Charles Taylor - First Salvo

“Two attack subs, one either side of an east-west heading, and satellite recon, of course.”

Chin in hand, Pratt surveyed his display board. The screening force around Kharkov was above standard for a Soviet carrier group. That meant only one thing to him — they were planning to change from an antisubmarine group to an attack force. “Set up a scouting line, north-south orientation, running between Tobruk and Crete. They’ll have some attack subs leading the way, and I’d hate to see them get past there before we locate them.”

“Yes, sir. How about Saratoga ? Won’t she have to worry about that group too? I should include her.”

“Message her, of course. But,” he included Loomis in his gaze, “they have Minsk up there also, and I expect that’s the one Sara ’s going to have her hands full of, especially when they empty out of the Black Sea.”

“Nothing’s coming out, sir. The Turks have everything closed up,” offered Clark.

Pratt smiled grimly. “Wanna bet?”

“Pardon, sir?”

“You want to bet on that? I’m saying that within twenty-four hours the Russians have the Turkish straits completely under their control. So much so,” he grinned, “that they’ll probably be charging the Turks tolls to use their own waterways.”

Clark looked down at his shoes, then back at Pratt. “I don’t follow you, sir.”

“Don’t feel bad about that one. There was no way you could see the intelligence reports I got hold of the other day. That little skirmish with the Greeks was beautifully directed by our friends in Moscow just to put everybody a little off their feed. The outcome of the whole thing couldn’t have been better for them. The Turks and the Greeks were supposed to wear down each other’s military strength to the point that the Russians could waltz in long enough to drain the goddamned Black Sea if they wanted. The only things in their way are the choke points and the Greeks around the Aegean. They’re both quite a bit weaker today… just what keeps the Kremlin happy,” he concluded.

He turned back to his status boards again. “That’s John Hancock out in that screening line with O’Bannon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Loomis responded.

“Designate Hancock as OTC (Officer in Tactical Command) for that little scouting line.” Now was the time for Nellie to try some of the new tactics they’d played with back in Newport.

“Sorry, sir, O’Bannon ’s senior.” Loomis hit some buttons on the computer in front of him. “Commander Nelson is next in line, though.”

“What circuit are they on?” Pratt requested, his voice tired.

“Seventeen, sir.”

Pratt punched the button for 17 as he hefted the radiophone to his ear. He got through to O’Bannon immediately.

“This is Archer himself. Request that tactical command shift to Hanock for duration of this exercise to experiment with new tactics.” It was that simple. Give an order. It seemed, though, that he had to take over each time he wanted to convince his subordinates that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Pratt sat back in his chair to watch.

Wendell Nelson smiled inwardly when he heard Pratt’s voice. Without moving from his chair, he called to his OOD. “Expand ship intervals to fifteen miles. Alter base course to one three five. They’ve been hiding a bunch of subs off the Libyan coast and there’s no better time than now to set them loose.” He lit another of his never-ending string of cigarettes and puffed quietly as he prepared the geographic picture in his mind. Easing out of his chair, he called over his shoulder, “I’m going into combat for a few minutes to show them a new trick or two. Ask the XO to report to me there.”

It took Nelson just five minutes to show his executive officer what they were going to do, and not much more time for the watch to understand. It was another thirty minutes before the destroyers could launch their helos, and a bit more than an hour before the ASW aircraft from Kennedy were fused into the search pattern.

Nelson was back in his captain’s chair in the pilothouse soon after the search began, cigarette in hand, his legs calmly crossed. There was no need for him to supervise the three-pronged sweep. He knew what it should be and he could visualize in his mind’s eye how they were establishing it as he overheard the reports from combat.

The system had been initially developed under his direction, by a team of Naval War College students using a computer in Newport. It was a complex geometric pattern based on time sequences of various screen elements on station, combined with the ranges of their sound gear. Their movements were programmed. ASW planes would establish a barrier of sonobuoys covering a fixed line. To one side of that line were the widely spaced ships moving at high speed, sweeping fixed, cone-shaped areas before them. On the other side were helicopters dipping their sonar in a predetermined area.

A submarine, if the captain and crew are in concert with their complex equipment, can avoid an active sonar sweep unless the searching unit is already on top of them. The intelligence originally programmed into the Newport computer identified each uncovered area, and part of the assumption was that the enemy sub would naturally head for those empty spaces. As the destroyers swept through the sonobuoy screen, the helos would hop to their rear, dipping their sonar in the open areas that had not been covered by the ships. The planes would then split up, each group sewing a line of sonobuoys on two sides to complete an imperfect rectangle approximately ninety by fifty miles.

Nelson impatiently listened to the reports. Occasionally he would go down to combat to check the electronic display of the search. It was remarkably accurate for a first effort, especially considering that there were more than five thousand square miles to be covered in less than three hours. If the subs were out there, he had to get them!

Within the next half hour, there were five contact reports, each one classified within moments as a submarine. Now for the hold down!

“This is Hedgehog.” Nelson spoke calmly over the tactical circuit to his small force. “We will now commence the terror aspect of our new system.” He rolled the word “terror” over his tongue as if he savored the idea. “Our friends down below are already surprised enough that we found them so easily. I want every unit to have a turn running attacks. At each instance, one destroyer will stand off to the side and explain over the underwater telephone exactly what we are doing. The subs each have someone who can understand English, and if they don’t, I think they’ll get the idea fast enough. We’re going to make this part of the Med sound like Coney Island. I want anything in the water that will make noise. And I want grenades dropped at the right time to signify hits from each attack — whether or not you think your solution was correct. Every unit will take its attack solution as gospel and complete every step except for the actual firing. I want computer tapes from each of you after we finish. Should there be any reason to think our friends might do something stupid, I will be the only one to give the firing order. You will treat this as actual — not an exercise.”

On the Kennedy , Admiral Pratt listened to the tactical circuit between his recon aircraft and interceptors.

“Bulldogs, Bulldogs,” called the intercept officer on the circling Hawkeye, “your targets are dead ahead at one four zero miles, speed mach one point four, course two six five, two thousand feet above you, and they have no idea you’re down there. Report your lock-on.”