Steel Reign

Chapter 31

Admiral Kurita had every reason to believe he would soon be returning to the South Pacific. After all, the Siberians had no navy to speak of, and surely all these rumors about a demon ship, Mizuchi, were exaggerated. Yet, when Yamamoto had selected him for command here, the senior Admiral had given him a foreboding warning.

“What I will tell you now is known only to a very few,” he said. “Hiryu was not sunk as a result of damage sustained in the Pearl Harbor attack. It was sunk by the Siberians.”

“The Siberians? How is that possible? They have no navy. Was it a submarine?”

“A rocket attack—fired from a ship we have yet to set eyes upon. This is the same ship that damaged Mutsu and Chikuma, and when you get to the Home Islands, I order you to personally inspect the damage put on those ships.”

“I do not understand. A rocket attack? Then the rumors flying about the fleet are true? Mizuchi is real?”

“Very true, and very real, though I do not encourage fear mongering. We do not know how they came to possess such a ship, but the fact that it exists is enough.” Yamamoto would, of course, never reveal the whole truth concerning the existence of that ship, for he could still scarcely believe it himself. “Its primary weaponry is rocketry, and they are fast, lethal, and have a very long range. They can strike your ships from well beyond the range of your battleships’ biggest guns, and well over the horizon—and from what we have seen, these rockets have deadly accuracy—they never miss their targets.”

That was very sobering talk, particularly when coming from the Fleet Admiral, and Kurita took a moment to let it settle. Then he set his jaw, determined. “What are my orders?” he asked.

“First do as I have instructed. See the damage on Mutsu. You are being promoted from 7th Cruiser Division to commander of the 1st Battleship Division. That division will now be composed of our two newest ships, Satsuma and Hiraga. They are presently at Urajio, but will move to Sapporo as the heart of the close escort force for the 7th Division troop transports. Those troops are going to Karafuto to deal with the Siberians that have landed on the northern end of that island. Adequate cruisers and destroyers will be added to support this mission.”

“It should pose no difficulties.”

“Unless Mizuchi appears. You must be very diligent. Scout well, and to aid that effort, I am attaching a very special ship to your task force, the cruiser Takami.”

Kurita inclined his head. “I know most every cruiser in the fleet, Admiral, but I have not yet heard of this one.”

“That is because it is a very secret ship, something entirely new. Do not think that the Siberians and Russians are the only ones who have developed this new rocket technology….”

“I see. This Takami also has such weapons?”

“It does, though it was designed as a fleet defense ship. Most of its rockets are meant to be used against enemy aircraft, or against the rocket weapons this Mizuchi flings against your ships.”

“Ah! Then it can shoot down the enemy rockets?”

“This is what we hope. But Kurita, this is very secret. It will be the first time Takami enters combat, the first real test of its capabilities. Nothing is to be said about this ship. Understand? It will operate well ahead of your fleet, beyond your forward horizon. Keep it there, and do not interfere with its operations. You will receive encrypted communication via the special radio set that has been transported to your flagship. A member of Takami’s crew will operate that equipment, and report directly to you. Coordinate carefully with Takami. It is commanded by a Captain Harada, and I ask you to heed his experience and judgment. He is specially trained in the use of these new weapons.”

“Another secret project,” said Kurita. “A pity this ship was not with you in the Koro Sea…” Kurita realized he probably should not have said that, but Yamamoto raised a hand, as if to say all was well.

“That was my responsibility—my fault. Hara fought well, but we should not be surprised that the American Navy fares better than its Army did on the Philippines. There they were taken by complete surprise, yet they endured four months, unlike the British in Hong Kong and Singapore, or the hapless Dutch colonies. Do not underestimate the Americans—they will be our fiercest and most capable opponent in this war, and each and every battle holds the possibility that we will lose good men, planes, and even ships. Last December, when we sailed for Pearl Harbor, we had six fleet carriers, six more light carriers, and the two scout carriers. We lost both of those in the Gilberts, and now we have lost half our fleet carriers and a third of our light carriers. This is war, but thankfully, we have also done much harm to the enemy. We destroyed their battleships at Pearl Harbor, for what they were worth, and we have also sunk at least four of their best fleet carriers.”

“Speaking of that,” said Kurita, “will I have naval air cover for this mission, or rely on our land based aircraft?”

“Both. Admiral Kakuta is being given command of the 2nd Carrier Division—Kaga and Tosa. Between those two you will have 150 naval aircraft, and at least three more squadrons operating from airfields on Hokkaido. Think of this Mizuchi as if it were an enemy aircraft carrier, not a battleship. Consider its rocket weapons as determined pilots—so dedicated to bringing harm to their enemies that they would pilot their planes directly into your ship to be certain they scored a hit. That is what you will be facing. Hopefully, our new fleet defense cruiser Takami will prove its worth, but you must also be prepared to strike the enemy in any way you can.”

“I promise you I will find this demon, and slay it.”

“I would never doubt your skill or heart for battle, but be cautious, Kurita, be very cautious. You must allow Takami to take a position in the vanguard of your fleet. It has advanced radar systems that can find the enemy for you, and scout aircraft as well. I have also spoken to Vice Admiral Kakuta and ordered him to keep his carriers well behind your main covering force with the cruisers and battleships. That is your second mission—protect those two carriers! The loss of Zuikaku and Shokaku dealt us a very hard blow. We must preserve all the fleet carriers that remain, and thankfully, Tosa is now ready for operations with Kaga. Remember what I have told you. Hiryu was struck by just one of these deadly enemy rockets, and it set off all the ready ammo, fuel, and combat loaded planes in the hanger deck. The fires were terrible. Remember that.”

“Do not worry, Admiral, our pilots are every bit as capable as those rockets may be.”

“That may be so, but this Mizuchi also has smaller rockets designed to shoot down our aircraft. That was why there was no air cover over Kazantochi when the Siberians surprised us there. Again, all of this is my fault. I was so preoccupied with our operations in the south that I overlooked the threat in the north. That will not happen again, which is why I now send you, our most promising and dedicated Admiral. Fight well, Kurita, but use your head.”

“You can rely on me, Admiral.”

“Good… One thing I have told Kakuta is that he must disperse his strike wave into individual Shotai. No more than three planes must be in close formation, and even they are to disperse at the first sign of enemy rocket fire.” This was something Lieutenant Commander Fukada had tried to impress upon Yamamoto, and he passed the lesson on. “Another thing,” Yamamoto continued. “Takami must first do all it can to stop the enemy rocket attacks aimed at your fleet. That is why it stands in the vanguard. Kakuta’s carriers should only strike after the signal to do so is received from Takami.”

“And what if we were to lose that ship?”

“Then you must use your best judgment in deciding how to proceed, but do as I have ordered and walk the decks of Mutsu. Preserve those fleet carriers, and also realize that, while you will command our two newest battleships, Mutsu did not suffer that damage simply because it was old. After considering that, if you can kill this demon, you will do the Emperor, and your nation, a very great service.”

Kurita bowed, a gleam in his eye, and was soon on his way.

DDG-180 embarked on the long voyage north with Kurita’s cruiser squadron, while the outcome of Operation FS was being decided in that hot carrier duel in the south. Fukada had been restless the whole time. He had been unhappy with Yamamoto’s decision to send the ship north. In spite of the fact that the history was already quite different, the battle in the south, was one he could at least grasp and easily understand. While Operation FS had actually been planned before it was eventually cancelled in the history he knew, the situation in the north was entirely different. It was a history that had never happened, and there was no safe harbor for his thinking and planning, no way to understand what was really going on—at least not in terms of the Second World War.

“Face it,” said Harada. “We have to look at this situation as if it were happening in our own time now. We’ve drilled maneuvers in the Sea of Japan for decades. The Bear was always our presumed adversary, along with China. So this is going to be a simple fleet defense operation. That’s the only way we can look at it.”

“It’s going to be dangerous,” said Fukada. “We’ve gamed out maneuvers against the Red Banner Pacific Fleet, but that was when their toughest capital ship was an old Slava class cruiser—and we always had the American 7th Fleet watching our backs.”

“Having a few regrets now about the side we picked in this fight?” asked Harada. Sure, it was always reassuring to know the US fleet was out there with us, but not this time. We’ve got to internalize this another way. Assume it’s 2021. The 7th Fleet is mustering near Guam and intending to intervene in the Taiwan thing. We’re left up here and get word the Russians have crossed the demarcation line on Sakhalin. Takami is ordered north to accompany a couple of our helo carriers and show the flag. We’ve converted them to light strike capable carriers with the F-35s aboard, again, thanks to our old American friends.”

“Don’t rub it in,” said Fukada. “Alright, the one common denominator in both situations is the incontrovertible fact that Russia is our adversary. This time they mean business, and there’s a Kirov class battlecruiser in the Sea of Okhotsk supporting their Air/Sea reinforcement of Sakhalin. We’re to support Kurita’s task force, which will include two carriers, and assure the transport of two regiments to Sakhalin.”

“That’s job one,” said Harada. “And I think we can handle that easily enough, unless Kirov intervenes directly. Then we’ve got a real fight on our hands. My advice is that we ask Kurita to play a defensive role here, but suppose he decides to get more offensive minded?”

Fukada shrugged. “Those two carriers won’t have much real offensive punch against a ship like Kirov,” he said. “If they could get through their SAM defenses, then yes, they could deliver 250 KG bombs that would hurt that ship easily enough. But they won’t get through. You and I both know that.”

“And we haven’t the SSM inventory to put any real pressure on Kirov’s SAM umbrella. Our eight Type 12 Anti-Ship Missiles would all have to be fired in a big salvo to have any chance of even one getting through, and that is a slim chance at best. Could we time a salvo like that to coincide with a strike from those two carriers?”

“We might, but remember, Kirov is packing S-300s. They can engage any formation of carrier aircraft well before they ever have a chance to close on the target. Those men won’t know what hit them. I stressed this with Yamamoto, and asked him to order the pilots to fly widely dispersed patterns on approach.”

“Can’t we counter those S-300s?”

“We’d have to use the SM-3s. Face it, the Russian missile tech is second to none. That S-300 is damn fast. Later versions can get to 5000 meters per second velocity, and that is well beyond the capability of even a missile like the Patriot for an interception. Perhaps our only solace will be the fact that they will have that missile in limited numbers, but even their mid range SAMs can fire out at least 80 kilometers. They’ll fire in large salvos, and we won’t be able to stop them. Our best bet is to use our own SAMs to stop any SSMs they direct against our ship or the carriers we’re defending. Their P-900s will be easy to catch—they’re subsonic until terminal mode. The Moskit IIs only haul at Mach 3, and we should handle them as well.”

“So we play defense for those carriers against the SSMs,” said Harada. “But we can’t really help them get through Kirov’s SAM defense, not unless we throw every SSM we have at them at just the right time.”

“It will be difficult to predict that outcome,” said Fukada. “But if we do go offensive, I’d use our Type 12s against other shipping. That’s what they were originally conceived for. Our 5th Anti-Ship Missile Regiment at Kumato was going to use them to target Russian Amphibious vessels.”

“That means we’d have to be within 120 Klicks of the target. Getting that far north with Takami could be a problem. They won’t be landing down south.”

“No argument there,” said Fukada. “And we won’t want our carriers up that far either. My thought was that we could take this loaf in slices. Stand east of Korsakov for phase one operations. That will put us in a good position to interdict any move the Russians make towards our reinforcement operation.”

“What about the carriers?”

Fukada shook his head. “Frankly, we’d be better off on our own. If Kurita moves up there with us his carriers will just be a magnet for Russian missiles. We won’t attract too much attention alone if we stay passive on the electronics. We lie in wait….” Fukada had a strange look on his face, as if he was trying to see the battle that was coming. “They won’t expect us here, and they’ll likely be radiating like there’s no tomorrow. Otani will pick them up, and then we get a very brief window to decide what to do. What we need is for someone to wiggle a left jab in their face. Then we hit them with a good right cross—all eight Type 12 missiles—all or nothing.”

“So you’ve changed your tune about using them against the transports.”

“You were right—we’d never get that far north without being detected and challenged, and we don’t want Kurita up there.”

“Who wiggles the jab?”

“We have to have some air power in lower Sakhalin. Once we locate Kirov, we vector them in. A nice little bomber strike would be enough to fix their attention west toward the island. Then we launch all eight Type 12s in sea skimmer mode. I just wish the damn things were faster. The Type 12 runs just a whisker below the speed of sound. If we fire at anywhere near our maximum range, and we’ll want to, then we’re looking at five minutes to target on those missiles.”

“Right…. And the Russian Moskit IIs move at Mach Three. So while we’re sitting here looking at our watches and waiting out those five minutes….”

“I get the picture, but I don’t see any other option. Five minutes sounds like an eternity when the other fellow can throw back something that fast. Who knows, maybe they’ll get stupid and counter with their P-900s.”

“Don’t bet on that,” said Harada. “This Karpov knows what he’s doing. No. All we have going for us if we attack is those few minutes of shock and uncertainty. They won’t know what’s coming at them, unless they have some kind of wizard on their sensor suite. So I’m betting on that little interval of confusion while they try and convince themselves that the Japanese of 1942 suddenly have a near speed of sound missile.” The Captain shrugged, his arms folded, thinking. “All or nothing. We let that punch fly and see if we get lucky.”

Fukada nodded. The great risk they were taking here was very apparent to him now, but even as he felt this, another idea occurred to him, though he said nothing about it to Harada. All or nothing…

Chapter 32

It was an odd place for a crucial turning point in the war to be found, and few who worked there knew that the project they were now undertaking would become one of the most secret and most significant of the entire war. There, at the new Applied Physics Laboratory of Washington's Carnegie Institution, a team of scientists and civilian workers were attempting to solve a frustrating problem for the military—how to defeat enemy aircraft.

Since the end of WWI, the modern aircraft had been the bane of military defense planners and the chosen method of first strike on offense. Swarms of bombers, dive bombers, and fighters would lead any major assault on land. For the Navy, the hard lesson that control of the sea depended on control of the skies above that sea was taught over and over, from Pearl Harbor to the carrier duels that preceded the struggle for vital Pacific island outposts. It was the aircraft that was the true King of the battle space, not the lumbering battleships, and the value of a carrier rested solely in the fact that it could bring those aircraft to the fight.

For the last year there had been rumors throughout the US defense establishment of a new weapon that now threatened to upset the long steel reign of the military aircraft. Though the British had been very closed mouthed with intelligence on the matter, word had leaked through about the efficacy of rockets as an AA weapon.

Up until that time, rocketry was an arcane science, the province of physicists and engineers like Robert Goddard in the United States, who built liquid fueled rockets as early as 1926, achieving 34 successful launches before America’s war began in late 1941. Like Germany’s Wernher von Braun, Goddard was a true pioneer in the development of rocket technology. As a young boy Goddard had first dreamed of designing a device that could take humanity into space, as far away as Mars, all in the muse of his young 17 year old mind while he was staring at the skies from the top of a cherry tree in 1899. He called it the moment of his first great inspiration, and celebrated it every year as a kind of anniversary on October 19th.

So when rumors began to fly that the British had a rocket weapon that could track and hit a speedy flying aircraft, the matter eventually found its way to Goddard’s design table. In Fedorov’s history, the Army had not come calling on physicists and aeronautical engineers until 17 August, 1944, when they issued a memorandum asking for a radar guided missile that could shoot down enemy strategic bombers. Bell Labs would take up the challenge, which would soon become the Nike Ajax Rocket project, but it would be seven long years before the first successful interception of a drone occurred in 1951.

The little demonstration witnessed by Admiral Yamamoto in Davao Bay was therefore quite ground breaking, and did much to shock him into embracing these two strange officers that had come to him, seemingly out of nowhere. Now he had sent these men, and their amazing ship, off to defend his northern fleet against the demonic powers of yet another interloper with awesome new weapons of war, the ship they called Mizuchi.

Rocketry was already plying its deadly craft, right there in the 1940s, in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Despite that fact, little was really known about the ships that used these weapons, and what was known was kept in the closely guarded circles of military intelligence organizations. Even as work began on this idea of hitting an aircraft with a rocket, the technical challenges were seen to be truly daunting. First they needed a stable and effective rocket, reliable and consistent performance, an engine that could propel it to desired altitudes, and a means of tracking and guiding it to the target. While history would record that all these challenges would be overcome, it would take time to accomplish that, and enormous resources.

While all this was going on, that frustrating problem of how to defend against enemy aircraft continued to be a sore thumb on the mailed fist of all armed services. Some argued that the best and only defense was yet another aircraft, but others looked for ways to improve the existing ‘low-tech’ defense approach being used—the venerable anti-aircraft gun. A man named Merle Anthony Tuve was another of those brainy PhDs tinkering at the edge of technologies that would soon combine to become lethal weapons of war.

He was exploring the use of radio waves to measure the height of the atmosphere, and it soon became apparent that radio waves could be used to measure other things as well. The fledgling technology that came to be known as ‘Radar’ would be one thing that emerged from that observation. One day, considering the problem of those bothersome aircraft, Tuve theorized that AA guns might be made much more effective if their shells could ‘see’ enemy planes. The way to give them those eyes would lie in his tinkering with radio waves, but his colleagues thought it would be too difficult to try and mount delicate radar technology on something subject to violent forces like an AA gun shell.

“No,” said Tuve. “Just use the radar as an early warning system on the ground, or something to help the gun get pointed in the right direction. What I’m talking about is just something that can tell the shell its target is near. You know, those shells have quite a blast radius for fragmentation shrapnel when they explode, but right now, they only do so on contact. Most AA shells just fly right past a target unless they score a direct hit, or explode at the fixed altitude set by their fuse. What I’m talking about is a kind of proximity fuse that can set off that shell when it gets anywhere near an enemy plane.”

Tuve became the founding director of the Applied Physics Laboratory, now at John Hopkins University, and there he set about to develop his idea, much to the delight of the Army. It took as many as 25,000 rounds fired from an AA gun for each hit obtained when Tuve started his project. During the Battle of Britain, the British estimated they fired an average of 18,500 rounds at German aircraft for each one they actually destroyed. When Tuve finished, he had cut that down to between 30 and 60 rounds, and this would improve as the war progressed. That was a staggering leap forward in the precision and effectiveness of AA guns, and it would become one of the most closely guarded technologies of the US war effort, as secret as the Manhattan Project, and in many ways more significant in its impact on the war effort in general.

Both the British and Germans had looked at the idea in 1940, but deemed it impossible to achieve. Tuve proved them wrong. What the team created was a miniature radio device that could simply bounce radio waves off any target it was approaching. Well before the development of the transistor, radios of that day all relied on very fragile vacuum tubes. How in the world would the team fit a glass tube into an artillery shell, and have it survive the violence of being fired from a gun?

The answer would come from another man, Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He met Merle Tuve at the Carnegie Institute, and became a member of the National Defense Research Committee, the same group that would spawn the Manhattan Project. Van Allen had been working on creating more durable vacuum tubes for special rugged duty. He had learned that a small company was also involved with miniaturizing the tubes so they could fit inside a hearing aid. Those two attributes, ruggedness and miniaturization, would become key factors in the successful design of Tuve’s radio proximity fuse.

Materials were found to shield and cushion the glass, prevent the fragile tungsten elements inside the tubes from being damaged, and allow the vacuum tube to survive the shock of being fired from a gun—20,000 G-forces. Van Allen’s solutions helped the team deliver its first shock-proof tube by January of 1942 in Fedorov’s history. But the question of how to advance this technology had come earlier in these Altered States, another odd effect of Kirov’s influence on events. It was June of 1941 when the first fuses were tested here, and six months later, as many as 5000 proximity fuses had been produced and installed in AA gun rounds. That was largely due to Tuve’s tremendous organizational ability, and the team he coordinated to solve the problem. He believed in Napoleon’s first principle of war: “I can make up for lost ground, but never lost time.”

So Tuve insisted his personnel forget about saving money or resources, and focused entirely on saving time. It didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to get done, and before the enemy developed the same thing. “The best job in the world is a total failure if it is too late,” he said, “We don’t need the best possible unit, but we damn well want the first one.” Tuve insisted on speed in every aspect of the development process, but still achieved a 97% quality control rate on the overall system. Everything needed, the radio transmitter, antenna, tubes, battery detonation switches and safety measures, all had to fit into a tube no more than 1.5 inches wide and 8 inches long, and with a shelf life for storage in the shells of up to three years or more.

It would later be learned that the Germans had employed at least 50 small project groups to try and solve the same problem, but believed it would not be achieved in time to matter in the war. Tuve proved them all wrong. His small initial team would soon burgeon into massive production centers producing 40,000 rounds per day. Over 22 million would be produced in the war before it ended.

Naturally, the Navy was very interested in the idea of a much more accurate AA gun to protect its ships. The gun that would fire them was the QF 5-inch dual purpose gun mounted on ships from destroyer class up to battleships and carriers. The technology increased AA accuracy by an order of magnitude, one day achieving 90% kill rates on V-1 Buzz Bombs with only ten rounds fired. It was going to be so significant, that it would spell the doom of Japanese naval and land based air power as an effective strike weapon of war. The Japanese would eventually learn the trick themselves, but too late in the war to really matter.

They did not know it at the time, but the fruits of Tuve’s project, the effort of over 80,000 men and women, had already produced proximity fuse rounds for the U.S. Navy to make surface ships much harder targets for naval strike craft. The first ships to be fully equipped with the new rounds were already at sea, and had already fired them at the planes and pilots of Hara’s Carrier Division 5.

During that battle, Halsey had ordered Fletcher’s battleship squadron to make a run at the Japanese positions around Nandi, particularly the airfield they had captured there. Two ships in that squadron had the new special proximity fused AA shells for their 5-inch guns, the USS South Dakota, and the light AA cruiser Atlanta. They would now report back that the new rounds were a tremendous success. South Dakota had taken down four enemy planes for the expense of only 42 of the new rounds. Without them they might have had to fire close to 500.

The new proximity fused shells had arrived six months earlier than they did in the unaltered history, when the cruiser Helena was the first to receive them in November of 1942. The use of the shell itself, and even its existence, was still to be considered a closely guarded secret. They could only be fired in situations where the military believed it would be impossible for the enemy to ever recover a dud or misfired shell to learn its secret. This was why all those 5-inch guns now carried two types of rounds, one for use against other naval targets or in shore bombardment, and the proximity fused rounds for use against enemy aircraft.

In case the shells were ever found, or captured by the enemy, the US was already working on a special jammer that could be installed on its own bombers. It was designed to sweep the signal band used by the radio transmitter in the shells, and inhibit their ability to bounce a clear signal off the target. It worked, and that fact also contributed to the secrecy that surrounded the new shells. They could be easily jammed, and so their best defense was to prevent the enemy from ever knowing they existed.

As we have seen in this tortured history, some enemies simply knew too much, and for them the secrets of WWII were quite literally an open book. One such man was named Ivan Volkov. One word from him could render the effort of men like Tuve, and the thousands of others supporting his project, null and void. He could tell the Germans the round existed, how and when it could be expected to be used on defense, and how it could be jammed. Beyond that, Volkov could tell the Germans their seemingly fruitless effort to develop proximity fuses of their own could produce a rich harvest if they only followed his advice and guidance. He could do this by going to Hitler with yet another sheaf of supposedly captured enemy technical documents, things he could fetch from his dangerously efficient jacket computer. Amazingly, it still worked, a testament to the efficiency of its design.

Volkov could do all of this, and if the Germans heeded his advice, they would soon have a powerful defense against one of the most devastating weapons the enemy would throw at the Third Reich—strategic bombers. And this is exactly what Ivan Volkov did.

“Do not be put off by the failure of your Luftwaffe to humble the British in 1940,” he said to Hitler in their semi-annual meeting. “Do not think the enemy bombers will have the same difficulty when they come to attack Germany.”

“Our fighters should be defense enough,” said Hitler. “We will simply sweep them from the skies.”

“In the beginning…” said Volkov with just a hint of foreboding in his tone. “Yet their bombers will grow in numbers, and soon they will have a long range fighter capable of escorting them all the way to Berlin! Your Luftwaffe will fight bravely, but it will not be enough.”

“What? You say this as though you really are a prophet. This is merely speculation.”

“But it is based on real intelligence,” said Volkov, who anticipated this line from Hitler and had a folder of diagrams of the actual enemy fighters in hand. “Look here,” he said, passing a document to Hitler. “This one they will call the ‘P-51Mustang,’ and it will have a range of over 1,600 miles, more than 2,700 kilometers. They will send these by the hundreds, not simply escorting their bombers, but sweeping the area over the intended bombing target well before the bombers get there. They will be enough, my Führer, to break your air defense. So why not build these new proximity fuse flak shells? I can also tell you how to protect them from jamming. Then, when those enemy bombers come, the thunder of your 88s will truly shock them. I can increase your AA defense accuracy by a hundred fold. You will no longer have to fire barrages into pre-determined boxes and detonate shells by elevation.”

Hitler narrowed his eyes, looking at Volkov and then at the diagrams of the new enemy fighter. “I have learned enough about you, Volkov, to know that any time you call me ‘my Führer’ you are desperate to win your point. Very well, I see no harm in ordering these new shells produced, but the testing had better prove your claims in terms of accuracy and effectiveness. Now I have another question for you. We need information on these new enemy rocket designs. That is what I really want from you. I am told we have recently captured two such missiles while they were in the process of being tested by the enemy.”

This came as a great shock to Volkov, for he could not imagine that the Germans could have captured anything that might have come off the decks of Kirov. “Tell me more,” he said darkly.

“American rockets,” said Hitler with a smile, rocking slightly on his heels. “A nice little windfall—you see, you are not the only one that can get your hands on enemy secrets. My Kriegsmarine delivered a most interesting cache of equipment that was taken from an enemy ship at sea.”

“Where? What ship? What was it you found?”

Now Hitler was turning the tables on Volkov, for this time it was the Führer with all the answers, and Volkov with all the questions.

“Never mind all those irrelevant details,” said Hitler. “But since you are delivering all this new intelligence, tell your operatives they missed something—the new American X-17A. Now that we have this enemy rocket, we will take it apart, piece by piece, to see how it works. I am already told it has a most unusual warhead, and when we are done, I will build rockets of our own by the thousands, and darken the skies above our cities with them should the Allies attempt this strategic bombing you worry so much about. What do you say to that?” Hitler smiled, a twisted smile that spoke of havoc and mayhem on his mind, and for the first time in all their meetings together, Volkov was afraid.

Chapter 33

Yes, Volkov was afraid.

He knew that the Americans of this day could not have anything that might be rightfully called a functioning missile. As soon as he got safely back aboard his airship, he immediately queried the missile in his computer jacket database, and found his fears were not unwarranted. He wanted to go right back to Hitler with a thousand questions, but knew that would be impossible. Was the German leader correct—an American missile called the X-17A? Might that name or designation be mere coincidence, some code applied to an archaic weapon? Surely he could not have been referring to the X-17 missile he was now learning about. Development didn’t even start on it until February of 1955!

Then again, the Moskit II wasn’t developed until the early 21st Century, and it was here, the terror of enemy shipping the world over. But the X-17 wasn’t an anti ship missile—it was a real ballistic missile, long and slender, and 40 feet high. The rocket had three stages, a thicker main stage at the bottom that would burn for 23 seconds to propel the rocket to an altitude of about 27 kilometers. Then it would jettison stage one, tip over at apogee, and the three rocket motors of stage two would burn for about 2 seconds to rapidly increase descent speed before that stage would be cut loose. The final third stage was just ten feet in length, a single rocket that would also burn for just under two seconds, but that was enough to increase the reentry speed to between Mach 11 and Mach 14, depending on the angle.

Volkov had to find out what this missile really was, and his man inside Peenemünde would soon provide the details, once told what to look for. It was a very dangerous mission, for security at that secret German research site was very rigorous, though insiders had a way of getting past security that would stop an outsider cold. It was another long week before he received a coded message back, and his face whitened when he learned the truth. Hitler was not making an idle boast! The Germans had two prototype missiles in their possession, one in a closely guarded steel vault, untouched, and the second in a secret laboratory where it was being slowly dismantled, measured, analyzed and observed by a wide range of technical specialists, and some of the best minds in Germany.

So this was what those earlier reports were all about, thought Volkov. He had received intelligence that a fast armored train had arrived at Toulon, under heavy escort. Something had been delivered there by a pair of German warships, and it was then escorted north under round the clock German air cover. This had to be those very same missiles, he thought. From that point, he set his intelligence men to work on back tracking the deployment of the German ships in question. One, he learned, was the fast battlecruiser Kaiser Wilhelm, and the second was that hybrid scout carrier, the Goeben. Neither ship had ever existed in the history he guarded within his computer data files, and now it seemed they had just delivered something that also could not exist in this day and time.

How could the Germans have gotten their hands on an American missile that wasn’t even designed until 1955? He grilled his intelligence operatives to make certain that the American rocket research programs could not have produced such a missile. In the end, he looked at the deployment of those two German ships. They had broken out into the Atlantic after the big battle off Fuerteventura, and, after sparring with the British and engaging one of their convoys, they disappeared. It was weeks later before they were encountered again off the African coast, and pursued by British fast cruisers.

Volkov put the full weight of his network to the task of determining where those ships went. Then, after another two weeks of intensive spy craft, he had his answer—the deep South Atlantic. It was there that they encountered and took an American ship as a prize, which was subsequently handed off to one of their merchant commerce raiders and quietly escorted home. The real windfall was his agent in Toulon, where that prize ship had secretly been berthed. He managed to get to it just before the name and recognition number was painted over, VM1. He had also used a high-powered lens to capture the name stenciled on a life preserver: U.S.S. Norton Sound.

With that key information, Volkov went to work to determine what this ship was, and it was then that the anxiety within him started to become real fear. After the lesson of his own life, after the presence of Kirov here, and his suspicions about things the British were doing in this war that revealed an advanced level of technical capability, he should not have been surprised, but he was. Norton Sound was an American ship alright, but it wasn’t supposed to have even been laid down until September of that year! It would then be launched in November of 1943, and finally fitted out and commissioned in January of 1945.

He stared at the photograph his Toulon agent had managed to deliver, and it was, indeed a perfect match for the images he had of this ship in his own data. How in the world could the Germans have found this ship in the deep South Atlantic? Now he was finally asking the same question that Alan Turing had asked Peter Twinn a month earlier…. How in this world could these things happen?

Volkov suddenly had a new query to make of his data—he wanted to know all known deployments of the American ship Norton Sound, and soon he had what he was looking for, a correlation of that ship’s presence in the South Atlantic, and very near the presumed location of the German raiders. He had determined where they had gone when his intelligence network produced a plaintive lost signal of alarm that had been sent to Royal Navy headquarters when an outpost claimed they were suddenly being bombed by German Stukas. That outpost was on Ascension Island.

Those planes had to come off that German scout carrier, he thought. That’s where those raiders went, and somewhere in that area they encountered this American ship…. Yet the only time I can verify that the Norton Sound was in that region was in 1958. How is this possible, that they would find a ship that simply does not exist today, in a place it only visited one time, sixteen years from now? And just because curiosity is a way that leads on to way, Volkov soon found out what the Norton Sound was actually doing there in 1958. It was out on a secret test mission, Project Argus, and that was when all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked in his mind—Argus, Norton Sound, X-17A missiles.

That was when the thump of anxiety in his chest became real fear, the clammy cold sweat of uncertainty on the back of his neck, and a worried expression on his face. That project was designed to launch a small atomic warhead into outer space. Then something struck him like a thunderclap—those reports of strange auroras over the Azores. He had dismissed it as nothing more than an odd weather event at the time, but now, when he looked at the date of that event, he saw it occurred very near the time of the German attack on Ascencion Island. Could the two events be related?

Reading further on the American Argus project, he soon learned that the Azores was a special location where those exact effects in the upper atmosphere were expected to occur. The Americans even positions ships there to observe it! Yet could that ship be the same one that took part in those tests? Volkov suddenly had a very grim feeling. He knew, from his own time, that his government had been tinkering with the odd aftereffects of nuclear detonations, and that they learned some most interesting things about them. My god, he thought to himself. Could it have happened here? Was this a displacement event? The yield on that American warhead was very small, and it would have been detonated very high, far from the ship that launched it. And yet... The Norton Sound was here. If this impossible series of dots actually do connect to paint the picture I’m seeing now… then Hitler has the bomb!

The Führer’s words were now riveted in his mind: “…we will take it apart, piece by piece, to see how it works. I am already told it has a most unusual warhead, and when we are done, I will build rockets of our own by the thousands….”

A Captain never forgets a ship he once commanded, and Vice Admiral Kurita was no different. When he returned to Mogami, flagship of his old 7th Cruiser Division, he knew it would be his last cruise on that ship, and there was a brief moment of nostalgia that passed over him. Then, the realization of what he was now embarking on swept that emotion away. He was receiving a most important assignment, command of the Northern fleet that would include two fast battleships and a pair of fleet carriers. This was a promotion of great significance, and he was deeply honored that Admiral Yamamoto would entrust this mission to him.

So I must not fail, he thought. Strange that I have no knowledge of this secret ship, particularly since it is a cruiser. Takami… I have half a mind to make speed and go see what this is all about, but my place is here with the division. We sail north now to rendezvous with all the other elements of the northern fleet. Kaga and Tosa will be off Sapporo on the 18th, awaiting our arrival. Battleships Hiraga and Satsuma are already waiting there. It is a very long way from Rabaul to Sapporo, at least 3500 nautical miles. We should still arrive right on schedule if we make a consistent 20 knots. While I am tempted to remain here with Mogami, I think it more appropriate that I set my flag on one of the battleships. Hiraga was the first ship in its class, and so the honor must rightfully go there.

He thought of that ship now, Japan’s most modern fast battleship. It was not as big and powerful as Yamato, but at 42,000 tons it was a true heavyweight. Ise and Hyuga weighed as much, but they were old and slow, and had only 14-inch guns. Hiraga and Satsuma had the new 16-inch guns, in three triple turrets, which was a departure from designs where the main battery was often spread over four turrets. Yamato and Musashi had that same design, for it saved the considerable weight of that fourth turret and barbette. And Hiraga was fast at 30 knots, the fastest battleship in the fleet, and with more endurance than the long legged Kongo class battlecruisers. It was designed to run with our carriers, he knew, and that is exactly what I will do with it.

Yamamoto was quite clear about the need to protect those carriers. He does not want them exposed to enemy attack. If this Mizuchi is real, and dares to challenge us, how should I proceed. I am told this secret new fleet defense ship scouting ahead of the task force will give the signal for attack, and determine where the enemy is. Can it really do what Yamamoto believes? How is it I heard nothing of the development of these powerful new naval rockets over all these years? Secrecy is one thing. We took considerable measures to conceal the construction of the Yamato class battleships from prying eyes, but I always knew about them. This Takami, however, is a fish that has slipped out of the net.

Strange that Yamamoto insisted I communicate with that ship only by means of the special radio equipment we are carrying now. This new officer is very stoic, a Lieutenant Kobayashi. He certainly seems one to discharge his duties in a diligent manner, but there is something… different about him. I cannot put my finger on it, but he has an awareness about him, clear minded, intelligent and respectful when he reports, but also strangely forgetful of the most common things aboard ship. He never uses the voice tubes, seems to hunt for switches and dials, unless he is sitting in front of that new radio, a most unusual piece of equipment.

It does not transmit normal coded signals, and all traffic is conducted in the clear via voice communications. I am told that the signal is scrambled and encrypted, but does that not allow the enemy to triangulate on the position of that ship, Takami, and my flagship as well? The Lieutenant has explained that the equipment transmits very short bursts at a high rate of speed on many rotated channels and frequencies to prevent this. He calls it frequency hopping, and says the antenna being used is designed to focus the communication in only one direction. I asked him how his own ship could possibly know which frequencies to listen for this message, and he tells me the very first information sent establishes all that. Both radios agree where to have tea—how very interesting. Yet who can say what the enemy might be capable of?

Who knew?

Lieutenant Kobayashi would not be expecting anyone in the Allied navies of 1942 to be able to intercept and decrypt the messages he was transmitting back to Takami, but he was forgetting that there were men from the 21st Century sailing these waters, and on the enemy side. Some of them had very good ears, and a nose for all the typical methods and procedures used to mask protected signals traffic at sea.

One such man was Lieutenant Isaak Nikolin, the man who loved to play at riddles on his own internal encrypted network, direct to his good friend Tasarov at the Sonar station without anyone on the ship knowing. This time the riddle Nikolin was trying to solve was external, out there on the dark unseen airwaves his systems were routinely sifting through at his communications station aboard Kirov. He hadn’t expected to get a SIG-Alert here. If the ship had been on its planned appointed rounds in the year 2021, then yes, this traffic would be normal, but not here.

He didn’t get any clean message intercept, but the system simply reported that it had detected high speed traffic, on a multi-band transmission with a wide range of frequency variation. That should not have been happening there in 1942, and it was enough to make him put down his crossword puzzle, and take a closer look. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t just seeing a minor systems glitch, but the more he looked into it, the more concerned he was, and perplexed as well. It appeared as if someone was sending encrypted radio traffic, and using some very modern technology to mask the point of origin and signal bearing.

He decided to get curious, and set up a dedicated COMINT module with filters to look for exactly the kind of traffic he was suspicious of, anything on the bands he had detected earlier, anything that was frequency hopping at high speed, anything that simply should not be happening here in 1942. In time he found something, and the seemingly innocuous alert that had set him on this search soon bore fruit. He waited two days just to be certain he really had something here, and then, convinced of what he was receiving, he decided to kick the matter up the chain of command.

“Lieutenant Rodenko, sir, I have an Electronic Surveillance Measure request.”

Rodenko looked over at him, somewhat surprised. “What for, Nikolin? Tired of regular rotations? Need something more to drill on? You getting bored under that headset?”

“No sir, I believe I have suspicious signals traffic and I would like to try and confirm it with some measurement and signals intelligence work.”

That got Rodenko’s attention. “Suspicious traffic? What is it?”

“Sir, I’ve been monitoring an intermittent signal burst—that’s what first got my attention. It’s a signal in burst mode, using high speed data transmission, and it’s frequency hopping all over the band. I set up a COMINT profile module to listen for it, and I have three separate interceptions—very low power to restrict range, but I got it on my primary antenna, and then used the top mast system to enhance reception.”

“It’s frequency hopping? How fast?”

“Too fast, sir. It has to be a computer modulated signal. I can’t read it, but if I had to bet on it, I would say someone is encrypting radio voice traffic for close in point-to-point transmissions. Should we run ELINT protocols to look for pulse rate transmissions that might be associated?”

Rodenko sat very quiet for a moment, a series of dominoes all falling one to another in his mind. This should not be happening, but this wasn’t any ordinary communications officer reporting to him now. This was Nikolin. He turned, slowly began toggling switches, and summoning the considerable power at his command to listen and detect errant electronic and radio signals.

“Feed me your data,” he said quietly.