Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 5

“Something has gone amiss,” said Rodenko as he hovered over the radar scope. He pointed to the screen, noting how the contacts they had been tracking had separated, one moving on ahead, and two behind.

“Any change of speed or heading?” asked Fedorov.

“No, I still read the primary contact as bearing on eighty true, and look, those look to be aircraft now. I think they are launching.”

“Could our missile have missed or failed in some way. It’s almost certain they could not have any chance to shoot it down.”

“No sir, we detected the detonation. I think we must have hit one of the smaller ships. The contacts were very close to one another in that formation-so close that we almost read it as a single contact until I did some signal processing.”

“The carrier was probably being screened by those destroyers. If that is what happened then we may be too late to stop them from launching.”

“I’m reading at least seven aircraft up already, but we can put another missile on them in three minutes.” Rodenko folded his arms, waiting for a decision.

Admiral Volsky had been listening from across the Captain’s chair, brooding as he watched the dull red sky. “It is clear we must have struck one of those destroyers,” he said.

Their plan to disrupt the carrier’s launch operation had been foiled by the lucky positioning of the destroyer Sigfrid close off the carrier’s starboard side-lucky for Graf Zeppelin, but not for Sigfrid, which took the P-900 that was meant for its bigger brother right amidships, and died an agonizing death.

“We might have used the Vodopad system,” thought Fedorov. “But we were just not close enough. The range was well over 200 kilometers from our present position, and the Vodopads max out at 120 klicks.”

“The same result could have happened, even if we configured it to wake homing mode as you suggested Fedorov. These weapons make a target selection, and it could have run right up the wake of one of those screening ships. Remember, our systems were never designed to fire in isolation at a battlegroup like this. We have always fired in salvos or three to twenty SSMs, enough to completely saturate a modern defense and obliterate the target. If that were a modern American carrier we would have fired with nearly every missile we had. As it stands, one of their screening units was just hit, and now they must be wondering what happened.”

“Well, we’ve stuck a big stick in the bee hive,” said Rodenko. “I’m reading another eight planes up-make that ten-seventeen planes aloft now.”

“Are they bearing southwest to the scene of the surface action?”

“Not yet, but where else would they be headed?”

Volsky shrugged. “We tried a little surprise attack, just like our late Mister Karpov would have advised, but I think he would have put at least three missiles to this task. We had to be stingy, and now we got nothing for our trouble, and our missile inventory slips another notch.”

“This means we will have to extend our SAM umbrella over the battle zone, sir.” Fedorov knew that would also have a cost. They wanted to try and be discreet, applying the tremendous power of their modern weapons incrementally to try and affect the outcome here, but it was going to take something more. Beyond the missiles they would have to commit, the visibility of their SAM defense could have unforeseen consequences.

“Mister Samsonov,” Volsky said quietly. “What is our SAM inventory?”

“Sir, my board reads thirty S-400 Triumf missiles remaining, and all conversions to full SAM mode have been completed. On the Klinok system we have ninety-eight missiles ready, and our Kashtan system still has fifty missiles available.”

Volsky thought. “Then if we had to shoot down all those planes Rodenko is now reporting we would use ten percent of our SAM inventory, but after that I think this German aircraft carrier will pose no further threat. If, however, we decide to use an SSM now, it may take several hits to disable that ship, and its planes are already in the air. Very well, secure SSMs. Extend SAM shield over the battle zone, and let us hope the British planes are not so eager to return to the action.”

“We may not have to shoot them all down,” said Fedorov. “And once we let those missiles fly they are going to turn every head within sighting range.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Volsky. “Time for the fireworks.”

Aboard Bismarck, Lindemann was exhilarated with the excitement of the battle, until he felt the hard impact of an enemy shell, the sea erupting as a 15-inch round from HMS Hood plummeted in to strike the ship’s heavy side armor. Seconds passed, then he received the call from Oels, who had gone down to his damage control post. The armor had stopped the shell, and the ship had not been hurt.

“A little higher and we would have lost one of the secondary batteries, Kapitan. The hit was very close to one of the 5.7 inch gun magazines, but it did not penetrate our side armor.”

“That is good,” said Lindemann, smiling. But the Kapitan did not have time to savor his good fortune. Hood had found the range, and he immediately altered course ten points to try and throw the British gunnery off. The message that came next was as puzzling as it was disconcerting.

“Kapitan-a message from Bohmer on Graf Zeppelin. They have come under fire from what appeared to be a rocket of some kind!”

Lindemann had been too focused on his firefight with Hood, lost in the fire and smoke of battle now, and he had not seen the solitary P-900 rise and fall in the sky as it arced over the scene, racing north another 150 kilometers to where Graf Zeppelin was cruising in the rear.

“A rocket?” Now Kapitan Hoffmann’s words returned to haunt him. Rockets… fired by a mysterious British cruiser-a battlecruiser-a ship the size of Hood itself. He tried to warn us all that the British had these new weapons. But clearly Hood has nothing of the kind. No. They rely on good artillery, as we do.

“Was the ship damaged?”

“No sir. But the weapon struck Sigfrid and Bohmer thinks we may lose that ship.”

“Sigfrid? Sunk?” This was something else entirely now. Hoffman’s wild story of a fiery tailed rocket striking Gneisenau still seemed unbelievable. He had not seen the damage personally, but if he had, the news might have made more sense to him. Whatever this weapon was, it must have tremendous striking power to be able to sink a ship like Sigfrid in one blow. That was no ordinary destroyer! It was nearly 6,000 tons in displacement.

Beyond that, Graf Zeppelin was far to the northwest, well over the horizon. There was simply no way the British could have reached it with such a weapon from their present positions… unless… unless the ships to his south were not the only enemy units now vectoring in on the scene of the battle. Nelson and Rodney had been at sea for some time, but he heard nothing from Wilhelmshaven as to their current position. Suppose they continued west, following his own wake north of Iceland, and were even now bearing down on the Denmark Strait from the north?

His mind was in a whirlwind of possibilities now, and the sound of the battle seemed like a storm of steel all around him, the guns were elevating, firing, belching out their anger in tremendous salvos that shook the entire ship. The sea was a churning lake of fire, with tall geysers jetting up as the ships continued on a slowly converging collision course, the range diminishing by the minute. He had to think!

Could that rocket have been fired by a plane? Was it in fact a rocket weapon as reported, or might it have been a bomb? Could it have been a torpedo from a submarine, or even a flying rocket torpedo? He knew that Doenitz had toyed with that concept, a rocket that might be fired from beneath the sea to cross a longer distance before falling back into the ocean to approach its target as a torpedo. Naval Intelligence also believed that Italians were trying to develop flying torpedoes that could be dropped by parachute and then activated to circle and search for enemy ships. The roar of Bismarck’s guns shook the ship again, rattling his attention back to the moment with the jarring sound of battle.

“Ship sighted! Bearing 220 degrees true!”

Lindemann pivoted to search the smoky red horizon, barely seeing the growing shadow of another ship on the sea. It had been reported earlier by the air units, and now was making its prominent appearance on the horizon. At that very moment Admiral Tovey was sending up his battle ensign and remarking that it bore a lock of Nelson’s hair. Seconds later Lindemann knew that his battle was evolving to something more than he expected. He saw the bright flash of gunfire from the shadow on the horizon, heard the low booming peal soon after.

That will be HMS Invincible, he thought, perhaps the best ship the British have. He could see the high arc of the shells catching the sunlight, a small spotting salvo to test the range, but he knew this ship would soon follow with a full broadside if these shots were close.

Now his mind raced on. An attack on Graf Zeppelin from an impossible range… Could the British have another battlegroup to the north that he did not know about?

“Send to Bohmer,” he said quickly. “Ask if he has sighted any enemy ships to the north of our position. That rocket had to come from somewhere. If the British are behind us…” He said nothing further, but the concern was obvious in his voice.

The missiles leapt up from the forward deck of battlecruiser Kirov, the hatches snapping open and the sibilant hiss of the declining jets orienting them to the correct angle of fire. Then the roar of the main rocket engines ignited, and the deadly lances were on their way. One by one the S-400 Triumf missiles rose into the sky, accelerating rapidly and scoring the ruddy sky with their long white tails that seemed almost luminescent in the midnight sun.

They formed a great smoky rainbow in the sky, arcing up, their tails bright with fire, the noise of their haste a roaring howl that seemed to shake the air itself. They were a weapon that could not have even been conceived in the minds of any man of that day, capable of finding and hitting a supersonic target as much as 400 kilometers away, and doing so with near pinpoint accuracy. And they could reach the mind numbing speed of just over 4000 meters per second, which amounted to 14,400 KPH!

Aboard the battleship Bismarck, every man on the bridge was staring at the sky. There came a lull in the gunfire, and he knew that the British crews must be equally spellbound. There were three, then five missiles clawing through the sky like shooting stars, high up, and then descending like meteors, bright with fire to explode on the heedless formation of Stuka dive bombers that was fast approaching the scene of the battle. One by one they exploded, then they saw the flaming wreckage of aircraft falling from the sky… one by one…

Lindemann was astounded by what he saw, the inner voice of the skald chanting the demonic verse from the Eddas…

“The hot stars down from heaven are whirled;

Fierce grows the steam, and the life-feeding flame,

Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.”

Till fire leaps high… What in the name of heaven was happening? His eyes followed the long arcing trails through the sky, tracing back towards the smoky red horizon to their point of origin. There, he thought. Whatever blighted Gneisenau and struck at Graf Zeppelin was there. He could feel the sinister presence of something dark and unseen beyond that horizon, a fateful nemesis that lurked at the edge of history itself, looming, brooding, a hidden menace on the high seas that was wholly unaccountable.

This is not possible, he thought. Not possible!

Then something jarred him to action, the harried worry snapping at him from all directions like the snarling teeth of a wolf pack. It was as if he acted on pure reflex, sensing a danger so profound here that his only recourse, the only sane thing to do, was to step back, to turn, to get his ships as far from that unseen danger as he could until he could assess what was happening.

At that moment one of the fiery streaks in the sky swerved and dove, racing down at breakneck speed and plummeting to the sea. At the last moment, it pulled up and then came streaking in, aimed right at Bismarck, just a meter or two above the water!

“Left hard rudder! Come round to ten degrees north and signal all ships follow!” Lindemann’s voice was ragged as he shouted.

“Rudder left and coming hard about!”

The maneuver might have avoided a slow moving torpedo, or even frustrated the aim of an oncoming plane-but this was no plane. The rocket came hurtling in, right for the heart of the ship and then struck home with jarring fury and fire. It was as if Thor had hurled his hammer from the sky, the hammer of God striking his ship and igniting a horrid hot fire on his starboard side.

Bismarck wheeled off course, just as a narrow spread of two more heavy rounds from Hood hissed into the sea where the ship had been a moment before and exploded, magnifying the sense of imminent peril the Kapitan now felt. Then Lindemann saw the distant ripple of fire as the newly arriving British ship let loose with its first full broadside.

Hoffmann tried to warn me. I could see it in his eyes; hear it in the tone of his voice. There was fear there, and awe, and now I know what he had tried to convey. Now I know what killed Sigfrid. Yet Lindemann had not even seen the enemy ship that had fired the terrible weapon at him!

The range opened at once, and Lindemann looked to see that Tirpitz and Prince Eugen had both matched his maneuver. The destroyer Heimdall was also churning about and accelerating to its top speed of 36 knots as the German ships veered off angle and began to break away to the northeast, guns still firing with wrathful anger.

Now the situation had taken a sudden and dramatic turn. Oels called up to the bridge saying he had red lights across two full compartments on the starboard aft quarter, and a bad fire. Gneisenau had been hit like this, by this terror weapon with precision accuracy and amazing range and striking power. Altmark obliterated, Gneisenau hit, Tirpitz hit, his own ship damaged, Sigfrid sunk and Graf Zeppelin under attack! This was more than he bargained for when he strove to persuade Raeder to allow him to engage here. Suddenly the lure of fat convoys to the south no longer seemed promising. Now he could think of only one thing he must do.

I must get these ships to safe waters. We must disengage at once. Hoffmann was correct and I should have listened to him.

This changes everything.