Each underdeck canister in the system held eight missiles, though the radars had been designed to prosecute no more than four simultaneous targets per canister. Klinok was, therefore, designed to double team each contact, allowing for two missiles to vector in on the target to assure its destruction. But given the circumstances, Kirov did not have the luxury of expending its vital munitions in such an extravagant manner.
“Ready, Samsonov? These will be single fire scenarios. No barrage. I want each missile to track and acquire before we fire the next, clear?”
“Aye, sir. Switching to single fire mode and all systems report ready.”
“Hold fire until they are inside twenty kilometers.”
“The radars were acquiring targets well beyond that, but the missiles would be much more effective inside that shorter range envelope.
Samsonov began to key missiles to targets with quick taps of his light pen on the screen. This was modern combat. He was not hunched in the pilot seat like his enemy, listening to the roar of his plane’s engines as they surged ahead through the wild missile fires, their hands and feet tight on the yoke and throttle, faces set and grim. Instead he sat in an air conditioned room, tapping glass to glass on a computer controlled data screen, quietly completing all his missile assignments.
Karpov turned and nodded in his direction.
“You may begin.”
~ ~ ~ When the next round of missiles came they seemed sleeker, more deliberate, their contrails fine lines in the sky as they reached for the planes. First one came, and it sought out a D3A Val. The pilot spun away, tipping over and trying put his plane into an evasive dive, but the missile would not be fooled. It maneuvered in a tight turn and struck the plane full on, obliterating it in a bright orange and black explosion.
Another and another came up for them, a slow, deliberate procession of contrails in the sky. Hayashi heard a shout of ‘bonzai’ in his ear and saw three A6M2 Rei-sen fighters veer off to head for the missiles, as if they might dogfight them. Their powerful engines and superior speed sent them surging ahead of the main body of strike planes, where they quickly gained the attention of the lead missile. The computer brains in the missiles adapted, re-acquired, and targeted the Zeros. All three planes died spectacular deaths, one by one, and then three more vapor thin contrails arced up at them as the deadly game continued.
Kirov traded eighteen missiles for planes in the attack. Every missile fired found a plane, but the inventory also fell to a dangerous low of only nineteen missiles remaining. Eight Vals, four Kates and six brave Zeros died, leaving only the three that had been assigned to Hayashi as his personal escort. Before it was over Hoashi, and Ichihara were dead, both squadron leaders off Shokaku, but all the other buntaicho leaders survived. The strike wave had been largely destroyed. Only twenty- eight strike planes and three fighters remained, and the Japanese would have had a much more satisfactory result by simply bailing out to save their pilots once they crossed into the lethal target envelope of the missiles, but that factor was simply not in the equation for them. They pressed on, thirty one planes now able to see and target their enemy for the first time.
They were ten miles out and coming fast, and Hayashi heard Sakamoto shouting orders to his widely dispersed shotai. The dive bombers would come down from their present altitude, though Sakamoto was taking his section up to 15,000 feet to overview the attack. The last eight torpedo bombers were taking an everyman for himself strategy, and diving to lower altitudes to approach from all compass headings.
Hayashi and his three fighter escorts were somewhere in the midst of it all now, and he signaled to those planes nearest to him. “Stay with me. We’ll all go in together, brothers, Jinrai Butai!”
There was an agonizing wait as the planes drew ever closer to the dark ship below them, then Sakamoto gave the order and the Aichi D3As tilted their noses into the gleaming sun and started to dive with shouts and curses and exclamations of bonzai! The attack was finally pressing home, with fewer than half as many planes that took off from the carriers.
~ ~ ~ Karpov immediately engaged the same system he had used earlier to repulse the first surprise dive bomber strike—the deadly Kashtans. The missile element of the system sent up sixteen rockets in two barrages of eight. Traveling at nearly 3000 feet per second, they were quick to the targets just after the planes began their dives.
The first planes were hit, some by two missiles at once, and sent spinning wildly out of control. One had a wing sheared off, which in turn was struck by another missile and incinerated. In all the sixteen rockets claimed another twelve Vals, leaving only eight intrepid planes who got close enough to try and drop their bombs. Of these the lethal Gatling Guns rattled out death and destruction for three. Five bombs were actually released, two were from Squadron Leaders Ema and Sakamoto, and they straddled Kirov with two near misses that shook the ship very hard and sent steel fragments into systems along the lower port side weather deck. The other three bombs fell wide off the mark, while the AR-710 main Gatling gun systems were quickly engaging the eight torpedo bombers with sharp, deadly bursts of riveting fire. Of these, six were knocked down on approach, and only two got close enough to release their torpedoes, which ran wide of the mark, being poorly aimed in the frantic energy of the battle.
Then Hayashi and his three Zeros came screaming in, and the Kashtans rotated their long black barrels to train on the targets. The horrid whir and sharp rattle of the guns split the air and the whine of the oncoming planes seemed a terrible agony. Two of the three Zeros were struck and on fire, their engines riddled with 30mm shells, power lost and sent into steep unrecoverable dives. But Hayashi kept on, he was very close now and should have quickly released his bomb, but his face was set in a deadly mask and he opened the throttle full out, forsaking his dive brakes. Then he felt his lumbering plane hit first on one wing, then another, astonished to see segments of both wings sheared right off. The stick jolted in his hands but he was no longer concerned to aim or deliver his bomb. Instead he struggled with all his might to keep the plane aimed at the enemy ship, and then the last of the Thunder Gods, the brave Jinrai Butai, the last plane off Zuiho, rode his flaming D3A right into the heart of the ship.
Lt. Ema had managed to evade the awful close in Gatling fire, only because his plane had not yet been targeted, and he was skimming low on the water, craning his neck over his right shoulder when he saw Hayashi’s brave dive. There was a massive explosion, just aft of the second tower where the Fregat 3D radar system rotated fitfully to trace the battle out in milky green screens on the main bridge. Smoke and fire broiled up from the heart of the ship.
“Bonzai, Hayashi!” he yelled “Bonzai!”
The first to find and hit Kirov was now the last, and Hayashi had scored one more vindicating blow in trade for the lives and planes of Hara’s entire strike wing.
The battle was over.
