Red Metal

CHAPTER 10

The skipper of the USS Stethem (DDG-63) sat in the wardroom, his breakfast in front of him and a copy of Proceedings, the U.S. Naval Institute’s professional magazine, open on his lap. Three other officers dined at the same table and at the next table over a pair of junior officers, or JOs, ate quickly and quietly, as was their custom. Most JOs ate fast, then departed the wardroom. On top of all the duties expected of the young officers while under way at sea, eating, studying for advancement, more eating, then sleeping came in an orderly but relentless pace.

“John?” He said it without looking over at the deck officer on his left. “You see this thing about the new laser aboard the Puller?”

“Did, sir. That’s the same one that was aboard Ponce before, right? They’re using it to shoot down drones.”

Captain Fulton said, “They’re going to need a lot more than one laser if the Chinese do what we think they will. If a drone swarm approaches and—” The captain stopped speaking suddenly and cocked his head. “You hear that?”

“No, sir. Hear what?”

“We just changed engine speed.” Fulton knew the bridge crew would never change speed without asking him first. Either someone had made an error or something was drastically wrong.

He dropped his magazine on the table and stood up, then started heading over to the nearest captain’s phone, a direct line to the bridge.

Before he could take more than a step, a high-pitched wailing siren sounded. Captain Fulton took off in a sprint for the bridge, followed by the deck officer, but both men slowed to listen when an anxious voice on the 1MC, the ship’s intercom system, began speaking.

“General quarters, general quarters! Man your battle stations! Man your battle stations! Damage control parties, stand by. Set condition Zebra throughout the ship. Torpedo in the water. Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge!”

The two men raced off again through the narrow passageway.

It took Fulton no time to arrive, but his executive officer was already there, and he read the captain in on the situation as fast as he could. “Sir, enemy torp in the water, coming fast. We have three noisemakers deployed and are hitting an active ping to find the sub. We’re going up to full speed and changing course. Do you want direct attack profile or running profile with Nixies?”

Why the hell the Chinese had decided to attack was something Fulton told himself he’d figure out later. Right now he needed to save his warship.

“Attack profile! Change course to aim directly at the torp.”

The first decision for all battle maneuvers was either to run or to chase. A torpedo’s max speed was generally double that of a warship. If a ship’s captain chose to run, the torpedo would still close in on it, but the bet made was the ship would have enough time to make it outside the limited range of the weapon. Running also bought time for other defensive systems on board the ship to distract or destroy the torpedo.

If a ship turned toward the torpedo, the captain was betting he could confuse the weapon with noisemakers while trying to locate and attack the attacking submarine, which should still be somewhere along the same bearing from which the torpedo was fired.

The trouble with “turning in” was that you couldn’t use the Nixie system, the most proficient torpedo defense. The Nixie was the ship’s towed noisemaker, designed to distract or lure away a torpedo. But the thinking went that the submarine was the bigger threat, as she could launch more weapons, and defeating just the one torpedo wasn’t going to end the threat. “Turning in” gave you the advantage of going on the offensive, hoping to destroy or at least antagonize the enemy submarine and cause it to break off its attack.

Captain Fulton spoke with a calm voice. “What do we know about the fish? Acoustic? Magnetic? What’s the sonar profile?”

The XO said, “Gotta be Chinese, sir. Could be a Yu-6, based on the noise characteristics.”

The sonarman spoke up from his station in the corner of the bridge. “Three minutes to impact. She’s going for us, not the noisemakers. Sir, profile is the Yu-6; she’s acoustic and wire guided.” Sound traveled over four times faster in water than through air, so listening via sonar was still the best detection method for both submarines and torpedoes.

“Okay,” said the captain. Easily twenty-five calculations were going through his head simultaneously. “Prepare to launch SSTDs.”

The SSTD (surface ship torpedo defense) was the destroyer’s anti-torpedo torpedo. A smallish swimming drone with a warhead, its job was to blow an enemy torp out of the water. A torpedo had no defenses of its own, and while it could home in on a noisy ship, the weapon itself was loud and therefore could make an easy-to-find target for the SSTD system.

“Two minutes to impact,” said the sonarman now. “No change in course. She’s still not going for the noisemakers.”

“Any bearing at all on the Chinese submarine?” the exec asked. If they could spot the submarine on sonar, they could launch their own array of weapons.

“I have nothing, sir. Just a bearing from the torpedo’s direction when we picked it up in the water. Sonar is sweeping on that back bearing now.”

“Captain, requesting permission to fire SSTDs,” said the officer of the deck.

“Fire them,” Fulton commanded.

The OOD pointed to the men who initiated the system. Two loud pops followed by a long whoosh indicated that a pair of drone torpedoes had just been launched from the Stethem.

The sonarman said, “Sir, one minute to impact,” and then, seconds later: “Sir, I have a noise. Could be the enemy submarine.”

“I want to fire on that noise. Let’s get our own fish in the water. XO?”

“Yes, sir. Agreed.”

The officer of the deck spoke up now. “Permission to fire two Mk 32s, sir.”

“Do it, OOD.”

On the deck, two more pops were followed by a louder whoosh as the triple-tubed, deck-mounted Mk 32 launchers fired a pair of torpedoes into the water.

Seconds later the sonar operator said, “Sir, the sub’s heard our torps and she’s turning away. I’ve got screw noises — she’s picking up speed. Three nautical miles bearing zero-zero-five degrees.” The sonarman then piped acoustic noise through the bridge loudspeaker. The sounds of underwater propellers told the crew that, in their dangerous game of chicken, the Chinese submarine had just blinked. The torpedoes immediately gained acoustic signature and started homing in on the Chinese submarine.

The small joy that erupted on the bridge of USS Stethem was immediately replaced by shock as the sonarman called out again. “Sir, thirty seconds to impact. The enemy fish is not decoying; she’s on us good.”

“Combat? Any results with SSTDs?”

“No, sir, neither has acquired the enemy torpedo.” The Navy’s newest technology was not flawless, and it looked like the SSTDs were not going to get the job done today.

Fulton knew he’d have to fall back on other methods.

“Conn, prepare to divert course radically on my mark.”

“Conn, aye!”

“XO, call out a brace for impact. Have all stations confirm condition Zulu. Here goes one last chance.” Condition Zulu meant all the watertight doors were closed, minimizing the possibility of sinking if the ship was hit.

“Conn, pull a hard turn, then back once the torp is on us.”

In a last-minute endeavor to redirect a torpedo, a ship could steer sharply away, then reverse course again to cause it to run past the ship.

“Combat, fire off barrages of noisemakers every three seconds. Keep it up as we turn.”

“Combat, aye!”

With the clock ticking down till impact, the mood aboard the bridge of USS Stethem was just below panic.

Another two seconds, another new pop, audible up in the bridge as the noisemakers flew up from their launchers, then dropped into the water, where they began their work. Some of them broadcast a whooshing sound, a recording of the Stethem’s own wake noise, while others blasted out the ship’s actual power plant and propeller sounds.

The most advanced torpedoes locked onto the specific sounds made by a specific ship and wouldn’t let go once they locked on. They could quite literally ignore all the other vessels in a convoy or a crowded harbor and go just for the one ship acoustically printed in the torpedo’s miniature computer brain.

The newest U.S. noisemaker countermeasures used by the Stethem were manufactured with actual recorded sounds of the warship’s propellers and wake. They could even be coded with some of the most common sounds of vessels she escorted. Antisubmarine destroyers like the Stethem could then decoy advanced acoustic torpedoes away from their commonly undefended cargo or oil counterparts.

The bridge crew pulled the Stethem hard left rudder, steering the vessel to port. The crew felt fifteen degrees of heel, meaning the ship’s deck tilted away from the turn precipitously, and the whole ship leaned over hard. Pens and coffee cups flew from the plotting boards and chart tables, and crewmen scrambled to stay on their feet or in their chairs.

More pops above as more noisemakers fired off the deck and into the water.

The sonarman pulled his earphones away and looked up to the Stethem’s captain. “Sir, ten seconds to impact… The enemy fish is not diverting.”

“Copy. Helm, last hard turn now!”

The helmsman spun the Stethem’s wheel to the right in a blur, forcing the destroyer immediately hard to starboard. Everyone hung on again and waited as the vessel heeled over in the opposite direction.

The Stetham was still in the turn when a massive boom resounded, jolting the ship and her crew violently.

The men and women on the bridge watched a blast of blue-white water erupt from the bow and rise above their sight lines. The lights of the destroyer flickered off as the water came crashing down. They came back on briefly, then almost immediately went off again.

Captain Fulton had been thrown back a yard in the explosion, but he kept his feet under him. “Bring the ship to bear on the contact! Put engines to full stop!” His calm demeanor had been replaced by an anxious tone.

Fulton had pictured this moment many times, ever since his youth when he dreamed of joining the Navy and going to sea. For the moment, he would remain on the bridge and then he would go check out the damaged spaces personally. Right now he needed to let the crew do their jobs.

He sat down in his captain’s chair. “XO, get me damage and casualty reports.”

“Aye, Captain.” The XO got on the sound-powered phone. “Damage Crews Six and Nine, report to the bow section and report to Damage Crews One and Two there. Combat, get me accountability. Engineering, get a damage assessment and give the call again to ensure all watertight doors are dogged down and verified.”

Damage reports filtered in after several minutes.

The sound-powered phones worked during a loss of power but severely distorted voices, so the report that came in from the damage department a few minutes later was heavily muffled. “Early estimate is sixteen feet of bow bulkhead ripped open. Three watertight compartments sealed. Casualty numbers unknown.”

The sonarman butted in with a shout. “Sir, two underwater blasts! I lost sonar with the power, but the hydrophone is working. I hear the unmistakable noises of the Chinese sub breaking apart. We got her ass!”

This was news that might have elicited a cheer earlier, but given the circumstances the crew remained concentrated on their duties and did not exhibit much emotion.

A voice from Engineering came in next, explaining that power would be returned soon after the engine crews took one main engine off-line to use as a power plant.

The Stethem would survive. For now.

“Sparks,” said the captain now, using the old term for a radio operator.

The man manning the satellite and high-frequency radio looked his way. “Aye, sir?”

Fulton stood from his chair. “Once we have power, call Reagan. Ask their crew to get Admiral Swift on the net. I’ll give him a report personally. I’m going forward to look at the damage. XO, you have the bridge.”

“Aye, sir.”

The captain stepped off the bridge and down the ladder well toward the bow of his ship. He would not admit it before his crew, but he certainly was going to report to the admiral that this was his fault.

He had made the decision to attack. To steer toward the Chinese submarine instead of running away. Ultimately he recognized he now bore the responsibility for all of this, and it wore heavily on his shoulders.

He also knew his immediate duty was to keep the Stethem afloat and account for his crew.