Pacific Storm

Chapter 28

Rodenko watched the slow approach of the enemy, wishing he had his Fregat system to get better data, but doing what he could with the Top Mast antenna. The first two hours were the most difficult. He could see the enemy task force to the east clear enough. It had been heading about 247 degrees southwest at twenty-five knots on a course to intercept the ship, but sometime after Kirov turned north he saw it come round on 292 degrees and by 15:00 hours it had closed to a range of 125 kilometers east of their position.

When Dobrynin reported his maintenance procedure was complete, Fedorov gave the order to go to full battle speed and turned the ship on a parallel heading, running away from the Yamato group, but the Japanese had a surprise for them.

“My contact to the east is splitting,” he said. It looks like they are sending out a faster ships to try and run us down. He could see a group of contacts moving ahead of his primary, and to make matters worse there was a very fast contact coming up from the south as well, and moving at all of thirty-six knots.

“That would have to be the heavy cruiser Tone,” Fedorov confirmed. It’s moving ahead of those other cruisers we faced earlier. It looks like we have a bit of a foot race on our hands now.”

“But where are we going, sir? This course will take us back up to the Torres Strait.”

“Leave that to me,” Fedorov was squinting at his charts. “There’s plenty of room in the Coral Sea for the moment. We’ll give them a run for their money.”

“But what about those other two battleships, Captain?”

“Mutsu and Nagato? They cannot match our speed. They won’t get anywhere near us, but I plan on running in their direction until I’m forced to turn on another heading. Hopefully that will keep us well ahead of these other two faster groups to the east and south, and buy time for the displacement to kick in.”

“Are you sure it will happen again, Fedorov?”

“Who can be sure of anything? We’ve stumbled on a possible trigger point for this madness, and I can only hope it will work for us one more time.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

Fedorov gave him a long look. “Then we fight, Rodenko. We fight—what else?”

They ran on that heading for two hours, but Fedorov calculated a predictive plot that showed the cruiser Tone getting uncomfortably close if he persisted on 292, so at 17:00 hours he turned north again, running away from the cruiser and nervously watching the ship’s chronometer, counting the time since the reactor maintenance had been completed. There had been no signs of anything unusual for the last two hours. The sea was calm, Nikolin’s airwaves were steady, Rodenko’s radar was functioning without interference, and the Japanese were still following, bearing in on him from multiple headings. Three pesky seaplanes were marking Kirov’s position steadily now, growing a bit bolder and venturing nearer as they shadowed the ship.

“Damn,” said Karpov, “I miss those five S-300s we wasted on Orlov.”

“They may have been well spent, Captain,” said Fedorov, “but I understand what you mean. It feels a bit naked knowing we can’t do much of anything against an aircraft unless it gets in close now. At least we still have some punch on the main missile deck.”

“Twenty-two missiles,” said Karpov. “That was more than the original load for the first Kirov. The old ship carried the big P-700 Granit missiles back then, but only twenty of them. They were slower, big fat missiles weighing over 15,000 pounds, but they had twice the range of our Moskit-IIs, and a huge 750kg warhead. The only problem was that they made too good a target for enemy SAMs, but I wish I had a few of those as well. Lob one on these Japanese cruisers and we could sink a ship with one shot. Our NATO friends called them the ‘Shipwreck,’ and it was a good name for them.”

Karpov folded his arms, gazing out the forward viewports. “The sea is so calm,” he said. “Stare at it for ten minutes and you could almost forget we’re in the middle of the greatest war ever fought on this earth.”

“At least the greatest one we know of,” said Fedorov. “Something tells me it wasn’t the last world war. We’ve seen aftermath of the next one first hand.”

“You think it started in 2021 then? Here in the Pacific?”

“Those newspapers seemed to indicate as much, one of our cruisers got restless and took out that American sub. A trigger point like that could have cascaded into a big crisis in the Pacific, and then the Chinese got into the act over Taiwan. The Americans hit their carrier, they hit back and sunk the Eisenhower. On and on it goes. Both sides were just playing the same old game all along, a slow escalation of tension that can lead to no good. What do you think we put to sea for? Live fire exercises. They were getting ready for a war they saw coming, and we were the tip of the sword.”

Karpov nodded solemnly.

“Then perhaps our presence here in the past hasn’t really done much harm after all. Have you lost your fear of disturbing the history, Fedorov?”

“Yes, Captain, I think I have, though it still bothers me. Nations have put men in trenches, ships at sea facing off against one another for centuries, but now I see what it comes down to in the end. Very few fought for God or even the Rodina. They fought for the fellow next to them in the line.”

“And to save their own damn skin,” Karpov agreed. “Well, if we don’t move again, in time, then I’m going to have to put some serious harm on anything that gets close enough to threaten us.”

“And you want to know what I’ll think of that, yes?”

“It crossed my mind, Fedorov. After all, if what you have told us is true, Admiral Yamamoto is out there this time. He’s a bit of a demigod in your history books—his ship a legend as well.”

“He was…” Fedorov had a distant, empty look in his eyes. “Yes, the ship was a legend once. In our day it was a broken wrecked hulk, 1200 feet below the sea. That’s where legends end up all too often, Captain, and the world forgets. This war practically destroyed all of Europe and Asia, and yet they still build the ships and planes and missiles in our day. The world forgets.”

Karpov nodded, a sudden melancholy coming over them now, a taste of bitter toska, the old Russian yearning for a better day. “I wonder if they forgot about us as well,” he breathed. “I mean Severomorsk, Suchkov, the navy, the whole stinking mess of a country we set sail to defend. From their perspective we simply vanished that day. I suppose they blamed it all on that accident with Orel.”

“Most likely,” Fedorov agreed.

“Mighty Kirov,” Karpov smiled. “We take on all comers, the British, Americans, Italians and now the Japanese. And they probably don’t have the slightest inkling about us.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Fedorov. “The British learned a great deal when the Admiral met with Tovey. If word of our presence here has gotten back to the Admiralty by now, it will give them the last clue they needed to come to the only conclusion that could possibly explain who and what we are.”

“Clue? What clue?

“We vanished on August 23, 1942, Captain. And then we reappeared just a day later, but over seven thousand miles away. A ship doesn’t move in space that distance in a single day. If they do spot us here, and put two and two together, then they could only conclude one thing—that we moved in time. And they have a few people there in Bletchley Park who are quite good at math, Mister Karpov. Quite good indeed.”

“Hard to believe,” said Karpov. “This whole affair.”

Fedorov looked at his watch. “Why don’t you get some food and rest, Captain. Something tells me we’ll be very busy by sunset.”

Karpov gave him a knowing look.

“Fedorov…” he started, then paused, thinking. “I never did tell you how wrong I was before. I thought you were a wet nosed school boy, and I was…well, I was very stupid.”

“Forget about it, Captain. We all make mistakes. We live and we learn. I’ve learned a great deal watching you these last weeks, and one thing you have taught me is this: a man is always bigger than he thinks he is, bigger than the burdens he carries that would want to crush him, even bigger than his fear. Your service here has been something to admire, and we are all grateful for it.”

An hour later, at 18:00 it was clear that the two Japanese battleships to the north, Mutsu and Nagato, were now on a good course to intercept. Kirov had opened the range on the Yamato group to 150 kilometers, but the fast screening force out in front of the battleship was now inside 112 kilometers. His earlier turn had frustrated Captain Iwabuchi aboard Tone, which was now left just over 200 kilometers to the south. But the slow approach of the two big battleships forced a difficult choice on Fedorov. He could either turn west now, out into the Coral Sea, in which case he would likely have to engage both battleships and the fast cruisers of Iwabuchi’s force, or he could turn and run east, which would put Yamato in a good position to try and cut him off as he approached Milne Bay.

The odds seemed even no matter which way he turned, but something pulled at him from deep within. If he turned east he might just lay eyes upon the greatest battleship the world has ever seen, the ship he had studied and admired for all these many years. Be careful what you wish for, he mused. He couldn’t say that thought decided things for him, but the fact remained….

He turned east at sunset, following the night, the sky a brilliant smear of red and orange behind him. The ship’s new heading was 68 degrees northeast, running for the southern coast of New Guinea. The dogged seaplanes would have difficulty following the ship after sunset, but they caught the course change in time to get warning to Yamato. Some minutes later Rodenko reported that the battleship had altered course to 45 degrees northeast, and Fedorov kicked himself for not waiting until well after dark before he changed his heading.

He looked at the ship’s chronometer, biting his lip. When would they move again in time? The last change had taken only a few hours, but it might be a long day before anything happened. He now concluded that if Yamato was cagey, and her cruiser screen agile enough, they might be able to catch Kirov somewhere south of Bona Bona Island on Orangene Bay, the south coast of New Guinea. Yamato would be right behind the cruisers. Karpov returned from his rest period two hours later, clear headed and ready for battle, and he did not have long to wait.

“Those cruisers are getting very close now,” said Rodenko. “I make it about fifty kilometers. They’re moving at 36 knots, and there’s a small group of three ships about ten klicks behind them at 33 knots.”

“Most likely a destroyer group,” said Fedorov.

“We can take them out now with missiles,” said Karpov, raising an eyebrow at Fedorov.

“Would that be your recommendation, Captain?”

“Our ability to strike at range is a great advantage,” said Karpov. We should use it now and thin out the odds. Otherwise it will be work for the deck guns in another hour, and they may get those long range torpedoes in the water you talk about.”

Karpov was correct. The first factor in the engagement was going to be range, he knew. Kirov could find, target, and strike its enemy anywhere inside a 200 kilometer radius of the ship. The cruisers would need to get inside 20,000 meters, just as before, and that was the decisive difference.

Yamato had to first close inside the 45,000 kilometer range of its main guns, and even then it would not be likely to obtain any hits until it got inside 26,000 meters. It was Ali vs Frasier. Kirov could put one hard jab after another on the lumbering hulk of her enemy, like a fast, lean champion dancing around her foe. Yamato had to simply tuck in its chin and drive in for a body shot, and in this instance, with the coast of New Guinea to the north, she was hoping to eventually pin her elusive enemy to the ropes.

Unlike Ali, Kirov did not have the armor to take much punishment. There would be no ‘Rope a Dope’ strategy if that happened. So Fedorov was maneuvering east to avoid the land mass to his north, but in doing so he would soon be skirting the effective range of Yamato’s big 18.1 inch guns. It would then come down to how long the battleship could stay in any kind of effective firing range, for time was a factor in obtaining a hit, in a very convoluted process that relied on the successful coordination of numerous elements to get just one good result. One thing Yamato had in her favor was durability. Her armor would let her take hits and keep fighting as long as the Japanese had the will, and Fedorov would never underestimate that factor.

“Very well,” he said. “Engage the cruiser screen at long range. These are lighter ships. Their belt armor is little more than sixty millimeters.”

“Then any of our missiles will hurt them badly. I suggest we start with our smaller warheads and see if we can break their speed advantage by lighting a few fires. Mr. Samsonov…”

“Sir!”

“Sound alert level two. Secure for missile combat. Activate MOS-III missiles, a bank of three, please.”

“Aye, sir. Activating missiles seven, six, and five. System reports ready.”

The warning claxon sounded, and Samsonov keyed his missile prime toggles, waiting for targeting information to be sent to his panel. A battle that had been talked about, ruminated, argued in forums and naval colleges the world over was now about to begin, for the cloak of darkness would prove to be only a thin veil of protection for Kirov that night, and a clash of titans was now almost inevitable—the most powerful ships of two different eras facing one another in a final confrontation that would decide the fate of nations and perhaps humanity itself.

Yet none of this entered the minds of Fedorov, Karpov, Rodenko or the other men on the ship. Their only thought was whether this battle would see them through to a good breakfast the following morning. The world and time could wait. For them it was simply a matter of surviving yet another day.

Chapter 29

They saw it light up the night, a bright fire against the dark, climbing up and then arcing slowly down, growing more prominent with each passing second. The watchman on the light cruiser Jintsu pointed to his mate, eyes wide, then called out a warning. It looked like a distant plane on fire, plummeting down to a watery death in the sea, but as it fell it suddenly leveled off and seemed to skim right over the water, brighter, closer, impossibly fast! There was a second fire in the sky, then a third following the very same path.

Jintsu was the second of three Sendai type light cruisers, commissioned in 1925 and intended as fast destroyer flotilla leaders. She had four stacks venting the steam from ten Kampon boilers and four shaft Parsons geared turbines driving her at just under 36 knots. Her seven 5.5 inch guns were waiting silently in their turrets, her four 610mm torpedoes sleeping in their tubes. They would never get the chance to fire at the enemy the ship was stalking that night, nor would those on the two ships following her, Nagara and Yura, both fast three stack light cruisers with similar armament. The supersonic missiles would find them some fifty kilometers away, and come boring in on their side armor, a 1.5 ton missile with a 300kg warhead flying at Mach 5, one of the fastest missiles in the world Kirov had come from.

The damage was immediate and near catastrophic. Jintsu was struck amidships, her armor easily penetrated and the missile smashed through four of her ten boilers before exploding, blowing away two of her four stacks in the process. She reeled with the hit, her side ripped open, severe fires amidships and thick black smoke choking the life out of her crew. The ship immediately fell off in speed, slowing to under twenty knots and taking water fast.

Nagara and Yura received equal treatment, their side armor simply too thin to stop the missiles from penetrating to do severe damage deep within the ship. Of the three Nagara came away the best, and she had turned to avoid the chaotic scene of Jintsu ahead, and the angle of the missile that struck her saw it scudding along her side armor, detonating outside the ship, and buckling her hull badly, right at the water line.

Karpov had used three, fast lethal darts to skewer the cruisers, and they were suddenly out of the equation as serious threats, their speed reduced, crews frantically struggling to fight the fires and flooding. Jintsu would not survive the hour. Over 120 of her 450 man crew were dead after the missile impact, and the remainder would be in the sea soon after when the ship keeled over in a rasp of steam and smoke, her guts flooded with seawater hitting the hot boiler fires. She sunk in twenty minutes. Yura was little better off, her fires threatening to consume the ship. Nagara stood by, calling for help from the three destroyers in the wake of the cruisers. There were too many men in the sea for her to contemplate continuing in the hunt.

So it was that the lighter screening forces Yamamoto had sent to find and harry his prey came to a desperate fate. The destroyers would help in the rescue operation, and then bravely turn to seek the enemy again, but they were of little concern to Kirov now. She had bigger fish to fry, a 72,000 ton behemoth still bearing down on an intercept course that Fedorov did not think they could evade. Yet the Russian battlecruiser still had nineteen ship killers under her forward deck, more than enough to deal with a single adversary, or so he thought.

The chronometer read 20:10, just an hour after the waning gibbous moon rose, a hair off full, casting her pale wan light on the sea. Rodenko reported the fast screening force had been decisively stopped, at least on radar, and Karpov breathed a little easier.

“This shark still bites,” he said. “The MOS-IIIs did the job well enough. Are there any other targets close in, Rodenko?”

“There’s a seaplane getting a little too nosey,” he said, “it’s been following our wake for some time, most likely calling out heading and speed estimates. I now have a faint reading on those other two battleships. They look to be just under 200 kilometers due west of us, and they are losing ground. I make their speed no more than 25 knots, but without the Fregat system up these are only approximate readings. There is another fast contact southwest at 36 knots and closing slowly. It has turned on a course that will take it very near the cruisers we just hit.”

“We probably put a lot of men in the water just now,” said Fedorov. “They are vectoring in assets for the rescue operation. I think we can leave it be for the moment. It’s Yamato I’m more concerned about.”

“That ship has now increased to 27 knots and is on an intercept heading, about fifty kilometers off our starboard bow.”

“You said this ship’s main guns can range out to 45,000 meters, Fedorov? Then it could fire on us any minute now.”

“Don’t worry,” Fedorov held up a hand. “They have to spot us first. Under good light conditions they might see us at twenty-eight kilometers, but not at night like this, even with the moon nearly full. We have some time yet. I’m looking up information on her radar sets now. It looks like Yamato had only one tactical surveillance radar. It operated on a wave length of 1.5 meters with an average range of twenty kilometers.”

“Then they are blind,” said Karpov. “We can hit them right now and perhaps put enough damage on that beast to give it second thoughts.”

Fedorov hesitated… battleship Yamato… Admiral Yamamoto. What was he about to do here? This ship and its Admiral had glowed in his mind for many long years of blissful study and research. He had built a model of it in his youth, admiring the sleek, powerful lines, the massive guns, the tall proud superstructure. It was his love of great ships that had seen him join the navy, and work diligently to gain his post on Russia’s very best, the new battlecruiser Kirov. In those quiet hours alone at his desk he had often imagined Yamato dueling with the American Iowa class, and contemplated how the course of the war might have been altered if Yamamoto’s plane had not been caught by those American P-38s and sent to a fiery death. And now he had to order the death of the thing he so loved, and the demise of all these fond memories, realizing in the end that this was war in its most cruel demeanor.

The history of the Pacific war he knew was already shattered, barely recognizable now, and he was as much to blame as Karpov or anyone else. He remembered his conversation with the Captain earlier. Yamato was nothing more than a dead legend, a broken hulk, a great Prometheus chained to the bottom of the sea where the fish would eat its liver day by day. That was the great ship’s fate, but now it was still in its full glory, all 72,000 tons of it, driving through the quiet night, bathed in the liquid silver of the moon, her massive prow sweeping up a frothy bow wave, her crew of nearly 2800 men anxiously at their battle stations, lookouts squinting through binoculars from the high watch stations on the main mast. Compared to Kirov’s incredible situational awareness, the enemy was groping her way forward in the dark like a blind man with a cane…and three triple barreled twelve gauge shotguns.

He decided.

“The battle is yours, Karpov. I’ve informed Admiral Volsky as well. He is down in the reactor room with Dobrynin, but has told me we are to use our best judgment. Protect the ship.”

“Alright, Fedorov. Let the log entry read that battlecruiser Kirov commenced surface action engagement against the battleship Yamato at 20:18 hours, on the night of August 27, 1942. Anton Fedorov commanding. Tactical officer, Vladimir Karpov.”

A junior Lieutenant called out the confirmation: “Sir, log entry recorded.”

“Very well.”

Karpov clasped his arms behind his back and turned to Victor Samsonov, the gleam of battle in his eyes.

Admiral Yamamoto received the news from his operations chief with much chagrin. “All three cruisers damaged? The entire squadron?”

“Yes, sir. I have just received a coded distress signal. The screening force was hit by suicide rockets about twenty minutes ago. We have lost Jintsu, and both Nagara and Yura are heavily damaged. The destroyers from our escort screen are nearby and rendering assistance.”

“I see…” Yamato’s eyes darkened, his brow set with concentration. “So the rumors of this ship are proved true after all. Iwabuchi was not exaggerating with his stories of flying devil fish raining fire and hell on his ships. How close are we?”

“Sir, we are just inside our maximum gun range now, but we have no target. There is good moonlight but even our best spotters will not be able to report anything until we get much closer. They are launching more seaplanes now.”

Yamamoto stood up, reaching for his white gloves and putting them on one after another, a slow, deliberate process that had an air of gravity about it. It was time to fight, if he could only find his enemy first. He reached slowly and took up his Admiral’s cap, squaring it on his head as he turned.

“It’s time we were on the bridge, Kuroshima. Walk with me.”

As two men left the briefing room Kuroshima cast a wan look at the map table, noting the tiny wooden ships that had been moved about as the chase unfolded. In one glance he took it all in, Mutsu, Nagato, Tone, and the rest of Iwabuchi’s cruisers, Hara with his carriers, and the whole of the entire remaining fleet already limping north to Rabaul and Truk. They had already lost three fleet carriers, not to mention the chaos here in the Coral Sea. His entire plan was a shambles, the Combined Fleet completely unhinged, and all because of this solitary raider, this Shadow Dancer in the night that could command the darkest kami in the seven hells and fling them against his ships, which now seemed no more useful than these same wooden toys, he thought. Our cruisers and carriers have been good for little more than sport here, and now the fate of the war and our nation and people hangs in the balance.

What was this ship? Hachiman, the god of war? Mizuchi, the dreaded sea dragon? Susanoo, the storm god? He closed the door, his heart heavy as he followed the Admiral forward to the nearest stair well up. Before they had reached the stairs Kuroshima heard a distant low rumble, resolving to a louder roar. Then the warning bells were ringing all over the ship, and the strident calls of the men jarred him to keen alertness.

He felt the ship move, a thudding vibration followed by the sound of an explosion. Yamamoto turned, his eyes bright with fire.

“Hurry, Kuroshima, it has begun!”

The P-900 missile had used its solid fuel propellant to quickly gain altitude before activating its ARGS-54 active homing radar seekers, sweeping the calm night with microwave energy to locate its target below. Two short, squarish stabilizing wings deployed with a metallic rasp. Then the missile settled into approach mode briefly, its air breathing engines cruising at sub-sonic speed for a time as it made its high altitude approach. Minutes later the sharp nose of the rocket pointed downward towards the glistening sea and it swooped low, leveling off just feet above the water where the low-flying supersonic terminal stage of the missile saw it accelerate in a dizzying dance of zigs and zags at nearly Mach 3. It had been designed to defeat another computer controlled SAM umbrella, but no such defense was in place.

The men aboard Yamato watched it come with blinding speed, a wild light dancing over the sea aimed right at the heart of the ship, where it flashed against the heavy side armor with a roaring explosion. It’s 400kg warhead was enough to buckle and burn its way through twelve of sixteen inches of hardened steel armor. But it could go no further, though the ship felt as though a Thunder God had struck it with an iron hammer. Yamato rolled slightly, then easily righted herself. There was a fire, her port side blackened and scarred, but by and large she had not been seriously hurt.

When the second missile was spotted in the sky, officers screamed out commands, their arms stiffly pointing out the target with batons. Yamato’s substantial anti-aircraft suite began to fill the night with metal and fire as few other ships of her day could. Years later it would be vastly upgraded to 150 guns to defend against her real nemesis, enemy planes, but it had nowhere near that number at this point in the war.

The ship was built like a massive steel castle. Her huge gun turrets with three 18.1 in barrels each were mounted two forward and one aft. Her central con tower, main mast, superstructure and stack were then surrounded by what looked like several concentric circles of armored gun positions. In all there were twelve more 152mm 6.1 inch naval guns in four tripled turrets, twelve more 127mm 5 inch guns, eight 25mm triple barreled AA guns and four more 13.2mm AA machine guns. Most every gun on the port side of the ship was blasting away now, but it did them little good.

The second missile was too fast to be targeted and killed by a concentrated stream of AA fire, and only random chance would see it possibly struck by a round as it made its dancing approach to the ship at low altitude. The fire control officers watched in awe as the low aimed gun rounds plowed into the sea—and then before they could think to redirect, the missile plowed into the ship. The second hit was slightly higher, approaching the upper weather deck but still catching the side armor, though the explosion seemed more severe. Part of the 200mm armored deck was ripped up and sent flailing against the base of the main pagoda con tower, knocking out the open top twin 127mm gun there, and leaving every man at that station dead. The rest of the blow fell on the heavy side armor, which again weathered the hit, charred and bruised, but unbroken.

Instinctively, the ship turned its big turrets toward the source of the lights in the sky, and the long thin streaks of smoke that marked their low level approach, luminescent in the light of the rising moon. But up on the bridge the ship’s Rear Admiral Takayanagi had already taken the initiative to turn the ship, steering at an angle to those long thin ghostly trails. The turn also leaned out his profile if the enemy was seeking to spot him in the night. It would make little difference, but at least he now knew where the enemy was. He could see flaring bright light and luminous smoke on the far horizon when the demon rockets fired, and a few more degrees off his port side he noted the angry glow of fire, his own cruiser screen still burning in the distance.

Somewhere beyond the charcoal edge of night, hiding from the moon and still wrapped in gossamer thin shadows, battlecruiser Kirov contemplated what next to throw at his ship. The battle had only just begun.

“Two hits amidships,” a watch stander reported, pointing at the HD video being fed from the Tin Man. The cameras were set to infrared, and the silhouette of the enemy ship glowed in strange hues of white and green, as it might be viewed through night optic goggles.

“Range closing fast now,” said Rodenko. “I’m reading 32,000 meters.” The combined speed of the two ships was now almost sixty knots as they closed, though the angle they were riding toward a distant intercept point diminished the range somewhat slower.

“Any change in speed?” Karpov asked.

“No, sir. The target continues at 27 knots.”

“It will take more than a couple hits, Captain” said Fedorov. “I doubt if we seriously hurt them at this point.”

Karpov thought for a moment. “The P-900s are not as easy to program for a plunging descent, but the Moskit-IIs can be altered. We ordered them programmed for either low level attack or plunging fire, did we not?”

“Sir, I have three available with altered programs. The remainder were kept on the high speed sea-skimming setting for use against smaller ships.”

Three may just do the job, thought Karpov. They’ve obviously shaken those two P-900’s off. “Switch to the Moskit-IIs. It’s time we poked some holes in their deck.”

“Programming,” said Samsonov. Kirov had given the enemy two sharp jabs in the opening round, Now she wanted to throw a couple of real body punches.

“Those three destroyers are still bearing on our position, sir,” Rodenko put in. “They are due south at 28,000 meters, just beyond the that crippled cruiser screen.”

“All things in time,” said Karpov. “First we stop this battleship.”

Karpov spoke as if the result were a foregone conclusion, but he was soon to find out that there were few certainties in life, and even fewer in war.

Chapter 30

Lt. Commander Yasuna Kozono was a very enterprising man. He had been trying to find a way to up-gun his new J1N1-C “Gekkou” night reconnaissance fighter for some time. Dubbed the Navy Type 2 Reconnaissance Fighter, he had a small shotai of just two planes at Rabaul, early deliveries that had not been expected until later that year. One had a spherical turret behind the pilot’s compartment with one Type 99 20mm cannon installed there, but the weapon seemed entirely too defensive in nature to him, and ill suited for taking the fight to the enemy. To use it against a bomber he would have to creep up on the target from below so the gunner could train and fire his cannon. It was most unsatisfactory, and it negated the one thing he most loved about his new night fighter, its tremendous top speed of 330 miles per hour on attack.

What he wanted was a better cannon on the fuselage to compliment the six smaller 7.7 mm Type 97 machine guns on his wings. He was so adamant about it that he secretly set about to install the guns himself in a field-modified version of the plane, hoping Central Command would never be the wiser. He would come to call his new model the Gekkou, or Moonlight, and it was to be tested in a very special mission, rising to greet its namesake that night. He had just the perfect pilot to test his new invention as well, Lieutenant Sachio Endo, a highly skilled flyer of Tainanku T-1.

The navy was chasing a sea dragon, and had called up to Rabaul to see if they could send any help. As the light faded they feared their ship launched seaplanes would not be able to keep watch on the enemy ship, and asked Rabaul if they had a night fighter or two to send in support. It so happened that they had exactly two, all the planes Kozono had, and he would send Endo in one, and fly the second himself, eager to convince the navy that his planes should be rolled into more significant production. Tonight he would get his chance.

As the sun began to set he fired up his twin 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines and slowly taxied down the palm fringed runway, looking over his shoulder to see Endo right behind him. The two planes roared into the sky, climbing quickly and banking towards the setting sun, heading southwest to wait for the moon. It would be a long and possibly dangerous flight, out to the limit of the plane’s operational range, though Kozono had been wise enough to request drop tanks to extend his mission slightly. They would fly down the long curved island of New Britain, then over the Solomon Sea, tipping their wings to the rising moon a little over an hour later. Soon they would come to the shadowy folds of Papua New Guinea, crossing that landform to enter the Coral Sea. It was at least 800 kilometers out, and his effective combat radius was a little over 1120. That would leave him limited time on target, and he hoped he would find this enemy ship quickly, and surprise it if he could.

He opened the throttle a bit cruising at 300 kph. Three hours later he would find what he was looking for, strange lights on the sea, wild arcing trails in the sky, something moving at a blistering rate of speed far below them, explosions, the light and fire of a battle at sea.

“Endo,” he called on his short range radio. “Do you see that? What is it?”

“Must be a plane in a fast dive,” said Endo. “Let’s get down and find out for ourselves. There! At three o’clock. That’s a ship! It must be the one we are looking for. Let’s give them a little more moonlight!”

“That sea plane is getting very close,” Rodenko said again as Karpov conferred with Samsonov.

The Captain looked up, frowning. “How close?”

Rodenko squinted at his scope. “Speed increasing to over 450kph. Bearing on our aft quarter now. Range 35,000 meters and closing.”

Fedorov turned suddenly, his face concerned. “Over 450kph? That’s no seaplane!”

“Sound air alert one!” Karpov was quick to react. “Move Samsonov, forget the battleship for the moment. Give me that last S-300—Now!”

Samsonov’s hands were quick and agile on the CIC controls. “Missile ready!”

“Fire!”

The plane was fast, thought Fedorov, too fast to be a lumbering seaplane. It had to be a strike aircraft of some kind, but from where? It couldn’t be a Nell out of Port Moresby, not at over 450kph. It couldn’t be a Val dive bomber at that speed either. Only an A6M2 Zero could run like that…Unless…

“This is a night fighter,” he said quickly. “Probably out of Port Moresby or Rabaul, possibly even Lae. If so, it’s a long way from home.”

“Don’t worry, it will be in a permanent home soon,” said Karpov, the S-300 will take care of it.”

But there were two planes. Endo had been right on Kozono’s wing, his precision flying ability on display that night as the two planes accelerated and prepared to make their strafing runs. Rodenko’s Top Mast, not truly designed for tactical scenarios, had read both planes as one.

Endo saw something flash up from the dark shadow on the sea they were bearing on, with amazing speed. He reacted on pure reflex.

“Kozono! Bank left, quickly! I’m going right.” And the two planes suddenly veered away from one another, just as the missile was ready to acquire. It now had to choose one of two targets, and Kozono’s luck ran out that night. The S-300 followed his plane and exploded in a bright fiery rain of shrapnel that took off his left engine and half the wing. Kozono was wounded, his hand tight on the stick as his plane began to tailspin down towards the sea.

“Get it Endo!” he said with all the strength that was left in him, and then he knew no more.

Endo saw him die, and his jaw tightened, he was right on target, so close that he could see small AA guns jerking up at him and taking aim. He suddenly swooped low, aimed, and fired Kozono’s two new 20mm cannons full out, the machine guns on his wings rattling out their fire as well. At that very moment he saw the ship belch flame from its own guns, like the baleful breath of a dragon, and his plane shuddered, riddled with 30mm rounds. His right engine was on fire, but he controlled his plane, banking around to try and evade. Yet computer controlled AR-710s could not be fooled by his maneuver. They fired again, and Endo and his plane were shot to pieces. He would not go on to become one of Japan’s leading aces later in that very same model plane, and the pilots and crews of at least eight B-29s would not die at the business end of his skillful trade.

But his own cannons had raked the back of Mizuchi, and the 20mm rounds dug deeply into the tall main mast aft section, where a series of steam vents for the rapidly spinning turbine engine vented up in a cleverly hidden stack. It was perforated, rasping out jets of hot steam, and a small fire started there, adding smoke and flame to the mix. It was not a serious wound, just a scratch really, but it would end up causing more trouble than anyone knew when the damage control teams began to respond to the scene.

Chief Byko put his hands on his hips, shaking his head as he looked up at the steam venting sideways from a dozen holes. “Let’s get to work, boys,” he said wearily. “It’s going to be another long night.”

It was prophetic.

She bore the name of ancient Japan, Yamato, an awesome ship, 862 feet long with a 127 foot beam, nearly 72,000 tons of iron and steel, almost as much as the British battleships Rodney and Nelson combined! By comparison the American battleship Nevada that had been on Japan’s target list at Pearl Harbor displaced a measly 27,500 tons. Yamato outweighed Nevada, Oklahoma and a good heavy cruiser thrown on the scales as well, truly a super battleship, and no other nation would ever build anything in her weight class again. 23,000 tons of her weight was dedicated to armor alone. Yet when she launched in December of 1941, just in time for the hostilities planned against the United States, the Americans had no knowledge of her existence beyond veiled rumors of a ship believed to be in the range of 40-50,000 tons. The US would know little more about the ship until they eventually sank it in an enormous air attack with 400 planes, hitting her with twelve 1000 pound bombs and at least seven torpedoes years later, in March of 1945.

A six foot wide gold chrysanthemum crest crowned the sleek construction of her special hydrodynamic bow, which helped Yamato plow through the sea resistance and enhanced her speed. Driven by twelve Kampon boilers and engines that could generate all of 150,000 horsepower for her quadruple three blade propellers, she ran at 27 knots, an engineering marvel for her day. To do so she consumed 70 tons of fuel each hour.

Inside the ship was a maze of passageways and compartments, so complicated that the decks were painted with arrows indicating which direction was forward so her crew of 2800 men could find their way around. There were 1,150 watertight compartments in her hull design to restrict or allow flooding to correct a list if necessary. Even her massive fuel stores could be moved by pumps to special compartments to help correct a list as much as ten degrees.

Now the cranes and catapults on her enormous aft deck were feverishly working to launch two more of her seven seaplanes. One was already in the air, but these two would be tasked with helping gunfire direction by spotting shell falls near the target, as her guns could lob shells well over the horizon. The ship already knew the approximate position of her enemy, and even now the range finders perched atop her hundred foot high main mast were scanning the dark glistening seas ahead to try and pinpoint their sighting. To either side of this point, two flat antennae jutted like squarish black ears, the Model 1 Mark 2 set, which ranged out to 20,000 meters. It would not work that night, as her foe was quietly jamming the 1.5 meter band to render it useless, though it seldom worked at all after the first firing of the enormous guns. The concussion was so great that the radar sets would be shaken senseless.

Yet even without her fire control radars, Yamato had other means of sighting and aiming her powerful guns. The quality of her optical fire control systems were matched only by the Bismarck, and for combat at night, she had no other equal on earth, until Kirov arrived. Yet the actual system used to control and aim her guns was primitive compared to the capabilities of the enemy she now faced.

The Type 92 Shagekiban low angle analog computer used on Yamato was first developed by the Aichi Clock Company in 1932. It was a complex system relying on information from numerous sources outside the computer itself, and the efforts of at least seven operators. A graphic plotter noted the basic heading and speed of the target, and calculated bearing change versus time. A range averaging panel selected out the most likely range by averaging results obtained from several optical rangefinders. The main panel of the device had displays for present range and rate of change, spot correction, the speed of the firing ship and its bearing, wind deflection, a compass card and other functions. It worked in close cooperation with the type 94 Hoiban gun director, and other control systems on the ship, and thus its overall operation could be degraded when any of these supporting systems were damaged or put out of action by enemy fire.

The entire effort of the machine was to produce one vital calculation: future target position. It was, in effect, a time machine trying to peer into the future and see where the enemy ship would be two minutes on. The seven man team saw one man reading range averages and bearing plots, a second slowly cranking a wheel to set the range change obtained by this control officer. Other men adjusted the settings for bearing, deflection correction, ship speed, target inclination, compass course from the gyro, and then the final variable was the all important averaging of the range solutions obtained by different rangefinders. This man exercised his best judgment of the results he received, favoring one or excluding another that he deemed inconsistent or invalid. In short, he was making his best guess of the actual range from a weight of opinion obtained from three to five different rangefinders. As such, the system required a great deal of manual input, and as a gun battle continued, human factors such as fatigue, fear, distraction and other emotional responses all played a part in the final solution obtained.

By contrast, Kirov’s electronic systems were a million times quicker to their solution, and there were layers of possible ways to target the enemy—radar, laser range finding and HD optics as well. The difference meant one thing in the end: Kirov found her enemy in the here and now. It did not have to predict where the target would be at some future time. What Kirov fired at she was going to hit, and virtually without fail. What Yamato fired at she might hit, given enough time and just a little good luck in the mix. The one remaining factor was this: did Kirov have enough warheads left to put damage on the target sufficient to ‘mission kill’ or sink it before Yamato obtained that one lucky hit that could cripple its enemy?

With the sudden appearance and attack by the Japanese night fighters concluded, Karpov now returned to Samsonov, intent on his principle target.

“Reset range to target data feeds,” he said his breath now controlled as he imposed calm on himself.

“Target at 32,300 meters and closing.”

“We’ll continue with two Moskit II missiles now. Give me one for low level attack but key elevation at the number two strike setting. Then I want the second set for plunging descent. Clear?”

“Aye, sir, missiles keyed to targets and ready.”

Admiral Yamamoto arrived on the bridge just in time to see them coming, two bright lights in the sky, faster than any plane he had ever seen. It was astounding! One came surging in at sea level, and the second fell from the sky like a flaming meteor, a bolt of lightning thrown from the Gods above. The sea skimmer hit first, rising ten feet just before it hit the ship to just barely clear the main weather deck and strike amidships, twenty feet to the left of the fire still raging from the P-900 attack. Seconds later the ship was rocked again and the plunging missile came down from above, falling on the aft section where it struck right atop the armored six inch gun turret mounted just behind the main guns, penetrating with its tremendous kinetic impact and a 450kg warhead. The smaller turret was a total loss, and a large secondary explosion blasted against the back of the more heavily armored number three turret, shaking it badly, though its massive armor was not compromised.

Only the armor on that six inch turret had prevented the missile from plunging deeper into the ship, and while the secondary explosion was serious, it was not fatal with the much smaller rounds stored beneath the turret in a well protected magazine. It was only the ready ammo that had already been lifted higher into the turret itself that detonated in the second explosion. Elsewhere, the sea skimmer took out two 127mm batteries on the port side of the ship, then struck the main superstructure behind them, and flailed the tall inclined smoke stack with tearing shrapnel. Kirov had scored a powerful reprisal to the damage done to her own engine ventilation system, but the fires aboard Yamato were now much more severe.

Undaunted, the battleship charged ahead toward her enemy, and Admiral Yamamoto spoke in a firm controlled voice. “We will not allow this to go unanswered. Fire your main guns, Captain. Fire at once!”

Thirty seconds later they heard the bugles sounding over the roar and commotion of the firefighting effort aft. They were a warning for all crew members that the massive main turrets were about to fire their guns in anger at an enemy ship for the very first time. Yamamoto saw the two forward batteries elevate their barrels, rotate a few degrees to port, and then the night was ravaged by the enormous blast of six 18.1 inch guns. Any man who had not heeded the brave bugle call in warning was thrown from his feet, some knocked unconscious by the tremendous concussion.

Yamato had thrown her first punches, a strong right hook followed by an uppercut meant to find and demolish her foe, and end the battle in one titanic blast.