Sea of Shadows

CHAPTER 51

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF (OFF THE COAST OF SIRAJ) TUESDAY; 22 MAY

0358 hours (3:58 AM)

TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’

The helo pilot’s voice came over the Navy Red speaker in Combat Information Center, “SAU Commander, this is Firewalker Two-Six. I am up for Towers control. My fuel state is three hours plus four zero minutes.

Three souls aboard. My load-out is one Mark-54 torpedo and a mixed rack of sonobuoys, over.”

“Roger, Firewalker,” Chief McPherson said. “Proceed to your fly-to points and begin seeding your buoys. You are at the edge of Siraji airspace, so keep your eyes peeled and don’t wander outside our missile envelope. You might get some company up there, over.”

“This is Firewalker Two-Six. Copy all. Roger, out.”

The chief switched her comm-set from Navy Red to the USW tactical net. “Sonar — USWE. Go active. Stay sharp and change your equipment lineup every couple of minutes until we find the combination that gives us contact.”

“Sonar, aye.”

The chief looked at the CDRT and ran through the tactical situation in her mind. She wanted to be sure that she hadn’t missed anything.

Navy Red warbled. “Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. I hate to follow the president’s pep talk with bad news, but intelligence estimates indicate that you are steaming into a Siraji minefield, over.”

The XO looked up. “A minefield? How much more good news can we stand?”

“Tell me about it,” the captain said. He keyed up Navy Red. “COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. Understand my unit is steaming into a minefield. Request estimated boundaries of the field and any known safe transit lanes, over.”

“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. I am transmitting boundaries of the minefield to you now. There are currently no known safe transit lanes, and I do not have time to get a mine sweeper up there before you encounter the field, over.”

The XO snorted. “This just keeps getting better.”

The TAO said, “Captain, the parameters of the minefield just showed up in the link.”

An irregular geometric shape appeared on the Aegis display screens, a series of thin red lines connected at each end to form a lopsided trapezoid off the coast of the port city of Zubayr. The NTDS symbol for Towers showed the destroyer a little less than a mile and a half south of the edge of the minefield.

“Nothing like cutting it close,” the XO said. “They could have waited another six minutes or so, and we’d have found out by ourselves.”

The captain keyed up Navy Red. “COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. I am in receipt of your minefield coordinates. I would have liked to have known about this sooner. I almost steamed into this thing blind, over.”

“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. Sorry about that. We just confirmed this info about two minutes ago. You were the first to know, over.”

“COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. Roger, out.” The captain punched out of Navy Red and walked over to Chief McPherson at the CDRT.

“How are we looking, Chief?”

The chief tapped the screen with her fingertip. “Farthest-on circles put Gremlin Zero Four somewhere south of this line, Captain.” She indicated a dotted arc on the display, just south of the minefield. “Assuming he’s been traveling at maximum submerged speed since he torpedoed the Benfold, he could be inside our own Torpedo Danger Zone in the next ten minutes or so.”

“Are you expecting to gain contact immediately?”

“Not really, sir,” the chief said. “So far, he’s depended a lot on deceptive maneuvering; I’d be surprised if he makes a straight run for home. But he might just want to surprise us, so we’re prepared for it.”

She pointed to a series of small green circles, each with a lightning bolt — shaped line coming out of its top at a forty-five — degree angle.

“Firewalker Two-Six is laying a passive sonobuoy field to the south.

When Gremlin Zero Four breaks the barrier, he’ll be inside torpedo range.”

“I hate to wait until he’s that close,” Captain Bowie said. “Are you sure we can’t get ASROC to work here? I thought the new shallow-water configuration was supposed to be pretty effective.”

The chief shook her head. “It is, sir. But this water is too shallow even for the modified ASROCs. They’ll end up buried in the sea bottom.”

“Is there any way to reprogram the ASROCs?” the XO asked.

“I wish we could, sir,” Chief McPherson said. “But it’s not a software issue. It’s a physics problem. We call it dynamic overshoot. An ASROC missile drops its torpedo from an altitude of about ten thousand feet. Even with the parachute pack to slow it down, when it hits the water, an ASROC-launched torpedo is moving fast. The saltwater batteries start the motor up almost immediately after the weapon splashes down, but the torpedo is still sinking fast. The computer takes control of the rudder fins and elevator fins and starts leveling off the torpedo as quickly as it can — sort of like a pilot trying to pull an airplane out of a steep dive. If the water is deep enough, the torpedo levels itself off and goes into its search pattern. If the water is too shallow, the weapon slams into the sea bottom before it can level off. Maybe the bottom is soft mud, and it buries itself. Maybe the bottom is hard-packed sand, and the torpedo is demolished by the impact. Either way, the torpedo is history.”

The XO scratched his chin. “And this water is definitely too shallow?”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said. “An ASROC torpedo will hit the water, run its motor for maybe ten seconds, and then crash into the bottom. It’ll make a bunch of noise, but it won’t do anything useful.”

The XO’s eyebrows went up. “If the water is so shallow, what’s going to keep our tube-launched torpedoes from hitting the bottom? Or any torpedo dropped by the helo?”

Chief McPherson held up two fingers. “Two things, sir. First: over-the-side torpedoes and helo-dropped torpedoes hit the water with only a slight nose-down angle, so they’re much closer to being level when the motor starts up. And second: they don’t fall as far, so they don’t build up much inertia. Our torpedo tubes are only about twenty feet above the water. The helo drops its torpedoes from an altitude of only a few hundred feet, not ten thousand feet like an ASROC. They’re not moving all that fast when they hit the water, so they don’t sink very far before they can level off.”

“I see,” the captain said. “And there’s no way to program the ASROCs to drop their torpedoes from a lower altitude? Or maybe program the ASROC torpedoes to strike the water at a shallower angle?”

“Sir, it would take a complete redesign of the ASROC missile,” Chief McPherson said. “A team of engineers with a billion-dollar budget could probably figure out how to do it if they had a couple of years to play around with the idea. But there’s nothing we can do here and now.”

“So we’re stuck with over-the-side torpedoes,” the XO said.

“Afraid so, sir. We’ll have Firewalker running interference for us. If we get lucky, he’ll be able to put a torpedo on Gremlin Zero Four before the sub knows what’s up.”

“Or he’ll get blown out of the sky by a sub-SAM, like Antietam’s helo did.”

“That’s one of the risks, sir. But by the time the sub is close enough to shoot at Firewalker, he’ll also be close enough to shoot at us. We’re all going to be in the line of fire.”

“We can’t afford to forget about Vipers,” the XO said. “The 212B can carry three Exocet missiles. They’re