They stared at him like he was a grotesque apparition, a leering reminder of their own mortality. No one had seen anything. All must have been looking elsewhere, thinking of something else, because unless they were looking in exactly the right place, they would have missed it. Just as the other seven Intruder crewmen had.
Here in his stateroom he worked out the math. An F-4 was about fifty feet long. At a combined speed of 800 knots it would pass the eye in thirty-seven thousandths of a second. Less than an eye blink.
When death comes, she will come quick.
But you’ve always known that, Jake Grafton.
He got out of his chair and examined his face in the mirror over the sink. The face in the glass stared back blankly.
“A ship under way is a very difficult target,” Jake said.
Lieutenant Colonel Haldane didn’t reply. He knew as well as Jake did that once free-falling bombs were released, a well-conned ship would turn sharply. Probably into the wind, although the attacker certainly couldn’t count on that.
“Ideally we should drop as close to the ship as possible to minimize the time he has to turn,” Jake said. Such a choice would also minimize the effect of any errors in the computer, errors in velocity, drift angle, altitude, etc.
“That would be the ideal,” Haldane agreed, “but it wouldn’t be smart to get all our airplanes shot down trying for the perfect attack. We’re going to have to pick an attack that maximizes our chances of hitting yet gives us a half-decent chance of getting to the drop point. Let’s look again at the weapons envelopes we’ll have to penetrate.”
Jake was briefing the skipper on the progress of the planning efforts under way in the air wing offices. He had been attending these meetings for several days. Now he spread out several graphs he had constructed and explained them to his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Haldane.
As the attackers approached a Soviet task force, the first weapons that they would face would be SA-N-3 Goblet missiles, which could engage them up to twenty miles away at altitudes between 150 and 80,000 feet. These Mach 2.5 missiles would probably be fired in pairs, the second one following the first by a few seconds. Then the launcher would be reloaded and another pair fired — each launcher had the capacity to shoot thirty-six missiles. The number of launchers present would depend on the makeup of the task group, but for planning purposes figure there were ten. That’s a possible 360 missiles in the air.
The next threat would be encountered at a range of nine or ten miles, when the attackers penetrated the envelope of the Mach 3.5 SA-N-1 Goa missiles. The weak point in the Goa system was the fire control director, which could engage only one target at a time. Yet since the missiles were carried on twin launchers, presumably two would be fired at the target, then a second target could be acquired while the launcher was reloaded. The magazine capacity for each launcher was sixteen missiles. Unfortunately the Soviets placed these weapons on destroyers as well as Kynda and Kresta cruisers, so one could expect a lot of launchers. Plan for twenty and we have another possible 320 missiles to evade.
If our harried attack crews were still alive seven miles from the target, they would enter the envelope of the Mach 2+ SA-N-4. This weapon was also fired from twin launchers, each with a magazine capacity of twenty missiles. Figure a task group with twenty launchers and we have a possible 400 missiles of this type.
Finally, after a weapons release, the attacker could expect surviving ships to fire a cloud of SA-N-5 Grail heat-seeking missiles, the naval version of the Soviet Army’s Strela. Grail carried a one-kilogram warhead over a slant range of only 4.4 kilometers and needed a good hot tailpipe signature to guide, but just one up your tailpipe would ruin your day. Within the Grail envelope the attacker could expect to see dozens in the air.
Yet missiles were only half the story. There would also be flak, an extraordinary amount of it. Soviet ships bristled with guns. The larger guns would fire first, as soon as the attacking force came in range. As the distance between the attackers and the defenders closed, the smaller calibers would open fire.
The smaller the gun, the faster the rate of fire, so as the range closed, the sheer volume of high explosive in the air would increase exponentially. In close, that is within a mile and a quarter, the attacker would fly into range of six-barreled 30-mm Gatling guns, each capable of firing at a sustained rate of a thousand rounds per minute or squirting bursts of up to three times that volume.
“Since I started putting this data together,” Jake told the colonel, “I’ve become a big fan of attack submarines.”
“Why don’t you say what you really think?”
“Yes, sir. Attacking a Soviet task group with free-fall bombs will be a spectacular way to commit suicide.”
“If the balloon goes up, we’ll go when we’re told to go, suicide or not.”
“Yessir.”
“So we had better have a realistic plan, just in case.”
“The air wing is planning Alpha strikes. Two strikes, Blue and Gold, half the planes on each one.” An Alpha strike was a maximum effort, with fighters escorting the attackers and the entire gaggle diving the target in close order. The ideal was to get all the bombs on target and everyone exiting the area within sixty seconds.
“Okay,” Colonel Haldane said.
“That will only work on a daytime, good weather launch,” Jake continued. “In my opinion, skipper, we can figure on losing half our planes on each strike.”
Haldane didn’t say anything.
“At night or in bad weather, they’ll just send the A-6s. We’re the only planes with the capability.”
8
Steam catapults make modern aircraft carriers possible. Invented by the British during World War II, catapults freed designers from the necessity of building naval aircraft that could rise from the deck under their own power after a run of only three hundred feet. So wings could shrink and be swept as the physics of high speed aerodynamics required, jet engines that were most efficient at high speeds could be installed, and airframes could be designed that would go supersonic or lift tremendous quantities of fuel and weapons. A luxury for most of the carrier planes of World War II, the catapult now was an absolute requirement.
The only part of the catapult that can be seen on the flight deck is the shuttle to which aircraft are attached. This shuttle sticks up from a slot in the deck that runs the length of the catapult. The catapult itself lies under the slot and consists of two tubes eighteen inches in diameter arranged side by side like the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun. Inside each tube— or barrel — is a piston. There is a gap at the top of each barrel through which a steel lattice mates the two pistons together, and to which the shuttle on deck attaches.
The pistons are hauled aft mechanically into battery by a little cart called a “grab.” Once the pistons are in battery, the aircraft is attached to the shuttle, either by a linkage on the nose gear of the aircraft in the case of the A-6 and A-7, or by a bridle made of steel cable in the case of the F-4 and RA-5. Then the slack in the bridle or nose-tow linkage is taken out by pushing the pistons forward hydraulically — this movement is called “taking tension.”
Once the catapult is tensioned and the aircraft is at full power with its wheel brakes off, the firing circuit is enabled when the operator pushes the “final ready” button.
Firing the catapult is then accomplished by opening the launch valves, one behind each tube, simultaneously, which allows superheated steam to enter the barrels behind the pistons.
The amount of acceleration given to each aircraft must be varied depending on the type of aircraft being launched, its weight, the amount of wind over the deck, and the outside air temperature. This is accomplished by one of two methods. Either the steam pressure is kept constant and the speed of opening of the launch valves is varied, or the launch valves are always opened at the same rate and the pressure of the steam in the accumulators is varied. Aboard Columbia, the steam pressure was varied and the launch valves were opened at a constant rate.