of Cheyenne's next patrol.
Mack's earlier orders had been to patrol south of the islands, but those orders were no longer valid. His new orders were for Cheyenne to transit to a patrol area located about four hundred nautical miles to the north- deep waters with which Cheyenne was now familiar. However, the briefing officer went on, if the inbound Akulas were detected heading for the Paracels, Cheyenne was expected to cut them off before the three Akulas from the North Fleet could resupply.
Captain Mackey, his executive officer, and Cheyenne's navigator all knew that this would introduce additional hazards to their mission. At the very least, they would have to contend with the neutral shipping and the oil rigs situated off the northern slopes of the Macclesfield Bank. Cheyenne had managed to avoid those problems during the last patrol by staying south of the banks, but that was no longer an option.
After relaying that information, the briefing officer brought up some older intel, emphasizing the information contained in Cheyenne's latest message traffic. In particular, he reminded them that the Akulas were not manned by inexperienced Chinese crews, but had come complete with their normal Russian crews, experienced with their own submarines. And, the briefing officer continued, since the protests from Washington were falling on deaf ears in Russia, Cheyenne was being tasked as an instrument of diplomacy: sink the Akulas and Russia would probably stop supplying assets, ships, and men to the Chinese.
Mack spoke up at that. With the dwindling supply of torpedoes aboard McKee, the tender was practically rationing them. For this foadout, Cheyenne was receiving only twenty Mk 48s, and while he understood the rationale for it, that amount was far short of a full complement, and not enough to go against all seven Akulas.
CTF 74 agreed, but he did not authorize more torpedoes for Cheyenne. Instead, he said that if she sank four of the seven Akulas, they would be successful. Losing four new submarines and nearly four hundred of Russia's best submariners, CTF 74 said, might just fulfill Washington's diplomatic needs nicely.
Mack was disappointed. He'd been hoping for a more complete load-out. After all, the Seabees were already at work. Resurfacing the runway at Cubi Point would solve the weapons-reload problem and remove the need for rationing. In the long run, of course, it would do more than that. In the long run, it would solve the whole base resurrection problem.
Before the briefing was terminated, the executive officer asked about 'RuLings' (Russian linguists). The briefing officer replied that the NSG (naval security group) in Yokosuka had provided two RuLings to supplement the 'ChiLings' (Chinese linguists) currently with the NSG detachment aboard Cheyenne. They were brought to Subic Bay by Area. With 'hot bunking' the rule for 688s, they were prepared to hot-bunk with their counterparts.
As the briefing came to an end, the executive officer's moment arrived. He was preparing to follow Mack and the other officers back to Cheyenne when the CSS 11 commodore stopped him and told him that it was time for his qual for command board.
This was even better than the executive officer hoped. He was prepared, and he felt he was qualified, but he hadn't been looking forward to a long and difficult board. And with Cheyenne already stationing the maneuvering watch in preparation for getting under way, there simply wasn't time for an extended board.
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 Aku- las 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
