The Chinese helo had deployed dipping sonar, at last getting a general idea of where the British sub was. In desperation, Jinlong fired an Asroc YU-7 torpedo at the fleeting contact, which would put it very close to Anson, forcing the sub to cut the wires on its torpedoes and run.
“Decoys!” said Captain Drake. “Come to 270 west and dive. All ahead flank!”
“Two-seven-zero and diving, sir.”
“Make your depth 780.”
Anson had fired while at 420 feet, and was now trying to disappear into the Deep Blue, still quiet as a mouse, even when running all out at 32 knots. It left a pair of decoys behind it as the nose of the sub tipped downward, hoping to fool the pursuing YU-7 torpedo.
“Conn, Sonar—three explosions.”
That was Chaowu, Jinlong, and Sanya, all going down that hour when the 300KG warheads in the Spearfish broke their backs and opened their hulls to the sea. Anson dove, knowing an enemy torpedo was in hot pursuit. Sonar reported it tracking true, then thought it was circling a moment before tracking true again. Then the sound of the torpedo was completely lost. The YU-7 Asroc had very little fuel, which is why it had to get quite close to its target to get a hit. In this case, the torpedo had run out of energy after 4 miles. It had come to within 2000 meters of the British sub, then died….
A fourth explosion reported by sonar made for a clean sweep, and in that single hot minute, HMS Anson had avenged the terrible losses just suffered by the British. It took a minute for Captain Drake to realize what he had just accomplished. They had even bested the remarkable attack that had been made by HMS Triumph in the Med, when Captain Peter Hill had scored three hits on a Chinese TF.
“My god,” said Drake. “We’ve buggered them good.”
“Torpedo in the water!” There was no time to celebrate.
“Come right, and circle to 130 degrees southeast. Ahead flank.”
Anson danced in the deep, another YU-7, this time off the hunting helicopter, was now hot in its wake, but the quick maneuver had confused it. The torpedo lost contact, circled, reacquired, and started its attack run. But the British sub had put on speed, and it would evade this lance as well, by the narrowest margin.
The British sonar was now tracking three more Chinese ships, all coming up to assist their stricken comrades. Word of the attack was flashed to every ship in the fleet, and Admiral Sun Wei was red faced with anger. He knew he had made the same mistake as his comrades had made in the Med.
Fools rush in, he thought, and then issued a fleet wide order for all ships to post ASW patrols, with pickets assigned to sprint and drift, and advancing ships were to take evasive maneuvers and alter course immediately. It was the old zig-zag, not as viable a tactic as it had been in WWII, but better than simply rushing ahead in his mad pursuit of the British carriers.
The fourth ship Anson had hit was the Type 052D class destroyer Kanji, but it had only been damaged. Now it was turning for Mombasa as it fought to control flooding, escorted by the frigate Weifang. That effort would fail, and Drake would later learn that Kanji would capsize and sink enroute, making his attack a perfect four for four.
It was a spectacular success, completely disrupting the entire southern arm of the Chinese fleet. With four ships sunk and three more rescuing survivors, it had taken seven Chinese ships out of the fight, and Admiral Sun Wei had already detached four ships that had exhausted all their SAM’s in the fight, sending them home. This had reduced his fleet from twenty ships to nine, and now he gave orders to reduce speed, post ASW patrols and consolidate his remaining force.
When Admiral Wells received the report on the exploits of HMS Anson, he was very gratified. “Finally something the navy got right,” he said to Captain Kemp.
“That bloody well evens the score, sir,” said Kemp.
“Perhaps,” said Wells. “Honor is assuaged, if nothing else. Any word from Howe ?”
“There was no report in the last fleet update cycle,” said Kemp.
“Well let’s hope she’s lying low and still in the hunt.”
HMS Howe was indeed lying low, but she was not in the hunt any longer. The sub lay broken and lost, found by two Z-9 helicopters off a destroyer she had been stalking, Yingshen, the Eagle God. The attack sub had crept into the midst of the Chinese fleet, picked that target, and then sonar was unable to process a good firing solution. The boat hovered, trying to resolve the contact, but the alert put out by Admiral Sun Wei had been taken to heart. The destroyer immediately launched a helicopter, and dipping sonar had found Howe just six miles off the port side of the destroyer.
Needless to say, the Eagle God turned and ran, and also launched a second helicopter. In the ensuing game of cat and mouse, the mouse lost this time out, and a torpedo sent Howe to the bottom, her hull crushed and broken, over 11,000 feet deep.
Built just after Anson, it was the first boat in the class whose name did not begin with the letter A, and some said that would be bad luck. In fact, it was the only sub that had violated that unwritten rule in any submarine class still active in the navy. Others had said that modifications to the design of the sub actually warranted giving it a new class, and making it the lead boat in that instance. Two others were being built, and to reinforce this notion, they were to be named Holland and Hood, after two other famous British Admirals.
Wells would not get confirmation on the loss for some time, his mind now firmly focused on matters at hand. He had turned his back on the Chinese, and seen them claw at him as he withdrew, at great cost. The loss of Vengeance and her escorts still burned, but he subdued his emotions, and looked to the day ahead. He launched the last of the three planes in Sundog flight to take up the early warning watch. The ship had Merlins for AEW, but they were nowhere near as good as an F-35.
“Captain, our oilers are trailing behind, so I’ll want them covered. Launch six more fighters for that watch. Then I think we should try and dissuade the Chinese from making any further advance. We’ll move to the Tomahawks now. Target their leading ships.”
“Right, sir.”
Wells was thinking he would have liked to storm out after them with his fighters, but they had all rearmed with meteors for a defensive role. They can see where we’re headed, he thought. They must know that we’re going to take the Seychelles from their greedy grasp, but if they come any closer, they would have the landing ships in missile range of those YJ-18’s. So in spite of my urge to use the carriers offensively, I think it remains wise to keep the fighters in a defensive role. We’ve already lost too many ships in this fight, and SAM’s are running thin.
So what is this Chinese Admiral thinking?
He’s now 700 miles east of his supporting airfields and harbors in East Africa. His force has been attrited, as ours, but he still represents a powerful threat, and as long as he stays there, with those ports to sustain him, nothing can move round the Cape for the Middle East. All shipping is being held in South African ports until this issue is resolved, one way or another.