Kirov III: Pacific Storm

Chapter 26

Admiral Volsky found Fedorov on the bridge conferring with Karpov at the clear Plexiglas navigation display. He was tapping out positions with a light pen and luminous lines would appear on the glass, indicating possible courses and predictive plots.

“We have obtained some very detailed information from the KA-40,” said Fedorov. “Good HD video feed as well. Those surface contacts Rodenko reported have now been positively identified.”

“What are we facing this time, Mister Fedorov? I hope we haven’t stumbled across another carrier task force.”

“No sir, but our old nemesis is back. While we were gone the KA-40 spent a good while searching the whole region around us. It had ample time to track the movement of the carriers that attacked us at dawn. They have moved south along the Australian coast and regrouped about 160 miles northeast of Cairns. Apparently the Allies have nothing much to bother them there. B-17s do not make for very effective naval bombers. Here sir, I isolated some screen shots and I can put them up on the main monitor.”

He tapped a key at the Nav station and the main monitor now displayed a formation of four aircraft carriers. “That will be Admiral Hara, from what Nikolin has been able to ferret out of the radio traffic. Those two larger carriers are Zuikaku, and Shokaku, the smaller two are escort carriers, this one is the Zuiho,” he pointed. “The flight deck lines are very distinctive, and I matched it to photographs from my library. The other carrier looks to be Ryuho, the only ship in her class, a converted submarine tender. But the thing to note, Admiral, is the lack of aircraft on deck. Look, there’s not a single plane aboard Ryuho or Zuiho and only those four fighters are visible on Zuikaku, two more on this last carrier. They may have other aircraft below the flight deck in the hangers, but we kept a good tally of hits from the two strikes these ships mounted against us. There can be no more than fifteen planes available between all four carriers, and some of those may even be damaged.”

“That is some comfort, given the fact that we have lost our SAM umbrella.”

“Right, sir. As for the other Japanese carriers, we haven’t sorted it all out yet, but Nikolin thinks the Japanese lost their battle with the Americans off Guadalcanal.”

“More good news, at least I think that may be good. That leaves them fewer ships to send after us! Now what is the bad news?”

“Here sir…” He indicated two contacts on the board. “This is a fast cruiser group, and the name Iwabuchi has been heard in the radio traffic. Two of those ships were in his screening force, Nachi and Myoko. We engaged them near Melville Island, but the Captain held them at bay with our deck guns. This other ship is the cruiser Tone, very fast at 36 knots, and with four twin 8 inch gun turrets, all mounted forward of the main bridge. Her entire aft deck area was used to mount up to six sea planes. This is a classic high speed scout ship, sir. Without our SAMs to destroy those search planes the enemy will find and mark our position very easily. And I believe this Captain Iwabuchi off the Kirishima may have transferred his flag to Tone. He may be a bit reckless, sir, and he is now steering on a course to block our further passage southeast, with some rather formidable company.”

Fedorov indicated a second contact point almost due east of their present position. “These ships have been moving southwest from the Solomons for some time. The KA-40 spotted them at 10:00 this morning while we were still…elsewhere. The hours we lost this morning were hours this force gained. We might have easily slipped by them earlier but now I fear this group is also in a position to intercept us.” He tapped the Plexiglas screen and two predictive plot lines vectored out to a point to the southwest, and a bright red dot appeared, winking on and off.

“If we hold to this course they will cut us off right there.”

“What is this second group composed of?”

“One battleship, three cruisers and three destroyers. It’s the battleship that worries me, sir…the Yamato.”

Volsky had heard of the ship, and he folded his arms, concerned as Fedorov continued.

“The largest battleship ever built, sir, excepting her sister ship Musashi. She was nearly 72,000 tons fully loaded. That was 27,000 tons more than the American Iowa Class battleships, and more than twice our displacement. She has nine 18.1 inch guns, in turrets so heavy they would weigh as much as a typical destroyer of this era. They can range out to 45,000 meters at full elevation, though it isn’t likely to hit anything at that range. I believe the longest hit ever recorded by a battleship on a moving target was at just over 26,000 yards. So we can hit her before she gets too close, but that said, this was one of the best protected ships ever built. She has 650 millimeters of armor on those gun turrets. That’s twenty-six inches thick, sir.”

“650 millimeters?”

“Yes, sir. The US Navy conducted ballistic tests on that face plate after the war using a turret that had been built for the Shinano, another ship in this class, and they found that it required nearly point blank range to fully penetrate using a 16 inch armor piercing shell. They concluded that at normal ranges there was no naval gun then in service that could penetrate it. As for side armor, her main belt was 450 millimeters, and she had 200 millimeter deck armor as well.”

“Her decks are as thick as our armored citadel?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. This ship is a veritable floating fortress of steel. And for all that she was relatively fast at 27 knots.”

“Thank God for small favors,” said Volsky. “At least we can outrun that monster at thirty-two knots.”

“Yes sir, but every one of these other ships can match or exceed our speed. If they release the hounds on us, they will catch us, and we simply do not have the missiles left to take on six cruisers and three destroyers, let alone face down this battleship. And one more thing, sir. Yamato will most likely be commanded by a very distinguished guest. It was formerly Combined Fleet Headquarters at Truk, and Admiral Yamamoto is likely to be aboard at this very moment.”

“I don’t suppose he might like to have a little chat with me either,” said Volsky. “No, we are not going to talk ourselves out of this one. I just had a lengthy discussion with Doctor Zolkin. It seems we have a choice now, to go to full battle speed and try to outrun these ships in space, or to ask Dobrynin to run his maintenance routine again and try to slip away in time. The catch is this: Dobrynin cannot complete his procedure if the ship is making more than ten knots. So we have a difficult decision here, gentlemen. What will it be?”

“Why don’t we reverse course,” said Karpov. “We are over 100 miles from each group at the moment. That’s a considerable lead, particularly if we can make thirty-two knots after the procedure.”

“It would mean we have to transit the Torres Strait again, and perhaps our own minefield is still in place there.” Fedorov was not enthusiastic about that prospect.

“Hopefully the Japanese will not get curious and manage to get their hands on one,” said the Admiral.

“Another thing, sir. There was a heavy bombardment group in the Darwin operations. Nikolin managed to get the names from Australian radio traffic, the Mutsu and Nagato were identified and said to be moving east away from Darwin. Mutsu was part of first Battleship Division based at Truk. These ships may be returning via the Coral Sea and, though they are slow, they could easily block the Torres Strait. Then we have another fight on our hands, this time with two battleships.”

“Not very appealing,” said Volsky.

“Then what about turning due north,” Karpov suggested. “That would leave these cruisers we faced earlier well to the south and out of the action. We could only be intercepted by the Yamato group. It might give us better odds.”

“True,” said Fedorov, “But then we would have to pass between Milne Bay here and the Louisiade Archipelago, and enter the Solomon Sea. North from there the way is blocked by the Bismarck Barrier, and the big Japanese base at Rabaul. We would have Yamato on our tail and be trapped in some very dangerous waters, most likely subject to land based air strikes and even submarine attacks. Moving north would set off a lot of alarm bells. It’s right into the middle of their main defensive perimeter.”