Tuan was one of the original Kilo’s, an elderly boat as were all of the submarines in the flotilla, but they were very well maintained. The life expectancy of a submarine working inshore and delivering the special forces to their targets was rather less than that of their conventionally employed sisters. China was not about to use more modern and less replaceable hulls whilst she still had a goodly number of the other variety on the lists.
Tuan she carried a small submersible piggyback upon her casing, as did the flotilla’s other two vessels, and anchor points on the submersibles casings were for the special forces troops of China’s army navy to be towed along clinging to the outer hull.
Both Typhoon and Kilo had their ECM, the electronic counter measure masts, and communications masts fully extended but EMCON was in force, no electronic emissions were permitted, all systems were set to passive/standby mode with the sensor arrays sniffing at the electronic airwaves.
The vessel’s towed sonar arrays were reeled in and housed for the duration of this surface activity as a precaution against being damaged, or even lost by becoming entangled, ‘run over’ or sucked in to the other boats screws. Only those sonar sensors incorporated into the hull design were deployed but all they were hearing was the thrashing of the other boats propeller and the racket of localised surface noise.
Admiral Potemkin and Tuan had ploughed into heavy seas at 12 knots holding station on one another despite twice almost losing the fuelling hose to giant rollers. The RAS and FAS procedures were taking longer than they had for either the Bao or the Dai. The weather gods were most definitely not with them this night.
In the Typhoon’s radio shack a blinking red light announced incoming flash traffic and the captain was immediately informed, but what could he do at that particular moment whilst dealing with the fuelling, break off until the transmission was complete? As per SOP’s the radar was switched from ‘Standby’ to ‘Off’ lest it interfere with the incoming signal which would also of course register on the ECM for ten seconds or ten minutes, however long the message may be.
In the warmth and dry of the Admiral Potemkin the engineers were juggling the flow between the three long bunkers of diesel fuel in order to stay as near to an even keel as possible, as the rolling of the vessel was having undue influence on their efforts to fuel the Chinese Kilo.
Up top, the rain was hammering in almost horizontally with each icy gust of wind onto the lookouts, Strela operator, captain and Lieutenant Wuhan, who was still directing the FAS and RAS parties of both vessels by megaphone until they had ship to ship telephone communication.
On the submarines’ casings the FAS and RAS parties looked like ‘Dr Who’ poor man’s aliens in their passive night goggles and Day-Glo orange immersion suits, but each man was securely tethered to safety lines.
Forward of the conning towers the RAS parties had it the worst as they were unprotected from the elements. Freak waves tried to snatch them away and only the safety lines saved them but their task was completed well before the fuelling, and their rig unbolted and stored below in under twenty minutes, such was their competence even on such an evil night.
Of the three PLAN diesels only Tuan had expended any munitions, sinking a New Zealand flagged bulk grain carrier that had been unwisely relying on speed rather than an escorted, but slower, convoy. However the replacement of those two torpedoes was neither requested nor suggested on a night like they were then experiencing.
Wind, spray and the rain were reducing visibility to zero for those without passive night goggles. They were also being deafened by the combined harsh roaring of the Kilo’s diesel exhausts, the crashing of the waves and the impact of a million raindrops on the boats casings and the surface of the ocean.
But someone still noticed the dark winged shape that emerged from the rain heavy cloud before it actually overflew them.
“Preduprezhdeniye…vrazheskiy samolet!”
Lieutenant Wei Wuhan repeated the warning to Tuan over the loudhailer but no sooner had he shouted “Enemy aircraft!” when their cloak of darkness was stripped away.
The P3 Orion of the Argentinian Navy had been performing a grid square search for the missing ‘Maria III’ when they had picked up a radar return and had naturally dropped flares to identify the vessel.
Had the Typhoon not been receiving flash traffic that was interfering with both submarine’s ECM threat detectors then the Orion’s crew would have found only an empty ocean illuminated by the flares.
The PNGs were now an unexpected hindrance and upon removing them the crewmen shouldering the Strela missiles took long moments to blink in the glare of the flare’s white light before acquiring the Orion.
Alarms screeched aboard the aircraft which went a fair way to dispelling the shock the Argentinian crew had experienced.
“Conqueror….it’s that murdering bastard Anglo, Conqueror!” a crew member shouted as the automated counter measure pods discharged more flares. The 1982 sinking of the cruiser Belgrano, though justified, was burned into the Argentine naval psyche, if not the nation’s.
The mis-identification of the submarines was not challenged by the pilots who relied upon the recognition skills of the observers in the rear, but the co-pilot reached for the intercom switch to ask that the identification be checked by replaying the images being recorded by the Orion’s video cameras in the belly and tail. But any thoughts of double checking and confirming the observers I.D of the surfaced submarines was forgotten by what happened next.
“Missile launch!” the observer at the rear shouted on seeing a flash as a Strela’s rocket motor ignited followed by a bright and fiery tail light.
“The Anglo’s are shooting at us!”
The missile, loosed by the Tuan, chased a flare and detonated harmlessly but on the Admiral Potemkin the Russian air sentry was still calmly awaiting a solid lock-on tone.
The cloud base beckoned just two hundred feet above but the pilot banked left, coming around and sending his contact report.
“Chato, Chato…Albatross Three… contact, contact, contact…53°44′22.97"south… 64°26′33.81"west… two British submarines on the surface…we are under attack by surface to air missiles….engaging with Harpoon and MK50!”
Argentina had declared neutrality at the start of hostilities but all the maritime patrol aircraft carried war shots as standard operating procedure on the underwing pylons in the form of a pair of AGM 84 Harpoons and MK50 torpedoes in the bomb bay.
“Cease pumping…close and secure master fuel pump valve!” Lieutenant Wuhan saw that the Tuan’s FAS party had jumped the gun, ejecting the fuelling probe before the flow had halted so that it was violently spewing greasy diesel onto an already slick and slippery casing as it left the receiver at their end.
“Haul back on the messenger return line…lively there; get that hose back aboa……” The firing of the Strela from Tuan’s conning tower drowned out his words and caused him to duck momentarily. He straightened up and leant over the conning tower’s coaming.