nothing.
The Russian-built Type 877
These were strange seas for the Iranians, who normally patrolled only the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. But this particular submarine had just emerged from refit conducted in her birthplace, the Admiralty Yards in St. Petersburg, on the shores of the Baltic. It had been commissioned back in November 1996, and it had not been necessary to return to Russia since then. The engineers at Iran’s submarine base, Chah Bahar on the northwest shores of the Gulf of Oman, had been more than competent.
However, Hull Number 901 had experienced some major mechanical difficulties eighteen months previously and had missed an Indian Naval Review. With her propulsion system on the blink, the Kilo had been towed behind a Russian frigate all the way back to the Baltic. Now, restored to pristine fighting condition, she had spent three months at the eastern end of the Med, patrolling the waters off Beirut and generally making the Americans very jumpy.
There were certain admirals in the Pentagon, and one in Chevy Chase, who thought she should have been sunk, forthwith, in deep water. There could, after all, be only one possible reason why the Islamic Republic of Iran should deploy one of her four diesel-electric inshore submarines in the Eastern Med. And that reason was all- purpose — to assist the terrorist organizations Iran had financed and supplied for so long.
According to U.S. Naval Intelligence, that could mean anything from supplying missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon to opening fire on Israeli warships — the Russian Kilos carried 18 torpedoes — or perhaps even sinking a U.S. warship, since there is often an American fleet patrolling these volatile seas. This latter course of action would almost certainly turn into a suicide mission for the Iranians, but with Allah awaiting the crew in Paradise on the other side of the bridge, and sounding the three trumpets, this is not considered a bad fate for Muslim extremists. At least it’s never deterred them before.
The Type 877 Kilo is a formidable opponent for even the most modern surface ship, because she bristles with state-of-the-art radar surface-search systems. Underwater, she is even more dangerous, equipped with the highly efficient Russian Shark’s Teeth sonar.
She’s silent under five knots and can dive to seven hundred feet. Her range is six thousand miles cruising at seven knots. However, her single shaft and 3,650-hp electronic engine can drive her through the depths of the ocean at greater speeds. If she struck hard, however, underwater against an opposing warship, she would be damn near impossible to find if the CO cut her speed.
The Russians have long gloried in the potential of this export-only submarine. Indeed, they have a big four- color trade advertisement which reads “THE KILO CLASS SUBMARINE — the only soundless creature in the sea.” And when they wrote that ad, they had Hull 901 in mind. The address in St. Petersburg, complete with phone, fax, and E-mail, is that of RUBIN, Russia’s central design bureau for marine engineering.
This is where the design refinements for the 240-foot-long underwater boat were perfected. The RUBIN scientists have worked for years trying to make the Kilo as quiet as the grave, every engine mounting, every working part, every vibration considered, improved, and eventually silenced. Running deep, Hull 901 would make no more noise than a modern computer.
All three thousand tons of her, superbly streamlined, can slip through the depths at six knots, betraying virtually nothing. She cuts her speed below five, she’s vanished. Of all the underwater warriors, the Kilo is one of the most stealthy, partly because, unlike a big nuclear boat, she has no nuclear reactor requiring the support of God knows how many subsystems, all of them noisemakers.
There is but one flaw in this masterpiece of Russian design. And that happens when she needs to recharge the huge batteries that power her electric motors. The Kilo is vulnerable when snorkeling, because her generators are merely two big diesel internal-combustion engines, which, like a car, must have air.
And that requirement sends the submarine to periscope depth, where those generators can be heard, the air-intake mast can be picked up on radar, and the ions in the diesel exhaust can be “sniffed.” If she’s not careful, she can even be seen, and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.
The
Of course, the U.S. Navy’s detection systems are extremely advanced and the mighty
Nonetheless, the retired American admiral residing in Chevy Chase, Maryland, continued to believe Iran’s Mediterranean submarine should be hit and sunk forthwith. President Bedford was inclined to agree, particularly since it was possible for a big U.S. nuclear boat to get rid of any foreign submarine and never be located.
In subsurface warfare, it has been ever thus. Because, contrary to popular perception, submarines cannot communicate with home base while they are underwater. Their only form of communication is via satellite, and for that they must have a mast, briefly, jutting above the surface.
Thus, all submarines have a daily call time, when they come to periscope depth, usually in the dead of night, and announce their course, speed, and position in a minisecond electronic burst to the satellite circling twenty-two thousand miles above the Earth. They then ask if there are any messages, scoop them up, and return immediately to the ocean depths. If the entire process takes more than fifteen seconds, then someone’s been grotesquely inefficient.
The progression from this myriad of Naval Intelligence leads to one stark truth — if a submarine hits another with a torpedo, no one knows it’s happened. The stricken ship will sink to the floor of the ocean, sometimes without a trace. The first clue to its disappearance will be a missed call home via the satellite. And this might very easily be twenty hours after the hit.
And one missed call is not usually a five-alarmer, because the problem could have been electronic, or maybe even carelessness. Certainly one single missed call-in does not signify the ultimate horror of a submarine lost with all hands. And so to the second missed call, the following night. What does this mean? And what to do?
It might be forty-four hours since the submarine was sunk. And an enemy could very easily have been traveling at twenty knots, speeding away from the scene of the crime. That’s 880 nautical miles!
Which leaves some hapless home base with a search area of thousands and thousands of square miles in waters perhaps one or two miles deep. Chances of crew survival: zero. Chances of location: close to zero. Situation: hopeless. What to do: probably nothing.
The victim’s navy will most certainly not admit what might have happened. The perpetrator will, naturally, not know what anyone is talking about. And the entire incident may never be disclosed. By anyone. Has it ever happened? Of course. But the oceans guard their secrets darkly. Who knows how many iron coffins rest in the weird, lost canyons of the seven seas? All it takes is one well-aimed torpedo, with a big warhead, and no one will be any the wiser.
Which was why Admiral Arnold Morgan had, on several occasions, advised President Bedford to hit that Iranian
At 0400 on this Saturday morning, General Rashood was in the navigation area, talking to the young officer who was plotting the course of Hull No. 901, Lt. Rudi Alaam, a career officer from the eastern Iranian province of Kerman. Both men were leaning over a circular computerized chart that highlighted the central part of the Mediterranean.
It showed the submarine, which was running hard, snorkeling at periscope depth, moving west through the channel north of the island of Malta and its tiny offspring Gozo, both of which lie in the broad waters that separate Sicily and Tunisia. The Med goes shallower through here, and it was the first time the navigation officer had had to
