War in the Mediterranean

SYRIAN SUBMARINE - MEDITERRANEAN SEA, 31O 57' EAST LONGITUDE, 33° 54' NORTH LATITUDE - SATURDAY  MAY 16,  6:10 PM LOCAL TIME  (1510 HRS ZULU)

Poking just above the waves, the electronics mast looked for surface search ra-dars, and listened to the radio traffic.  The electronic environment was quiet.  The Captain ordered the periscope raised to just below the surface.  His eyes were sur-rounded by the rubber boot of the periscope lens as he ordered it raised an addi-tional meter. 

Making a quick circuit of the horizon, he ordered the periscope lowered.  “All clear.  Raise the snorkel and start the diesel engines.” 

The air was foul and the batteries were low.  Since the sinking of their sister ship by the Grotton, they had been running silently at six knots to avoid detection.

Three diesel engines came to life, one at a time, with a rumble and a small cloud of black exhaust that quickly dissipated in the ten knot surface winds.  Fresh air flooded through the submarine, flushing the fetid atmosphere, bringing new life to the crew of seventy-five.
 
Charging the batteries with two of the 6,000 horsepower diesel engines and driving the middle propeller shaft with the third, they cruised to the west at six knots.  The periscope went up every ten minutes to scan the horizon, looking for the ships of the 6th fleet.
 
“Sonar contact, Captain.  Many ships, bearing two four oh, high speed propellers, speed unknown.”

“Switch to electric.  Periscope depth, new heading two four oh, speed eight knots.”

With a three quarter charge on her batteries, the Foxtrot had over sixteen hours of cruising endurance at eight knots.  Soon the sun would be down and the danger of a visual sighting of their periscope would be minimal.

“Sonar contact now bears two four five, Captain.  Estimated speed fifteen knots. Many contacts.”

“Up scope.”  The Captain scanned the horizon to the west.  Two masts jutted above the limited horizon of the periscope, swallowed by the sea as the waves rolled over the lens.  “Down scope.  Increase speed to twelve knots.  Right standard rudder, new heading three six oh.”

Increasing speed to twelve knots, they turned due north.  Now is our chance to inflict a stinging blow to the Americans, thought the Captain.  After a six minute run due north, the Captain slowed the submarine to three knots and raised the periscope.  In the periscope lens, the dull gray hull of a heavily laden ship churned through the water.  Twisting on the periscope handles, he increased the magnification to ten power.  Through the surface haze he read the hull number:  E24 in white across the bow of the freighter.

“Range, six thousand five hundred meters.  Speed, fifteen knots.  Bearing two four five.  Down scope!”

Flipping open a dog eared copy of Jane's Fighting Ships, the executive officer turned to the US Navy section.  After a few minutes he looked up and said, “USS Pyro, ten thousand tons, Ammunition ship!”

The Captain grinned. “God is great!  He has brought us a worthy target for our torpedoes.  Ahead slow!”

The Foxtrot lost way, slowing from three knots to two, barely enough speed to maintain depth and directional control of the submarine.

“Up periscope!” Twisting the periscope handles, the Captain focused the lens and centered his view on the bridge of the ship, estimating the speed, and reading the distance in the vernier. “Range five thousand five hundred meters.  Speed, fifteen knots, bearing two five five.  Down scope!”

The executive officer and the officer of the deck plotted their solutions on the manuvering boards, comparing their answers.  They matched.  The executive officer set the dials on the targeting console and said, “Firing solution verified and set, Cap-tain!”

“Flood tubes four and six.  Open outer doors on tubes four and six.”

“Torpedo tubes four and six ready for firing, Captain.”

“Fire tube four . . . Fire tube six!  Ahead half, hard left rudder, dive to one hundred ninety meters.  Make your new heading one six five.  First officer, time to impact?”
“Estimate four minutes six seconds, Captain.”

Smiling at the executive officer, the Captain reached for the overhead brass rail.  The deck sloped down and the hull groaned and popped.  Compressed air hissed as it bled into the ballast tanks, maintaining a constant volume against the increasing water pressure.  At the chart table, a black bearded sailor in a T shirt stared intently at a stop watch in his hand, timing the run of the torpedoes.

Four miles to the North, an SH-60 Lamps helicopter from the McInerney hovered, the dipping sonar beneath the waves.  It was a boring and frustrating job, dip and move, dip and move, for hours on end until the body screamed for escape from the noise and vibration, a shower, and a few hours of sleep.  If they were not hunting submarines they were hauling supplies and spare parts or getting the mail.  The hours are long and monotonous, but a pilot can build thousands of hours in a few years, gaining experience for more demanding tasks when promoted.

The excited voice of the sonar operator broke the monotony of the afternoon.  “Transient!  Transient!  High speed propellers due south!  Sounds like torpedoes!”

The pilot came fully alert.  He called the search coordinator in the CIC, on the McInerney, “Plot, we've got high speed screws to the south!  Moving to triangulate!” 

“Up dome!”  The sonar cable wound up as he dipped the nose of the helicopter, twisted on the collective, and accelerated to the south.  Directly ahead he saw the ammunition ship USS Pyro, four miles away, in a direct line with the reported transient.  The pilot called the McInerney again.  “Plot, get on the horn and warn the Pyro!  We're three minutes from a triangulation dip!”

In the CIC on the McInerney, the JG flipped through his frequency lists, looking for the Pyro.  Frustrated, and in a rush, he called the bridge.

“Bridge, CIC. Torpedoes in the water!  Hopper-1 reports high speed propellers inbound for the Pyro!  Put out the alarm!”

On the bridge, Lieutenant Race answered the frantic message.  “Bridge, Aye.  We'll try!”  He picked up the ship to ship phone and punched the fleet intercom fre-quency.  “Pyro, McInerney CIC reports high speed screws inbound your position.  Recommend evasive maneuvering!  Standing by!”

The two Russian made torpedoes, only ten feet below the surface, sped through the sea at forty knots, a white foaming trail behind them.  On the bridge of the Pyro, the loudspeaker boomed the warning from the McInerney.  The Captain was sitting in his bridge chair when the words Pyro and torpedo made him leap to his feet and run to the starboard bridge wing.

The starboard lookout heard the message and spun his head, binoculars to his eyes, looking for the telltale wakes.  In the distance he saw two foaming streaks, as straight as an string, growing closer by the second, the Pyro in the way.  He stared at them for a second, thinking, No! It can't be!  “Torpedoes off the starboard beam!.”

Standing behind the lookout as he yelled the alarm, the ship’s Captain stared into the distance, looking for the foaming trails.  Turning to the open hatchway on the bridge, he yelled, “All ahead, Flank!  Hard left rudder.  Get a message out, we're under attack!”

In the engine room, the telegraph rang, and the indicator moved to the ahead flank position.  The officer on watch in the engine room called for flank speed.  But before the huge steam turbines could be wound up to speed there was an immense concussion, throwing the engine room into darkness, then a second concussion, and everything turned white hot.

Five thousand tons of ordinance stored in the holds of the five hundred foot ship detonated in an explosion that rivaled a small nuclear weapon.  Blown away from the ship, the bow and the stern sank immediately.  The center section of the hull disintegrated in a brilliant flash, filling the air with shattered steel, smoke, and debris.

Spreading in an expanding wave of high pressure air, the concussion would be de-tected on barometers throughout the Mediterranean.  Only charred wood, singed kapok, and an oil slick remained to mark the Pyro’s grave.  Dead fish littered the sea for miles around, a feast for the hungry sea gulls.

Embedded in a rock hard shock wave, the explosion created a wall of fog that ex-panded in a ring at the speed of sound.  Three miles to the South, the McInerney sprinted at twenty-eight knots, on the way to her next drift and listen session.  A young ensign, the officer of the deck, heard the warning message as Lieutenant Race spoke on the radio telephone, but the flash of light that was the USS Pyro still took him by surprise.

“Hard right rudder!”  He exclaimed in an attempt to draw away from the explosion, but the bow was just turning when the concussion shook the ship, blowing in the port side bridge windows.  Shards of sharp broken plastic blew across the bridge spaces, cutting the bridge watch down and exploding against the starboard bulkhead.

Lieutenant Race had the Conn, standing at the chart table in the aft section of the bridge, reading the water depths, and thinking about a submarine search pattern when the decks shook and broken plastic blew across the pilot house.  His chest compressed with the concussion, the flying shards striking his side and the back of his neck.  Green shards bounced and slid across the chart table.  Uncut and sur-prised, he turned.

The four man watch had their hands to their faces, blood running between their fingers while a twenty-eight knot breeze whistled through the broken windows.  Fears of another nuclear attack rushed over him, and he thought, No, there would have been an intensely bright light and a lot of heat.

Through the shattered bridge windows, the smoking remains of the explosion told him all he needed to know.  Chunks of debris rained on the sea, the arcing trails of smoke ending in white splashes.

Once again the words sounded in his head; Ship, Shipmate, Self.  The litany of survival at sea. 

Ship.  He went to the 1MC, and sounded the general quarters klaxon.  “General quarters, all hands man your battle stations!”  The ship filled with the blaring klaxon as the crew scrambled to their stations.

He scanned the sea for other ships, the danger of collision minimal but real, but all he saw was the drifting smoke where the Pyro had been.

He turned back to the intercom and the 21MC.  “Damage Control, Bridge.  Report!”
The voice from damage control central was strange, not the DC officer. “Damage Control, Aye.  We're still waiting for division reports.  Back to you in a minute, busy now.”

He looked over the bridge.  The helmsman was breathing deeply, looking at the thick smear of dark red blood on his hands.  “Mr. Evans, the helm!  Stand your station!”

The harsh words made the helmsman turn, the shock leaving his face.  “Aye, sir.  Sorry, sir!”  He stood, his face a red smear, the wind ruffling his hair, his hat at his feet, green shards laying on white canvas.  His hand went to the ships wheel, his eyes scanning the compass, then over the bow.

“Bridge, DC Central.  Hull is sound, no damage.  Search radar is down.  Both sonars are off line.  Engine room reports minor shock damage, full speed available.  What happened Chops?”

It never occurred to him that they would not know what had happened.  “Pyro blew up!  Bridge out!”

Shipmate.  Back to the 21MC, the plastic shards crunching and grinding under his feet.  “Sick bay.  Casualties on the bridge!  Get two corpsmen up here on the double!”

“Sick bay, Aye.  On the way!”  Lieutenant Race knew the voice, but could not put a face or a name to it.  One more thing for the wheel book, his endless list of things to do.  He looked over the bridge, thinking he should get a civilian job, maybe in a bank where even a robbery would seem tame.  He remembered, the Lookouts!  They were on deck when the Pyro went up!

He turned to Ensign Richards, still staring at where the Pyro had been.  “Mr. Richards!  See that the lookouts are cared for and relieved, then report to sick bay and have the corpsman bandage your face.  Then get up here and help coordinate with CIC.  We'll be searching for a sub if we can get the systems back up!”

Self.  A damage control crew would be on the bridge shortly to replace the broken windows.  Anything else?  He thought, Nothing I can do about the sonar or radar.
Calling the ships galley, he said, “Chief, we're going to need some sandwiches and coffee up here.  Send a steward with a broom and a mop too.”

Brushing the shards of broken plastic off his uniform, he thought about the casual-ties.  Counting the dead and injured, he thought about the letters to wives and parents waiting for him on his cramped desk.  He wondering when someone would have to write a letter to his wife.

The remains of Hopper-1 floated for almost three minutes, time enough for the shocked flight crew to escape.  The three crewmen bobbed on the sea, surprised and dazed, happy to be alive. 

One second they were flying at sixty knots, the next instant the rotor blades were gone and the cockpit was showered with Plexiglas.  The pilot saw the shock wave speeding toward them, but could only pray as the helicopter was hammered to a virtual stop twenty feet above the waves.  Bladeless, the machine fell with all the grace of a dropped brick.

His helmet discarded, and his life jacket inflated, the pilot looked at his copilot, bobbing in the water next to him.  “Ahh . . . Does this mean we don't have to fly the mail tonight?”

The underwater shock wave that killed so many fish rocked the sturdy submarine and surprised the crew.  When it passed, the Captain grinned at his executive offi-cer. “We will have to stay deep and silent for many hours now.  Pass the word, quiet in the boat.”

All unnecessary conversation ceased.  Ventilation fans were set to low speed and pumps were turned off.  The submarine slowed to a quiet five knots.  Hidden below a fifteen degree thermocline, they would be hard to find.

On the surface, helicopters hovered, dipping their sonar transducers below the sea, listening, searching.  Carrier based aircraft dropped sensitive sonobuoys, and monitored them by computer.  Frigates and destroyers, creeping with their engine noise masked by a curtain of bubbles, trailed their towed array sonars.  Computers filtered out the background noise as they searched for the sound of a Foxtrot. 

The search radius enlarged by the minute.  Time was on the side of the submarine.  The area of sea to be searched increased with the square of time, the volume of sea with the cube.  Soon the fleet of helicopters and armada of surface ships would not be able to monitor the growing volume of ocean, leaving large gaps the Foxtrot would use to her advantage.

Now twenty miles from the grave of the Pyro, the submarine ran silently, the crew sweating in the confined spaces.  Water dripped from overhead, the humidity near one hundred percent, the air growing stale.

“Sonar, report!,” said the Captain.

“Very faint surface noise, many kilometers to the north, Captain.”

“Periscope depth.  Dead slow.”

Creeping from the deep, the Foxtrot climbed through the thermocline toward the surface until the depth gauge read nineteen meters.  They hung suspended below the surface, the sonar operator reporting all quiet, the submarine silent.

“Up periscope!”  A four inch steel tube penetrated the water surface, rising half a meter above the shallow swells.  Spinning quickly around the horizon, the Captain looked for ships and aircraft.  “Down periscope!”  The sweep of the horizon took less than fifteen seconds.  Turning to the Executive officer, the Captain said, “No surface ships visible, but we shall cruise south for two more hours.  Ahead two thirds, make your depth sixty meters.”

Six miles south an S-3 Vikings' surface search radar swept over the hard face of the periscope.  The millimeter wavelength radar gave a faint echo, a tiny green point of light on the radar screen.  The surface search officer noted the single speck of green.  “Surface contact!  Six miles, bearing one one five!  Contact lost.  Could be a ghost.”

“Could be a submarine,” said the pilot as he turned to the new heading.

Flying low over the sea, the Viking sped toward the momentary contact at two hundred fifty knots.  One minute and fifteen seconds later, nineteen hundred tons of steel minutely distorted the local magnetic field of the earth.  The change in field strength triggered an alarm on the Magnetic Anomaly Detector, and the systems operator said, “MAD! MAD! MAD!” 

The S-3 swept into a turn to make a second pass over the magnetic anomaly.  A string of three sonobuoys splashed into the sea, their sensitive acoustic transducers hanging below the floating transmitters.

Excited, the systems operator almost yelled into the intercom. “Positive contact on all channels!  Strong Foxtrot signature! . . . Hull popping noises, strong down Doppler!  She's diving!”

Speaking into his microphone, the pilot of the S-3 said, “Home plate, Archer 212.  Strong Foxtrot signature, request weapons free!”

On the Lincoln, the TAO in CIC quickly checked the board for known friendly submarines in the area.  The Grotton was reported over one hundred miles to the north with no other known friendlies in the area.  “Weapons free, Archer-212.  Say again, Weapons free!”

Archer-212 extended to the north in a wide turn.  Opening the bomb bay doors, the pilot waited for the drop signal from the tactical coordinator. “Drop, Now, Now, Now!” 

A Mark-48 antisubmarine torpedo fell free, a small drogue parachute slowing the fall.  When the thirteen inch diameter, eight hundred pound torpedo plunged into the sea, the drogue chute pulled loose.  A ducted propeller spun to life, and the microchip brain started to run a complex artificial intelligence program. 

The propellers on the Foxtrot beat a clear rhythm in the water; music to the ears of the tiny brain.  Listening, the torpedo digitized the sound for future reference.

Swiveling the ducted propeller, it dove toward the noise, two thousand feet away.
On the Foxtrot, the sonar operator heard the high frequency propellers. “High speed, high frequency propellers!  Bearing is not changing!”

“Ahead, Emergency!  Flood forward blast tanks, forty degree down angle!” 

The thermocline lay only one hundred feet below.  Accelerating to eighteen knots, the Foxtrot plunged through the thermocline.  They would not be able to maintain emergency speed for long, the batteries were at less than half charge.

“Nine degree temperature drop, Captain!”

“Release Noisemaker!  Hard right rudder, full up on the diving planes, blow for-ward ballast tanks!”

Turning sharply to the right, the agile Foxtrot slowed its descent, and then quickly climbed toward the warm side of the thermocline as the Mark-48 plunged downward, looking for its prey.  The Foxtrot’s sharp turn at emergency power left a turbulent, swirling mass of water in its wake.  A knuckle.  Acoustically opaque, the confused water would be a large void in the sonar vision of the torpedo.

Accelerating to forty knots, the Mark-48 closed the gap on the Foxtrot at sixty-seven feet per second.  The Foxtrot disappeared as it plunged through the thermo-cline, but the microchip brain in the torpedo was programmed to follow.  Patiently it waited to reacquire the target once it was through the opaque curtain of the thermocline.

Plunging through the thermocline, the Mark-48 found confused water and a squeaky replica of the sound it was following.  The silicone brain compared the sound with the record of the brief contact.  They were not the same.  Firing a sonar pulse, it listened for an echo, comparing, processing the return.  Switching to lost contact mode, it slowed to conserve fuel, circling as it searched for a match of the sound in its silicon memory.  Sharp pulses of sound probed the surrounding ocean, but there was no echo.  Satisfied the intended victim was not in the neighborhood, the Mark-48 continued to circle, climbing toward the surface, sounding the sea with sharp pulses in a continuing active search. 

Using the thermocline as a shield, the Foxtrot punched through the layer and leveled, heading away from the Mark-48.

“Flood forward ballast tanks.  New heading one eight oh.  We have temporarily lost the homing torpedo in the thermocline!”

The executive officer smiled. “A clever piece of maneuvering, Captain!”
“It will be back soon enough.  All stop!”

Loosing way, the Foxtrot slowed and sank toward the thermocline, silent and in-visible.  Fourteen hundred yards to the north, the Mark-48 climbed through the opaque ceiling of the thermocline, still circling, still listening.  Noting a single active sonar return to the south, it turned, hammering the sea, but there was nothing there.  With the electronic equivalent of curiosity, it turned to the south, changing the search mode to a series of S turns, scanning the dark water..

Tactical information came in rapid bursts, the constant updates needed by the Captain to elude the deadly little torpedo.

“Active sonar ranging, Captain!”

“Temperature falling again, Captain!”

“Captain, I have lost contact with the active sonar.”

Perhaps we will escape yet, he thought.  “Flood forward ballast tanks!  Ahead flank, bow planes down forty degrees, hard right rudder!  New heading two seven oh!”
Using the thermocline as a mask, the Foxtrot accelerated to sixteen knots in a twisting dive; a desperate race to avoid detection by the tenacious torpedo. 

Closing on the position of lost contact at thirty knots, the Mark-48 hammered the sea, but it was empty of returns.  Debating, the tiny brain circled, searching with active sonar, listening for the submarine it knew was there.  It would not give up, the ability to shrug off a lost contact not considered in the programming.

Like an arrow grazing a target, the sound of the foxtrot bounced from the thermo-cline, away from the searching torpedo.  Even as the Foxtrot dove within the thermocline, the sound bounced away, reflecting between the boundaries, contained within the layer. 

The sound of spinning propellers and the venting of ballast tanks struck the temperature gradient on a curving wave front, deflected where the angle was acute.  By chance, in its twisting search, the torpedo passed directly over the submarine hidden beneath the thermocline.  Like a bullet through a paper target, the sound shot through the thermocline, into the searching brain of the torpedo.  With the speed of electronic thought, it compared the sound with the digitized recording.  Swiveling the propeller, it dove toward the sound, the sonar hammering the sea. 

“Active sonar close in, to starboard!”

The Captain realized that further evasive maneuvers would be futile.  They could not outrun it, and they could not evade in time. With a grimace he turned to the executive officer and said, “Today we shall meet in paradise!”

Analyzing the returning echoes, the torpedo seeker head assembled an electronic image of the Foxtrot.  Echo ranging its target, the processor judged the distance against the fuel remaining.  At a range of two thousand yards the computer discarded the fuel remaining problem as not a factor.  The compact chemical motor wound the Mark-48 up to its full speed of sixty knots and headed directly toward the base of the sail.

Contained in a hardened steel capsule, the one hundred pound warhead was designed to penetrate double hulled submarines with a shaped explosive charge.  The focused explosion punched a three foot diameter hole directly into the attack center of the submarine.  The central manned spaces flooded quickly, adding two-hundred tons of weight to the submarine.  With the buoyancy of the flooded spaces lost, it began to sink, slowly at first.  Gradually the water pressure increased, de-creasing the volume of air in the ballast tanks, reducing the buoyancy.  The final descent accelerated with every second.

Plunging toward the ocean bottom, the bulkheads held against the pressure of the sea until the depth was eleven hundred feet. Imploding explosively, the bulkheads collapsed. In three tenths of a second the air in the manned spaces compressed and heated as the hull filled with sea water under four hundred and seventy-six pounds per square inch..  To say that it was over quickly would be an understatement.

On the surface, floating sonobuoys relayed the sound of the detonation and the subsequent breaking up noises from the Foxtrot to the circling S-3.  As the sonic disturbance from the explosion dissipated, the groaning and popping of the hull sounded loud and clear.  Finally, the scream of tearing steel mixed with a Whump! as the bulkheads imploded under the immense water pressure.

Hearing the sound of the implosion, the systems operator exclaimed, “That's a hard kill!”  He listened for more breaking up sounds, but the sea was as quiet as a grave.  He would have nightmares for several days, the sound of seventy five men dying haunting him for the rest of his life.

“Yeah, and we didn't even have an assist on this one!”  Said the copilot, suddenly aware that this was not just another practice mission.  The realization that a submarine full of men had just died struck him, and he became quiet, immersed in his own thoughts and fears.

The pilot thought about the seventy five men they just killed and the three hundred and fifty who had died because of the Foxtrot.  Pressing the transmit button on the control wheel he said, “Home Plate, Archer-212.  Prosecution complete.”
“Copy all, Archer.  Good Kill.  Report when marshaled for approach.”