He knew the time was now; they had to close with the foe.
“Planesman, make your depth 600 feet. Benson, what’s Tango one up to?”
“Sir, he’s heading north at 15 knots. Nothing unusual.”
“He’s in range, sir,” said Nikki.
“Yeah, but I want to close on him before we engage. He has some very good defensive weapons, but he can’t make time.”
The boat headed closer to the target. The minutes passed by.
“Sir, entry splashes, above and south of us. It’s two salvos of UDAV-1 ASW mortars from Tango one,” said Benson.
“We need to go deep, now,” said the XO. Her voice was worried.
“Damn, another salvo to our forward. He’s got three of them in and dropping on us,” Benson said, tension clear in his voice.
“Deep, sir,” said Nikki.
The mortars fell and Nathan timed them. He’d noticed a developing pattern to the mortar attacks.
He knew many people thought ASW mortars were just old-fashioned World War II style depth charges. In a way they were, but they were dangerous and lethal; these time fuze weapons were formidable.
Nathan waited. They’d straddle his depth range, and realistically no submarine could survive a well-targeted mortar attack. There were just too many in a mortar cloud.
Nikki looked at him with a wide-eyed anxious stare. He was leaving it late to go deep and escape.
He checked his wristwatch and waited. Now. “Blow all ballast forward, all ahead full.”
The deck tilted down from the bow and the boat headed up through the mortar cloud raining down on them.
“What the fu…?” began Nikki.
A mortar clunked off the hull and slid down the side, scraping by.
“Shit,” said Benson.
More mortars hit the hull as the boat raced upwards. Then the first mortars exploded below. They were too far away to cause real damage, but the multiple explosions caused the crew to close their eyes or call on their God.
Gas clouds from the detonations below bubbled up and caused the boat to roll and buck. The explosions finally came to an end. Nathan looked to the depth gauge. “Planesman, make your depth 300 feet.”
“What’s with that? Going up?” Nikki asked.
He smiled at her. “They expect you to go emergency deep. I noticed that they anticipated that and were setting the fuze timers to go off deeper. So I did what they didn’t expect and came upwards. The fuzes went off deeper than 600 ft, so more separation.”
“But they could have been contact activated also. One of them making contact could have gone off.”
Nathan shook his head. “The Russians don’t think that way. If it’s a depth timer, then that’s what it is. If it’s a contact fuze, then it’s contact. Keep it simple and straight up the middle.”
“You could have been wrong… sir.”
“I wasn’t though, was I?”
Nikki knew there wasn’t much to say to that. She smiled and shrugged.
“Weaps, flood tubes one to six, open outer doors on one to three.”
“Sir.” His fingers dashed over the panel. “Tubes one to three ready in all respects.”
“Get Scooby to simulate an attack run on Tango one.”
“Scooby running in. Tango one’s northwest, sounding like he’s flooding tubes and opening outer doors.”
Nathan swallowed. He must get it right. He leaned on the rail at his conn, hung his head and calculated angles of approach, distances, speeds and runtimes. The calculations were done.
“Weaps. Scooby to simulate two Mk48 launches on Tango one. Targets forward, aft and amidships. That will be H hour, 10.22 hours. At H hour plus 1 minute 34 seconds, launch tubes one to three, Mk48s, at Tango one. I want three up and underbelly strikes, forward, aft and amidships.”
The control room became subdued. Weaps spoke to the torpedo room. The Chief was speaking to a seaman at the rear. Nikki saw the tension in Nathan’s shoulders and she wanted to hug him, but couldn’t, of course.
Instead, she walked over and stood close with her hand on his back. “We’ll do it.” She smiled. “We’ll do it.”
Time slowed and crept on.
“Scooby’s gone active. He’s simulating a Mk48 launch; his fish is away. He’s launching another.”
“I confirm launch simulation,” said Benson.
The Pointer would increase the volume to simulate an incoming torpedo. It would become apparent that it was a simulation, but it would take time to judge that.
“Mk48s have targeting information now.” Weaps waited until the time was right. “Launch tube one.” A rushing sound and a slight vibration came from upfront. “Launch tube two. Launch tube three.
“Good launch, sir. Motors running, on their way. Tubes being reloaded with 48s.”
The Mk48 CBASS were on their way, running through the cold dark Arctic sea under wire guidance and control. Positional updates came from the boat’s sensitive bow sonars, and now Lucy, the towed array sonar. The powerful Cray computer onboard processed the input and refined the course.
“All three fish are running and hungry,” reported Weaps. “Scooby is transmitting Mk48 attack sounds.”
“No response yet from Tango one,” called Benson. Within a minute he’d changed his mind.
“Two ASW fish launched from Tango one, type unknown.”
“Mk48 countermeasures enabled and ready,” said Weaps.
“Mortar attack on forward fish.”
“Cutting wire on all fish,” called out Weaps. The torpedoes would need to be free to manoeuvre; they used Inertial Navigation System but soon switched to onboard sonar.
“Nathan,” said Nikki, “we could be next. For mortars.”
“Emergency deep, emergency deep,” barked Nathan.
USS Stonewall Jackson flooded all forward and went to full revs. The boat dived. The XO was right.
“Sir, mortars above us, multiple drops.”
Let’s hope we can out-dive them. For goodness sake, we have to.
“Aft fish pinging. Midships fish and forward pinging. ASW fish closing, closing. Forward fish countermeasures. Closing, closing hit. Enemy fish has exploded. Forward Mk48 not responding. It’s gone.”
Benson was sat up and lifting off his chair. “Mortars detonating above.”
The deep thuds sounded through the hull and the boat rolled left and was pushed harshly. Crew members hung on. More explosions above.
The explosions stopped. Thank God.
Nathan looked to Nikki. “Good call, XO. We dived just in time.”
Benson stood. “Our 48s are pinging, pinging. On terminal, final run.”
A Mk48 slammed from below into Peter the Great’s stern, just aft of the engine room. She lifted from her rear as 650lb of high explosive erupted in her aft end. Her nuclear-powered turbines were ripped from their mounts and the nuclear reactor’s control rods dropped, closing down her power. Seawater gushed in.
Another Mk48 rammed up into her midships. Her control room, galley and engineering spaces were blown apart. Two missiles in her central magazine lit their motors; another quickly followed. Surface-to-air missiles cooked off and their warheads exploded. Water flooded two bulkheads with unreasonable speed; another two filled.
“Sir, Tango one has taken two fish amidships and aft, magazines are going off. She’s still afloat but crippled.”
Nathan felt for her crew. It must be hell on there. He knew that war was war though. “Weaps, tube four, select amidships and put another fish in her.”
“Sir, flood tube four, opening outer doors. Launch tube four.” There was a rushing sound from the forward torpedo room. “Good launch, fish running and hungry. Going for an up and underbelly shot.”