“Let me see what you’ve got.”
The XO looked at the plot. “Look, Mac, you’ve got two of them over here, then a big gap and one more. I would bet my ass the Kilo is in that gap, we just can’t hear her yet.”
The Chinese Kilo-class submarine was the only one in the defensive line that was not nuclear powered. The Kilo was a diesel-electric boat, which ran on batteries while submerged. Although she had a limited time she could remain submerged, she was quieter and harder to detect.
“I’m heading for the gap, Mac. Keep listening. I’m going to hit the SQID drive a couple more short bursts and see if we get any reaction.”
The Chinese captain called to his sonar operator, “Sonar, Captain. Do you have any contacts?”
“Captain, I had nothing, and then there were a series of intermittent cavitations. No engine noises, no coolant pumps, just cavitations.”
“Hmm… what do you think? A decoy noisemaker?”
“I would say so Captain, but obviously not a very good one — cheap American copy!”
“Ha! Very good, Comrade. But I will tell you something truer: where there is noisemaker, there is submarine! Helm, steer toward the noisemaker, all ahead one-third.”
“XO, I’ve got her now,” MacKenzie reported. “Kilo-class, bearing two-four-zero degrees. No range information, unless we want to do some S-turns. I could figure out a range with some changing bearing lines.”
“Mac, the other three appear to be in a line. If the Kilo is in line with the others, the range must be about twelve thousand yards — a little close in for S-turns. Let’s make one sweep to port and see if we move that bearing line enough to get a range.”
“Sir, the bearing is sweeping pretty rapidly, so I think we’re pretty close. What do you want to do?”
“Ping her.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me, Mac. Go active on the sonar. One ping.”
“Aye-aye, sir. One ping, coming up!”
Pinnnnnnng.
“Got her, sir — eleven thousand yards. Neutral Doppler.”
The term “Doppler” referred to the Doppler effect in which sound waves in the sonar echo were compressed by a target moving toward the sonar or were expanded by a target moving away from the sonar. The sonar equipment detected the compression or expansion of the sound waves as a change in the frequency or pitch of the received echo as compared to the frequency that was transmitted. A neutral Doppler indicated the received frequency was the same as what was transmitted. So this target was not moving either toward SF-1 or away from SF-1. Therefore they had either pinged the Kilo broadside as she moved through the water, or she wasn’t moving at all, which was not likely.
“All right, we’ll head toward her. Tell me if she drifts right or left. Arm ‘em up. We’re going in, and I want you to have a ‘hot pickle,’” ordered the XO.
“Aye-aye, sir. Master Arm — On.”
Panic! No submarine pinged another except to refine their ranging information for a final fire-control solution. So a torpedo launch was imminent! The ping had come from their starboard beam. “Right full rudder! All ahead FLANK!” ordered the Chinese captain. The Kilo accelerated and turned toward the origin of the ping to reduce her cross section and bring her own torpedo tubes to bear on the enemy. By rapidly closing the range to the enemy, the Kilo could also possibly avoid destruction by reducing the range to less than the minimum arming distance of the American Mark 48 torpedo, the suspected weapon they were facing. In such a case, the torpedo would not arm until it was past the Kilo.
“Mac, what have you got now?”
“Sir, the Kilo is cavitating, but there’s not much change of bearing. The screw noise seems a bit muffled now. If I had to guess, I’d say she might have turned into us.”
“If you’re right, we need to move out of her path. We have the advantage in maneuverability — let’s use it. Turn on the spotlight — they can’t see us anyway.”
MacKenzie reached forward to the control panel, flipped on the switch for the spotlight, and flooded the area in front of SF-1 with bright light.
Directly in front of SF-1, not more than one hundred feet away and perhaps five feet below them at the most, was the massive bow of the Chinese Kilo—on course for a head-on collision! Both men automatically drew back in their seats trying to avoid the massive nose of the submarine.
“Shit!!!” shouted Pappy and Mac in unison as Pappy rolled left so that their right wing just missed the conning tower of the Kilo as it sped under them. Pappy leveled the wings as they passed the conning tower, and SF-1 skimmed along the top surface of the Kilo toward the stern, with barely two to three feet of clearance. Then, directly ahead was the gigantic seven-bladed screw, with its huge blades chopping furiously through the water, creating a torrent of cavitation bubbles.
“Shit!!!” Pappy and Mac again shouted in unison. Pappy yanked back on the stick, and as he did so, the inertial G-force caused MacKenzie’s thumb to push the “pickle” button on the top of his weapons control stick. SF-1 fired a single rocket, which struck the front of the massive screw at almost point-blank range. Instinctively, Pappy hit the SQID drive and rapidly accelerated away from the Kilo.
Although SF-1 was extremely close to the blast, she was aft of the screw by the time the shock wave was generated, and the screw itself shielded them from the blast. The screw did not fare so well. The rocket impacted near the center of the screw, where it mounted to the Kilo’s engine shaft. The momentum of the rocket, combined with the rearward force of the blast, blew the screw completely off the shaft. The angular momentum of the screw kept it turning, and the screw flew forward, careening up the deck of the Kilo and crashing into the conning tower before falling into the depths of the sea.
The Chinese captain was completely bewildered. Strange whooshing sounds reported by sonar, an explosion, and tremendous crashing noises down the length of the deck, but no hull damage. No station reported any flooding. Meanwhile, their speed dropped even though the shaft accelerated wildly and they still had full engine power! Finally, although there was no internal damage, they were dead in the water. The captain did the only thing he could do and blew ballast tanks. The Chinese Kilo bobbed to the surface like a fishing cork — out of action.
Captain Buffalo Sewell called to his sonar operator, “Sonar, conn. What’s going on out there?”
“I don’t know, sir. There was a sonar ping in the direction of the Chinese Kilo, and the Kilo started cavitating heavily. Then there was an explosion, but it wasn’t near big enough to be a Mark 48 or any other known torpedo. I don’t know what it was…”
“Who…”
The sonar operator held up a finger as he listened intently to his headphones. “Sir, the Kilo is blowing ballast. They’re surfacing — dead in the water!”
“Any sign of the Louisiana?”
“No sir. Nothing resembling an Ohio-class boomer.”
“Maybe it was a minisub or someone else working with the Louisiana,” said Buffalo. “After working with George Adams for three years on the SUBLANT staff, I wouldn’t put it past him to have recruited other help with this little venture of his.”