Armageddon

Chapter 5

Mississippi was not an old boat ready for retirement, but one of the newer Virginia class hunter killer subs on patrol that day-and Mississippi was ready. It had moved west as part of the Nimitz group undersea screen, but that job was handed over to two Los Angeles Class boats out of Apra Harbor, Guam under Task Force 74. This freed up the newer subs to get out and hunt enemy assets that might pose a grave threat. Seawolf was now looking for the Russian and Chinese Boomers, particularly the boat that had actually fired a sub launched missile over the continental US. It had good company from units out of San Diego, and the US was slowly scouring the Eastern Pacific throughout 3rd Fleet’s area of responsibility.

When Key West went down on close in reconnaissance of the Russian surface fleet, it left a big hole in Western Pacific coverage. Mississippi was reassigned to fill that hole, and was now on the prowl for anything the Russians might have left behind after their hasty withdrawal to the Sea of Okhotsk. Aside from the state for which she was named, the boat was also proud to bear the name of the old battleship that had been reputedly killed by a sub to begin the Second World War for the United States, BB-41.

But the new Mississippi (SSN-782) was nothing like the old battlewagon she was named for. She was commissioned into the navy in June of 2012 with a host of new technology that made her an evolutionary leap in undersea warfare. While not as fast or even well armed as the more powerful Seawolf, the Virginia class was much less expensive, and went on to become the primary replacement for the Los Angeles Class boats and the mainstay of the US undersea attack sub fleet.

It was one of the first submarines to forsake the time honored periscope for a newer “photonic mast,” which utilized an array of sensors, including thermographic and laser-based range finders, and high-definition low-light cameras. With no eyepiece, the old classic role of the sub Captain peering through his periscope and ‘dancing with the grey lady’ was now a thing of the past. Instead the mast was controlled by a joystick to pivot and present visual data relayed directly to several banks of computer monitors displayed in a large control room.

The workhorse of the sub’s sensor suite, of course, was her sonar, mounted in a spherical bow array with additional sensors in the sail and keel of the sub. These could be further augmented by both low and high frequency towed sonar arrays, and the equipment was so advanced that good operators claimed they could actually detect the sound of Russian sub crews talking to one another inside their old Kilo class boats, once called “the black holes of the sea” because they were so quiet.

The Kilos may have been quiet in their day, but that day was now long past. Advances in US sonar technology had now made any boat conceived and built before the 21st Century obsolete. Now the sonar operators would sit before wide panel computer monitors and watch a waterfall of green signal data tumbling down their screens, combining the visual sensory information with anything they might hear, just like old radar operators would monitor signals on their screen. Human eyes now joined ears in the assessment of the undersea environment. The waterfall of data would indicate noise for potential contacts as enhanced white areas within the falling green signal matrix, allowing the operator to watch the contact as much as he might hear it.

Information from all the ship’s systems became a data fusion that painted the overall picture of what was happening outside the boat. The net effect of all these listening arrays was to collapse the uncertainty factor, and winnow down the information to answer the same old questions. What was the contact? Where was it? What was it doing? The information was distilled into range, speed, bearing and heading, and the system was so good that operators could even hear sound from a ding on a ship’s propulsion blade. A library of sounds was recorded and stored on all contacts made, and various ships or subs could be quickly identified by their sonic “signature.”

Situated on the port side of the boat, the sonar operators now shared data with the combat system screens on the starboard side of the control room. Together they combined to give operators an overall “situational awareness” of the undersea environment around them that was unsurpassed.

At the same time, Mississippi was one of the quietest subs in the world, with new anechoic coatings, noise canceling technology, isolated deck structures and a novel design for a pump jet propulsor that did not use a rotating propeller and reduced noise from cavitation. It also removed the need for a long rotating drive shaft extending all the way to the boat’s reactor. The old hydraulic systems that once controlled rudders and fins were now replaced by a “fly by wire” electronic control system, further reducing noise. Inside the nuclear reactor that drove the ship, water was circulated without the need to rely on noisy pumps, adding additional stealth. All told, it was said by some that the new boats were quieter running at their flank speed than an older Los Angeles class boat was sitting idle at a berth in the harbor.

The business end of the boat when it came to war fighting was a set of four torpedo tubes firing the Mark-48 Mod 9 Torpedo. An old warrior from the late 1980s, the Mark 48 held on with many updates and modifications that now saw it capable of delivering a 650 pound warhead to a target well over 20 miles away at a speed of 40 to 55 knots. The boat also had 12 BGM-109 land attack Tomahawk cruise missiles.

So when war came to the Pacific, Mississippi was ready for anything the enemy could put in the sea. Her officers and crew were equally ready, and today she was commanded by Captain James Donahue, gliding silently through the waters off the southern coast of Hokkaido. The boat was beneath the big ash plume that had been blowing south from the Demon Volcano, snooping out any potential Russian sub activity there when it received new orders on its secure comm-link channel.

“What’s up, skipper.” The XO, Chris Chambers, was just getting the word now.

“COMSUBRON 7 wants us to transit the Tsugaru Strait tonight and take up a position here.” The Captain pointed at a location on the digital map, just west of the strait, out in the Sea of Japan. “It took them three tries to get us the message too. Communications have been a bear with that eruption still ongoing. In any case, we’re supposed to operate in loose cooperation with a Japanese task force coming out of Maizuru… a couple subs and a small surface action group.”

“Maizuru? That far south?”

“Chitose and Hachinohe have been forced to shut down operations, just like Misawa. That damn ash fall has practically blanketed all of Hokkaido. Magnetic disturbances have practically shut down most of the comm spectrum as well, so you can forget reliable sensor data from any land based facility there. The base at Maizuru is now top of the list for operations in the Sea of Japan. It’s far enough south and the airwaves are clear down there.”

“So they’re giving us the inside channel this time? I like it much better out in the deep blue.”

“They don’t think the action there is likely to heat up after that last engagement. Now everything seems to be focused on the Sea of Japan and points south. We’ll be playing flank guard on this team. The Japanese want to move up a sea interdiction patrol from Maizuru to monitor the corridor and watch for any new Russian sub deployments out of Vladivostok. Someone at Navy Intel got a hair up his ass and thinks that new Russian boat has slipped away.”

“Kazan?”

“That’s the one. It participated in that missile barrage against Tanner’s group on Washington. Then it seemed to sail into a black hole. They thought it might be up replenishing, which is a pretty good bet, but the Russians have moved their carrier south through the Tartar Strait off Sakhalin Island, and that raised a few eyebrows at Naval Intel.”

“How so, skipper?”

“Who knows. Maybe they think the Russkies will put all their good chips on the Admiral Kuznetsov now that Kirov has gone down.”

“That must have been a hard blow for them.”

“Yeah? Well they delivered a few haymakers themselves. Word is Washington is going to have to be moved from Guam to Pearl. They’re offloading her remaining strike aircraft and ordnance at Guam according to the report I got yesterday.”

“What about the Chinese, sir? It seems to me we have more to worry about with them than we do with the Russians now.”

“If they have anything in the Sea of Japan it will be ours for breakfast if we run into them. Most everything they’ve deployed recently is coming out of the Yellow Sea, so it will be in the East China Sea or standing off the Tsushima Straits. That’s the real hot zone. This duty here is probably going to be low and slow. I think we’ll just sit tight off Oshima Island under a nice thermocline and bide our time.”

“Campy says his waterfall looks positively ugly.” He was referring to the boat’s chief sonar operator, Ensign Eugene Campanella. The visual data waterfall had been very disturbed by the eruption. It wasn’t just the constant rumble of migrating magma, but a range of other disturbances as well.

“What’s Campanella’s problem?”

“Spectrum is all fouled up, sir. We may want to move south away from that Demon Volcano and have the Japanese cover the strait with a couple diesel boats.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said the Captain. “If we go after this sub we’ll need the wax out of our ears, that’s for sure. Let the Japanese bird-dog the area and we’ll back them up if anything develops.”

“I’d be willing to bet the Russians will stand pat where they are now, sir. Without Kirov they’ve lost their real offensive threat on the surface. The atmosphere is just too dirty for air operations off the Kuznetsov. In fact, I’d say that ship is just a liability for them now-just a nice fat target for air or sub launched cruise missiles. If that Navy Intel report is accurate, it will tie up all their really good undersea assets.”

“Probably so. But if they do have anything left with a mind for blue water, it will be incumbent on us to find and flame the SOB. COMSUBRON 7 wants this new Russian boat located as soon as possible.”

“We have a kill order, sir?”

“That remains to be seen. Things have been on a hair trigger the last few days. Right now our mission is to run this patrol and make sure they don’t get curious out here.”

“Well enough, sir,” said Chambers. “I’ll brief the department heads.”

Out in the Sea of Japan, Captain Sato was having the same conversation in his own head aboard the destroyer Onami. He was leading a small flotilla comprised of his own ship and two smaller and older ASW destroyers, the Amagiri and Abukuma, which were really frigate sized vessels under 4000 tons full load. Onami was a real destroyer at 6300 tons, and had been assigned to duty in the Tsugaru Strait out of Ominato until the Demon Volcano made that watch fairly hazardous. When you can’t breathe the air over the sea, you just move elsewhere, so Sato found himself pushed west through the strait to the Sea of Japan to take command of an ASW patrol out of Maizuru.

Submarine watch was his stock in trade, and all the ships in his task group were optimized for ASW warfare, even though they were well past their prime, with every ship dating to the late 1980s except Sato’s flagship Onami, which had been commissioned in 2003.

Even as Admiral Volsky and his party boarded Kazan far to the north, the remainder of the Japanese task force had put out from Maizuru naval base, an installation dating back to the years immediately following the Russo-Japanese war, and a base built with the idea of keeping a watchful eye on the Russians at Vladivostok. They would be steaming north for the next day, intent on mounting a routine anti-submarine watch in the Sea of Japan. A short week ago the Russian surface fleet would have posed a dire threat here, but now they were a beaten force, licking their wounds in the cold northern seas. Sato did not expect to encounter any Russian surface vessels here, but submarines were another matter, which is why he would have his SH-60J Seahawk helicopters up on regular patrol. He was carrying a single chopper, as was Amagiri. His third ship had no helicopter support, Abukuma, a frigate in the range of 2500 tons, but it would weigh in with an octuple ASROC launcher and a pair of triple HOS-301 torpedo tube mounts for some good ASW punch if needed.

Keeping the Seahawks up was always a risky proposition given their close proximity to Vladivostok. There was a very real threat of Russian fighter patrols, as the skies over the Sea of Japan were still relatively clear of ash and soot from the Demon Volcano. In this event, Sato was told he could call on a squadron of JF-35 fighters from the mainland, which made him rest just a little easier that morning.

The last two fingers on Sato’s mailed fist that day were under the sea, SS-503 Hakuryu, the White Dragon, and SS-596 Kuroshio. As per normal routine, they were already out in front of his small surface group, a pair of diesel electric boats creeping along at a sedate 10 knots for their assigned patrol runs.

They had not seen or heard anything of the Russian Navy for two days now, and did not expect to see anything today either. Yet word came in to be especially vigilant. Apparently the Americans believed the Russians might try to slip a fast new submarine into the Sea of Japan and, as that body of water bore the name of their homeland, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force would stand the watch.

Sato was told to expect American submarine support, but he did not yet know the name or character of the boat that was coming. A Los Angeles class boat would be most likely, he thought, as this is a backwater now to the main action further south where the tense standoff against the Chinese was winding up tighter and tighter every day. Soon the American carriers would begin their big counter operation there to retake the airspace over Taiwan. The Chinese were quick to get in those hard first punches, and their new J-20s had soon become masters of the sky, but now they would have to duel with two highly experienced air wings off these carriers backed up by the best squadrons of land based F-22 and F-35 fighters in the Pacific.

The last time we flew land based fighter support off Okinawa the Chinese answered with six ballistic missiles at Naha. Now the island was bristling with new anti-missile defenses, receiving three more Patriot batteries in the last few days. We shall see what happens should the Dragon be so bold as to breath its fire our way again.

Yet it would not be the Chinese Sato would have to worry about on this watch. His back was well covered. The navy was watching the strategic Tsushima Straits very closely, and Korea had nothing of consequence to put in the water but a few old Romeo or Whisky class diesel subs. He doubted if they had anything more than 50 miles from their own coastline, but if found, he had orders to sink any North Korean boat he encountered.

His real nemesis that day was still far to the north, where the chairs were just starting to warm in the briefing room aboard the submarine Kazan. There Admiral Volsky was thinking how to outline the desperate mission that would soon add thunder to the quiet of Sato’s morning. The Russians were coming south, and they were going to stop at nothing to achieve what they now set out to do.

Ironically, the heart of that mission would mean they were now sending the very best submarine they had to find and possibly engage and sink the former flagship of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet! Sato knew nothing of this that day, but his ships were in the way of that plan now, and he would soon learn the truth behind the rumors of a fast new Russian sub in these waters.