John Schettler - Kirov

I've gone and seen a meteor, he thought, a bleeding, shooting star! Then he looked and saw another one diving in from the same place in the sky, descending at an incredible rate, as it looked it might careen right into the ocean well ahead of the ship. But as it swooped down, to his utter astonishment, the meteor leveled off and surged right over the wave tops bearing directly in on Repulse in a silent, deadly charge. Dumbstruck, he instinctively reached for the phone mounted on the main mast, but before he could even lay a hand on it something struck the ship a mighty blow, right amidships, just slightly forward of the place where he stood his watch.

There came a shuddering vibration and the ship seemed to rock violently to port, prompting him to hang on the side railings of his crow’s nest for dear life. Seconds later, as a column of thick, black smoke broiled up from below, he finally heard a long descending roar overlaid on the growl of the explosion, not knowing it was the sound of a hypersonic missile finally catching up with itself. Alarms were jangling all over the ship, and he looked down to see engineers quickly donning life preservers and running to the scene of the impact, the orange red flames licking through the heavy black smoke like the tongues of hundred dragons.

Down on the bridge, Captain Tennant never saw the missile as it skimmed in silently over the glistening sea. Traveling at just under three times the speed of sound, the P-1000 Moskit-II “Sunburn” was one of most lethal missiles in the new Russian naval inventory, replacing the P-800 Yakhont/Bramos in 2016. It was the second missile to bear the NATO codename “Sunburn,” as its design and performance were much akin to that of its predecessor, the dreadful Moskit-I.

Shaped like a long, aerodynamic torpedo with a finely pointed nose, it had four small winglets in an X-scheme at mid-fuselage, with a series of small ramjet engines mounted between them that gave it the look of a sleek and deadly shark. It's solid rocket booster would ignite upon firing, followed by two small stabilizing jets from the nose of the missile, one to incline it towards its target after its vertical launch, and the second to counter this thrust and keep the missile level. After these two short bursts, the solid fuel at the rear would rapidly accelerate the missile, expended in the first four seconds of flight as it reached its incredible speed of over 3600 kilometers per hour, quickly leaving the roar of its own engines in its wake. Liquid fuel would then power the missile along the remainder of its flight path. It would fly at altitude for all but the last ten percent of its course to the target, then would streak down to sea level accelerating right over the top of the ocean for the last deadly run.

It had been fired by Kirov just two minutes ago, gobbling up the 100 kilometers to the target with blistering speed. It could maneuver with precision and defend itself with a suite of electronic countermeasures as well, but its job today would not be difficult. It’s target was crystal clear ahead, its design giving no thought to minimizing its radar cross-sections. It was masked by no countervailing ECM, no infrared suppression system was in play, and there was no chaff in the air intend to spoof or decoy the missile away-nor was there any AA gun aboard the ship with the slightest chance of tracking and hitting it as it came on its final blistering sprint at Mach 3.0. It was like shooting a fish in a barrel.

When the missile struck Repulse, it delivered a 450 kilogram, armor piercing warhead that hammered against a belt of cemented armor measuring six inches thick just above the waterline amidships. Only her big 15 inch gun turrets had better protection, though this belt armor was relatively thin for a ship of her size. Some thirty kilometers behind her by now, the flagship King George V, had armor more than twice this thickness along her main side belts. The protection given Repulse was enough to impede, but not stop, the missile. It prevented it from completely burning its way deeper into the ship when the Sunburn exploded, but the remaining load of liquid fuel in its long fuselage ignited in a roaring fireball. The armor plating buckled and broke, seared by the explosion and considerable kinetic impact of the missile, which was enough to send a shower of metal fragments inward to pierce the inner sides of the hull in places, and claim the life of two Able Seamen who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A jet of flaming hot metal seared through the breech, and started a major fire.

On the bridge, Captain Tennant could only think that he had been hit by a torpedo, and he immediately had his Chiefs check all the watches to see if anyone had spotted a periscope. Doolan's phone rang and he blurted out his incredible tale of high flying meteors descending and skipping over the waves. Tennant thought the man was daft, but yet his ship was on fire, and he was clearly under attack. The eyes of every watch stander squinted at the horizon looking for any sign of an enemy vessel, but saw nothing. Then they heard a roar, the sound of the missile’s rocket engine finally catching up with it, well after it had already struck the ship. It seemed like the moaning of some demonic, unseen leviathan.

Captain Tennant shuddered with the sound and the sight of the awful fire now burning amidships. When he had taken stock of the situation, and heard from his engineers below, he turned to his signalman and said: “Make to Tovey on King George V. We are under attack, struck by a torpedo amidships on main belt. Ship on fire, but damage appears moderate and under control, and we are still seaworthy. No enemy surface contact, and no periscope sighted. No damaged to engines or plant, but slowing to twenty knots to assess possible breech below the waterline. Beginning zigzag pattern for the next hour.”

He turned and gave the orders to begin evasive maneuvers and scolded his watchmen to be on the lookout for periscopes, particularly on the starboard side of the ship where the blow had landed. As more reports came in it was soon made apparent to him that, while struck very near the waterline, all the damage to the ship was well above it. Unless this was a new torpedo that could leap out of the water like a swordfish, the damage had to be caused by something else.

Minutes later that ‘something else’ was again inbound on his position with evil intent. As before, it came in from above, then swooped down like an evil bird of prey to skim across the ocean at a scorching speed. This time he saw it, his jaw slack with amazement as the missile bored in on Repulse leaving a long thin white tail of smoke behind it. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. Then it exploded again, a little higher and slightly forward of the last hit.

The ship rocked with the second impact, and fire and smoke billowed up, obscuring his vision. A single fragment of near molten metal struck and pierced his forward viewport, shattering the glass there an jarring a nearby bulkhead with a metallic thud. Thankfully, no one was hit.

“What in blazes was that? ” he said to his Executive Officer. His mind reeled, still replaying the image of the silent, swift approach of the weapon as it flashed against his ship. Thank god they were hitting us amidships, he thought. Any higher and that devil would have missed our side armor and run completely through the ship.

A com-link phone jangled, and the XO took it up. “Hull breech from that one, sir, and another bad fire… But well above the water line. No flooding. Burned out one of the new AA guns above the point of impact. Several casualties.”

“Make to Tovey,” he said to the signalmen. “Second hit amidships. Not a torpedo, yet no ship sighted. Weapon appeared to be a rocket. Repeat, not a torpedo.” He knew how unusual this would sound. He had heard of experimental rocket weapons, but had never seen one-until now. It was the only thing that could possibly explain what he had witnessed and also fit with the reports he had been receiving from the engineers below. That thing was flying. It came down at him from above until it hugged the sea before it hit. It was not a torpedo.