Move yourselves! Do you want the Revolution to show us his ass as he leads us into the channel?'
It was a common practice to exercise naval crews against one another in good-natured competition, to accustom them to working under pressure, and to instill camaraderie and team spirit among the men. The afterdeck line-handlers had signaled 'lines clear' even as the men on the pier were still slipping the huge loop on the stern line clear of its bollard and tossing it toward the waiting Pravda sailors. One man had grabbed the line, overbalanced, and fallen into the water between submarine and pier, dragging the stern line with him.
Unaware that his men aft were taking some strictly nonregulation shortcuts with proper naval procedure, Chelyag, in Pravda's weather cockpit high atop the sail, had ordered one quarter ahead on both engines. Pravda had churned slowly ahead, drawing away from the pier…
… and then the trailing stern line had fouled around the Typhoon's port screw, wrapping itself tightly about the shaft. Chelyag had felt the change in the vibrations coming through the deck, a hard, unpleasant shudder like the rasp of the keel going aground… and then the Pravda was swinging toward the pier, propelled now by her starboard engine alone.
Chelyag had bellowed the order 'All stop!' Too late. Pravda had caught the pier on her port side midway between bow and sail, the collision hard enough to make Chelyag grasp the cockpit railing. The pier had crumpled like styrofoam, splintering with the impact and sending the dockside line-handlers scattering in every direction.
That had been an hour ago, and only now had the final word come up from damage control. There was a possibility that one of the blades on the Typhoon's port screw had been bent ever so slightly out of alignment. If true, it might be enough to cause significant cavitation. Cavitation, the creation of momentary pockets of vacuum behind a turning propeller that then collapsed with a distinctive sound, was the bane of all nuclear subs, which relied on absolute silence to remain undetected by their hunters within the ocean depths.
It would take at least twenty-four hours ? and more likely forty-eight ? to clear the propeller shaft and check the blade alignment. If the blade was bent, it would be another several days before it could be repaired or replaced. It was God's own luck ? and Chelyag said that to himself as a devout atheist ? that the shaft had not been bent or the turbine's bearings burned out. Something like that could have put the Typhoon out of commission for a month, longer if the spare parts were slow in arriving.
Meanwhile, the Revolutsita was already on his way out of the Kola Inlet.
Chelyag was not looking forward to informing Admiral Karelin that he was still in port.
Gradually, it became clear that the attack was over. At least three separate waves of Russian planes had hurled themselves against the American battle force off North Cape, a total of at least three hundred aircraft. One hundred fifty cruise missiles of various types had been launched, both from aircraft and from bases on the Kola Peninsula.
But the battle force had survived. The clear victor in the engagement had been the Americans with their AIM-54C Phoenix, coupled with the remarkable Phalanx CIWS covering the last-ditch ship defense at knife-fighting range.
Tombstone was still adjusting to the idea that they'd actually come through the attack relatively unscathed.
Of course, there had been losses…
This time, the battle ops meeting was being held aboard the Shiloh, which had taken over coordination for the entire carrier battle force. Coyote was back aboard the Jefferson and running things for the wing as Deputy CAG, freeing Tombstone to join Admiral Tarrant's planning staff. He'd flown across less than an hour before, aboard one of Shiloh's two SH60B LAMPS III ASW helos, dispatched by Tarrant especially for him. All of Jefferson's helos were still engaged in SAR work ? marine search and rescue for the aviators still lost somewhere at sea.
Tombstone was just wrapping up his after-action report. Tarrant, as always crisply attired in a spotless uniform, rested with one leg hitched up over a corner of the chart table, listening attentively. Nearby, another rear admiral, John H. Morrisey, the commanding officer of CBG7 just arrived off the Eisenhower, leaned against a bulkhead. Bald and bulldog-ugly, he too was neatly attired, the rack of colored ribbons on his left chest gleaming in the compartment's overhead fluorescents like peacock's plumage. After a long, active morning and a crowded helicopter flight, Tombstone felt conspicuously rumpled.
'We've also begun coordinating all air Ops with the Eisenhower,' Tombstone was saying. He glanced at Admiral Morrisey, who smiled slightly and nodded. 'That way, both air wings can share the grunt work. Both carrier wings are still at flight quarters. Both carriers are maintaining four aircraft on Alert Five, and four more on Alert Fifteen.' An aircraft on Alert Fifteen could be put into the air in fifteen minutes. An Alert Five aircraft had the pilot suited up and strapped in, ready to launch on five minutes' notice.
'We're maintaining extra-strength CAPS, of course,' Tombstone continued.
'And at any given moment, we have two EA-6B Prowlers up and running recon flights along the Russian coast, just outside their twelve-mile limit, plus at least two Hawkeyes, positioned to give us AEW deep inside the Kola Peninsula.
In the last three hours, there have been no further air strikes. In fact, there's been no hostile activity from the other side at all.' Tombstone glanced down at the briefing notes he'd scrawled for himself on a clipboard legal pad during his flight across to the Shiloh. 'Combat losses. Carrier Air Wing Twenty lost seven aircraft this morning. The breakdown was four Tomcats, two Hornets, and one Prowler. Of those crews, fourteen people, eight were recovered. Four other aircraft were pretty badly shot up, but they managed to get back to the Jeff and trap. They've already been shoved over the side in order to clear the deck. I don't have a final report from Eisenhower's CAG, but a first estimate gives them combat losses of three Tomcats, one Hornet.' He consulted his clipboard once more. 'That's all I have at this time, sir.'
'Very good, Stoney,' Admiral Tarrant said. He slid off the table and looked at the other officers in the room. 'Anyone have questions? Comments?'
Admiral Morrisey stirred. 'Enemy aircraft losses were ? what? One hundred forty, you said?'
'That's the estimate, Admiral. Most of those were knocked down by F14 Phoenix strikes, though, and many were not confirmed.'
'Still not bad… a kill ratio of twelve to one.'
'Nine to one if you count our junkers,' someone else pointed out.
'Yeah, but we don't know how many Russkis were junkers by the time they made it back to base.' Morrisey looked pleased. 'I'd say our boys are holding to the old Top Gun balance sheets.'
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy's kill ratio had averaged two or three enemy planes downed for every one of their own lost. Then the Navy Fighter Weapons School ? better known as Top Gun ? had opened at NAS Miramar, near San Diego. A grueling, five-week course in Air Combat Maneuvers that pitted naval aviators in realistic mock combat against better aviators, Top Gun had literally changed the course of the air war in Vietnam almost overnight. As soon as Top Gun graduates had begun flying combat missions ? and passing on their training to their fellow aviators ? the Navy's kill ratio had rocketed to thirteen to one.
'Good combat ratios are all very admirable,' Tarrant said, 'but they don't help us in this situation. The Russians, remember, can always ferry in more aircraft. It will be some time before we have that luxury. In other words, this command cannot afford to lose even one aircraft, not even if we trade it for fifteen of the enemy's.'
'I should also point out, sir,' Tombstone added, 'that from now on exhaustion is going to be a factor. Some of my people have been up three times so far this morning. Most have been up twice. With the heavy patrol schedule, I expect that by dawn tomorrow every NFO I have will have been up at least four or five times, and that's going to start wearing them down fast.
Same goes for the deck crews, turning around that many aircraft, round-the-clock refueling and rearming. Those guys're going to be dead on their feet soon. Exhaustion means mistakes, accidents, and downtime when equipment fouls or bits of metal get scattered across a flight deck.'
'Understood,' Tarrant said. 'All I can tell you is that we're going to have to play this one as it's dealt to us. Other questions?'
'Yeah,' a tall, gangly commander next to Tarrant said. 'Why the Sam Hill'd they do it?'
'Not my department, Dan,' Tombstone said with a tired smile. 'I'd say the answer's more in your line of work.'
