The Russians typically would have stood off and fired their missiles from a range in excess of ninety miles. However, by sneaking up on the convoy and firing them closer, there would be little chance of their missiles being intercepted before they struck their marks. They also needed to create a distraction for the Akulas to get in close and do the real damage with their torpedoes.
The weapons officer had calculated all of this into his response. “Captain, I recommend we launch our first barrage of twenty missiles at this location here,” he said, pointing to a position not far from where they were. “Then I recommend that we move to a new position here,” he explained, pointing to another position roughly thirty-five miles away. “This will allow us to fire off another volley at the American convoy as they move away from the first attack.”
Captain Popov looked at the firing positions thoughtfully. “This should still leave us plenty of time to try and evade the Americans,” he thought, “and it should enable the Akulas to get in their attack… I like the idea of repositioning for a second attack as the convoy tries to escape from the first one. The trick will be making sure that the American anti-submarine warfare helicopters and destroyers don’t find us after we launch our missiles. Once we fire, the Yankees will have a pretty good fix on where we are.”
Nodding in agreement, Popov signaled for his weapons officer to get the missiles ready for launch.
“It’s time to teach NATO a lesson,” he thought, “one they won’t soon forget.”
It took them roughly five minutes to get the ship and the missiles ready to fire. As the ship leveled off at its launch depth, the weapons officer and the captain anxiously watched the launch timer countdown. Ten… seven… four… two… launch! They both turned the launch key as the other weapons officer began to fire off the missiles, one through twenty.
The ship shuddered slightly after each missile was ejected from the vertical launch pods behind the main sail of the submarine. Every two seconds, another missile was ejected from the launch pods to the surface. As each missile broke through the water, its scramjet engine ignited, followed quickly by the nose cone’s stabilizer rockets, which leveled the missile off. The engines quickly brought each missile up to its final speed of just a little over Mach 2 as they began to head towards the convoy. In less than a minute, 20 anti-ship missiles were racing towards the freighters and American escorts, less than 35 miles away.
“Bring us down to three hundred meters. All ahead full speed!” yelled the Captain to his men. They needed to get below the thermal layer and begin to put some distance between themselves and the launch site. The Americans would have spotted roughly where the missiles originated from, and there would surely be a helicopter on its way to try and find them. Now, it was time to see if they were good enough to evade the American Navy and get in position to fire another volley of missiles off.
Captain Gilbert left the bridge to walk down to the Combat Information Center (CIC) and check in on the crew there. He was observing the men and women manning the controls of the AN/SPY-1D 3D Radar and the AN/SQS-53C Sonar Array as they diligently monitored the 3-dimentional perimeter of the convoy. These were the men and women responsible for identifying any potential submarines, air or missile attacks against the convoy, and they would coordinate any necessary defense with the complex Aegis Combat System. He was proud of how well the crew was handling their duties, knowing that a Russian submarine force might be out there, stalking them.
“Man, I wish we had a few submarines with us on this crossing,” Gilbert thought internally as he looked at the protective bubble. He saw several glaring holes in it and he knew he had no chance of patching them up.
It was roughly 1030 hours, another ninety minutes before shift change. The mess hall would start serving lunch soon for those who would be starting their afternoon shifts, while the morning crew would get a chance to get something to eat before starting their daily maintenance work and then sacking out for the evening. Today was the second day of their transatlantic journey, and so far, they had not encountered any Russian subs. Pat was not sure how much longer that would last, but was content to hope that maybe, just maybe, the Russians might not try to interdict his convoy.
Suddenly, one of the petty officers that had been manning the radar system nearly jumped out of his chair. “Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!” he shouted as the threat board on the wall of the CIC suddenly showed one, then two, then dozens of anti-ship missiles as they emerged from the sea.
“Set Condition-1! All hands, man your battle stations. Incoming missiles!” yelled a voice over the 1MC, alerting everyone on the ship that they were under attack.
“Start engaging those missiles! Get our helos airborne and heading to that point of origin now!” bellowed Captain Gilbert as he began to issue orders.
The petty officer manning the ship’s RIM-156 SM-2 missiles immediately began to target the incoming missiles.
The crew sent a flash message to the freighters, telling them to go to maximum speed and begin to take evasive maneuvers. Another flash message was sent to Norfolk, letting them know they were under attack.
As the ship moved to battle stations, the engine began to rev up to full speed as the Churchill began to make best speed towards the launch point of the enemy missiles and position themselves between the missiles and the convoy.
“Do we know what type of missiles are coming at us?” asked one of the targeting officers in the CIC.
A petty officer manning one of the radar terminals answered. “They appear to be… crap. They are the new SS-N-26 ‘Strobile’ missiles,” he said as he looked up at the officer who had asked the question.
Another petty officer explained, “The missiles are hitting their terminal speed, Mach 2. Three of the missiles appear to be heading right for the Gravely. They are engaging them with their missiles and point defense systems right now.”
“The Mahan is steaming straight for the suspected launch site and engaging the enemy missiles with their SM-2s and Close-In Weapons System (CIWS),” shouted Lieutenant Sheehan, one of the CIC battle managers.
Over on the bridge, LCDR Brewster was also involved in responding to this attack. From her vantage point, she could see in the distance that both the Mahan and the Gravely were firing off their missiles as quickly as they could to intercept the Russian missiles. Seconds later, she could hear the roar of their MH-60 Seahawk helicopters as they gained altitude and raced towards the location where the enemy missiles had been launched from. She assumed the other helicopters in their convoy were also converging on that point as well.
The ship began to shudder as their own frontal vertical launch tubes began to spit out a series of SM-2s from the Churchill’s forward magazine, heading straight for the incoming missiles. The Gravely was still several miles in front of their position, but they could see the enemy missiles now converging on the convoy. The Gravely’s CIWS system began to throw a wall of depleted uranium rounds at the incoming missiles, scoring a hit on two of them. As they exploded a few thousand feet in front of the ship, they sprayed the ship with a layer of shrapnel.