For some brief part of a second, the thermal pulse of the explosion heated structural supports and hull plating into the ductility range of steel, robbing the hardened metal of its tensile strength. Simultaneously, all support beneath the hull was taken away by the expanding bubble of vaporized water. The overpressure of the shock wave finished the job.
The destroyer was ripped in half, with both of the mangled sections pummeled repeatedly by massive hydrostatic shock reverberations.
There would be fire, and shrapnel, and the screams of dying sailors, but none of those horrors were visible through the curtain of smoke and falling water.
And there was no more time to watch, because it was USS Bowie’s turn to fight.
An armored hatch sprang open on the destroyer’s aft missile deck, revealing a weatherproof membrane that capped the top of a vertical missile cell. The membrane disintegrated a millisecond later as the Bowie’s Vertical Launch Antisubmarine Rocket (ASROC) roared out of its cell and hurtled into the night sky on a silver-orange column of flame and smoke.
Code-named Anvil, the ASROC’s flight profile was decidedly unlike that of other missiles. Instead of blasting toward an aerial intercept point, or dropping toward the waves for a sea-skimming trajectory, the ASROC tilted over to forty-five degrees and climbed toward the apex of a pre-calculated ballistic arc.
At an altitude of ten thousand feet, it reached the top of the curve, and several things happened in quick succession. A pair of explosive blocks in the airframe detonated, shattering the stainless steel bands that clamped the missile body together.
The fiberglass aeroshell split into two halves, which were torn apart by aerodynamic drag and flung in opposite directions. The ASROC flew to pieces, exactly as it was designed to do. Out of this expanding assortment of discarded components dropped the missile’s payload: a flight-configured Mark-54 torpedo.
From an engineering perspective, the ASROC was a hodgepodge of dissimilar technologies, cobbled together in a fashion that would have made Rube Goldberg proud. According to persistent rumors among the ASW community, the weapon’s code-name had been inspired by classic Chuck Jones cartoons in which the hapless Wile E. Coyote devised improbable contraptions to drop anvils on the head of his animated nemesis, the Road Runner.
Whether or not the rumor happened to be true, ASROC was a surprisingly effective standoff weapon — capable of throwing a lightweight antisubmarine torpedo many thousands of yards with remarkable accuracy.
Freed from the junkyard of parts that it no longer needed, the Anvil’s torpedo fell toward the sea, completing the second half of the ballistic curve.
When the weapon dropped past two thousand feet, a parachute deployed from the tail section, throwing the torpedo into a nose-down attitude and slowing its rate of descent just enough to survive collision with the water.
The weapon hit the ocean hard enough to fracture its nosecone along a set of pre-scored stress lines. The collapse of this last remnant of aerodynamic fuselage absorbed some of the impact shock, and protected the fragile sonar transducer in the head of the torpedo.
As the Mark-54 sank into the ocean, seawater flowed in through tiny vents, activating the saltwater batteries. The torpedo’s internal computer cycled itself online and began routing battery power to the sensors, the main electrical bus, and the guidance module.
When the pre-start logics had all been satisfied, the computer spun up the turbine engine. The guidance module performed a quick evaluation of orientation and depth, and then initiated a clockwise search pattern.
The sonar transducer and seeker logic had no trouble locating the noisy target. The torpedo locked on to the submarine’s broadband acoustic signature and accelerated to attack speed.
“USWE — Sonar. We have weapon startup. Anvil has acquired the target.”
Ordinarily that report would have elicited cheers and whistles among the CIC crew, but the watch standers were stunned by what had just happened to the Mahan.
There wasn’t much to cheer about anyway. On the CDRT and the tactical displays, USS Bowie’s Anvil changed from a water entry point symbol to a friendly-torpedo symbol and began to move. It lagged behind the enemy sub from the start, losing ground just as quickly as the Mahan’s weapon had done.
The cross-fixes were gone now. Mahan had lost sonar contact somewhere amid the speed and frantic turns of her crack-the-whip maneuver.
The lone line of bearing from the Bowie’s sonar continued to drive left, sweeping counterclockwise like the secondhand of a clock running in reverse. Gremlin Zero-One was still moving at incredible speed.
Then the strange contact was suddenly absent from the sonar scopes. Just like in the earlier encounter, the powerful broadband signature evaporated without warning, as if someone had pulled a plug, or flipped an ‘off’ switch.
Heller’s eyes went back to the topside camera displays. The forward half of USS Mahan had capsized and was foundering. The aft section of the ship was on fire, and going down quickly by the stern.
A few miles to the southwest, the Motor Vessel Lecticula had crossed the blockade line and was continuing on course for Cuba at an unwavering eighteen knots.
For a half-moment, Heller thought about trying to chase down the hostile submarine, but that would be futile. He already knew the sub could outrun his ship. Even if the Bowie managed to get within ASROC or over-the-side torpedo range, the submarine would activate its supercav drive and leave Heller’s weapons in the dust.
Besides, there were two more pressing matters to attend to. Luckily, Heller’s crew could handle both of them at one time.
He keyed his mike. “Bridge — Captain. Close to within five-hundred yards of USS Mahan and start the search for survivors. Break. TAO — Captain. The Motor Vessel Lecticula is now designated as Hostile Surface Contact Zero One. You have batteries released. Engage and kill contact with Mount 61! Kill that son of a bitch! Kill it now!”
CHAPTER 19
The Steel Wind slowed to normal operating speed. The gimbaled rocket nozzle in the submarine’s stern and the capillary vents in her bow fell silent.
Without a continual flow of steam from the vents, the gas envelope shrunk and then collapsed, increasing hydrodynamic drag on the hull by a factor of nine just as the rocket’s exhaust was throttling back to zero.
A trio of much slower (and much quieter) electrically-driven impeller pods took over the job of propulsion and steering. Once again, the wild ride was over. Her first combat engagement had been a total success, with the burning wreckage of the American destroyer as proof.
In the taxonomy of warships, the Steel Wind was an anomaly. She did not fit into any of the established categories of combatant vessels. Her builders had no intention of replicating the concept in future constructions, so she was not the lead boat of a new class. She was operationally deployed and fully combat-ready, so she could not be considered a test platform or a prototype. She had no hull number, no vessel registry identifier, and no distinguishing markings of any kind. Her only designation was Kang Chul Poong, an obscure Korean phrase which translated roughly as wind of steel.