemed the man’s natural personality.
The ambassador held a small velvet case in one hand.
“May I?” the ambassador asked the President.
“Please.”
Jeffrey got the impression that the two had already talked about this, and something was being stage-managed here. An official White House photographer entered the room, followed by Jeffrey’s parents, who walked over and stood next to him. They both were beaming. Jeffrey’s father elbowed him proudly in the ribs.
“Captain Jeffrey Fuller,” the ambassador said very formally, “it is my great privilege, in the name of the grateful people of my country, to award you this highest recognition that the Motherland has to give, the Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Russian Federation.”
Acoustic intercept:
A passive (listening-only) sonar specifically designed to give warning when the submarine is “pinged” by an enemy active sonar.
Active out-of-phase emissions:
A way to weaken the echo that an enemy sonar receives from a submarine’s hull, by actively emitting sound waves of the same frequency as the ping but exactly out of phase. The out-of-phase sound waves mix with and cancel those of the echoing ping.
ADCAP:
Mark 48 Advanced Capability torpedo. A heavyweight, wire guided torpedo used by American nuclear submarines. The Improved ADCAP has even longer range and an enhanced (and extremely capable) target homing sonar and software logic package.
AIP
: Air Independent Propulsion. Refers to modern diesel submarines that have an additional power source besides the standard diesel generator and electric storage batteries. The AIP system allows quiet and long-endurance submerged cruising, without the need to snorkel for air, because oxygen and fuel are carried aboard the vessel in special tanks. For example, the German Class 212A design uses fuel cells for achieving AIP.
Ambient sonar:
A form of active sonar that uses, instead of a submarine’s pinging, the ambient noise of the surrounding ocean to catch reflections off a target. Noise sources can include surface wave-action sounds, the propulsion plants of other vessels (such as passing neutral merchant shipping), or biologics (sea life). Ambient sonar gives the advantages of actively pinging but without betraying a submarine’s own presence. Advanced signal processing algorithms and powerful onboard computers are needed to exploit ambient sonar effectively.
Auxiliary maneuvering units:
Small propulsors at the bow and stern of a nuclear submarine, used to greatly enhance the vessel’s maneuverability. First ordered for the USS
Jimmy Carter,
the third and last of the
Seawolf
-class SSNs (nuclear fast-attack submarines) to be constructed.
Ceramic composite:
A multilayered composite foam matrix made from ceramic and metallic ingredients. Alumina casing, an extremely strong submarine hull material significantly less dense than steel, was declassified by the U.S. Navy after the Cold War.
ELF:
Extremely Low Frequency. Radio capable of penetrating deep seawater, used to communicate (one-way only) from a huge shore transmitter installation to submerged submarines. A disadvantage is ELF’s very slow data rate, only a few bits per minute.
EMCON:
Emissions Control. Radio silence. Also applies to radar, sonar, or other emissions that could reveal a vessel’s presence.
EMP:
Electromagnetic pulse. A sudden, strong electrical current induced by a nuclear explosion. This will destroy unshielded electrical and electronic equipment and also temporarily ruin radio reception. There are two forms of EMP, one caused by very-high-altitude nuclear explosions (“HANEs”), the other by ones at low altitude. (Mid-altitude bursts do not create an EMP.) The area on the ground affected by an EMP is called the “pancake.” EMPs in outer space (“exoatmospheric” EMPs) will also cause damage to unhardened satellites in orbit.
Frequency-agile:
A means of avoiding enemy interception and jamming, by very rapidly varying the frequency used by a transmitter and receiver. May apply to radio, or to underwater acoustic communications (see
gertrude
below).
Gertrude:
Underwater telephone. Original systems simply transmitted voice directly with the aid of transducers (active sonar emitters, i.e., underwater loudspeakers), and were notorious for short range and poor intelligibility. Modern undersea acoustic communication systems translate the message into digital high-frequency active sonar pulses, which can be frequency-agile for security (see above). Data rates well over 1,000 bits per second, over ranges up to thirty nautical miles, can be achieved.
Hole-in-ocean sonar:
A form of passive (listening-only) sonar that detects a target by how it blocks ambient ocean sounds from further off. In effect, hole-in-ocean sonar uses an enemy submarine’s own quieting against it.
Instant ranging:
A capability of the new wide-aperture array sonar systems (see below). Because each wide-aperture array is mounted rigidly along one side of the submarine’s hull, sophisticated signal processing can be performed to “focus” the hydrophones at different ranges from the ship. The target needs to lie somewhere on the beam of the ship (i.e., to either side).
Kampfschwimmer:
German Navy “frogman” combat swimmers. The equivalent of U.S. Navy SEALs and the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Squadron commandos. (In the German language, the word
Kampfschwimmer
is both singular and plural.)
LASH:
Littoral Airborne Sensor Hyperspectral. A new antisubmarine warfare search-and-detection technique, usually deployed from aircraft. LASH utilizes the back-scatter of underwater illumination from sunlight, caught via special optical sensors and processed by classified computer software, to locate anomalous color gradations and shapes, even through deep seawater that is murky or dirty.
LIDAR:
Light Direction And Ranging. Like radar, but uses laser beams instead of radio waves. Undersea LIDAR uses blue-green lasers, because that color penetrates seawater to the greatest distance.
Multimission platform:
A special extra one-hundred-foot-long, three-thousand-ton hull section added to USS
Jimmy Carter,
the last of the three
Seawolf
-class nuclear-powered fast-attack subs to be built, commissioned into the U.S. Navy in early 2005. By limiting the pressure-hull diameter within the central portion of the multimission platform to eighteen feet (the “wasp waist”), additional volume for larger weapons, off-board vehicles, and underwater fiber-optic cable tapping equipment was created between the wasp waist and the outer hull, called the “garage space.” The full-width (forty-two-foot outside diameter) sections at both ends of the multimission platform include areas for special operations command, control, and communications, and for special operations forces berthing—nominally fifty commandos, though more can be accommodated in an emergency. Reportedly, this extra hundred feet of “wetted area” of the outer hull reduces
Carter
’s maximum speed while submerged by less than one knot.
Naval Submarine League (NSL):
A professional association for submariners and submarine supporters. See their Web site, www.navalsubleague.com.
Network-centric warfare:
A new approach to warfighting in which all formations and commanders share a common tactical and strategic picture through real-time digital data links. Every platform or node, such as a ship, aircraft, submarine, Marine Corps or Army squad, or SEAL team, gathers and shares information on friendly and enemy locations and movements. Weapons, such as a cruise missile, might be fired by one platform, and redirected in flight toward a fleeting target of opportunity by another platform, using information relayed by yet other platforms—including unmanned reconnaissance drones. Network-centric warfare promises to revolutionize command, control, communications, and intelligence, and greatly leverage the combat power of all friendly units while minimizing collateral damage.
Ocean rover:
Any one of a number of designs, either civilian or military, of a small, semiautonomous unmanned submersible vehicle that roves through the ocean collecting data on natural and man-made phenomena. This data is periodically downloaded via radio when the ocean rover comes shallow enough to raise an antenna above the sea surface. Ocean rovers can also be controlled and downloaded via fiber-optic tether from a submerged submarine, for greater stealth. Powered by batteries or fuel cells, ocean rovers move slowly but can have endurance of days or weeks before needing to be recovered for maintenance, reprogramming, refueling, etc. One U.S. Navy ocean rover is the Seahorse series, shaped like a very long, very wide torpedo.
Photonics mast:
The modern replacement for the traditional optical periscope. One of the first was installed in USS
Virginia
(see below). The photonics mast uses electronic imaging sensors, sends the data via thin electrical or fiber-optic cables, and displays the output on large high-definition TV screens in the control room. The photonics mast is “non-hull-penetrating,” an important advantage over older scopes with their long, straight, thick tubes that must be able to move up and down and rotate.
Pump-jet:
A main propulsor for nuclear submarines that replaces the traditional screw propeller. A pump-jet is a system of stator and rotor turbine blades within a cowling. (The rotors are turned by the main propulsion shaft, the same way the screw propeller’s shaft would be turned.) Good pump-jet designs are quieter and more efficient than screw propellers, producing less cavitation noise and less wake turbulence.
SERT:
Seabee Engineer Reconnaissance Team. A modern breed of special operations forces “shadow warrior” drawn from among U.S. Navy Seabee (mobile construction) combat battalions. SERT teams, generally of ten specially trained men each, operate at the forward edge of the battle area, sometimes attached to Marine Corps formations. They use their special expertise to assess, in a warfighting environment, civil engineering requirements for tasks such as road-laying, bridge repair, and restoration of damaged or sabotaged structures and heavy machinery including power plants and waterworks. Their reconnaissance reports are relayed in real time to higher headquarters via digital network-centric warfare techniques (see above), for optimal rapid exploitation by follow-on mainline battle formations, aid relief workers, and democracy-building planners. Commissioned officers in Seabee units are members of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.
Sonobuoy:
A small active (“pinging”) or passive (listening-only) sonar detector, usually dropped in patterns (clusters) from an aircraft or a helicopter. The sonobuoys transmit their data to the aircraft by a radio link. The aircraft might have onboard equipment to analyze this data, or it might relay the data to a surface warship for detailed analysis. (The aircraft will also carry torpedoes or depth charges, to be able to attack any enemy submarines that its sonobuoys detect.) Some types of sonobuoy are able to operate down to a depth of 16,000 feet.
SSBN and SSGN:
An SSGN is a type of nuclear submarine designed or adapted for the primary purpose of launching cruise missiles, which tend to follow a level flight path through the air to their target. An SSGN is distinct from an SSBN “boomer,” which launches strategic (hydrogen bomb) ballistic missiles, following a very high lobbing trajectory that leaves and then reenters earth’s atmosphere. Because cruise missiles tend to be smaller than ballistic missiles, an SSGN is able to carry a larger number of separate missiles than an SSBN of the same overall size. Note, however, that since ballistic missiles are typically “MIRVed,” i.e., equipped with multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, the total number of warheads on an SSBN and SSGN may be comparable; also, an SSBN’s ballistic missiles can be equipped with high-explosive warheads instead of nuclear warheads. (A fast-attack submarine, or SSN, can be thought of as serving as a part-time SSGN, to the extent that some SSN classes have vertical launching systems for cruise missiles, and/or are able to fire cruise missiles through their torpedo tubes.)
Virginia
-class:
The latest class of nuclear-propelled fast-attack submarines (SSNs) being constructed for the U.S. Navy, to follow the
Seawolf
-class. The first, USS
Virginia,
was commissioned in 2004. (Post–Cold War, some SSNs have been named for states, since construction of
Ohio
-class Trident missile “boomers” has been halted.)
Wide-aperture array:
A sonar system introduced, in the U.S. Navy, with USS
Seawolf
in the mid-1990s, and also built into the
Virginia
class. Distinct from and in addition to the bow sphere, towed arrays, and forward hull array of Cold War–era
Los Angeles
–class SSNs. Each submarine so equipped actually has two wide-aperture arrays, one along each side of the hull. Each array consists of three separate rectangular hydrophone complexes. Powerful signal processing algorithms allow sophisticated analysis of incoming passive sonar data. This includes instant ranging (see above). Some
Los Angeles
–class vessels have been updated with retrofitted wide-aperture arrays.