SSN

12. Strait Up

The battle royale was over. Mack still could not believe the losses that Independence and her entire group had inflicted upon the Chinese. That battle, he was sure, would go down in history as the single most one-sided battle in naval history.

Cheyenne was currently running at periscope depth, with new information on their latest orders coming in over SSIXS. As soon as the new orders were decoded and printed out, Mack took them and went directly to his stateroom, where he could look at them and analyze the details of his upcoming mission in a quiet surrounding without any distractions.

As soon as Mack finished reading the new orders, he called a meeting in the wardroom with Cheyenne’s executive officer, the communicator, the combat systems officer, the navigator, and the sonar officer.

Within minutes, the officers Mack had requested were waiting in the wardroom. As Mack entered, all conversation cut off abruptly.

“Gentlemen,” Mack said, “I have just received our new orders. We have been tasked to detach from the Independence Battle Group and head north. We will have a long transit of over one thousand miles ahead of us. Our destination is the Formosa Strait, in between China and Taiwan.” Mack paused to let that last sentence sink in.

“Let me fill you in on what’s been going on in the world around us. Things have been going very well for the United States. Jiang Zemin, the Chinese president who was overthrown in the July coup, has recently surfaced in Taiwan after the USS Seawolf smuggled him out of mainland China.”

Mack knew that would come as a surprise to his officers. He gave them a moment to absorb that and then continued, “Cheyenne has been asked to ’delouse’ and reconnoiter the Formosa Strait so that Jiang can be transported back to China when the moment for him to return to power arrives.”

Mack looked around at the officers present, making eye contact with each of them. “Naval intelligence does not have a firm grasp on what type of enemy warships are in the area. They are expecting large numbers of Luda destroyers and possibly several very dangerous Akula or Kilo submarines. Naval intelligence also reports that large areas of the Formosa Strait are heavily mined, so let’s watch our step.”

On that cautionary note, Mack concluded the meeting and the officers went back to their previous duties.

As Cheyenne pulled away from the Independence Battle Group, Mack thought about the dangers of this new mission. He and his crew had not had much experience with encountering naval mines, but he knew that they presented a great threat to all naval vessels, including submarines. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the only naval casualties the U.S. suffered came from two inexpensive and low-technology mines. It was an ironic twist on modern warfare, thought Mack, that a mine costing a few thousand dollars could sink a billion-dollar submarine like Cheyenne if the mine were to come into contact with her hull.

As soon as the meeting in the wardroom was complete, Cheyenne began her long trip north from Independence. USS Bremerton would be leaving the South China Sea and returning to the Indian Ocean. USS Columbia would stay with the Independence Battle Group, acting as ASW escort, in the same SSN(DS) role Cheyenne had played so many times.

“Make your depth four hundred feet,” Mack said.

“Make my depth four hundred feet, aye, sir,” the OOD said, acknowledging the order.

“Speed twelve knots,” Mack added. This order was also repeated.

There was no emergency rush for Cheyenne to get to the Formosa Strait. Safety was Mack’s primary concern. He would much rather get to his destination slowly and quietly than to arrive there after having to fight his way up north.

Besides, Mack didn’t want to announce his position to the Chinese navy. The strait between China and Taiwan was their home waters, and held the threat of warships coming from all directions. There were four Chinese naval bases within range of Mack’s destination. Each of those bases could send submarines, attack craft, or destroyers and aircraft after Cheyenne if they knew she was in their waters.

Which meant, Mack knew, that he would have to be sure that they didn’t find out Cheyenne was there.

Mack had expected the entire cruise to take slightly more than four days. At the end of the third day, Cheyenne had passed Zhanjiang Naval Base in southern China and was approaching Hong Kong exactly on schedule. So far, she had not detected a single Chinese naval contact, possibly because the Chinese navy was still regrouping after their humiliating loss to the Americans south of the Spratly Islands.

That string ended at the end of the third day.

“Conn, sonar,” the sonar supervisor reported. “We have a sonar contact bearing 200. Sounds like a surface ship.”

Mack was in the control room when the report came in. He decided that the contact was probably coming from a ship from the naval base directly to their southwest. The normal watch station BSY-1 operators started examining the information to attempt to determine the range to the contact.

“Conn, sonar,” the sonar supervisor said, “we have active sonars indicating that there are two Hainan fast attack craft — high — frequency sonars.”

With the section fire-control tracking party manned, the BSY-1 computers began to get the information needed to determine Cheyenne’s range to the targets.

“Conn, sonar, the active sonars are very far away. This is very probably a convergence-zone contact. According to our calculations, they are pinging from over thirty nautical miles away.”

“Sonar, conn, aye,” responded Mack for the OOD. “Keep tracking those contacts.”

Mack didn’t intend to do anything about the Hainans — not unless he had to. He still wanted to stay silent and undetected, if possible. On the other hand, he couldn’t afford to arrive at their destination tailed by a bunch of angry Chinese patrol craft.

Mack needn’t have worried — at the moment, anyway. The Chinese patrol craft knew nothing of Cheyenne’s transit north. They had gone active to test out their equipment, not because they suspected there was a U.S. SSN in the area. The Chinese craft, built in the early 1960s, had recently been fitted with a new active sonar and their captains often enjoyed using this during training exercises. Their upcoming mission, however, was anything but a training exercise. The two Chinese Hainan class fast attack craft had been fully loaded with twelve mines, and when they reached their assigned location they would begin deploying these naval mines from their mine rails. After they had evaluated their new sonars, the Chinese captains would continue on their assigned mission.

After fifteen minutes of tracking the Hainan attack craft, Cheyenne’s sonars lost contact with the two Chinese boats. They reacquired the two patrol craft as Cheyenne began to enter the strait.

Mack had gone back to the sonar room. After reporting the contacts to the OOD, the sonar supervisor said, “Captain, we’ve just acquired the two Chinese craft again. They must have gone up the eastern coast of China. Bearing is 355.”

Mack went back to the control room. “Do you have the range to the Chinese active sonars yet?” Mack asked.

“Not yet, Captain, but we should have it ready soon,” the OOD answered. He had worked hard with his section fire-control tracking party, perfecting their technique, and he was proud of them.

Less than a minute later the section fire-control tracking party had an answer to Mack’s question.

“Range is 68,000 yards, Captain.”

“Conn, sonar, our Chinese contacts have stopped pinging, sir,” the sonar supervisor said. “I’ll bet that they’re laying mines.”

The two Chinese craft were nearly forty miles to the north of Cheyenne. One by one their Russian-designed MAG moored contact mines were pushed over and dropped into the water via the mine rails aboard the small craft. These mines were based on technology that was nearly one hundred years old, but they still presented a serious threat to Cheyenne.

“Mark that area as a minefield,” Mack said, pointing to the area on the plotting table where they believed the Chinese ships to be operating. “If at all possible, we want to stay clear of that zone.”

“Aye, Captain,” said the auxiliary electrician forward as he looked up from his plot. He was the plotter for his watch section, and, like all the sailors on board Cheyenne, he took pride in his performance and his professionalism.

Mack did not know what types of mines were being laid in the Formosa Strait, but he did know that even the most basic, least expensive underwater pressure-sensitive mines could limit his operation. He hated to think that the Chinese could be laying some of the more advanced bottom-moored influence and acoustic mines such as the type employed by the U.S. Navy.

For now at least, although Mack didn’t know it, the Chinese preferred the low-cost mines to the high-tech, expensive ones, and the two Chinese craft were laying only pressure-sensitive types. These were perhaps the lowest-technology and least expensive naval mines a nation could buy. The MAG was a standard Soviet mine that was supplied to the Chinese throughout the early 1960s. One of the benefits of the MAG mine, however, was that it could be laid in water up to about 1,500 feet deep. This made them perfect for attacking submarines such as the American Los Angeles class SSNs.

As Cheyenne approached the southern entrance to the Formosa Strait, the communicator came to the control room to deliver a message to Mack.

“Captain, we just received an ELF message from Nimitz asking us to come to communications depth to receive a message from them over SSIXS.”

“Very well,” Mack said. “Come to periscope depth,” he ordered the OOD.

As Cheyenne ascended slowly, Mack hoped that the message would contain some good news.

Mack had decided to come to periscope depth in case the incoming message from Nimitz required an answer. He couldn’t use the floating wire to transmit a message back to the fleet. He also wasn’t sure if the message was on the VLF broadcast yet.

With Cheyenne at periscope depth, Mack decided to have a quick look around with the Type 2 attack periscope. After raising his periscope, Mack made a quick circular motion in order to get a complete 360-degree picture of the surface, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

As the message was received, it was automatically deciphered by the SSIXS transceiver and brought to Mack. He read it, then handed it to the navigator.

“Take a look at this,” Mack said. “Several of Nimitz’s aircraft, operating from the Pacific, have been monitoring Chinese naval activities in the Formosa Strait for the past week, and they have determined that we are headed straight for a minefield.”

That was good information to have, and Mack appreciated receiving it, but the message didn’t end there. Nimitz had located two routes that they believed had been designated safe transit zones for Chinese vessels. According to naval intelligence reports they had just received, no mines had been detected floating on the surface in those areas and no Chinese surface ships had been detected laying mines in those zones.

Mack ordered Cheyenne back to four hundred feet, and then he and the navigator went over to the quartermaster’s table where a large chart of the Formosa Strait was lying flat on the table.

The Formosa Strait was shallow, running from north to south, in between China and Taiwan. The suspected mined area took up a large portion of the strait, running completely through its center. The first mine-safe route was on the western side, along the coast of China. The second route was on the eastern side along the coast of Taiwan. Both officers examined the recommended routes, trying to determine which route was better for Cheyenne.

The navigator spoke first. “Captain, I recommend taking the eastern route, along the western shore of Taiwan. I’m not that comfortable with running along the coast of China. We would probably be faced with who knows what types of Chinese patrol craft, not to mention all the aircraft that we would come into contact with.”

Mack agreed, both with the reasoning and the recommendation. “The second route it is,” he said. “Plot a new course just to the starboard side of the Pescadores Islands.”

The navigator remained at the plotting table while Mack headed to the sonar room to find out if any new, interesting contacts had been detected. Then the navigator had the quartermaster of the watch enter Cheyenne’s track onto his chart.

Cheyenne headed through the shallow waters of the Formosa Strait at four knots. With their previous experience in shallow waters, Mack ordered the OOD to run at one hundred feet. The strait itself was roughly 350 nautical miles long. At Cheyenne’s current speed, Mack would reach the end of his trip north in about three and a half days. His plan was to quietly sail up near Taiwan and listen for enemy vessels. Mack knew that if he detected any they would most likely be maneuvering in the western safe route, on the other side of the minefield from Cheyenne’s current location.

But Cheyenne’s mission wasn’t just to detect enemy vessels. She was tasked with conducting a search-and-destroy mission for any Chinese submarines and major surface combatants. In order to carry out this mission, Mack decided that once Cheyenne was completely through the strait he would turn around and search the dangerous area around the Chinese coast, which he was sure would be a “target-rich” environment.

Cheyenne’s sonar operators listened carefully as she made her transit north. As Mack had guessed, there was little to no Chinese naval traffic on the Taiwan side of the strait — but he did gain one key item of importance, however: they now had an exact location on the Chinese minefield and had plotted at least one safe zone around it.

Once again, Mack found himself appreciating the message he’d received from Nimitz. Without that, he might have found himself on the wrong end of a mine’s contact “horn.”

Cheyenne crossed north of the twenty-fifth parallel, almost into the East China Sea. Two hours later, Mack ordered Cheyenne to periscope depth to have a look around and to check for any incoming SSIXS radio traffic. There were no messages waiting for him and no sign of Chinese surface ships. Mack hoped that this was a good sign.

Once into the East China Sea, Mack ordered the OOD to complete a U-turn, clearing Cheyenne’s baffles and also changing course. Moving slowly and silently, he started bringing Cheyenne back down to the south, along the Chinese coast.

Ten nautical miles into their return trip in the strait, Cheyenne detected their first submerged contact.

“Conn, sonar, we’ve got a sonar contact bearing 242. I think we’ve got a Kilo, Captain, running fast on his single six-bladed screw.”

The BSY-1 operators went to work immediately, attempting to determine the range to the Chinese submarine contact.

Sometimes that process was excruciatingly slow. Sometimes it went very quickly. This was one of the quick ones.

“We’ve got it,” one of the BSY-1 operators said. “Range is 39,000 yards. It’s running at sixteen knots, course 145.”

“Increase speed to eight knots,” ordered Mack. “Man battle stations, torpedo.” Mack knew he would cavitate, but that didn’t bother him this time. The Kilo was cavitating also, and he didn’t believe that the Chinese submarine would run at flank speed for long, not in twenty-four fathoms of water.

As Cheyenne got closer, the firing solution on the Kilo submarine got better and better. After closing to within 20,000 yards, Mack ordered tubes one and two made ready, and both torpedo tube outer doors were opened.

The range to the Kilo had been closing slowly, but after Mack opened the torpedo tube doors, sonar reported that the Kilo had slowed down, and the range closed more quickly. The BSY-1 computers showed that the Kilo had turned toward Cheyenne. Less than a minute later, sonar had another report for Mack.

“Conn, sonar, the Kilo just went active with its medium-frequency ’Shark Teeth’ sonar.”

“Shark Teeth” was a NATO nickname for the hull-mounted passive/active sonar carried by the Chinese Kilos.

As soon as the Chinese Kilo went active, Mack had no choice. Cheyenne had been discovered. “Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, Master 112,” he ordered.

“Match sonar bearings and shoot, tubes one and two, Master 112, aye, sir.”

Cheyenne had been through this many, many times in the past several weeks, but each new action still carried an edge of tension. The crew performed as well as always, however, and it wasn’t long before Mack received the report, “Tube one fired electrically,” and, seconds later, “tube two fired electrically.”

Mack acknowledged the report.

“Conn, sonar, both units are running hot, straight, and normal.”

On board the Kilo, the American Mk 48 torpedoes appeared to come out of nowhere. The Kilo had begun using its active sonar in an effort to detect any possible sonar contacts. This close to their home waters, the Kilo’s captain had felt safe doing so. He was only now realizing that he had made a grievous error.

“Unit one… unit two also, both units have now acquired,” reported the combat systems officer.

“Cut the wires,” Mack ordered. “I want to be as far away as possible when those torpedoes explode.” The 650-pound warhead, Mack was aware, could damage any submarine, Chinese or not, if it was close when the torpedo detonated. “Shut the outer doors and reload tubes one and two with Mk 48s.”

When they were far enough away, Mack slowed Cheyenne to four knots. They were still close to Chinese home waters and he didn’t want to risk detection again. With the loss of the Kilo, they’d probably figure out soon enough that there was an enemy submarine in the area, but Mack felt reasonably comfortable that he could avoid detection by running quietly.

Mack was also confident that the Kilo itself had nowhere to run. On one side was the Chinese coastline; on the other was a large, deadly minefield. Once the Mk 48s had acquired the Kilo, Mack was sure that the Chinese submarine was doomed.

“Conn, sonar,” the Sonar Supervisor reported, “the Kilo is drawing left again, heading in the direction of the Chinese minefield. The Mk 48s are still following it.”

Mack was calm as he acknowledged the report, but he had to admit to a certain grudging respect for the Chinese captain. Desperate, knowing that his ship had no chance to survive the torpedoes bearing down on it, he had taken the one gamble left open to him.

“Conn, sonar, explosion in the water, bearing 110.”

Mack tensed, waiting for the end of the report.

“Captain, we just lost unit one. The first Mk 48 hit a mine.”

Mack nodded, his admiration for his opponent growing slightly. The desperate gamble had paid off — so far. But there was still one more Mk 48 out there, and it was locked on to the Kilo.

The twin explosions of the first Mk 48 and the mine it had detonated sent shock waves through the entire minefield. Because the Chinese had, in some locations, laid the mines too close together, the pressure from the first explosions began touching off other explosions, and two more mines exploded within seconds.

Moments later, the sonar room reported a third explosion. The sonar supervisor assumed it was also a Chinese mine because the second Mk 48 was still chasing its prey.

“Conn, sonar, another explosion,” the sonar supervisor said a short time later. “We’ve lost contact with unit two. I think it just hit a mine.”

The desperate gamble had paid off. The Kilo had avoided both torpedoes, but it was still in trouble. It was deep in the middle of a minefield, and it knew there was an enemy out there somewhere, stalking it.

Less than one minute after the second Mk 48 hit a mine, sonar detected two more explosions.

“Conn, sonar, two more explosions, bearing 112. I’m hearing breaking-up noises. The Kilo, Master 112, must have run itself into a mine.”

The sound of groaning metal was unmistakable. As the Kilo sank, Mack thought about what had just happened. Desperate times called for desperate measures, he knew, but sometimes they just didn’t work.

The irony was that this time it had worked — it just hadn’t worked well enough. It wasn’t one of the Mk 48s that had killed the Kilo; it was the Chinese’s own low-tech mines.

Cheyenne’s entire crew had now seen firsthand what damage a Chinese minefield could do to a submarine. The problem, however, was that the narrow path that Cheyenne was following could easily turn into a “killing zone” for her just as it had for the Kilo.

But Mack didn’t have much choice. If he was to accomplish his mission, he had to take Cheyenne along this route. He just hoped he had better luck than the unfortunate Kilo’s captain.

Eight hours later, Cheyenne was still running at four knots and had her TB-16 towed array deployed to the short stay. Eight sonar contacts had been evaluated as non-threats.

“Conn, sonar, after clearing our baffles, we’ve got two more contacts bearing 004. Sounds like surface warships, Captain.”

“We’re working on range to the contacts right now, Captain,” reported the fire-control coordinator.

Mack immediately began moving Cheyenne to a position where they could more easily triangulate the range to the two sonar contacts.

“They’re two Luda I destroyers, the kind without the helicopter. The computer just identified their screw characteristics,” one of the sonar operators said to the sonar supervisor.

Since the naval war with China began, Cheyenne’s library of sonar contacts, used to identify sonar signals received while on a mission, had grown tremendously. This was due largely to Cheyenne’s stellar performance during her undersea operations and her resulting contacts with just about every class of Chinese warship operated by their navy — which allowed Cheyenne to record their sound characteristics and correlate to hull type. Without this library, the sonar operators would have little idea what types of targets they were tracking.

Mack ordered the Mk 48s from tubes one and two removed and replaced with Harpoons. This took some time, but it greatly improved his attack options.

Several long minutes passed before the BSY-1 computers were finally able to calculate a range to the two destroyers. “Range to the closest Luda, Master 121, is 22,000 yards,” the fire-control coordinator reported. “Range to the second one, Master 122, is 28,000 yards. They are both running at sixteen knots.”

“Very well,” Mack said.

The Harpoon was Mack’s weapon of choice for this situation. Not only would it save his multipurpose Mk 48s for future operations, but it also allowed Cheyenne more of a chance to escape once they had launched their missiles.

The Mk 48s were seeker-type weapons. After launching them, Cheyenne continued to provide them with targeting data until their seeker heads had acquired the target. Only after they had acquired could Mack cut the wires to them and withdraw from the area.

The Harpoons, however, were essentially “launch and leave” missiles. Once they were loaded with their flight and target data they didn’t need any further assistance. Following their launch, there was nothing for Cheyenne to do except get back to deep water and move out of the enemy’s way. The Harpoons were also ten times faster than an Mk 48, giving the surface ships less time to react.

Order by order, step by step, Mack readied the Harpoons. When they launched, the noises of combat firings could be heard throughout the submarine.

“Tubes one and two fired electrically, Captain.”

After being ejected from Cheyenne’s torpedo tubes, the Harpoon canisters floated toward the surface. As the two buoyant capsules, pointed in a forty-five-degree up angle, reached the surface, they jettisoned their nose caps and aft bodies. The missiles’ boosters ignited, sending the missiles out of the water.

The missiles emerged from the water, fast and sleek as they entered their element. Once airborne, their booster rockets continued to burn, as they were designed to, for approximately three more seconds before the Harpoons’ main turbojets fired, sending the missiles onward — toward the two unknowing Chinese Ludas.

Mack didn’t stick around to admire their flight. As soon as he received word that the missiles had left his submarine, he ordered the OOD to increase speed to ten knots and exited the area, hoping no other submarines were around.

The two UGM-84 missiles made their way quickly toward the two Ludas. As soon as they had closed to within one nautical mile, the Harpoons began their terminal maneuver. Instead of the regular “pop-up” maneuver, Mack had ordered that these two missiles be programmed to drop from cruising altitude to the sea-skimming height of five feet before sneaking into the two destroyers.

The Harpoons’ terminal sea-skimming trajectory worked perfectly and the Chinese Ludas did not even know that the missiles were heading toward them. The missiles were flying so low that the Chinese destroyer’s “Eye Shield” and “Bean Sticks” radars — the NATO designation for the Russian-derived radars on board — did not even detect the oncoming missiles.

Cheyenne was still relatively close to the two destroyers when the sonar room report came in.

“Conn, sonar, we have two explosions, sixteen seconds apart, bearings 002 and 006… ”

Before the sentence was completed, the sonar supervisor revised his report, “Correction. We just got a third explosion. This one sounds like a secondary explosion, also bearing 002.” He paused, then added, “Conn, sonar, we’ve now got breaking-up noises on that same target, bearing 002. It’s a goner, sir.”

The Luda destroyer at bearing 002 was a scene of death and destruction. It had a complement of 280 sailors and officers. Within forty-five seconds of the Harpoon’s arrival, 180 of them were dead, killed in the fire and melting deluge of metal and fuel that had ignited following the impact. Over forty bodies were scattered around the warship, lifeless and bobbing in the water. Next to these dead sailors were live ones, floating on their backs, trying to adjust to the sudden, ferocious attack and doing anything in their power to stay above the water.

There were only fifty sailors who had managed to abandon the doomed Luda destroyer. The remaining sailors and crew of the sinking warship were trapped inside with no chance to escape. No matter how hard they struggled, they would die, either of smoke inhalation or the burning of the ship around them.

Quietly, and slowly, the Chinese destroyer sank beneath the waters of the Formosa Strait. The crew — those who lived and those who died — never even knew where the incoming missile had come from.

The destruction was not so complete on board the second Chinese Luda, but still the damage was enormous. The Harpoon’s 510-pound warhead had detonated at the aft end of the vessel, and the destroyer had lost nearly a quarter of its personnel.

When the Chinese naval commanders received word that both of these powerful Chinese warships had been hit, their immediate assessment was that a lightning strike of F/A-18s had taken part in these ships’ destruction. Worried that more American aircraft were operating in the area, the Chinese were afraid to send any aircraft to patrol the seas and, since they had already withdrawn their Akulas, they had no assets in the area capable of detecting Cheyenne.

Mack had no way of guessing at the Chinese naval commanders’ thinking, but when no enemy vessels showed up hunting Cheyenne, Mack secured from battle stations. Traveling at four knots, Cheyenne quietly slipped farther away from the area.

Mack and the officers of Cheyenne were amazed that here, as close to the Chinese shore as any American warship had ever ventured during this war, there were few operational enemy warships. Mack had had no run-ins with any targets that represented any type of threat to his submarine, and for the first time in a long time, everything was under control and working perfectly.

As Cheyenne neared the southern exit of the Formosa Strait, Mack realized that this delousing and reconnaissance operation had revealed the condition the Chinese navy was in. As soon as Mack passed back into the South China Sea, he brought Cheyenne to sixty feet and raised the communications mast.

Word was soon passed throughout the Navy that Cheyenne had completed her mission of delousing in the “perilous” strait. Warning also was sent concerning the moored minefield, along with the exact locations of the minefields, and the safe zones. Mack also made a point of sending word that Cheyenne and her crew had added three more kills, one Kilo submarine and two Luda destroyers, to their long list of successes.

As soon as the communications mast was lowered, Mack headed back to his stateroom to get some well-deserved rest. He had returned the conn to the OOD after ordering the navigator to set course for Tsoying Naval Base, Taiwan.

This mission had been very successful, but Mack couldn’t count on the next one going so well. He was looking forward to returning to the submarine tender McKee. This war was far from over, and he was sure that he was going to need all the weapons he could get.