The side who knew most about the other’s EW would win the short, savage contest-and the Soviets had not been parsimonious with their espionage investment.
Communications and surveillance were the key, which was why Nato had been shadowing the Soviet ships and submarines for so many years — and vice versa.
The Russians depended on two types of satellites for watching the West: those which provided the data for Soviet electronic intelligence, and their radar satellites for surprise detection. Electronic warfare — each side jamming and confusing the other — would be the decisive weapon, although there were many imponderables. Only hot war could divulge the extent of their armoury. Had the Russians broken through the ASW barrier? They were known to be working on an entirely different system to sonar — perhaps by sensing the trace elements in coolant discharges from nuclear submarines. Had their submarines, armed with the mysterious Anvil, mastered our main ‘counter, the ASW helicopter? Would they use their appalling superiority in biological and chemical warfare?
‘Truro, Truro, next stop Redruth, Penzance,’ the station loudspeakers blared.
The naval assistant began collecting his papers.
The size of the Soviet submarine effort still kept Layde awake at nights — over four hundred known to be at sea, 250 of them nukes, with wartime construction running at thirty annually. British intelligence insisted that there existed over 250 fleet attack submarines whose role was ASW; their first job was to trail the fifty American and four British SSBNS from the moment they left port — and to destroy them, if war came. Their second priority was to destroy Nato warships, the prime targets being the strike carriers whose aircraft could at any moment reach deep into the Soviet Union. Their third priority was to sink our trans-Atlantic shipping. SALT had limited the Soviets to sixty-two Deltas and Yankees but the principal effect of this was a massive Soviet building programme for fleet attack submarines with which to counter Nato’s strategic missile boats. The world could see, at last, the reason for the Soviet’s gigantic submarine effort.
In the seventies, the Soviet’s long-range boats, the Yankees and Deltas, with their improved missiles, could reach the United States from within Russian waters in the Barents, while the Golfs and Hotels covered China and Europe; their Echos could deal with Nato support ships and amphibious targets. Then the Americans went one better by producing their huge Ohios armed with sub-surface Trident missiles. But the race had only begun— The world’s first underwater battleship, of the Russian Typhoon class, was at sea in the early eighties.
Displacing twenty thousand tons dived, they were larger than the first of our CAHS, Invincible and Illustrious, the first purpose-built Sea Harrier ASW carriers. Fired from the safety of the Barents Sea the Typhoons’ SS-N-18 missiles could reach Charleston, Washington, Chicago and all Canada. From the Sea of Japan, Sydney was pin-pointed; from the Sea of Okhotsk (the Kuriles), the whole of the American and Canadian Pacific seaboard was menaced. The Typhoons could with impunity lay waste any city in the world; while on the loose in the oceans they could be supplied by any of the Soviet ‘protectorate’ bases from Conakry to Mozambique, from Djibouti to Cienfuegos.
Layde’s naval assistant was on his feet and holding the door open.
‘Redruth, sir,’ he announced.
Chapter 3
‘Glad you could make it, sir.’
‘Not even this morning’s news would have kept me away, Derek. I want to see for myself whether you’re ready.’
‘Well, sir, it’s 1939 all over again. We’ve been doing what we can but it’s too little too late.’
Captain Derek Quincey, commanding officer of HMS Seahawk, the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose, was the fine young officer Layde remembered as senior observer in the old carrier the First Sea Lord had commanded some years ago. On the way across the tarmac to the officers lined up to meet the First Sea Lord, Quincey handed Layde a signal.
‘I hope you can stick to the programme in spite of this, sir,’ he said.
Layde glanced at it, then reread it with care.
‘This is it, Derek,’ he said. ‘We’ve work to do.’
Layde felt relieved now they knew where they stood. The first convoys had sailed and the Soviets had been as good as their word. Three ships had been sunk by submarine attack and the convoy escorts were retaliating. There were confirmed reports of a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine in the Western Channel. The minesweeper who had picked her up had lost contact and Sea Kings from HMS
Furious, now closing Land’s End, were taking up the search….
‘Stick to the programme,’ Layde said, ‘but reverse the procedure a bit. I’ll start with “the Squadrons, but don’t interfere with SAR and flying training.’
Culdrose was the largest helicopter base in Europe and the biggest Royal Naval Air Station. The Admiralty had shown foresight in 1944 when it had bought the land upon which the modern hangars were built, the new buildings blending into the Cornish landscape now the camouflage was weathering. Layde started his tour with the SAR Wessexes, then was driven on to the front-line and training squadrons. The base was humming. VCNS had wasted no time: 814 Squadron was flying-on before dawn on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, when Furious would dash into Mount’s Bay.
They showed Layde the back-up services, the vital support which kept these highly complicated machines safely in the air: these technicians were as proud of themselves as the fine bunch of aircrewmen, observers and pilots to whom he had already talked. There was a grim purpose about Culdrose now, and this determination showed in many of the young men’s faces.
Layde paid lightning visits to the various schools, and inspected the heart of the place, the air engineering department; the specialists — the air traffic control and the simulator teams; the unique bird control unit which used falcons to keep the runways clear of gulls and other birds; the met. office in the Naval Air Command’s weather centre; and the medical and dental teams which were so essential to these finely-tuned men who stayed alive solely through the speed of their reflexes. He wished that he could have spared more time with the Wrens and the supply and secretarial personnel who cemented the whole outfit together.
There were also civilians, without whom the base could not operate specialists who kept the simulator functioning day in, day out; the Helston men and the contractors— ‘Time for coffee, sir, before you go? The Jetstream is standing-by,’ Quincey said as Layde’s car drew up to the wardroom at one end of the modern Seahawk centre, the huge accommodation complex which housed, fed and looked after the 2,600 officers, ratings and Wrens.
To Layde’s right was the admin, block, the nearest door of which led to the captain’s offices. A tall lieutenant-commander was taking the two steps at time.
He halted in front of Captain Quincey and saluted: ‘MOD on the scrambler, sir. VCNS wishes to speak personally to the First Sea Lord.’
Sir Anthony nodded and beckoned the captain to accompany him. He shook his head as Quincey pushed a chair towards him. ‘Bad news, Charles?’
‘Bloody, sir. I still can’t credit it.’ The line was clear, but VCNS paused uncertainly.
‘Get on with it.’
‘In the early hours,’ VCNS said tensely, ‘it must have been about the same time as the Bulgarians’ attack, the Devonport security police were fooled by several impersonators. Without going into details, sir, the police who patrol the nuclear submarine refuelling and refitting complex were attacked and overpowered just before the day shift came on.’