The Bin Laden Plot

68 USS MICHIGAN

“Passing one-five-zero feet,” the Diving Officer announced.

Through the periscope, the moon’s blue-white reflection became visible, wavering on the water’s surface, growing slowly larger as Michigan rose from the ocean depths.

“Eight-zero feet.”

When the scope optics broke the surface, Wilson began rotating the periscope, scanning the darkness for nearby ships.

“No close contacts!”

There were several white lights in the distance to the east, and Wilson steadied up on the contacts, shifting the periscope to high power, then squeezing the doubler on the periscope handle. There were five ships headed north, based on Wilson seeing their port running lights. Four were warships, evident by their clean navigation profile — a red port running light and single white masthead light — while the fifth ship, in the middle of the four warships, was a merchant, its deck lights partially energized.

“Stand by for initial observations, Victor one through five,” Wilson announced.

Lieutenant Commander Tom Montgomery, Michigan’s Fire Control Coordinator, divided the five contacts among the three operators manning the combat control consoles, and each watchstander called out, “Ready.”

After aligning the periscope on the first contact, Wilson announced, “Victor one, designated merchant. Bearing, mark.” He pressed the red button on the right periscope handle, sending the contact bearing to the combat control system, then shifted to the next contact. “Victor two, designated surface warship. Bearing, mark.” He pressed the red button again.

Wilson repeated the process for the next three warships, then flipped the periscope handles up as the Periscope Assistant, standing beside him, reached up and rotated the periscope locking ring. The scope descended into its well, minimizing the potential that Michigan’s approach would be discovered by one of the Russian warships’ periscope detection radars.

Montgomery evaluated the bearings to the five visual contacts, comparing them to the sonar bearings to Masters one through five, then announced, “Victor one correlates to Master one, the target of interest.”

Now that Wilson had confirmed Master one was indeed the merchant, he evaluated the quality of their target solutions. He stopped by the three combat control consoles, joining Montgomery. All three operators had similar solutions, with the merchant traveling at a typical twenty-knot speed, headed toward its reported destination of Imam Khomeini. Wilson concluded that the merchant’s estimated course, speed, and range were accurate enough to engage.

The final question was — were they within range of Michigan’s torpedoes?

“Weapons Control Coordinator.” Wilson addressed the submarine’s Weapons Officer, overseeing torpedo employment. “Assign Master one to tube One. Report fuel remaining.”

Lieutenant Ryan Jescovitch complied, reporting, “Fuel remaining, twenty-one percent.”

The combat control system algorithms had calculated that after the torpedo completed its mission — detecting the target and homing to detonation — it would still have twenty-one percent of its fuel remaining. More than enough, Wilson concluded, to catch the merchant, even if it was alerted by the Russian warship crews and attempted to evade.

Wilson evaluated the five surface ships on the geographic display on the nearest console. The five ships were packed tightly together, with two Russian warships on each side and the merchant in the middle. It was a difficult scenario, ensuring their torpedo sank the merchant and not a nearby warship.

World War II — era torpedoes were straight runners, launched from close range and aimed ahead of the target so the torpedo simply ran into the ship. But modern torpedoes were artificially intelligent weapons with their own sonars and computerized brains. Launched from much farther distances, they would travel most of the way with their sonars off to delay alerting their target, turning on the sonar in their nose at a predetermined point.

Michigan’s torpedo would have to pass beneath both warships on the near side of the formation before going active, when its independent processing would take over, attacking the first valid target identified, which would hopefully be the merchant. While it was a scenario Wilson and his crew had trained for, it would have to be carefully managed.

“Firing Point Procedures,” Wilson announced, “Master one, tube One primary, tube Two backup. Use standard surface presets, except enable each weapon one thousand yards from Master one.”

Montgomery stopped briefly behind each of the combat control consoles, examining the target solution on each one, tapping one of the fire control technicians. The technician pressed a button on his console and Montgomery called out, “Solution ready.”

The operator at the Weapon Launch Console sent the course, speed, and range of their target to the torpedoes in tubes One and Two, along with applicable search presets, then announced, “Weapon ready.”

“Ship ready,” Lieutenant Resor announced, informing Wilson that the submarine’s torpedo countermeasures — their decoys and jammers — were ready to deploy.

“Match Sonar bearing and shoot!” Wilson ordered.

The torpedo was ejected from its tube, then turned to an intercept course with Master one.

Under normal circumstances, it was unlikely the Russian warship crews would detect the incoming MK 48 torpedo. It was fired from long range, so the launch transient would have been undetectable. The torpedo’s sonar would be dormant during the inbound transit, programmed to turn on after it passed beneath both warships. The torpedo’s engine noise was also unlikely to alert anyone of the attack, given the warships’ own propulsion-related noise and the proximity of the loud merchant.

However, Wilson was attacking at night, and the bioluminescent trail of the incoming torpedo would be detectable. The two Russian warships on this side of the formation would likely counterfire.

Wilson waited tensely as their torpedo sped toward the five-ship convoy. When it was several thousand yards away, Sonar made the report Wilson feared.

“Torpedo in the water, bearing one-zero-five! Correlates to launch from Master two.” A few seconds later, Sonar followed up. “Second torpedo in the water, bearing one-zero-eight! Correlates to launch from Master four.”

Wilson responded immediately, “Helm, ahead full. Dive, make your depth four hundred feet.”

Two lightweight torpedoes were headed Michigan’s way, launched from the Russian warships’ deck-mounted torpedo tubes. Sonar confirmed Wilson’s assessment.

“Sonar, Conn. Incoming torpedoes are classified as Paket-NK lightweight torpedoes.”

As Michigan tilted downward and accelerated, Wilson evaluated the nearest tactical display, selecting the optimal evasion course.

“Helm, left full rudder, steady course three-four-zero.”

The Helm complied and Michigan turned to port.

Normally, evading a lightweight torpedo fired from this distance wouldn’t be difficult, but these two were traveling side by side, sweeping a large swath of the ocean with their sonars. The torpedo to the north might approach close enough to detect Michigan. Wilson decided to give it something to focus on besides his submarine.

“Officer of the Deck, launch countermeasures.”

Lieutenant Resor complied, launching a torpedo decoy, followed by an acoustic jammer.