It all worked fine when the target stayed on course. When he zigged, only an expert like Stokes could reach out with his intuition and capture the target’s motion. Finally the dotstack was vertical and Stokes announced his arrival at a solution: “XO, I have a solution.” From Stokes, a fiery ex-football player from western Kentucky, it came out, Eh-yecks Zoh, ah’ve a slooshun.
“Time-bearing, what’s the status?” the XO said.
“XO, gotta curve, bearing-rate right, range… ten thousand yards,” Ensign Fasteen reported from a manual-plot board.
The XO immediately reported it to Pacino: “Captain, we have a curve and a firing solution.”
“Firing-point procedures,” Pacino announced again, “horizontal salvo, first fired unit, tube one.” He paused a moment, then said, “C’mon, guys, let’s get these fish out. Target One may detect us at any moment and zig again. Okay, first fired unit, shoot on generated bearing,” Pacino ordered, starting to feel intensely alive, and sweating. This was the point of no return.
“Set,” Stokes said, sending the final solution to the firing panel and to the weapon in tube one.
“Stand by.” Bahnhoff, on the firing panel, taking his trigger lever all the way to the left, the “Standby” position.
“SHOOT,” Pacino commanded.
“Fire,” Bahnhoff said, taking the trigger level all the way to the right, to the “Fire” position.
The whole ship jumped and a booming roar slammed the eardrums of all twenty-one men in the control room. Pacino’s white teeth, upper and lower, were all visible. This was a sweet sound, the crash of a torpedo launch.
“Tube one fired electrically, Captain,” Bahnhoff reported, resetting his panel to address the weapon in tube two.
“Conn, Sonar,” the sonar chief’s voice came into Pacino’s headpiece. “Own ship’s unit, normal launch.”
Pacino looked at the digital chronometer. The thirty-second interval was coming up quickly. ‘Tube two, shoot on generated bearing.”
“Set.”
“Stand by.”
“SHOOT.”
“FIRE.” Again the explosive pressure slammed the crew’s eardrums.
“Tube two fired electrically, sir,” Bahnhoff reported.
“Conn, Sonar, second fired unit, normal launch.”
In the ocean outside the skin of the Devilfish, two highspeed Hullbuster torpedoes screamed in the direction not of the enemy submarine but toward a point in the sea where the enemy sub was calculated to be six minutes ahead. The control room crew was quiet, waiting for the torpedoes to go active. From this point on the weapons were “units”— friendly weapons launched by “own ship.” “Torpedo” was a threat launched by the enemy.
Pacino watched the third fire-control console, Pos Three, waiting for the torpedo to report its status. Three minutes later Pos Three’s status indicator blinked that the first fired unit had gone active, pinging a sonar beam forward as it tried to see the enemy a mile ahead, and if it did it would go after it at maximum speed of 50 knots. No matter what the target did, as long as the unit had fuel the target had had it. № 30-knot or 35-knot submarine could outrun a 50-knot Hullbuster. But if the enemy detected the unit and zigged before the unit went active, he might escape.
“Conn, Sonar, Target One’s screw is cavitating… he’s speeding up… definite target zig. Target One. Captain, he’s detected the first fired unit and he’s running. Max speed.”
“Damn,” Pacino muttered. “Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady course north, all ahead standard. XO, you’ve got a one minute lag to get a new curve and steer the weapons. After that it’ll be too late.”
“Working it, Cap’n,” Rapier replied. At least the target hadn’t yet fired a weapon in response. Not yet, anyway.
“My rudder’s right fifteen degrees, sir,” the helmsman at one of the airplane console-style seats on the forward bulkhead said, turning his wheel. “Maneuvering answers ahead standard. Steady course north, sir.”
Pacino frowned at the fire-control console. The first zig had been routine, but a target zig with target acceleration was much more difficult to deal with, particularly when their own ship was turning. Now the sonar data had become a mass of relatively meaningless numbers. Computers were useless at times like these. Only human judgment and intuition, and perhaps some luck, would put the torpedoes on the alerted target.
Michael Pacino shut his eyes, rubbed his temples and imagined a God’s-eye-view of the sea. What would he do if he were the “enemy.” He opened his eyes, moved off the elevated periscope stand, nudged aside Lieutenant Stokes, grabbed two solution guess-knobs and twisted in a guess-solution. “Keep that in,” he told Stokes, whose expression betrayed he thought Pacino’s solution flawed. For the next thirty seconds Pacino really sweated. Two sonar bearings came in and lined up vertically. His solution was dead on. He punched Stokes’ massive shoulder and pointed to the computer console. Stokes just shook his head.
“Weps, steer the first fired unit to course one seven five,” Pacino said to Weapons Officer Bahnhoff on the firing panel. “Steer the second to one eight zero.” He looked over Bahnhoffs shoulder as he programmed the firing panel with the steercommands; the firing panel talked digitally to the torpedo-room console, which relayed the instructions to the tubes, which passed on the steercommands through a neutrally buoyant wire the size of a stereo-speaker cord, snaking out the tube to the ocean beyond through twenty miles of wire to the units. The units heard the order and turned to the south, listening to their pings. One unit got a ping return in its search-cone almost immediately.
“Detect,” Bahnhoff announced, smiling at Pacino. “Unit one… detect. Homing, unit one. Go, baby, go.” The first fired unit had heard three returns in a row, deciding that Target One was a valid target. The torpedo sped up to 50 knots, its attack speed. The faces of the control room crew lit up in anticipation.
“Unit two, detect,” Bahnhoff said happily. “Detect. Lost it… Come on, sweetheart. Detect. Acquisition, unit two. Captain, we’ve got him.”
“Conn, Sonar,” Pacino heard through his headset, the volume suddenly loud. “Torpedo in the water, bearing two three five!” Target One had finally returned fire.
“Helm,” Pacino ordered, “all ahead flank. Maneuvering cavitate. Diving Officer, depth fifteen hundred feet, 35 degree down angle.”
Four ominous BOOMS shook the ship as its main reactor-coolant pumps were switched to fast speed. Aside from a torpedo launch, the check valves in the coolant piping made the loudest noise the Devilfish could make. The deck began to vibrate as the ship came up to flank speed, 35 knots, her dual main engines shrieking far aft in the engine room, her screw spinning wildly and cavitating — boiling up sheets of angry, noisy bubbles of steam in the ocean.
Pacino looked to the forward bulkhead at the ship control panel’s gages. The control team was three men seated at controls, two in front on either side of a central console and one in the middle to supervise the other two. In the port seat was the stern planes man, who put his control yoke to full dive.
Two hundred feet aft the huge control surfaces, driven by high-pressure hydraulics, went to the dive position, forcing the submarine to a down angle. Her speed, and the fairwater planes in a diving position on the sail, nosed her down into a steep 35-degree dive. Every man at battle stations held on to keep from falling to the forward bulkhead. The hull of the submarine groaned and popped as seawater pressure increased with the depth. No matter how many years a man spent at sea, submerged, the sound would always be eerie, ominous, Pacino thought.