The board turned out to be even shorter than he’d dreamed. It consisted of the commodore relaying a message from the chief of naval personnel designating him “qualified for command.” The executive officer hadn’t known it, but Cheyenne’s successes and the respect that Washington had for her captain had allowed the chain of command to take a few shortcuts in protocol. The commodore could have placed this on the earlier broadcast, but he hadn’t because he had wanted to surprise the executive officer.
This didn’t mean that the executive officer was ready to leave Cheyenne for a command of his own. They needed to finish this war with China first so that he could start the command schooling route — which was one protocol that would not be circumvented.
Cheyenne got under way in a rainsquall. The weather had little effect on the SSN other than limiting visibility during her surface transit to the dive point west of the eighty-five-degree water of Subic Bay. Cheyenne’s navigation radar had been tweaked and peaked by the navigation ETs in order to handle this event — providing that no Chinese warships were around to detect the radar’s emissions.
Mindful of the danger, Mack decided to limit the power on the navigation radar, keeping it to only what was needed to detect the nearby landmasses. That meant that Cheyenne would have to rely on ESM to detect any incoming surface ship radars. Mack was counting on the fact that Subic Bay had become a ghost town, with almost no traffic in and out.
Subic Bay, it seemed, was about the only place in the area that had little traffic. During dinner that night, as his officers ate quickly, Mack said to them, “We once again have our work cut out for us. With that many quiet Akulas staring us in the face, we’ll need to be innovative in our attacks. We may have to learn how to flush them out. And we won’t have much chance to rest before it’s time to man battle stations.”
He was right. Sonar had already reported weak tonals from an Akula to the north. As Mack arrived at the conn after dinner, the section fire control tracking party announced that the initial rough range had been established as 75,000 yards. Mack acknowledged the report and ordered the OOD to man battle stations torpedo.
There was still no sign of the rest of the Russian submarines. Just the one set of low frequency tonals, most likely from an Akula — one with sound shorts to its turbine generator.
The captain passed the order for the torpedo room to “Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening the outer doors.” It was Cheyenne’s routine to make the tubes ready as early as possible and as far from the enemy submarine as possible, but it was even more important when facing the quiet Akulas.
The Akula class carried its own towed arrays. Intel had not been able to learn much about its sensor capability, so Mack had to make his own assumptions about it. He had already decided to play it safe and assume that it was equivalent to at least a TB-16 array and a BQQ-5A sonar capability, the first of the U.S. submarine force digital sonar systems.
The acknowledgment of his order came quickly over the sound powered phone. “Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening the outer doors, fire control, torpedo room, aye.”
Confirmation followed moments later, and the executive officer informed the captain that the ordered evolution with the torpedo tubes had been completed. “Captain, tubes one and two are ready in all respects. Both outer doors are open.”
“Very well, fire control,” Mack replied.
Cheyenne had faced a number of foes already, and in some of the encounters she’d gotten lucky. This wasn’t one of those times.
The Akula was tracking to the west, which put its towed array in a more optimal position for detection than Cheyenne, whose array was trained optimally only when they zigged and zagged while approaching the Akula. Cheyenne was closing the range, intending to intercept with a fire-control solution before the Akula could reach the banks, where it would be acoustically shielded. Mack knew that the other Akulas had to be out there as well, but Cheyenne could not detect them. They remained silent, deadly holes in the ocean.
The Akula continued drawing left as Cheyenne closed. It was still showing up only as sonar tonals, with no contact from the spherical or conformal arrays. But that was enough.
The TB-23 inputs to the three BSY-1 computer consoles, augmented by Cheyenne’s course changes, made the solution possible for the fire-control party. When the BSY-1 operator and the fire-control coordinator were satisfied with the TMA (target-motion analysis) solution on Master 74, the Russian Akula II SSN, the captain ordered, “Firing point procedures, Master 74.”
The combat systems officer reported the target course as 270, speed eight, and range 22,500 yards.
“Sonar, conn, stand by,” Mack ordered.
“Conn, sonar, standing by.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, aye.”
There was a brief pause and then the combat systems officer said, “Tubes one and two fired electrically.”
“Conn, sonar, units from tubes one and two running hot, straight, and normal,” the sonar supervisor reported as the two torpedoes executed their wire-clearance maneuvers and accelerated to slow speed for the long inbound run.
“Sonar, conn, aye,” Mack replied.
At dinner earlier, he had told his officers they might have to be innovative against the Akulas. He hadn’t forgotten. “Take charge and steer the weapons,” he said. “Unit one off course thirty degrees to the right and unit two off course thirty degrees to the left.”
The fire-control party immediately knew what Mack had in mind, and they loved it. When the torpedoes were close enough for passive acquisition, they would be steered back in the opposite direction. Upon acquisition, the incoming torpedoes would make it appear that they had come from two separate U.S. submarines, lurking to the west and the east, instead of only Cheyenne closing from the south.
“Time to turn the units?” Mack asked.
“Twenty-three minutes, forty-five seconds, Captain,” the combat systems officer replied.
The torpedoes were turned on cue, bearing down on the Akula. To increase their chances, one torpedo led the target while the other lagged slightly behind.
“Time to acquisition?” Mack asked the combat systems officer.
“Nine minutes, Captain.”
That was his best guess, and it was wrong. Only five minutes had elapsed when the combat systems officer announced, “Unit two has acquired.” A moment later he added, “Unit one has acquired, but it’s not Master 74.”
That could mean only one thing: the torpedoes had each detected a different Akula — the one they had first targeted and a bonus. Mack didn’t have time to celebrate. “Cut the wires, shut the outer doors, and reload tubes one and two,” he ordered.
The silent ocean didn’t stay silent for long. “Conn, sonar,” the sonar supervisor said with tension in his voice, “we have two torpedoes in the water, bearings 350 and 010.”
Mack smiled to himself as he heard the bearings. The Russian CO had launched snapshots at the bearings of the incoming torpedoes, but Mack’s ploy had worked. The Russian torpedoes were not headed for Cheyenne.
“Conn, sonar, the hornets’ nest is emptying.” Six new contacts on the spherical array as well as Master 74 indicated that the Akulas were running for it. But they were also turning to the south to avoid the easterly and westerly bearings of the invading Mk 48s. Spherical-array depression-angle changes indicated they were also coming down to Cheyenne’s depth zone.