Larry Bond - Dangerous Ground

In the early evening Hardy risked exposing the BRD-7 ESM mast to accurately fix the bearing to any radar signals. The ESM stub antenna on the Type 18 periscope could tell him if a radar was radiating in the area, as well as its rough direction, but he needed fine bearing information that only the ESM mast could provide. He found them, all right — three airborne radars covering the exit to the Kara Sea like a quilt. That meant at least three ASW aircraft were overhead.

While the ESM mast was small and covered with radar-absorbent material, there was still a slight risk of detection every time it was raised. So Jerry was surprised when Hardy put the mast up again half an hour later, and then again forty-five minutes later. Each time he lowered the mast, Memphis immediately changed course and “dashed” at eight knots to clear datum, all the while waiting for depth charges to bracket them.

After the third ESM search, Hardy invited Lenny Berg, the OOD, and Jerry over to the chart table. Memphis’ zig-zag course lay crookedly on the chart, well to the east of center. The bearing lines from the ESM cuts all pointed north, ahead of them, and the bearing lines all converged in three general locations.

Jerry could see that the areas were almost on a line. In fact, they straddled a line that marked 77° north latitude. The Russians probably had that same line on their charts as well.

“That’s where the buoy fields are,” Hardy announced. “The planes aren’t stationary, of course. They do figure eights or racetrack patterns over the fields they’ve laid, loitering while they wait for a sonobuoy to make detection. According to intel, they typically lay fields twenty-five miles square, so look what happens if we put in three fields of that size.”

Bair handed Hardy three squares of paper. “These are cut to the same scale as the chart,” Bair explained. It only took a moment to arrange them across the latitude line. Each square lay across the transition from the shallow water of the Kara Sea to the deeper water of the Barents. The line was well placed and made an almost solid barrier ahead of them.

“We can’t be sure of the fields’ positions,” Bair cautioned. “They could be up to five or even ten miles off on any side.”

“So we’re not going to go anywhere near them.” Hardy announced. “We’re going to hug the coast off the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya and keep Memphis in shallow water. We should be able to pass the westernmost field at a distance of five miles.”

Lenny Berg looked worried and even the XO looked concerned. Hardy saw their faces. “The shallower we go, the less our noise will carry to the buoys. If we’re lucky we’ll find some biologies to hide in, but I’ll even settle for some wave slap.”

“They’ll be expecting us to try and go around, sir,” Bair cautioned. “They’ll have surface craft patrolling the gaps.”

“Of course, but I’d rather deal with a thirty-knot ship than a three-hundred-knot airplane.”

“How many ships will they have?” asked Lenny Berg. “And how many aircraft?”

“Three planes, all the way out here in the Kara Sea, is a lot,” Bair answered. “They only have one or two understrength squadrons in the entire Northern Fleet and their maintenance is iffy at best. I’m betting this is all they had available to sortie on such short notice. The ships are more of an unknown. We’ve already detected four; it could be two or even three times that number. We just don’t know.”

“Lucky for us,” Berg commented sarcastically.

“More will come, which is why we have to keep heading north,” Hardy said. “Remember, this is the season when the Russians do most of their training. Every available ship from those exercises is heading in this direction. That first group we got past was probably the closest, but there will be more guarding the gaps not covered by the buoy fields. More will arrive the longer we take, and I do not want Memphis to be anywhere near here when they arrive.

“My intention is to get us out of the Kara Sea as quickly as possible. Once we’re in the Barents and we’ve broken contact for a while, the Russians will be reluctant to attack a submarine contact. And we’ll have more maneuvering room.”

Hardy turned to Jerry. “And you’re going to be our pathfinder. I wouldn’t trust these charts even if they were printed in Cyrillic, not for this. We’ll send the Manta out in front, so we’ll know exactly what the bottom looks like and where we can safely navigate. We’ll man Manta launch stations in three hours.”

Jerry looked at his watch and saw that he’d have to head down to the torpedo room just before the next watch rotation. Based on the Captain’s intentions, he probably wouldn’t get any rest for the next twelve hours.

“I know you’re tired, Mr. Mitchell. We all are. But there is nothing I can do about it until we get out into the Barents and away from the Russian ASW forces,” Hardy said apologetically.

“I understand, sir,” replied Jerry, surprised by Hardy’s concern.

“Very well, then. Mr. Berg, change course to three zero zero and increase speed to seven knots.”

“Change course to three zero zero and increase speed to seven knots, aye, sir.”

At midnight Hardy turned Memphis more to the north, to parallel the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya. As the water shoaled, Jerry and his division manned their U-bay stations and launched the Manta, now nearly fully charged.

Jerry felt at home as he guided the Manta toward the sloping seabed. Harry O’Connell, the Navigator, was on the phone circuit this time. He told Jerry where to steer and constantly quizzed him about water depth and bottom topography. Everyone kept a close watch out for uncharted obstructions.

Jerry used the vehicle like a hunting dog, searching for the smoothest, deepest path across the seabed. He’d run ahead and back at five or six knots while Memphis glided behind him, sometimes with only ten feet of water between the keel and the bottom.

Three knots doesn’t sound very fast. It’s three and a half miles an hour. People can walk that fast. Cars in traffic jams move faster than that. But a car weighs a few thousand pounds. A submarine weighs several thousand tons. It doesn’t stop quickly or quietly. As he scanned the seabed in front of Memphis, he was constantly conscious of the submarine’s mass bearing down on him.

Jerry used the Manta’s high-frequency active sonar to look for sudden shelving of the bottom or obstructions. While he still wished for a TV camera of some sort, the sonar provided him with a usable picture of the bottom.

The pathfinder idea paid off almost immediately when the Manta found an outcropping of rock that projected well above the seabed. While Memphis’ keel would have cleared, her rudder projected a couple of feet farther down, and that might have struck with disastrous results.

At three knots, traveling in a somewhat straight line, Memphis would take over ten hours to cover the thirty miles, but Hardy wasn’t exactly sure of where the buoy field was. Jerry flew the UUV for over five hours, scouring the bottom. After the outcropping, he found a ridge that lay across Memphis’ path and also managed to find a deep spot, almost a ravine, that safely hid the submarine for nearly an hour’s travel northwest.

They heard the destroyer’s sonar long before they were clear of the western sonobuoy field. O’Connell told Jerry over the circuit, “Sonar’s picked up a Horse Jaw sonar pinging to the north. It’s most likely an Udaloy- class destroyer.”

That was bad. The Udaloys were the newest class of Russian ASW destroyer. They carried antisubmarine missiles that reached out almost thirty miles. They also carried two helicopters fitted with a dipping sonar and rocket-propelled torpedoes. The Horse Jaw was a big low-frequency set with tremendous power. Actually, the Udaloy class wasn’t the only Russian warship to carry it. If it wasn’t an Udaloy , the other possibility was a Kirov- class nuclear-powered battle cruiser. Jerry decided he’d hope it was an Udaloy.