The Chief Engineer was nodding now. “We can configure the engineering plant for turn-count masking. If we run one engine a little faster that the other one and offset the difference in thrust by angling the blades of the propellers differently, we’ll get a loud, mushy blade signature. With a bit of experimentation, I’ll bet we can make ourselves sound like an old tanker with a poorly maintained screw.”
Ensign Cooper tugged at his lower lip. “This is all well and good, as long as the subs show up in the evening, at or after sunset. What if they turn up at lunchtime? By the chief ’s calculations, that could happen if they run at high speed. We might fool them with tricky lighting after dark, but no amount of fan dancing can make a destroyer look like a merchant ship in broad daylight.”
“It’s a risk, sir,” Chief McPherson said, “but a calculated risk. Once they make it out of the straits and into the gulf, it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to find them. They’ll have a lot more room to maneuver, and a lot more places to hide. Our best chance is to bottle them up before they get out of the straits, and they know that as well as we do. They’ve got to be expecting us to try for a choke point at the northern end of the straits.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Ensign Cooper said. “But what’s to stop them from running the choke point at high noon?”
“Sub skippers don’t like to attack when visibility is good,” the chief said. “It’s too easy for a lookout to spot a periscope, or for an aircraft to see the silhouette of the sub’s hull through the water. Given the choice, a submarine commander will either attack after dark, or as close to sunrise or sunset as he can get. The human eye has trouble picking out detail under changing light conditions.”
Ensign Cooper nodded. “They hit the Brits after dark, and they hit us after dark. When did they hit the Kitty Hawk?”
“Just as the sun was coming up,” the executive officer said.
“So they’ll probably try to run the choke point after the sun goes down?” the ensign asked.
“That’s what we’re hoping, sir,” the chief said. “As I said, it’s a calculated risk. If they decide to crash the party early, we shoot about a dozen ASROCs in their general direction to keep their heads down, and we run like hell.”
“Fair enough,” the ensign said.
The Combat Systems Officer looked thoughtful. “We should lay a sonobuoy barrier to the south,” she said. “Passive buoys only, so the subs won’t be able to detect them. The subs will have to pass through the barrier to transit the straits, and we’ll see them coming.”
“We’d need to launch a helo to monitor the buoys,” the XO said.
The captain shook his head. “Negative. No helos. The Germans have displayed an excellent ability to localize low-flying aircraft from the sound of their rotors. I don’t want to take a chance at tipping our hand. One sniff of a helo and those subs will be alerted.”
“What if we don’t launch it?” the Operations Officer asked. “If we’re in the mood to be tricky, why don’t we leave the helo on deck, lights out, and rotors not turning? The flight crew can sit in the helo and monitor the buoys in the dark, right from the flight deck. If they keep their engines spun up for a rapid launch, they could still be at Ready-Five.”
“Yeah,” said the CHENG, “but they’ll be burning fuel the whole time they sit there. What if we have to launch, and the helo’s nearly out of gas?”
“We could hot-pump the helo,” Ensign Cooper said. Hot-pumping was a method of refueling helicopters on deck, with their engines running and their rotors still turning. It was a technique most often used when a helo needed to land, take on fuel, and get back into the air as quickly as possible. “The rotors are usually spinning when we hot-pump a helo,” he said, “but there’s no reason that they have to be.”
“Good point,” the captain said. “We’ll keep their tanks topped off constantly. If we do have to launch, they’ll have a full bag of fuel.”
The discussion continued for another fifteen minutes before it became clear that they were rehashing the same ideas. The captain looked around the table. “Anybody see any good reasons why this plan won’t work?”
No one said a word.
“Does anyone have a better idea, or a refinement that we haven’t discussed?”
Again, no one had anything to say.
The captain stood up. “All right, then. I’ll run through this with the COs of Benfold and Ingraham, and give them a chance to poke holes in it.
But unless one of them thinks of something that we missed entirely, this is the plan we run with.”
CHAPTER 37
Auxiliary Machinery Room #3 was a labyrinth of piping, pumps, relay panels, and electrical junction boxes. The compartment was home to several critical engineering systems, including high- and low-pressure air compressors, the fresh-water distillers of the potable water system, and #4 and #5 fire pumps. But through the center of the maze ran the most important piece of equipment in the compartment: the propeller shaft, known to the engineering crew who maintained it as simply the shaft.
Over two feet in diameter, the huge steel shaft performed much the same function as the drive shaft on a car, only instead of carrying power from the transmission to the rear axle, this shaft carried power from the ship’s main reduction gears to the screw that drove the ship through the water.
Gas Turbine System Technician — Mechanical Third Class Michael Carpenter laid his hand against the housing for the line shaft bearing that supported the shaft. He could feel the throbbing vibration of the huge propeller, right through the thick steel housing of the bearing’s oil sump.
Of all the spaces on the ship, this was where you could feel the power of the turbines the best. You could hear it better in the Main Engine Room, where even the acoustic enclosures could not eliminate the jet engine scream of the twin General Electric LM-2500 gas turbines. But you could feel it better here, in AMR #3.
Standing in the bilge next to the line shaft bearing, with only about a half-inch of steel hull plating between his feet and the ocean, Carpenter could feel the hiss and rumble of the water as it passed under the hull. Just a few yards aft of where he was standing, the tremendous bronze screw churned the water into froth as it drove the ship forward.
The sample valve was located on the bottom of the oil sump. Carpenter unclipped the locking arm from the hand wheel of the sample valve and pulled a glass sample bottle from the left hip pocket of his coveralls. As Engineering Messenger of the Watch, part of his job was to take regular oil samples from key pieces of engineering equipment. The oil lab, which operated twenty-four hours a day, would test the samples for seawater, metal filings, dirt, or other contamination that could degrade the lubricating property of the oil. Carpenter opened the valve a crack and waited as the dark amber liquid began to ooze into his sample bottle. Hot oil-scented air surged up from the open valve, the signature aroma of heavy machinery at work.
Something flew past his head and ricocheted off the bearing housing. It startled him, and he jerked away involuntarily. The object fell into the bilge. It was a balled up piece of paper.
Carpenter turned in time to dodge a second paper projectile that was also aimed at his head. Standing a few feet away was Seaman Wayne Harris, a general wise-ass and Carpenter’s best friend.