When the ocean had stove in the bridge screen the captain had been decapitated by a shard of toughened glass, his waterlogged body partially blocked the hatchway. The Exec stumbled as he stepped over the body, cutting his hand deeply on a spear of glass but ignoring it and grabbing the wheel, he put it over so they again met the waves bow first. Communications were out, so was radar and they had seven crewmen who would require hospitalisation, but they had survived. Had the radar mast not gone over the side, the Exec would have seen that USS Wilbur Hume, the Perry class frigate five miles to the north had also survived, however their sister ship USS Paragon, had entered the wave much as they themselves had done, but had not emerged out the other side.
Aboard the USS Gerald Ford, Admiral Mann ordered the radars up when the picture from their forward pickets disappeared. The Gerald Ford’s radar masts sat high above the top of the approaching wave and the admiral saw with relief that they could see two of the frigates on screen. The absence of the USS Paragon from the radar picture was not lost on him, but it meant that the fast approaching wave was not going to swamp the carrier.
Of all the ships in the convoy, the Knox class frigates were the smallest, but the merchantmen were all heavily laden and he had to hope they all rode the wave without foundering.
“Signal to all ships, here it comes.”
Ahead of the carrier the screen ships encountered the wave and it rolled unstoppably past, its top higher than the flight deck.
The bow of the 104,000-ton warship began to rise, and then staggered as the full weight of the wave crashed into it, causing it to break over the flight deck. A green mass, three feet deep washed over the flight deck and then the USS Gerald Ford was past
On her flight deck the two parked Tomcats were gone, swept overboard. Admiral Mann followed the progress of the wave, another of the small Knox frigates was gone from the warship screen and he watched as the wave continued to the west. Two merchants and a fleet replenishment ship were gone, two others had lost way and rescue operations began immediately as the admiral ordered ships to render assistance. It would take time to get the helicopters up from the hangar deck, but meanwhile those already aloft had ceased dipping or monitoring sonar buoys before the wave arrived, and they now switched on search lights and began looking for survivors.
Classified by Russia as an Atomnie Podvodnie Kreysery 1 Ranga, 1st Class Nuclear Powered Submarine Cruiser, the Oscar II class guided missile submarine Svedlursk had been the extreme northernmost vessel of the 9th Submarine Flotilla. Svedlursk also had the dubious honour of being the last Red Banner fleet submarine in the Atlantic capable of anything near offensive operations.
Oscar IIs have two nuclear reactors and twin screws to propel them along at a maximum speed of 32 knots. For armament they have 24 SS-N-19 Granit anti-shipping missiles, four 21 inch torpedo tubes and four 25.6 inch torpedo tubes, 16 acoustic torpedoes and 8 Stallion ASROCs. Svedlursk was no longer capable of 32 knots, her port propeller shaft had buckled and there were cracked bearings on the starboard shaft so she wasn’t going anywhere faster than 14 knots and only then for short sprints. Svedlursk was unable to dive deeper than three hundred feet without risk of springing a leak due to the hammer blow she had suffered by the nuclear depth mine's pressure wave that had caught her at 60’ as she collected downlinked updated targeting data. All she really had going for her was her full inventory of weapons and the stock of morphine that kept her injured crew members quiet. A mere eighteen of the crew had survived without skull, spinal or multiple limb fractures but another sixty-four were too injured to man stations whilst nineteen more had died. The on-board systems were a mess and the computerised fire control system had crashed, all firing was going to have to be performed manually.
The captain was a determined individual; he was going to launch an attack to spite the West for what it had done to his vessel.
Provided the USS Gerald Ford battle group and her convoy had kept to the last reported course and speed then he had thirty-two chances of paying them back. The twenty-four SS-N-19 Granit missiles carried 500Kt warheads, and six of his eight SS-N-16 Stallion ASROCs were tipped with 1Kt warheads.
Despite a dislocated left elbow and two broken fingers, he and the weapons officer, himself with a broken arm would manually program each Granit for an airburst. As far as communications and sensors went they were blind, the towed array had been torn off; as had the floating antennae and they could not raise any masts. What they needed was assurance that this not going to be a vain effort, unless of course, they surfaced to see if their radar array could be repaired.
9th Flotilla had numbered twelve at the start of the war, two Alphas, three Sierra II and three Victor III attack boats with one Oscar I and three Oscar II guided missile submarines, but only one other flotilla vessel had survived the American nuclear mines. A Victor III sat wallowing on the surface with her crew awaiting capture or a torpedo. One of Pidonirk’s bow doors had been unseated and just to prove that what can go wrong, will go wrong, it was the tube that was at that moment being loaded. The Victor had made the surface; only her forward torpedo room’s hatch had saved the vessel by its being dogged as a safety procedure during loading. The vessel was bow down in the midst of some of the stormiest seas many had ever seen. All of the Pidonirk’s officers with the exception of the political officer had been killed or incapacitated and he assumed command, posting a man in the sail with a SA-7a Strella 2, shoulder launched SAM. Self-defence was one thing, but when the political officer stated that his intention was to fly a white flag and then launch on the ship that came to claim them, the crew had other ideas. The political officer was in the sail peering into the distance through his binoculars when two pairs of hands gripped his legs firmly, hoisted him up and tossed him over the side. The Strella was locked in the armoury but the white flag remained.
Fifteen miles ahead of the Victor III, the damaged Oscar II Svedlursk broke the surface and immediately set about repairs to her radar and ESM masts. Like the Pidonirk, she also flew a flag of surrender but her intentions were quite the opposite. Strella’s sat in her sail ready for use.
Three hours later an E-2C Hawkeye picked up the surfaced Svedlursk and Pidonirk, shortly after which USS Gerald Ford launched a pair of F/A-18F Super Hornet’s armed with two Harpoon’s apiece to investigate.
The Hawkeye fed data to the strike fighters as they came in just above the stormy seas with their own radars on standby, passing either side of the big guided missile boat before pulling back into the clouds.
They reported that the vessel was flying a white flag but they appeared to be working on the radar and ESM, which were of no use to a vessel that had thrown the towel in.
Aboard the Svedlursk the first warning they had that they had been discovered was the aircraft tearing past. Her skipper was aware that the aircraft would have seen the repairs underway and cursed loudly, ordering the technicians to speed up. He kicked and punched the lookouts, ordered the Strella’s made ready along with preparations to dive.