The third missile that had been targeted at the Gravely flew right past the ship’s 5-inch gun and plowed into the forward superstructure, one deck below the bridge. The armor penetrator on the missile combined with the super-sonic speed upon impact, forced the missile warhead to punch nearly ten feet into the ship before its 250 kg. warhead exploded well inside the ships CIC, instantly killing everyone in it.
A large fireball burst from the superstructure, and was visible several miles away from the impact. The side walls of the front superstructure exploded outwards, adding to the debris and shrapnel. Fire erupted from the various holes in the forward part of the ship as the vessel began to lose power and came to a stop, billowing black smoke and flames into the air.
LCDR Brewster lifted her hand to her mouth in shock. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. It was too surreal. Then the loud thunderclap of the explosion rocked the Churchill, shaking it with the force of the soundwave. Another series of explosions could be seen and heard rolling in as nearly a dozen SM-2s found their marks. She looked to her left just in time to see the freighter Anne Marie take a direct hit from one of the missiles, right at the waterline. A sizable hole was punched through by the impact.
One of the officers on the bridge of the Churchill was speaking to the CIC when he suddenly yelled, “Everyone, brace for impact!”
In that second, they heard their own CIWS open fire. A loud boom echoed through the halls as fragments of the missile that had just been streaking towards them disintegrated from the hail of bullets that it had just flown into. The ship took a few minor hits from the flying debris, but it did not appear that it had caused any significant damage other than hurting the paint job.
In less than five minutes, the sudden and violent attack was over. Captain Gilbert came running up to the bridge from the CIC and immediately grabbed one of the pairs of binoculars and began to scan the horizon through the windows. He searched the horizon around them, looking to see which of the ships had been hit. He quickly confirmed what had been reported to him by the CIC; the Gravely had been hit, along with five freighters. In all, they had intercepted 14 of the incoming missiles.
The Captain grabbed one of the mics. “Sonar, Bridge. Do you have anything on sonar? There may be additional submarines out there trying to sneak up on us.”
“Bridge, Sonar. We are moving too fast to tell. If you can slow us down and redeploy the towed array, we can see if we can spot anything,” the sonar group reported.
Pat could see off in the distance that one of the helos was dipping his sonar into the water, trying to see if he could get a fix on the enemy submarine that just carried out this attack. “Slow the ships down, and get the towed array back online,” Captain Gilbert ordered. “We need to figure out if there are additional submarines in the area.”
Then he turned to his communications officer. “I want a full report from the escorts,” he ordered. “Get their helicopters airborne and start actively pinging away. We need to see if there are any other submarines nearby.” He had a sickening feeling that the attack was not over.
Five minutes later, an urgent call brought everyone back to a state of heightened alert.
“Bridge, Sonar,” came a voice over the mic. “We have contact bearing 204, eight miles, depth three hundred meters. It’s an Akula…” Seconds later, he yelled, “Torpedoes in the water! We count six torpedoes!”
Several of the officers on the bridge immediately shifted their gaze in the direction of the new threat to see what ships were over there. To their horror, they saw the amphibious assault ship, the USS Essex. The Essex was carrying 1,800 US Marines and their full complement of equipment.
“Send a flash message to the Essex and let them know that they have torpedoes in the water heading towards them,” ordered the Captain.
“Bridge, Con. We have six more torpedoes in the water. Bearing 318, nine miles out,” the CIC reported.
Captain Gilbert let loose a string of obscenities, speaking to no one in particular; he just needed to vent his anger. “Bridge, CIC. We have an anti-submarine rocket (ASROC) firing solution on one of the subs.”
The Captain nearly ripped the mic off the hook and yelled down to the CIC, “Fire now! Take that sub out!”
A second later, the ASROC fired and began to head towards the direction of the submarine. Off in the distance, they saw several additional ASROCs fire from the other escort ships. Two of the helos also dropped their own ASW torpedoes.
LCDR Brewster turned to look at the Essex in time to watch two of the torpedoes impact against the side of the ship. A huge geyser of water shot up in the air, intermixed with heavy black smoke and flames. She could see the ship rock slightly from the impact; then it began to lose speed and started to list to one side. Dark smoke and flames continued to billow forth from several areas of the ship.
The Anne Marie, which had already taken a hit from one of the anti-ship missiles earlier, was also struck by a torpedo. The ship had already starting to list slightly from the previous blow; now it began to tilt more heavily to one side as water began to rush into the new whole, courtesy of the Russian Navy. The Anne Marie was starting to go down quickly.
“Bridge, Sonar. We can hear multiple impacts against a sub’s hull. We are hearing crush sounds. We got them!” they yelled excitedly.
No one on the bridge felt excited though. As the officers and enlisted men and women looked out the bridge windows, they saw nearly a dozen ships had smoke billowing from them.
“Order the helos to begin rescue operations. Deploy our own rescue boats and let’s start to get our people out of the water,” the Captain ordered.
The other two amphibious assault ships had thankfully survived unscathed, and immediately began to deploy their helicopters to the Essex to try and help the men evacuate off the ship. In the meantime, the crew of the ship desperately tried to save her from sinking; the vessel continued to list to one side, but was still level enough for its helicopters to operate.
Captain Popov was both elated at the success of their attack and disheartened at the loss of both Akulas. After they had launched their cruise missile attack, the American destroyer escorts had come after his ship with a vengeance. They probably would have been caught had the Akulas not launched their attacks. However, once the Americans realized the two Russian subs had snuck up inside the convoy, it was too late to stop them.
When the Orel raised his communications buoy to the surface twenty minutes ago, they received a burst message from their RORSAT, providing them with a detailed view and disposition of the NATO convoy. They could clearly see one of the American amphibious assault ships had been heavily damaged; a guided missile destroyer was also heavily damaged, and so were two other freighters. From the images, and what their sonar was able to piece together, they were able to determine that seven freighters had been sunk by the Akulas torpedoes, while two others had been sunk from their own cruise missile attack.
Thinking for a minute on how to proceed next, Popov looked at the map of the north Atlantic. They had three options: they could make their way back to their home port and take on supplies and rearm, they could move to a better position and try to attack the convoy a second time, or they could move towards New York Harbor and launch an attack on the shipping along the US East Coast.