Anthony took a punch for that mistake. Thank god there were no casualties.”
The Admiral nodded, thinking that he had been a bit sloppy in this business up until now and wanting to get on top of the situation. He had orders to engage a cruiser, yet only to shadow if this were anything bigger. What was out there? Anthony had been hit by a fairly small caliber gun, enough to warn her off but not enough to do much damage. If this were Tirpitz he could understand why she might refrain from using her big 15 inch guns on a small, fast moving target. If it were Hipper or another cruiser, she might well have fired her 8 inch guns, but apparently did not. Her captain even reported the ship signaled him in English. What was that all about?
The very first report he had on this contact still stuck in his mind. The pilot said he could see no big turrets that would be obvious on a cruiser or anything larger. He did note several smaller guns, and at one point seemed to indicate the ship’s forward deck was covered with cargo hatches. Could this be another fast German commercial raider disguised as a merchant ship? They had been a persistent nuisance, like Raider-C, the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis. That ship looked like nothing more than a tramp steamer until it opened up with its six 5.9 inch naval guns.
On the other hand, the report from Anthony seemed to suggest this was a fairly large ship, and all those descriptions spoke of the threatening nature of her design and silhouette. He had to make up his mind, and decided if this was commercial traffic, all he had to lose by ordering a strike was a little aviation fuel. Yet if this were a German raider, then he stood to lose very much more if he let her slip away.
“Signal Furious,” he said quietly. “Have them spot an Albacore squadron first thing in the morning. We’ll keep steady on this intercept course and close the range somewhat tonight. Grenfell’s fighters can send out two radar equipped Fulmars to keep watch, but I want them at the extreme range of their equipment. Let’s not lose anyone else until we can coordinate a decent strike plan, and for that we’ll better light. Tomorrow morning we’ll get out there and have a look at this contact with something that can settle the matter if this is a German ship.”
“Very good, sir,” said Bovell. “Up here that won’t be far off. I’ll see that the men are ready.”
Just after dawn on August 2nd, Admiral Volsky had little time to wonder what his weapons might do to successive generations. Rodenko's radars had spotted a substantial incoming contact, twenty four planes inbound at a fairly low altitude.
“It looks like we were too late getting a missile on that first contact,” said Karpov. “They have seen us and this is an obvious strike wave. We should engage it at long-range with the S-300 system as before. They will never know what hit them.”
Admiral Volsky considered that advice, but his thoughts strayed to his ammunition stores. His S-300 missiles were located up front, on the elevated forward prow of the ship, and mounted in vertical launch tubes, sixty-four missiles in all. He had used one to shoot down the enemy radar picket, and if he used the system again now in a normal barrage of sixteen or twenty-four missiles he would expend more than a third of his missile inventory for this battery. Once they were gone the ship would have to rely on its medium-range missile defense, or close in gun systems should they be attacked from the air again.
Modern combat at sea had been compressed into a few violent minutes and seconds where opposing forces would fling their arsenal of missiles at each other, with a decision final enough to end the conflict within the hour. Yet it was not hours, but long days, months, even years ahead for them that he had to think about now. Once these missiles were expended there would be no others to replace them. Yet he could not allow a single one of these planes to launch a torpedo that might have the slightest chance of striking Kirov. Their war had begun in earnest now, and he had little choice but to fire.
“Mister Fedorov was correct,” he said in a low voice. “The British can only assume we are German, and they are acting accordingly. Of course, we will have to defend the ship, but I’m afraid if we keep on this course there will just be more of the same ahead for us.” He shrugged, somewhat disconsolate, then turned to his weapons watch officer. “Mister Samsonov,” he said, his voice intoning an obvious authorization.
Samsonov's systems could track and target a hundred separate contacts, but considering the large explosive warhead on these missiles, the Admiral decided to limit his outgoing salvo to a barrage of six. If these planes were flying in formation, he might take down several with a single missile.
“Arm six S-300 missiles, Mister Samsonov. Only six,” he repeated. “You may fire when the range is appropriate.”
“Sir, I have seven missiles left in the first module, shall I use them all?”
“Six please. Hold one missile in reserve.”
“Aye, sir,” said Samsonov. “Engaging target in ten seconds.”
He was toggling switches, selecting out his missile bank, and locking in the radar signatures being fed into the Combat Information Center. A moment later he fired. There was a warning claxon and again they watched the nose of the ship ignite in a wash of billowing smoke as missiles catapulted up from their enclosures, ignited their engines and lanced up and away into the gray sky ahead of them.
As before, the British pilots in their old biplane Albacore's had little time to think when they first caught sight of strange white contrails streaking in toward their position. Nikolin was listening to see if he could pick up any radio communications from the strike group, and clearly heard the voices of men shouting as the missiles struck home. “Bloody hell,” he heard them say. “What in god's name is that?”
Seconds later Rodenko noted the missiles struck home and sent the signal contacts spiraling off in all directions as if they had thrown a stone into a beehive. The salvo had taken a bite out of the main group of eighteen planes he had been tracking, and of these only eight now remained. The others were dancing about with evasive maneuvers, and a second group had branched off and was now also scattering in all directions. Nikolin could hear them calling to one another, their voices strained and desperate, trying to make sense out of what had happened.
The planes were now about seventy-five miles from Kirov, their crews straining their necks this way that, eyes scanning the gray sea ahead, thinking to see an enemy ship blazing away at them with its antiaircraft guns. Yet the seas were dark and empty, and the pilots were frantically steering their planes into any covering clouds they could get to, unaware of the fact that this made no difference to their fate whatsoever. Kirov was seeing them with other eyes, it's radars penetrating even the thickest cloud cover to clearly pinpoint their positions on Rodenko's screens.
“Have the contacts changed heading?” asked the Admiral.
“We've shaken them up, sir,” said Rodenko, “but they are still inbound.”
“One more missile, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral.”You may finish off that last tube now.”
Samsonov fired, and the last S-300 rocketed away toward the unseen enemy. Minutes later it exploded taking down yet another plane, and the Admiral was pleased to learn this last missile had had the effect desired. Nikolin turned to him, his eyes bright with a smile.
“I believe they're breaking off, sir,” he said. “I can hear them!”
“Confirmed,” said Rodenko. “They are turning. The contact is moving away from the ship now, outbound on a heading of zero-nine-five. They are still within range, sir.”
“That will be all, Mister Samsonov,” said the Admiral. “Secure the S-300 system and await further orders.”
“Finish them off, Admiral,” said Karpov. “Destroy them now, or they may be back to bother us again.”
Volsky looked at him. “Perhaps, but they will be some time trying to discover exactly what has happened to them just now. I do not think they will bother us again today. Helm, increase speed to thirty knots.”
“Speed thirty knots,” the helmsman replied, and Kirov ’ s powerful engines increased rotations and churned the seas with a frothing white wake. As she did so one of the escorting Fulmars had a good look at her with its Type 279 Radar, and tapped out a fix on her position, course and speed.
What in god’s name was out there, thought Wake-Walker? His 828 Squadron had been cut to pieces. It was worse than that. Of the nine planes in that squadron, only one was left. Three more Albacore in his 827 Squadron had also been destroyed. His first thought was that the strike group had lumbered right over the contact without even seeing it, and had been cut to pieces by lethal and accurate antiaircraft fire. But when the report came in from one of the escorting Fulmars that they still had a reading on the target at a range of seventy-five miles, his mind spun off into confusion.
His strike group was badly shaken, clearly demoralized, broken up, and turning for home. It was apparent
