Shattered Trident - Страница 18

The action was in the aft starboard corner of the control room. Lieutenant Dave Covey, the weapons officer, had taken over a spare console and used it to display a plot of the UUV’s activity. The XO watched over his shoulder, and made room for Jerry when he appeared.

A map was overlaid with the irregular shape of the vehicle’s patrol zone. Different tracks drew colored lines through the zone, marking the progress of ships detected and tracked by Minot’s sonars. One of the tracks was different, though, a tangle of lines that looked like a coil of rope.

The track of the UUV showed on the display as a different-colored line, with small deviations, for the first two-thirds of its patrol, but then it became irregular, zigging one way and sharply angling back the other in what looked like a random pattern. Only Jerry’s experience with the UUV in the simulators told him this was not a malfunction.

“It’s reacting to this contact,” Covey reported. He highlighted the tangled track and a window with details about the vessel appeared. Time of first detection, bearings, signal strength, identity…

“It’s a submarine,” Covey explained. Jerry wasn’t sure whether it was pride or excitement in the lieutenant’s voice. “Just like it was supposed to, as soon as Minot figured out it wasn’t a surface vessel, it started maneuvering to localize the contact, but not getting too close. What’s interesting is that the contact isn’t transiting.”

Jerry studied the track’s data carefully. It had a low blade rate, as well as low signal strength. Covey volunteered, “The acoustic data’s already been sent over to our sonarmen. They’re running it through the system right now.”

Jerry looked up at the port VLSD. The sub was loitering to the west of Hainan Island. Minot had gotten close enough to get elevation data on the signal, which allowed them to calculate the contact’s depth. The water wasn’t terribly deep there, and it looked like the boat was almost hugging the bottom, creeping at bare steerageway, conserving its battery power, drawing large ovals in the water.

Lieutenant Gaffney came over from the sonar consoles. “My guys say it’s a late Kilo, a Project 636. Blade rate’s consistent with three knots.”

Jerry had an uneasy feeling. Why would a Chinese diesel boat be hanging out to the west of Hainan Island? It was out of the exercise area the Chinese had declared, and away from the shipping lanes. “XO, did we update the intel plot during the last comms window?”

“Of course,” Thigpen replied. “Squadron Fifteen’s update is about three hours old.”

“How many of the Chinese Kilos are we tracking?”

Thigpen sat down at the next console and called up the intelligence summary. “They have twelve Kilos, all Russian-built, purchased in ’94 and ’97. Two are older Project 877s, the remaining ten are the later models, Project 636.” He paused for a minute, scrolling.

“And as of three hours ago, two were reported as being in the yards, and the rest in harbor. Three are assigned to the sub base at Yalong Bay, and they’re still there, if the intel is right.”

“Assume it was right three hours ago,” Jerry said. “There’s no way one could have taken station that far to the west without us seeing it.”

“Not without it having a warp drive,” Thigpen added. “At a top speed of nineteen knots for one hour, it would have a flat battery a third of the way to that location.”

“Then we have to assume it isn’t a Chinese boat. Stu, go back and tell your techs to take that signal apart. XO, punch the intelligence database and see who else might be operating a Kilo, besides the obvious answer.”

Jerry studied the screen with Covey, trying to pull more information out of the display. Was the sub skipper following a pattern?

Five minutes later, Thigpen reported back to Jerry. “Aside from China, India’s got ten and Vietnam currently has three. The Indian boats are early marks, Project 877. Vietnam’s are Project 636s. The latest unit was just delivered this year.”

Jerry nodded solemnly. “That’s what I remembered, but I was hoping there was another possibility.” He turned around, toward the sonarmen, with Gaffney standing behind them. Gaffney noticed the movement and hurried over.

“Nothing yet, sir,” the sonar officer reported. “It’s definitely a 636 Kilo. It doesn’t match any of the recorded signatures, but then we don’t have all the Chinese boats in the library.”

“Do we have any signatures at all on the Vietnamese subs?” Jerry asked.

“No, sir. The library would have automatically…” He paused, processing the question. “You think this is a Vietnamese boat? Payback for Vinaship Sea? But why are they way over here?”

“Damfino, Stu. We need more data.”

Gaffney shrugged. “Well… one of my techs noticed that the tonals were very ‘clean.’ There was very little noise around each of the lines.”

Jerry understood the sonar officer’s reference. New machinery ran smoothly, but as gears and bearings wore down, the sound each piece of equipment made became fuzzier, less a single tight frequency and more a band of sounds centered around the tone. Some civilian engineers used frequency analyzers to diagnose problems with turbines and generators. North Dakota’s sonars were sensitive enough to hear it as well, even when it wasn’t bad enough to need fixing.

“So it’s a new Project 636,” Jerry said. “Go compare the newest Chinese 636 in our library with this signal.”

Gaffney answered, “Aye, sir,” and headed back to the sonar station. It only took a moment to set up the comparison, but then several minutes for the techs to examine the displays. Gaffney came back, reporting, “The latest Chinese boat we have in the library was delivered in ’07. My techs, especially Andersen, can see the difference. If a cleaner signal means a new boat, then this one is newer than 2007. Maybe a lot newer.”

Jerry studied the UUV’s data, looking for another answer besides the ominous one, the possibility he couldn’t ignore. “It would be nice to come up with some other reason for a Vietnamese diesel attack boat to take station off Hainan Island. Can any of you think of something else?”

“Something other than what?” Gaffney was still thinking about the sonar signal, and hadn’t made the connection. Thigpen and Covey had figured it out.

Jerry explained, “He’s waiting for a ‘go’ code.”

26 August 2016

By Water

Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Bywater’s Blog

China Exercise Largest Ever?

There is information from correspondents (here) that the exercise announced by China will be the largest in its history, involving all three fleets (South Sea, East Sea, and North Sea). Information at and shows unusual activity at naval bases as far north as Dalian.

One clue about the type of exercises has been provided by Chien585 (here), a member on Taiwan, who monitors the Chinese-flagged merchant fleet. He noted that as many as two dozen vessels have been taken off their normal runs and have congregated at Chinese naval bases.

This implies a convoy or protection of shipping exercise, but on a scale not seen before. Typical naval exercises will have one or two token merchants play the part of an entire convoy. In this case, the Chinese may be trying to see if the PLAN can successfully manage large groups of merchant ships. This is not an easy task for any navy, and the Chinese fleet is entirely new to this. They are definitely stepping off at the deep end.

Mac sat back and reread the entry before hitting the “Return” key. It would be interesting to see how successful the Chinese exercises were. They seemed to be serious about becoming a blue-water power. But now he had that article to write.

The phone rang as Mac tried to confirm the manufacturer of a ship’s steam propulsion plant. This was not net research. Centuries-old copies of Brassey’s Annual and Scientific American were scattered across the library floor, and he had to first disentangle himself from the pile of reference books, carefully stand, and then hurry to get the handset. He made it on the fifth ring.

He hadn’t bothered to check the caller ID, but would have picked up the phone in any case. “Mr. McMurtrie, it’s Christine Laird from CNN again. Is this a good time to talk?”

She barely gave Mac time to say “Of course,” before she was off at high speed. “Well, you were so knowledgeable about the mystery ship and its loss that I took up your suggestion. We had one of our Asian branches locate the Hanjin Malta and interview its captain. They’d just arrived in Karachi, and our stringer there was able to talk to both the captain and some of the crew who saw the explosion. They were all very eager to tell him about it. One of the crew, the lookout, said he thought the explosion was ‘whitish,’ at least at first. Then it became bigger and dark gray or black. And several people on the bridge claim they heard two explosions, one small, and then another much larger one.”

Mac remembered his earlier calculations. “Did any of them say how far their ship was from the explosion?”

“I think so.” She paused for a moment, then said, “A little over sixteen nautical miles, based on their navigator’s plot.” After another pause, she asked, “Why would there be two explosions, and what would make an explosion white?”

Mac answered almost immediately. “The answer to the first part is straightforward, Ms. Laird. I believe the mystery ship was carrying explosive cargo, possibly even munitions. That would explain why no nation has claimed it. The first blast detonated that cargo, resulting in the larger explosion. Ms. Laird, if you can find out who owned that vessel, or where it was going, that will be a real story.”