The
“Conn, sonar. I have a firing solution.” Renny’s voice was low. Even with part of his conformal array degraded, he was certain he had a solid lock on the other submarine.
“Sonar, acknowledged. Hold fire for now.” The captain looked at the chart for a moment, wondering what it was that made him hesitate. Deploying mines was most certainly an act of war.
Not that the Iranians agreed, of course. They claimed the entire Gulf as well as the Straits as their territorial waters, to do with as they pleased.
But international law and the agreement of most nations felt that there was an inherent right of free passage. To acknowledge that the Iranians owned those waters would be to allow them to impose taxes, duties, and all sorts of other onerous restrictions that would unfairly affect trade. So, the captain concluded, he was well with in his rights to execute an immediate attack upon the submarine.
But still, there was the bigger question of what the battle group was actually up to. His last communication with them had been broken off just as they had entered the Straits, when they dived below by the attack. It could be that the tactical situation right now was even more precarious than it had been before.
There were no certainties, not even if he came up to confer with Admiral Wayne. And this was what he was paid to do, what he’d trained to do for decades — make the tough calls when he was alone — and make the right decision. The captain made his decision.
“Take us in close and hold us there. Maintain firing solution at all times — manual plot as well as the computer-generated solution. We’re going to take this bastard now.”
Even as he prepared to destroy the Iranian submarine, the larger question still loomed in the captain’s mind. What was the battle group going to do about the mines themselves?
Should he could come shallow to communications depth and let the carrier know that the Straits had been mined. That would make
Bellisanus decided that notifying the carrier would have to wait until
Had the Iranian sonarmen been trained in the United States in the last twenty years, they would have known that the acoustic signature of the U.S. submarine had changed radically during those times. They would also have known that acoustic quieting and shock mounting had reduced the amount of noise radiating to almost undetectable levels, vulnerable only to the most advanced passive systems. Even their vulnerability to active sonar systems had been reduced, with anechoic tiles on their hulls, a new, smooth hull shape, and, in some cases, soundwave cancellation electronics.
But the crew onboard the Iranian submarine wasn’t aware of those advances, nor were they really conscious of how outdated their own equipment was. Certainly they knew the technical specifications, but none of them had really had it brought home to them just how antique the sonar systems they were operating were, particularly on the passive side of the house. Nor were they particularly familiar with the sort of blow tones the
Since they intended to remain undetected by the remainder of the American forces, the captain was not inclined to use the active sonar. Instead, he relied on the assurances of his sonarmen, who were growing increasingly confident, as they assured him that they were alone undersea.
That was the captain’s first mistake.
The peculiar buzz line of a torpedo cut through the submarine like a knife. Each sailor, without exception, felt his gut twist and his blood run cold as the unmistakable sound reverberated throughout their boat.
In shallow water, there was little the captain could do about it. Certainly he could increase speed, maneuver, and eject decoys in an attempt to confuse it. His other primary option was to conduct an emergency blow and surface his submarine, open the hatches, and try to save as many people as he could.
But the captain, aware of the reception that would await him in Iran if he simply gave up, chose the first alternative.
That was his second mistake. And his last.
The smaller submarine accelerated to flank speed in a matter of minutes, and the captain immediately ordered a hard turn to starboard. He then ejected every noise-maker in his arsenal, hoping to confuse the torpedo into attacking a false target. He even amplified the output of his acoustic transmitter, on the possibility that the torpedo would home in on that fifty yards astern rather than on the submarine itself.
All to no avail. The U.S. torpedo was massively and inestimably smarter than the captain thought it was. It analyzed, classified, and immediately rejected each noise-maker. The mass of air bubbles churned up by the submarine’s sudden turn was also easily recognized for what it was. The acoustic augmenter trailing the submarine confused it for just a few seconds, but then it detected the warm, roiling wake spewing out behind the real submarine as its propellers turned. The torpedo turned and unerringly followed the wake.
The captain, realizing his sin of pride in the last moments, ordered an emergency blow in a desperate attempt to save his men. But it was too late. In addition to being much smarter than he’d thought, the torpedo was also faster. It found the delectable propellers with their swirling troughs of air bubbles, and detonated.
The initial impact severed the propeller shaft and tore it loose from its thrust bearings. As the shock traveled through the ship, old seams sprang leaks, and then completely parted.
Under pressure, the streams of water rushing into the submarine were like sledgehammers. They smashed sailors against steel bulkheads, killing many of them before they could drown. As the bulk of water increased, it quickly flooded the battery compartment. The combination of seawater and battery acid yielded chlorine gas, and those that were not smashed, or drown, died of chlorine gas poisoning.
The captain had the presence of mind to order the watertight doors between the forward and aft portions of the submarine shut. Sailors frantic to escape the carnage astern surged forward, and the sailors in the forward compartments had to use their combined strength to slam the hatches even though arms or legs were still in the way. The steel hatches severed the bones, but the remaining flesh and blood fouled the seals and compromised the watertight integrity.
The captain also ordered the ventilation secured, thus slowing the spread of the chlorine gas. The sailors that survived rushed for the emergency breathing devices that were used to egress a submarine at depth. They fumbled with the straps and fasteners, the lessons not repeated often enough to become reflex.
As one by one they struggled to put them on, the submarine suddenly went hard down at the bow, throwing them all against the aft bulkhead. Two more died from the impact.
The awkward angle of the submarine, fifty degrees, nose down, made it virtually impossible to climb into the emergency escape hatch, but still some managed. They crammed too many people into it, and were unable to secure the hatch behind that would allow them to flood and escape after equalizing pressure. Not one of them was willing to leave and go with the second group. Finally, the largest sailor among them simply clubbed a smaller sailor over the head, and tossed him down into the control room below. They pulled the hatch shut and equalized the pressure.
Most sailors in the egress tube had donned their escape devices improperly. As a result, as the seawater flooded in, they drowned. The remaining sailors waited, panicking, as the water rose over their heads until pressure was equalized. They then left the lockout hatch, breathing out as they rose to keep their lungs from rupturing and
