In the modern American Navy, the carrier aircraft trumped the longer range of Russia’s excellent SSMs, able to strike with a wide array of air delivered weapons from its planes. The best way to defeat those powerful Russian missiles was to see that they were never even launched by first destroying the ship that carried them. Here, in 1942, the air arm of Japan’s offensive capability was orders of magnitude weaker. Kirov had just casually brushed aside the first wave of land based planes, and it would take considerably more aircraft to pose any real threat.
By herself, Takami had very limited offensive capability in those eight Type 12 SSMs, and to use them, the ship had to close inside 120 kilometers, which was well within the range of all the SSMs Kirov could deploy. To make matters worse, the Russian missiles were much faster. If Kirov got off the first salvo, Takami would have no choice but to go defensive, for even one hit would be fatal and doom the ship. Harada knew this, which is why he was hastening north now to get into missile range with some trepidation. He was going to rely on the cover and distraction provided by planes off Kaga and Tosa, and that alone was a dear coin to spend. Those planes would be flown by some of Japan’s best pilots, a commodity that was precious and slow to ever be replaced. But where were they?
“This whole attack is mistimed,” said Fukada. “We should have brought in the naval strike planes first.”
“They were ordered to get airborne an hour ago, and we’ve finally got them on our screens to the west,” said Harada. “How long before they get here?”
“Sir,” said Otani. “Given their present cruising speed, I make it about 20 minutes before they have a visual on our position if they keep to the flight plan we sent them.”
“Mister Ikida,” Harada said to his navigator. “How close are we going to be in twenty minutes?”
“About 140 kilometers out sir.”
“So we send those planes north and carry on. Let me know the instant we have the range on that bastard.”
Kaga was the first of the two carriers to form up its strike squadrons and head east. Lieutenant Commander Kakuichi Hashiguchi was chief Air Officer and Strike leader for this mission, and he had been very pleased with the new forward deck extension for the ship. Now his planes were well on their way, leaving the carriers behind where they cruised in the relatively safe waters of the Tatar Strait. They had crossed the long land mass of Sakhalin and were now over Taraika Bay, thinking to find the guide ship there as promised.
Though Harada had signaled Kurita that he was moving out of that bay into his wake, he just assumed he would have passed this information on to Admiral Kakuta commanding Carrier Division 2, but the word had not been passed. So when Hashiguchi’s 15 B5Ns reached the bay, they saw nothing but clear open waters there. Patches of low clouds grazed over the sea, with light rain falling from their flanks. He searched for some minutes, then heaved a sigh and made a decision. They were to have turned northeast at this point, but the ship they were to pivot on was not there. So he turned northeast anyway, chattering on his short range radio to inform the other squadron commanders. Lieutenant Ogawa and Ibuki followed with their D3A dive bombers, and so common sense corrected for the error and kept the planes headed in the right direction. Behind them came another 30 planes off the Tosa, all D3As, a total of 60 aircraft in this first wave.
They soon crossed the narrow isthmus that framed out the eastern edge of the bay, and then they were over the Sea of Okhotsk. Lieutenant Otani had them on radar, informing Harada that they were off their assigned heading but still in the game. The Captain scratched his head, not wanting to send more encrypted HF traffic to Kurita and hope it might eventually reach those planes. So instead he took a low tech approach, ordering Hiroko Shiota at communications to find and use the standard radio frequency the Japanese should be on, and use Kana Code Morse to signal those planes.
It worked.
Otani was soon pleased to report they had turned fifteen points and assumed the proper heading, and with no suspicious signals emissions that might draw any undue interest from Kirov. So far the plan was still on track, in spite of the fact that the land based planes had moved to engage too early, failed to properly disperse, and paid the price for that.
His Sea King, Sierra One, was well to the northwest keeping an eye on Kirov by using passive sensors only. The second Sea King, Sierra Two, had also been launched and moved northeast of the enemy’s presumed position. In this way, Harada hoped to bracket and frame the contact with overlapping radars when he went active, nailing down its position quickly and then getting his missiles in the air as soon as possible. His hope was that Kirov would perceive no threat from those two airborne contacts, and he was correct.
“This contact here,” said Karpov. “It appears to be loitering.”
“A seaplane off that command ship. I tracked it heading north, and its hugging the coast, moving in and out of the coastal ranges.”
“It’s not a threat now,” said Karpov, “but I don’t want it heading up that coast line to observe our amphibious operations. If it gets 100 klicks north of our position, I want to know immediately.”
It was then that feeds from the KA-40 began to light up Rodenko’s screen. “More contacts sir, bearing 225 southwest, speed 180 knots. I’m reading it as a contact cluster at the moment, but experience tells me this is probably a full squadron of 12 to 15 planes. And there’s another cluster sir, right behind the first.”
“They must be coming from airfields near Poronaysk,” said Karpov, referring to the main port on the bay that the Japanese now called Shikuka. It was as good a guess as any, for the KA-40 could not see beyond Sakhalin island into the Tatar Strait, and so the presence of the 2nd Carrier Division remained unknown to them.
“Well they persist with this nonsense, and they’ll pay the same price the others did for that. Mister Samsonov, ready on the S-300 system. Salvo of eight missiles, two groups of four. Target the lead group Rodenko feeds you, and fire at 200 kilometers.”
The timing of that little show was going to give Admiral Kurita a front row seat. Hashiguchi’s planes would be approaching his surface group from the south, using it as their second navigation aid. He had spent the last half hour receiving reports on the damage inflicted by that missile, and was pleased to see that the fires were finally being controlled. Yet his shiny new battleship had just endured the first scars of war. The secondary battery he thought was lost soon reported that it could still function, and new crews were assigned. That didn’t matter, as the ship would never get close enough to Mizuchi to fire its guns, but Kurita did not know that. The war would be fought well over his horizon now, and it was the province of planes and rockets….
And there they were, high in the sky again, arcing up and moving like sky demons, so terribly fast. His pulse leapt to think that his ship would soon come under attack again, but these rockets stayed high up, none diving to the water’s edge as before. He craned his neck, watching them pass overhead, continuing south, where he could just make out the scattered formations of planes off Admiral Kakuta’s carriers. Surely those rockets could never find and kill such nimble aircraft.