Stormtide Rising

Chapter 1

Admiral Tovey sat at his desk in his office at Scapa Flow, a weariness on him that he had felt for some time. He had even resorted to time off ashore, taking leave in the Scottish highlands, but the harsh winter had put an end to that. He had never seen such cold, deep bone chilling cold in the north, and the ice was advancing faster than ever before.

That heavy winter had settled over Russia, freezing that front to a near standstill, a winter worse than that of 1941 where the Germans had suffered so badly in the smoldering ruin of Moscow. The lack of high tempo operations had given some respite to the supply situation for the Russians. Their factories continued to operate in the bitter conditions, but they were still in desperate need of any support they could get.

Tovey sighed, signing the orders drafted on his desk that morning, and in so doing he did not then realize that he was about to set in motion a chain of events that might take the head of his opposite number in the German Navy—Admiral Raeder—and have far reaching consequences for operations in the Med, the fate of Rommel and Kesselring in Tunisia, and the lifeline Britain relied on for oil from the Middle East. Big things have small beginnings, Pushpoints that can seldom be seen where they lurked in the haystack of time. His signature on that order was one of them.

After the disastrous and heavy losses sustained by Convoy PQ-17, the Allies had been forced to suspend artic convoys to Murmansk. The new German naval base at Nordstern remained a dangerous barb in the flank of any operation teed up for the Norwegian Sea or Arctic region. So it was with some hesitation that Tovey finally approved the order to begin a new series of convoys bound for Murmansk, and the first two were already on their way, Convoys JW-51A and JW-51B. They were carrying 202 tanks, over 2,000 other vehicles, 87 fighters, 33 bombers, 11,500 short tons of fuel, 12,650 short tons of aviation fuel and just over 54,000 short tons of general supplies and ammunition. With the winter closing in, they had but a brief window of opportunity to reach Murmansk, for even that port was experiencing increasing difficulties with ice.

King George V and the cruiser Jamaica were the heart of the heavy Cover Force for Convoy JW-51A on December 15, of 1942. (Berwick would have gone in Fedorov’s history, but that ship had been sunk in this telling of events). Six other destroyers formed the Close Cover, and they would be opposed by only three German U-Boats. Tovey was encouraged when that convoy slipped through the thin German U-boat screen undetected, and in the thick arctic weather and polar night, it was never spotted by the Luftwaffe patrols.

The second convoy was therefore ordered out immediately, sailing from Loch Ewe on the 22nd of December. This time the Heavy Cover Force was to be handled by the battleship Anson, with cruiser Cumberland and five destroyers, with a further cruiser force of Jamaica and Sheffield, and six more destroyers in immediate escort. As fate would have it, the convoy ran afoul of gale force winds just after Christmas of 1942, and was scattered. In the operations undertaken to locate the stragglers and reassemble for the run to Murmansk, the German U-354 spotted the merchant ships, and raised the alarm.

Eager to get back into the good graces of the Führer after the stunning loss of the fleet flagship Hindenburg in the Med, Admiral Raeder immediately ordered Operation Regenbogen, or Rainbow, hoping to find a pot of gold. He had the older pocket battleship Deutschland up north near the cape, (which had not been renamed Lutzow in this history), and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was also there. Both ships were ordered out to look for the British convoy, escorted by six destroyers under Vice Admiral Oskar Kummetz.

They would find their quarry in that murky Arctic night, and a confused and scattered action resulted which saw all the British heavy forces too far off to intervene. The two German raiders thought they would make a quick end of things, but the gallant defense put up by those six escorting destroyers kept them at bay. The Hipper took damage, though the Germans sunk the minesweeper Bramble and Destroyer Achates, and battered the escort leader Onslow with five hits, one of which seriously wounded her Captain Sherbrooke.

Yet none of the 14 merchantmen were sunk, and when the British cruiser force arrived on the scene, the wary Admiral Kummetz, having orders not to risk his heavy ships, quickly retired. As sea battles went, it was a small affair, with gallantry on the British side, particularly from Captain Sherbrooke. Yet it was to have far reaching consequences, for Hitler had been informed about it, and he had been waiting on the outcome, eager for news of the raid.

Admiral Raeder had refused to directly contact the German ships to gain their report, as the standing order was for radio silence until they reached safe waters. This twelve hour delay saw Hitler become increasingly irate and impatient for news, and when he finally learned that the British had reported the safe arrival of the convoy, he was outraged. To make matters worse, when the report from the German side finally came in, Hitler learned that his fleet had lost the destroyer Eckholdt.

In a comedy of errors, the German destroyer saw a ship they believed to be the Admiral Hipper, and moved to form up with her—but it was the British cruiser Sheffield, which blasted the Eckholdt so badly that the destroyer broke in two.

“Look!” Hitler shouted, throwing the report at Admiral Raeder, whom he had summoned to account for the debacle. “Our Kapitans cannot even tell the difference between our ships and the enemy! This is the same blatant incompetence that undoubtedly led to the loss of the Hindenburg. Why do I invest all these resources, countless hours, steel and sweat, to build you this naval facility at Nordstern? What has the surface fleet ever done of note in this war? All you have done is waste fuel, ammunition, and resources. You could not hold the Canary Islands or prevent the Allied landings at Casablanca. You could not even keep the Straits of Gibraltar closed! I should immediately decommission all these useless ships, and turn the entire navy over to Döenitz and his U-boats. They are the only ships sinking enemy tonnage these days.”

Admiral Raeder endured the insults, saying nothing back, for he knew it would only prompt Hitler to continue with a litany of further complaints and accusations. He also knew that the very existence of his surface fleet had been in grave jeopardy ever since the loss of the Hindenburg, a moral blow that was heavier than any other he had sustained in the war, even worse than the sinking of the Graz Zeppelin and Gneisenau.

He said nothing of the fact that five British battleships had been sunk, with another lying wrecked at anchor in Alexandria. That was yesterday in Hitler’s mind, and he took many of those sinkings for granted, saying they were nothing more than obsolete ships from the last war, except for the Prince of Wales.

Hindenburg’s loss had imposed a quiet timidity on the entire German Surface fleet, and the ignominious fate of the Tirpitz in its last big engagement with PQ-17, losing propulsion and towed from the scene by the Scharnhorst, was an embarrassment Raeder had spent long months trying to live down. Only the strange sortie made by Captain Heinrich aboard Kaiser Wilhelm had given him one sweet moment of victory. The prize it delivered had delighted Hitler, a prize more dangerous than anyone first realized for a good many months after that incident.

Enduring the storm tide of Hitler’s tirade, Raeder waited like a stolid seawall, biding his time. When the other man had finished, Raeder said one thing: “My Führer, in war there will always be losses, and any engagement like this can produce them. This was but a single old destroyer, and it was the weather and darkness that really saved that convoy, not the British fleet. The Kriegsmarine has fought gallantly in every engagement, even in the face of these new enemy weapons. And there is one thing you should not forget in all of this—we have put a weapon of great power into your hands….”

Hitler had been standing with his back to Raeder, but now he slowly turned. “Yes Raeder, that little surprise delivered by the Kaiser Wilhelm will count for something. I will grant you that much. Yet you have been busy in the shipyards, or so Goring tells me all too often, but to what end?”

Goring… He had been a thorn in Raeder’s side for years, jealous of the fuel and resources that the navy was consuming, and becoming more and more of a problem as his Luftwaffe sustained heavier losses. The two men had recently quarreled over orders issued to the navy by Goring on the revised supply protocols for Tunisia. Raeder had intervened, rescinding those orders and telling Goring to mind his own business, but the Air Marshall had taken the quarrel to Hitler. As always, he again complained that Raeder was also undertaking unauthorized ship conversions, using the lion’s share of steel and oil, and presented a host of other complaints.

“We are completing the new series of fast ocean going destroyers to escort our new fleet carriers,” the Admiral explained.

“Did I not tell you to cease production on the Oldenburg?” Hitler eyed him reproachfully.

“That order was obeyed. I gave orders to halt the buildout of that ship as a Hindenburg class battleship, but there was that beautiful hull, just sitting there, and it would have been a waste to simply scrap it at that time. Do you know what the Japanese have been doing in the Pacific? They are taking all their unfinished battlecruiser hulls, and even cruiser hulls, and they are converting them to aircraft carriers. They know that is the real future where surface fleets are concerned—carriers, not these lumbering battleships that you complain about. So I ordered Oldenburg to be converted the same way. It cost us very little to build out that hull as an aircraft carrier, and in just a very few months, it will be recommissioned as the Brandenburg. What better way to celebrate this new operation you have launched, led by that very same division?”

“You have built me another aircraft carrier?” Hitler shook his head. “Now I will have to persuade Goring to build you enough planes to use on the damn thing. What have the others done? They sit around in the harbors, just like all the battleships, because if they do go to sea, all it will take is one of these new rocket weapons to destroy them. My new Zeppelins have done more than all your carriers combined!”

“That will soon change,” said Raeder. “You will see. Goring and I will put aside our many differences long enough to see to the successful outcome of Operation Merkur. I have Prinz Heinrich and the Goeben at Toulon. I have the Kaiser Wilhelm, and also one more ship—the Bismarck. It has completed repairs and is now ready for operations again, if you will permit me to use it.”

Hitler gave him a narrow eyed look. “The Bismarck? I never thought that ship would sail again. Will it do anything more than its brother ship Tirpitz?” There was an edge of sarcasm in Hitler’s tone.

“My Führer, Tirpitz has not sailed since the engagement with PQ-17, but it is now fully operational again. Its very existence there at Nordstern is a great psychological weapon. It forces the British to keep many of their newer battleships in Scapa Flow, when they might otherwise be in the Med supporting the Allied effort at strangling Kesselring’s armies in Tunisia. In fact, Allied intelligence undoubtedly knows Bismarck is ready for operations. They have tried to bomb it three times, but scored no hits. Now it is time to make that threat real again, and Operation Merkur is the perfect opportunity.”

Hitler nodded. “Very well, Raeder. After all, why should I moan and groan over the loss of a single destroyer? I will give you just a little more time to prove your worth, and that of the fleet. First, you must do as you now promise, and work with Goring to support our attack on Crete. Yet after that, I have one more task for you to undertake, and then let us see how well your ships can really fight.”

That got Raeder’s attention, for he wondered what the Führer could have in mind, and asked as much.

“The Russians,” said Hitler flatly. “The damnable Soviet Black Sea Fleet. It was driven from Sevastopol when we took the Crimea, but fled to Novorossiysk, and Ivan Volkov has been unable to take that place. In fact, Goring has already led the way for me on this new operation. Did you hear about the successful raid he launched on that enemy port? We have new weapons as well, Admiral. I have not been idle since the enemy first unleashed these naval rockets upon us. Perhaps you still see them as the main reason for your many setbacks at sea. Well, I can tell you that we have them now—radio controlled glide bombs, and rocket powered cruise missiles. That was what Goring tested for me in that attack, our new V-1 Sturmkrähe. Yes, the Storm Crows will soon do much more.”

“Admirable,” said Raeder. “But what is it you want concerning the Black Sea Fleet?”

“The six U-boats we have there are insufficient. I will tell you the same thing I told Halder before I threw him out of OKW. The Russian Black Sea Fleet still sits there on the coast and prevents us from shipping any of Volkov’s oil to Rumania as planned. It also guards the Taman Strait at Kerch, and the Army wants to cross there in conjunction with Operation Edelweiss to clear the last Soviet resistance in the Kuban sector. So after Crete, you will take all our remaining ships in the Med through the Aegean, and into the Black Sea. I have already obtained permission from the Turks. They see what we are doing with Operation Phoenix, and now they are quite amenable. So that is your major objective after Crete. The Russian Black Sea Fleet must be destroyed!”

This came as a real surprise to Raeder, something completely unexpected. “You want me to engage the Soviet fleet?”

“I see your hearing has not been effected, in spite of all the big guns you have fired to no good end in the Atlantic. Yes, destroy the Black Sea Fleet. You have it exactly.”

“But my Führer… The Soviet fleet has a battleship, five cruisers, eighteen destroyers and over forty submarines, not to mention eighty more motor torpedo boats.”

“Are you telling me you cannot do this? Because if you are, then after Crete, you can tender your resignation and I will mothball the entire fleet for the duration of this war.”

It was no idle threat, and Raeder knew it. Goring had so poisoned Hitler’s mind that his mood was very dark concerning the outlook for the navy. Most of the fleet was still in the north. He had only those few ships in the Med, two large raiders, three destroyers, and the two carriers. But he also had the Normandie, now Friedrich de Gross. He had been contemplating a daring attempt to send them all into the Western Med, raiding any Allied convoy they encountered along the way before attempting to break out into the Atlantic. Now Hitler was asking him to make the dangerous transit of the Bosphorus and enter that Soviet lake! He could see disaster looming in this request, but the tone in Hitler’s voice showed him to be deadly serious. There was no other course he could set.

“My Führer,” he said grimly. “ If you order this, I will do all in my power to do as you ask. Realize that this will expose the small flotilla I have available to grave risk of air attack, and we will need the full cooperation of the Luftwaffe to have any chance of success.”

“I have already spoken to Goring. He has four of our new Zeppelins at Odessa, and I will send them additional munitions of the sort I have already mentioned. He has naval strike bombers, Stukas at Sevastopol, good fighters, and there are already the six U-boats there to lend a hand. Döenitz has agreed that they can all go under your command. I will also transfer a number of E-boats by rail to Odessa, and they can help you with the enemy torpedo boats. Surely the Bismarck is a match for anything the enemy has there. We have already sunk the one battleship they had at Novorossiysk, along with a cruiser and two destroyers. Your fleet should be more than capable of handling the rest.”

“The surface ships, yes, I would agree. It’s those enemy submarines I worry about.”

“Half of them are probably not even sea worthy,” said Hitler.

“All the same, torpedoes sink ships,” Raeder cautioned. “Even twenty enemy submarines will present a grave risk. What I will need is more destroyers. If I could take some of the French destroyers along, that would help, and perhaps the Italians could contribute something from their Aegean Fleet.”

“I will speak to Mussolini today,” said Hitler.

And he did.

When Raeder left that meeting, grateful to still be in command, he realized that everything rested on the outcome of this mission. It will either prove the merits of my surface fleet, confirm my newfound belief in the carriers, or end it, he thought, unable to shake the feeling that this was to be his last dance.

Chapter 2

Kirov ran due south, with three hungry hounds at her back. They had identified the three Japanese destroyers, Kirishima, Kongo, Atago, though the latter had stopped at the location of Takami’s burning hulk to begin rescue operations. For the time being, Karpov had no immediate plan other than to move south at good speed and see what the enemy would do. At this point, he did not know all the cards in his enemy’s hand, how many ships were really out there, how many planes. They had taken one enemy ship down, surprising it with Kazan’s own inherent stealth and the deadly effectiveness of those lethal Zircon missiles. Takami was dead, but now Hercules was suddenly fighting a Hydra with many more heads.

Admiral Kita sent up his Merlin helos and Osprey aircraft to bring back the surviving crew members off Takami. He was pleased to learn that most got safely off the ship into the water, though the missile strike itself had killed 23 crewmen below decks. So all the bridge officers had survived, and he wanted Captain Harada on Kaga as soon as possible.

It would be over four hours before all his remaining F-35s would be prepped and refueled for operations. He would have Seahawk support from the three ships in his destroyer screen in half an hour, and that was his first order of business. No one really knew where the Russian sub was now, which made him edgy. He inwardly chided himself for not ordering those destroyer Captains to make their helos ready for ASW operations, as he never perceived any threat from the men of this era. Instead, both Takami and Kongo had sent out their birds for simple maritime surveillance. That gave them the longest endurance, and they did the job of locating the Russian battlecruiser. Unfortunately, they had no idea Kazan was in the game, and that blind spot had cost them a ship, and 23 lives.

Now the Admiral considered his options as the ship’s chronometer rolled through 14:00. He had three hounds up front, and they were now running at 30 knots. A Russian helo was up at 16,000 feet, staying well outside SM-2 range, and keeping an eye on his ships. It was now approximately 230 nautical miles from Kaga, and he reasoned that the mother ship, Kirov, was probably somewhere south of that position. How far south? He had six planes loading out with the JSOW package, and that would give them a 290 mile strike radius. If Kirov was able to get outside that radius, then he would be forced to close the range considerably before he launched another strike.

“How we doing on fuel?” he said to Captain Jenzu.

“We’re burning a lot running full out like this, but we can do it for another 3 days and four hours. If we slow down that endurance will extend dramatically. As for those destroyers out there, they’ll have shorter legs, less than three days fuel if they run at 30 knots as they are now.

“The problem is, this Russian ship is rated for 32 knots, and they don’t have a fuel issue with those nuclear reactors.”

“You believe they broke off to run out our leash?”

“Sure seems that way. At this point, even our fighters may not be able to get to them. We’ll have to maintain speed like this just to stay in the hunt, but we may not be gaining any range on them if they’re running at 32 knots. In fact, we could be falling behind. For that matter, they could have turned, and so we can’t even compute a possible intercept course until we locate them again. We just got caught flat footed. We had helos on the destroyers ready for maritime surveillance, and when that sub turned up, the air crews started to load them out for ASW. So there we sat, with a big window where all we had was that single bird up off Kongo. Once it had to return to the ship, we lost its radar assist and Kirov slipped away.”

“Sir, Akagi has two planes fully loaded out with the GBU/53, and they have a 450 nautical mile strike radius.”

“Hold them for the moment, but let’s get a fighter up to see if we can find that ship. Send it south, and if that damn Russian helo is still up there, tell them to shoot it down.”

“Aye sir, that’s a given.”

Twenty minutes later that fighter was well on its way, and vectoring in on the easily spotted radar signal of Turkey 1. It wasn’t long before the sophisticated AN/ASQ-239 Barracuda sensor suite on the F-35 also got wind of the skunk they were after. They made contact at 14:18, and two minutes later that was refined to the assurance that they had again relocated Kirov.

“Got him!” Captain Jenzu reported. “Recon 1 has him at 236 nautical miles, south by southwest. Our present heading is pretty good for an intercept, but I recommend we come five points to port.”

“Make it so. Do we have target course and speed?”

“Not yet. We’ll get that as our bird gets closer. See what a good sensor suite and elevation does for your day?”

“Right,” said Kita. “Now we go after that Russian helo.”

The pawn game was as interesting and important as anything else in chess. That single fighter was carrying four AIM 120-D missiles that could reach out 75 nautical miles, and the Russians had a problem.

Turkey 1 had been quite brazen in activating its primary search radar, for that was its purpose. The Kopio-A, or “Lance” radar system it employed would give good medium range coverage out to 135 nautical miles at the maximum altitude of the helo, which was about 16,000 feet. But it was having great difficulty seeing the F-35’s. In fact, it had allowed two of the three strike groups to fly right through that coverage sphere completely undetected, and at that moment, it did not see the fighter bearing down on it either. That shortfall was compounded by the fact that the Kongo was aggressively jamming, and the Russians found their equipment was having difficulty in that environment. When it came to the actual electronics, the West still enjoyed a clear edge.

Turkey 1 had been up a good long while, pegged the position of the three Japanese destroyers, and now it was turning for home, beginning a slow descent. At 14:32, Recon-1 sent the Brevity code “Fox Three” home to Kaga to indicate he was engaging, and went after that Turkey with 2 missiles. The Russian radar saw those Amrams, but it could still not locate the plane that fired them! The Russian helo pilot nonetheless knew he was now in real hot water. He switched off his Lance radar system, activated offensive ECM and dove for the deck, wanting to get as low as possible before those missiles came looking for him.

The AIM-120 was a fire and forget weapon, very fast at Mach 4, and it used inertial guidance and terminal active radar to find its prey. Kirov was over 80 nautical miles away when they saw them on Rodenko’s screens, arcing up to an extreme altitude over 90,000 feet. They would then fall like meteors toward their target. Adjusting for the 60 plus kilometer range, and the agility of that helo as the pilot desperately maneuvered to avoid the missiles at the last minute, the 95% kill probability fell to a little under 60% by the time the missiles got close. The pilot evaded the first missile, but the second had locked on and would not be fooled.

Admiral Kita had cooked his Turkey.

The KA-40 exploded in a yellow orange fireball, and plucked out one of Kirov’s long range eyes. Throughout the whole of that engagement, the F-35 was never seen, lending weight to the claims that stealth kills more than anything else in a modern air-sea engagement. If you can’t see something, you simply cannot take any active defensive measures against it. Evasive maneuvers, chaff, and jamming were about all you had, and they would only give you a slim margin on defense.

The result of that attack, however, was significant, and when Karpov got the news, he knew that in spite of his 100 nautical mile lead on his closest pursuers, the danger the enemy presented remained very real.

“Damn!” he swore. “They took out our KA-40. Why can’t we see their fighters?” He looked at Rodenko, but the Lieutenant simply shrugged.

“That F-35 is stealthy. It’s what really gives it the edge over a good Fourth Generation fighter. Too bad we don’t have the Admiral Kuznetsov around.”

Yes, thought Karpov. You fight a carrier with another carrier at sea, or with a submarine. That was what he had to do now. Without further hesitation, he had Nikolin send out a coded message to Gromyko on Kazan. First he congratulated him on his initial kill, for getting Takami was a real help. Then he asked him to backtrack north and look for the enemy carriers, but soon learned that Gromyko had already done this when he was updated with the sub’s present course and speed.

Kazan had moved north, running very deep and sprinting at 35 knots. With the enemy coming south, he waited for the range to close, and at 19:00 he decided to slow down and get up above the layer to deploy his towed sonar array. It would trail down below the layer into the deep sound channel, and Chernov would have the best chance of hearing the enemy carriers. What he heard instead surprised him, and it was almost right on top of them.

“Con—Sonar. Surface contact! Fast revolutions, and very close. I make it no more than 12 nautical miles, south by southwest…. Heading 217 and running fast, over 30 knots from the sound of it.”

Gromyko came over to have a look, thinking. “Read it for me Chernov. Stop beating around the bush.” He smiled.

“Yes sir. I’ve got it now. DDE Takao. That’s one of their new Ashai Class Destroyers optimized for ASW.” He gave Gromyko a worrisome look.

“Do you think they have us?”

“I doubt it, sir. Not at that speed. But they may get wind of us soon at this range. I’d be real cautious here.”

That was going to force Gromyko’s hand. He was carrier hunting, and as yet they had no contacts of that type. Carriers seldom travel in isolation, and he reasoned that this was probably a screening escort. He was getting close.

Now he was going to have to decide what to do with this destroyer. To attack it might entail considerable risk. He was right behind that ship, right in its wake, which was a good place to be if they were listening for him. He could put missiles on it and, just to give himself that option, he turned to Belanov and gave the order.

“Come shallow to 130 feet and slow to 12 knots. Ready one Zircon and two Onyx missiles for firing.”

He was planning a repeat performance of the attack that had taken out Takami. The boat slid up through the opaline sea, stealth of another kind as it slowly ran shallow. Twelve knots would keep him nice and quiet at that depth, just below cavitation threshold, and he ran for fifteen minutes, letting Chernov listen for any sign that they may have been spotted. For all he knew, that escort destroyer might have helos up this very minute. This was very risky, but he had been emboldened by the successful strike on Takami.

This time, he was trying to sneak into the theater with half a ticket stub. He had only ordered three missiles, instead of the six that he had used to take out Takami, and now he thought twice about that. Happenstance could further reduce the odds of a successful hit.

“Belanov,” he said to his sturdy XO. “The Zircon failed to acquire numerous times in close range combat, did it not?”

“Yes sir. It didn’t make the dog leg turn correctly if I recall the results I read from early trials.”

Gromyko clenched his jaw at that. The Zircon was programmed to always fire off axis, actually moving away from the target before it made a dogleg turn to acquire it with its active homing radars. This missile had tremendous range and speed, and if the target was too close, it could easily overshoot. Even if it had been told where to find its enemy, it often failed to acquire or turn as expected. The missile would then go soaring up over 44,000 feet, racing away into the heavens at over 4000 knots.

Too damn close, thought Gromyko. This new missile was touchy. They had been lucky that the barrage he sent at Takami had all turned and tracked true. But what if they failed to do so here? It was simply too fast, and now he knew it needed room to acquire. 12 nautical miles just wasn’t enough, or so he began to reason. As for the Onyx, it was tried and true, a sea skimmer that the ‘Surface Dogs’ called the Moskit II with their variant. It would go right for the enemy ship, at about 1450 knots, skimming low at just 30 feet, which would reduce its target profile and aspect.

The Japanese destroyer might see it at 9 miles out and start jamming as it started to fire its missile defenses, though this ship was not carrying the Standard Missile 2 that had proved so effective against the Russian missiles thus far. Instead it was carrying 32 RIM-162B ESSM evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, quad-packed in the Mk-41 VLS modules. It was a weapon that had originally been designed as an air launched missile, now evolved to fight at sea and defeat these fast moving hypersonic Russian missiles like the Zircon. The Sparrows could accelerate to Mach 4, and had very good maneuverability, with perhaps a 90% chance of scoring a kill. The speed of the Russian missiles and their small radar returns, probably lowered those odds to 70%, but two missiles were usually sent after each SSM.

To be or not to be…. Now he had to decide whether or not to engage. He could just as easily continue looking for those carriers. Thus far, Chernov had heard no sign of a sonobuoy being deployed, which would be common for a helo up there hunting for him. Yet if he engaged here, and he did not get a hit early on, he would be facing the prospect of attack by ASW helos off the Takao, and possibly off the carrier he was looking for as well. It had to be close by…. Somewhere.

“Secure from missile combat and belay that order to run shallow. Hold present depth and all ahead flank.”

“Aye sir, depth currently 420 and all ahead flank.”

He ran on his current heading for about 30 minutes, pleased with the stillness of the situation. It seemed to him that the enemy had not acquired him, so at 20:00 he made a turn to come to 235, on roughly the same heading as Takao. Chernov reported his contact was now very old, and its position report no longer reliable, but Gromyko had a good idea where the destroyer was. He liked his position when he was in the ship’s wake, but knew his torpedoes would never catch it if he fired from there. Instead he sprinted west, then turned southwest on 235, putting him in a position to get a decent firing angle on the destroyer if he got a firm location again. He was faster than the other ship, and would slowly close on it over time. In the meantime, he would pause every 15 minutes to let Chernov listen, and freshen up his contact on Takao. Then he would increase to flank again, and sprint.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Ivan Gromyko was a very patient man.

Chapter 3

Admiral Kita soon realized that he could not continue operations against Kirov in the short run. They had recovered the first 100 men rescued from Takami, but he still had that operation underway, another 100 crewmen in the water out there, which was one more mission out and back for his helos and Ospreys. While one side of him wanted to strike while the iron was hot, another voice raised caution.

What sunk the Takami ? It had to be that Russian sub, because nothing Kirov fired touched the ship. Now here he was, his entire TF racing in pursuit of the Russian battlecruiser, and cavitating like a pack of wailing banshees.

“Captain Jenzu,” he said. “I think we ought to slow things down here.”

“Sir?”

“With Kazan out there, that sub is likely to pick up our position easily enough, and all we have in close is Takao, with one helo up on ASW watch. It’s pretty thin. If we run after the battlecruiser, we could be ambushed again, and losing Takami was difficult enough. Send orders to the forward screen. They are to come about and move north. The fleet will conclude search and rescue operations. You may plot the intercept course. I want my destroyer screen back.”

“Aye sir. It does seem a little lonesome out here. What about Omi?”

“That’s another issue. We know where Kazan was when it fired on Takami, but look at this farthest on circle now. That damn sub could be up north, and what if it runs across Omi? We’re too spread out now. I want to regroup. Then we’ll convene a meeting with Harada and see what he and that hot little Samurai of his think now.”

“You mean Lt. Commander Fukada?”

“That’s the one. That was damn imaginative—his little sortie to knock out the Panama Canal and then ease on over to destroy all the American shipyards, but neither one is going to happen. This entire situation continues to drive me completely insane, but I’m just running on training and reflex here now.”

“That goes for the rest of us, sir.”

Kita settled into the Captain’s chair, his privilege when on the bridge. “If the old IJN really is out there, this Karpov fellow is heading into deep dark waters. He’s apparently already stuck his nose in the beehive at Truk. Now he seems to be running southwest towards Rabaul. There’s a lot of Japanese power down there, and I think we need to tap into that. I want Harada and Fukada in my wardroom as soon as the ship’s physician releases them.”

“Aye sir, I’ll send down the word.”

“Con—Sonar. I think we have a course change on that destroyer.”

It was Chernov, listening as best he could on the passive hull array. “Can we slow for a better reading?”

“Very well,” said Gromyko. Mister Belanov, come to 5 knots and creep.”

“Aye sir, securing from high speed sprint, and the boat will creep on present heading at 5 knots. We remain just over the layer.”

“Good enough.”

A few minutes later, Chernov had refined his contact on the Takao, but still had no other contacts. “I was right sir,” he said. “Takao has turned on a new heading of 270, and reduced speed to 28 knots. The range is now 23 nautical miles.”

“Interesting,” said Gromyko. “The boat will come to 270.”

“Aye sir, coming around to 270.”

“Keep listening Chernov….”

He did.

At 22:14 the hull array sonar detected a new contact, just after Gromyko stopped after a sprint of nearly 1 hour. He wanted Chernov to refresh his fix on Takao, but what he got instead was a hot new contact, almost dead ahead, but at a range of 37 nautical miles.

“What about Takao?”

“Still listening, sir, but nothing yet.”

Gromyko did not like the sound of that. Chernov should have that bastard, and they should be very close. The nearest bear in the water was at 272, the range now refined to 36 nautical miles, speed 20.

But Takao was gone.

“What’s happening, Chernov?” This was a question the Captain needed answered quickly.

“Sir,” said Chernov. “Assuming they were on the same bearing as before, they would now be masked by the Mokil Atoll—right in the shadow, sir. It’s the only way they could drop into oblivion like that.”

“Very well.” The Captain pulled Belanov aside. “What do you make of this latest contact?”

“Could be anything,” said Belanov.

“Yet it’s running at 270, just like Takao. I think it may be what I’ve been looking for.”

“That enemy carrier?”

“Something launched those fighters at Kirov. It wasn’t Takao. I make that ship to be an escort picket.”

“Latest message from Kirov indicates the three destroyers that were shadowing them turned on a new heading and broke off.”

“What heading?” Gromyko scratched the back of his neck.

“The last we had was 352, then they lost them. They went dark.”

The Matador nodded knowingly, his eye playing over the chart. “Momma Bear has called home her cubs,” he said with a thin grin. That course would bring them right up here, right across our present heading, and that of that new contact out there.”

“Sure sounds like we have something here.”

“That it does. Mister Belanov—go wake the Admiral.”

Nothing firmed up on the sonar, so Gromyko made another 15 minute sprint before slowing to creep speed again, just 5 knots. Then his day got a little more complicated.

“Con—Sonar. I have two new contacts both on identical headings. The leading contact is bearing 290, range 36 nautical miles. The shadow is trailing it here,” he pointed to his screen, “about 15 nautical miles behind.”

This wasn’t adding up. Neither contact could have been the Momma Bear Gromyko was gunning for a half hour earlier. They were just too far north, so they had to be something new. But what?

“This is a lot of traffic for a big empty ocean like this,” said Admiral Volsky. “You say you had a destroyer bearing southwest, a second contact due west, and now two more, north by northwest? I agree that they may be trying to make a rendezvous, but you are now possibly running into many overlapping sonar spheres. I am told this boat is very stealthy, but how good is our enemy?”

“Sir,” said Chernov. “There’s a lot of mixed surface cavitation off on 270. I think Takao and the other contact are still out there, and these new bears are latecomers to the den.”

“Thank you, Mister Chernov.”

Gromyko looked at the Admiral. “The question is whether to attack or not? We don’t have a firm reading on either of these two new contacts. For all we know, they could be IJN traffic from this era. Nor do we know whether or not any of those other ships have gotten a whiff of us yet. I think Chernov is correct, the main body is off on 270, but we would be putting ordnance on a blind target if I attack these other two, and giving away our position at the same time.”

“Agreed,” said Volsky. “Save your missiles, Mister Gromyko. See to the safety of the boat first. This is going to be a very long war, and at the moment, I do not even see a reading for Kirov on that screen. Where has our Mister Karpov gone?”

Gromyko had just found a very important target. The lead contact was the helicopter destroyer Kurama, and it was being followed by fat Omi, the fleet replenishment ship. They were, indeed, the last two bear cubs heading for Admiral Kita’s den, but Gromyko did not know that yet. All he could fire at was an assumption, and that had not been good enough for Volsky.

As for Kirov, when the three foxes in pursuit broke off, Karpov was elated. He ordered the ship to alter course, then went EMCON, hoping there were not already more stealth fighters inbound on his position. Round one of this strange new duel at sea was over, but the long grueling hunt for Kirov by a newly emboldened Imperial Japanese Navy was only just beginning.

Admiral Raeder stepped onto the bridge of the Prinz Heinrich, watching the ships ahead of him ease out of the harbor through heavy night fog. He still had grave misgivings about this undertaking, and he could feel that in his elevated pulse as the fleet departed. It was not that he felt his men and ships were unequal to the task ahead. No. He had every confidence in them.

He would lead the task force aboard Prinz Heinrich, this time rigged out as a full fighting carrier, laden with 27 Stukas and 13 Me-109s. The Goeben under Falkenrath would bring another 12 planes to sea, giving him 52 aircraft at his disposal when he was far from land based air power. For battle at sea, he knew he would be unmatched. He was taking the best he had left in the Med, the Bismarck under Lindemann, the Kaiser Wilhelm under its able Kapitan Werner Heinrich, and the fearsome French built heavy battleship Normandie, now fully crewed by survivors from the Hindenburg, and renamed Friedrich de Gross. He gave that ship to Kapitan Helmuth Brinkmann, who trained the new crew for these last two months in the waters off Toulon.

To escort all these ships, he needed destroyers, and he had three of the new German built SPK Beowulf class ships, Odin, Agir and Thor. They were fast at 38 knots, each with 12 dual purpose 4.7-inch guns, and six torpedoes. To these he would add as many of the French destroyers as could be spared from the supply run duties to Tunisia—only three. Yet he selected the best they had, the Fantasque class ships, again renamed and fully re-crewed by sailors sent from Germany. It had been necessary to completely de-crew the remains of the French Navy and send all those experienced sailors home. Now any ships that could be kept serviceable were being crewed by sailors from Germany and Italy, and others impressed from the Balkans. The three French ships were renamed for ships listed in his building program that would now most likely never be realized. They would be dubbed Hildr, Sigrun, and Mist.

Two battleships, the carriers, a fast battlecruiser, and six destroyers, thought Raeder. I could use six more destroyers, but they cannot be spared. Yet the Italians have promised me support from their fleet. I will pick up Maestrale, Alpino and Ascari when we enter the Tyrrhenian Sea. There will also be three superb fast light cruisers, Regolo, Mario and Silla. This is a fleet that can confidently meet any other at sea, well balanced, very fast, with far ranging strike power in the carriers, and the murderous fire of those heavy guns up close.

The mist rolled over the flight deck of the carrier now, and the air smelled cool and clean. They were hoping to move unnoticed, but even if they were seen, a cover story had been circulated in humdrum signals traffic meant to be snooped by Allied ears. It would indicate that plans were in the offing to relocate certain ships from Toulon to the Italian ports of Genoa, La Spezia and Livorno, so as to make them more secure against Allied bomber attacks.

The Allies had occupied the strategic islands of Mallorca and Menorca for exactly this reason, replacing Malta with these superb bases for air operations that could be projected into the waters off the Algerian coast and also the Ligurian Sea. Britain was also sending bombers to the vicinity of Barcelona, which was only 212 miles from Toulon. It seemed that no stone would be left unturned in this war.

The fact that Spain was now an Allied occupied state presented the Allies with many places to build up aerodromes for their bombers. England was still a much better place for Bomber Command, but some units had been sent down to Spain to support operations there.

I warned Goring that Toulon would soon come under increasing air attack, thought Raeder. This move would have been inevitable in time, but it does cede control of the Central Med to the enemy. Up until now, with the fleet at Toulon. The Allies would not contemplate trying to risk the Sicilian Narrows. Now that might change. Goring says he can keep that channel closed with his Luftwaffe, but I will file that away with many of his other broken promises. The Reichsmarschall has enough to deal with keeping Kesselring supplied, let alone this new operation dreamed up against Crete.

I told them we should have taken Crete in 1941. They did not listen, so now we fight that battle anyway. I do suppose it is necessary. Hitler has launched this amazingly ambitious Operation Phoenix, and his life line for that depends on keeping the Allies from interdicting the Bosphorus. That is only 475 miles from Crete. He is also striving to clear the Kuban this winter—for the oil, of course. And he frets that the Allies will use Crete to bomb our main oil facilities at Ploiesti, only 660 air miles from that island.

Has anyone told him that the British can still strike the Bosphorus from Alexandria, not to mention Palestine and Syria? Perhaps he has it in mind to conquer all of that in Operation Phoenix as well, but I think not. No, he is really reaching this time, all the way to Baba Gurgur, Baghdad, even Abadan on the Persian Gulf. Will our troops ever get there?

Admiral Raeder ran all this through his mind. His first objective would be the surprise attack on another outpost showing signs of buildup for RAF units, the Island of Crete. Operation Merkur had been delayed to allow time for the troops withdrawn from Algeria to refit. It was now rescheduled for Mid-February, and that was his first stop on the journey east. His fleet would transit the Ligurian Sea, above the long finger of Corsica for a stop at Livorno in keeping with their deception plan. There they would take on more Italian sailors, and pick up those three destroyers. They would then leave at dusk the next day for a high-speed 12 hour run down the Italian coast through the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Straits of Messina—about 430 nautical miles in all. That would put them in the Ionian Sea after dawn, and it would be one more high speed daylight run to the invasion support zone off Crete.

If all went according to plan, they would arrive on the 20th of February as scheduled, those big guns waiting to blast the British defenders on the northwest corner of the island. Hopefully, Cunningham and his Med-Force ships would not realize what was happening until it was too late to interfere.

Let them try, thought Raeder. What do they have left at Alexandria? They have the Nelson, and the Valiant, and I can outrun and outgun them both. No. I do not think I need to worry about Cunningham. We will make our planned stop, punish the British on Crete, then turn north into the Aegean Sea. It is a brilliant and audacious plan. I will enter the Dardanelles a day later. All the arrangements have been made with the Turks. One more day to transit the narrow Bosphorus, and the world will read my name in every paper on this earth.

The Russians will certainly know why I am coming, won’t they? Yet there will not be anything they can do to escape their fate. There is no place they can run. Once in the Black Sea I will join Rosenburg’s little squadron of U-boats which will already be deployed in a defensive arc when I transit the straits. We will have lavish support there, ports at Varna, Constanta, Odessa, and the excellent forward base at Sevastopol, which is under 200 nautical miles from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet at Novorossiysk.

The Führer has promised me those four Zeppelins with our new special munitions, and I will see what that is all about. Goring has promised me bomber support and long range patrols against the numerous enemy submarines. On paper, their fleet looks quite substantial, but I will destroy it easily, and finally regain the respect and honor which I am due. I will show the Führer what a combined arms fleet can do at sea, and set the template for operations I have been planning in the West. So very much is riding on this now, not only my personal fate, but that of the entire surface fleet.

Failure is simply not an option.