Charles Taylor - Show of Force

As he gave orders to his crew chief to release the sonobuoys along a line his copilot had devised, he watched the cruiser Gridley's close-in weapon system bring down a missile bearing down on her with a shower of rapid fire 20-mm. shells. Gridley then swung to starboard and raced directly down a torpedo wake. The fish passed down Gridley's port beam at approximately the same time the pilot heard the positive contact report on the attacking submarine.

Almost mechanically he swung the helo toward the drop point, still in awe of Gridley's luck in surviving both a missile and a torpedo attack. His copilot's arm, in the air with fists clenched until they reached the right spot, dropped. The pilot released the homing torpedo, feeling his craft lurch up and sideways from the sudden loss of weight. They were close to the water and went into a hover at two hundred feet, hoping for evidence of a hit. It was not long in coming. The high-speed torpedo had found a slower conventional sub, likely the one that had fired the fish at Gridley. The sonobuoys recorded the explosion, probably at a depth of 250 feet or more. It took longer than they had expected for the oily, roiling waters to begin bubbling to the surface, discharging those remains that had not followed the sub to the bottom. The pilot swung his craft back toward Gridley, hovering near her bridge for just a moment, exchanging the thumbs-up signal of victory with her captain.

The frigate Barbey had been well to the north of the other ships, positioned there for early warning and a first line of defense with her Harpoon missiles if Soviet ships attempted to swing north. One well-placed torpedo was all that was required to immobilize her. It hit aft below her helo flight deck. The attacking submarine then.moved in slowly like a cat to position itself for a second shot that would sink Barbey. The torpedo was fired, and it did break Barbey's back, but the Soviet captain's mistake was to take too much time in preparing a perfect solution for his second torpedo. Meyercord, five miles astern of Barbey, had launched her LAMPS helo at the first indication of submarine attack. When the pilot sighted the first explosion in Barbey's hull, he had flown directly north of the damaged ship. The sonar contact that Meyercord located and fed to her pilot was confirmed by his MAD detector, and his Mk-46 homing torpedo hit the water less than five-hundred yards from the Russian craft.

The Russian attack from the flanks had been moderately successful, considering that the Soviet subs had to fire from a much shorter range. The fact that Admiral Charles assumed his counterpart might plan the same type of attack provided enough warning to prevent more damage than occurred. The forward element was now scouring the ocean for the remaining attackers with both LAMPS and Nimitz helos.

What they had not anticipated was the Soviet attack submarine Frunze surfacing in the middle of the screen between the cruiser Belknap and the guided-missile destroyer Joseph Strauss. Both ships had been tracked for long enough to plan an effective attack. The captain of Frunze had decided to fire his forward torpedoes point blank at Belknap, since he would be only five-hundred yards off her beam. No console solution would be required. The after bank of tubes had two torpedoes reserved for Joseph Strauss. Frunze maintained absolute silence, hovering below a temperature layer that protected her from the searching sonar of her quarry. When he knew the two ships were close enough so that the sound of water escaping his tanks would cause confusion rather than evasion, he drifted up to one-hundred feet, firing first at the larger cruiser, then at the destroyer.

The first indication of a submarine in their midst was Belknap's sonar. The operator couldn't believe the sudden strong return from the object off his starboard bow. He was alert enough to punch the contact alarm, but waited for three successive echoes before classifying it as a submarine.

It was too late. Frunze shuddered as it fired first two torpedoes from its forward tubes, and then two more from the stern. The running time to Belknap was insignificant. The two explosions, one following the other by only seconds, shook the already diving submarine as it maneuvered under the roiling waters around Belknap. The cruiser was aflame aft and fore. Fires astern quickly found the magazines below the after gun mount. The water invading the forward engineering space brought on a rapid list. Damage-control parties were too late to keep the rushing water from buckling weakened bulkheads. The ocean advanced too rapidly. She was sinking.

On Joseph Strauss, the damage-control party was checking watertight fittings in the forward section when they heard the sharp explosions roll across the sea. They turned in unison to stare, horrified by the water spout from the first torpedo, already higher than Belknap's bridge. Some of the men may even have seen the spout emerge from the second one. Openmouthed, they watched in silence as the flames followed, billowing clouds of Hack smoke and flame engulfing the cruiser. There were a few muttered comments about the chances of the crew of the other ship, then more about how lucky they were to be on the right ship. They were moving aft when Joseph Strauss took the first torpedo slightly forward of midships. Her commanding officer had been on the same side of the ship, his binoculars on Belknap. He had briefly noted his DC party on the main deck just before his own ship had been hit and he had been thrown backwards. When he got up from the deck after the blast, his first thought was to look over the side to see what had happened to those men. He saw only a hole in the deck where he assumed they had been. As the spray settled, he saw two motionless forms near the torn metal of the deck. None of the others seemed to exist.

The torpedo hit was shallow, causing more damage above the waterline than below. The second torpedo for some reason veered away from the ship as the first detonated, running its fuel out and sinking. The ship was able to drop back, and her damage-control parties found they could minimize the amount of water entering the boiler room. Welders from one of the larger ships joined them to prepare a patch that would suffice until they could get back to port.

Unfortunately for Frunze, water conditions improved for sonar ranging. The noise of the sinking Belknap protected the submarine for only so long. Both Forrest Sherman and Ramsey located the evading submarine and tracked her long enough to provide solutions for their ASROC torpedoes. Both weapons were fired at approximately the same time, and both torpedoes, though traveling independently, found Frunze changing course frantically at her best possible speed. It made no difference to her crew that the explosion of one torpedo as it pierced her hull probably caused the other to go off also. The combined detonation of both torpedoes was sufficient to shatter the brave little submarine.

The element of surprise had worked. Old-fashioned wolfpack tactics had been successful beyond expectations. Both forces had suffered heavy losses again, yet they steamed directly toward each other. Neither knew exactly what was expected of them, nor did they know if they would ever regain secure communications. They both knew that high-altitude intelligence planes or spy satellites had likely photographed the actions of the last forty-eight hours, but they had no way of learning whether they were strengthening the bargaining powers of their leaders. Eventually, one side would have to establish voice contact, knowing the other would be hanging on every word.