Seconds later the ship was at battle stations, effectively sealed internally into small isolated airtight pockets designed to sustain damage, stay afloat, and continue fighting.
The BMOW. buckling his life vest, moved to shut the wing hatches to the bridge.
“Leave them open, Boats,” Spangle ordered. “] may need access to the wings and I don’t want to have to open them.”
The BMOW acknowledged the order as he pulled the chin strap tight on his helmet.
Captain Spangle lifted the red secure phone. “Siennis battle group, this is John Rodgers. We have torpedoes, starboard to our position, inbound toward the battle group!” He surprised himself by how calm his voice sounded. It was true what they said about “you fight like you train.” He saw the fear in the eyes of everyone on the bridge, like the deer he hit two years ago. trapped in his oncoming headlights. The only thing keeping fear from turning into runaway terror was confidence earned from constant training, drills, and what their fellow shipmates would think if they showed how fucking scared they felt. He felt it himself.
“Captain, this is TAO, NIXIE streamed and activated.”
“Bridge and Combat, this is ASW. Bearing drift increasing slightly, torpedoes bearing one zero zero. Target is not Rodgers. I repeat, target is not Rodgers.”
A bearing drift meant the torpedoes were targeted against another unit in the battle group. With the left-bearing drift, it meant the torpedoes would pass across the bow of the John Rodgers. Spangle knew, without asking, that the earner was the target. It was the highest-valued unit in the battle group With over a hundred aircraft and six thousand sailors, the carrier was central to a Navy battle group projecting its power. Without it. discounting cruise missiles, Naval power was limited to sea and coastal operations.
With the carrier, they not only controlled the sea. but could project Naval power thousands of miles inland. Naval aviation gave a battle group a multitude of choices on how that power was projected.
“Probable target?” Spangle asked, proud in a command way at how the anxiety in his voice was hidden. How he conducted himself impacted the performance of the ship. II he remained calm, then the crew, for the most part, would function similarly. If he lost it, then the fear, held back inside every person on the ship, would burst free and wreck vengeance on the John Rodgers.
“Sir, if the torpedoes continue this track,” the ASW petty officer replied, stuttering slightly, “they’ll hit the Stennis, sir. I say again, probable target is Stennis. I count six torpedoes. Captain.”
“Range to torpedoes?”
“Estimate ten thousand yards, Captain.”
Ten thousand yards — five nautical miles. Modern torpedoes could be fired from over twenty miles away. He knew that trailing from the rear of the forty-knot weapons were thin electronic wires, connected to the submarine and being used to guide them into the target. Survival of the aircraft carrier was paramount to the mission, even over the survival of USS John Rodgers. If he could cause the enemy submarine — and he thought of the boat out there as an enemy — to maneuver sharply, the thin wires would break. The torpedoes would continue, but they’d be dependent on their own logic heads in the nose.
Decoying them would be easier.
“Stennis, this is Charlie Oscar John Rodgers. Minimum six torpedoes inbound your way. Target is Stennis.”
“Roger, Rodgers. All units battle group, Stennis is in hard left turn.
Take appropriate evasive actions.”
Surface warfare officers manning the ships in battle groups watched carrier maneuvers as closely as they would watch an enemy warship. A maneuvering carrier has as much capability to change course, or avoid anything in its path, as changing the direction of an avalanche or stopping a charging rhino. A carrier maneuvered. Others avoided.
The USS Stennis turned to port, swinging its stern toward the torpedoes. Unfortunate, Captain Spangle thought. He shook his head.
The Stennis had turned the wrong way, helping the torpedoes’ acoustic homing system as the props of the USS Stennis churned the ocean. He would have turned in another direction — maybe even toward the torpedoes in the hopes that the huge bow would block out the acoustics of the props. It wasn’t up to him to second-guess the battle group commander.
Every captain had his own tactical opinions, and as good as Captain Holman was, he was still an air dale
“Captain,” the OOD interrupted. “General Quarters is set, sir. Time, two minutes fourteen seconds.”
“Captain, ASW. Sir, this is Chief Johns. Confirm sonar contact as torpedoes.”
Spangle nodded. The lieutenant on the bridge acknowledged Chief Johns.
“Thanks, Chief.”
When they joined the Stennis battle group in its dash across the Atlantic from their Caribbean deployment, the best time he had been able to muster from the crew was three and a half minutes. It was amazing what inspiration a war at sea provided. He wished he had read closer the events of last night when the Nassau amphibious task force had been attacked.
“Bridge, Combat; torpedo noise increasing. Estimate six minutes until they pass our nose. Closest point of approach at current speed and course is two miles.”
Spangle turned to the officer of the deck. “Lieutenant, give me a maneuvering-board solution to intercept those torpedoes. And hurry, Lieutenant!”
“Captain, this is ASW. Torpedoes have changed course to match Stennis.
Torpedoes still headed toward the carrier.”
“Roger, ASW. Combat, this is the captain. Put a couple of torpedoes over the side toward where you think the submarine may be based on his torpedo tracks.”
“Aye, Captain. We don’t know yet where it’s at. TMA just started!”
“TAO, fire a couple in that direction!” Then he remembered the USS Seawolf. “Make sure it’s not into the Seawolfs operating area,” he warned. This was one time he wished the American submarine community were more forthcoming with their locations.
“Captain, Seawolf operating area is clear of the target zone. Safe shot, but it’ll be luck if we get it.”
“TAO, fire the damn torpedoes!”
“Roger, sir.” A tense twenty seconds passed. “Torpedoes launched, sir.” Spangle heard the whoosh of com air. From the next level below the main deck, two torpedoes shot out from the starboard side of the USS John Rodgers. Spangle rushed onto the starboard bridge wing in time to see the two splash into the water. He had little expectation that the torpedoes would score on the submarine. It’d be a
“Hail Mary” if one hit. But he knew the sonar operators on the enemy sub would detect the incoming torpedoes. They would hear the cavitation of the props. The submarine would scurry to put as much distance as possible from the searching torpedoes, and that turn to evade would break the wires.
The OOD ran to the plot table, and as the quartermaster punched in the data on the navigation computer, the OOD waited, vocally impatient, watching over the sailor’s shoulder. Occasionally the officer of the deck glanced at Spangle, hoping the captain wasn’t going to shout for the data before they finished running the program.
“Left full rudder, steady on course zero one zero!” ordered Spangle.
The direction was a ballpark guess for an intercept course while he waited for the results of the maneuvering board. A guess based on years of maneuvering at sea as a surface warfare officer.
The quartermaster mumbled a few obscenities as she erased the results and began again with the new course in the equation. She was already perspiring from the hot summer temperatures, and tension and fear sent new beads of sweat rolling into the dampness of her armpits, creating growing wet half-moon-shaped patches on her dungaree shirt that were visible whenever she lifted her arms.
“Captain, TAO here, sir. We have a targeting solution on the submarine based on backtracking the torpedoes’ course and speed.”