To Kill the Potemkin (11 page)

"Mark
three degrees down bubble."

"Mark
three degrees down bubble,
aye."

"Flood
forward and main ballast
tanks."

"Flood
forward and main ballast tanks,
aye."

"Flood
forward trim tanks."

"Flood
forward trim tanks, aye."

"Maintain
slow speed."

"All
ahead slow, aye"

The
bow sank quickly under the surface of the
bay.

"Stern
planes down ten degrees."

"Ten
degrees down, aye."

The
game began.

On
the stroke of midnight an inbound tanker
passed a large red navigation buoy eleven miles outside the Naples
breakwater.
The sailors on the tanker's bridge scarcely glanced at the revolving
light
buoy, and no one noticed a much smaller float that had attached itself
magnetically to the buoy. Eight inches in diameter, the float had a
two-foot-long antenna extending into the air and a thin wire descending
into
the depths. At the far end of the wire, 150 feet down, USS
Mako
hovered
in ambush.

She
had been on-station for six hours,
waiting for the message from the Sixth Fleet shore command that would
announce
Barracuda
's departure.
Having spent a dozen patrols lying off Soviet ports waiting for Russian
submarines to exit, the crew was accustomed to picket duty.

The
tide had turned and
Barrcuda
was
about to exit the bay under the tanker's sound screen. Captain Flowers
joked
that Netts himself was on the tanker, intentionally fouling the water
with
noise pollution. Like everyone else on
Mako
, Flowers
wished for
Barracuda'
s,
ultimate
success, but regretted that if it came it
would be at his expense. His orders were to stop
Barracuda
the
moment
she emerged from the channel and put a quick end to "Netts's Folly."

"Radio
to control. Target under
way."

Flowers
wasted no time. "Cut loose that
buoy," he ordered. "Control to weapons, he's moving. Load dummies in
tubes one and two."

The
weapons officer, Lt. North, stared at the
blip on his screen that was
Barracuda,
just as he
had stared a month
before at the blip that was
Leninsky Komsomol
when
she sailed from
Leningrad into the Gulf of Finland. Should
Barracuda
elude the picket
and reach blue water, she could outrun
Mako
and
reach the fleet in
thirty hours.

The
rules of the war game established a
combat-free zone within a radius of ten miles around Naples. Outside
the
ten-mile limit, a submarine "kill" would be registered by the firing
of a dummy torpedo and a sonar blast, to be judged as a hit or a miss
by
umpires aboard each ship. Torpedoes fired at other submarines would
contain no
propellant. Immediately after being ejected from the tubes, they would
sink.
Only the torpedoes
Barracuda
fired at
Kitty
Hawk
would make a run
to the target. With no warhead the fish would bounce off the huge hull
of the
carrier, causing no significant damage.

"Control
to sonar, listen up. He's
moving."

Mako
's
sonar room was larger, quieter and more
comfortable than the cramped sonar room on
Barracuda.
With her more
sophisticated sonars, computers and fire control systems, plus the
element of
surprise,
Mako
seemed to have every advantage. The
sonarmen expected
Barracuda
to proceed seven or eight miles into the bay and
submerge under
their noses.

"Sonar
to control. We have her, bearing
three four six. Course one two three. Speed four knots. Range nineteen
thousand
yards. She's turning. Bearing three four seven, three four eight, three
four
nine. Captain"—the operator's voice suddenly rose with
astonishment—"she's
submerging
."

The
sonar operators listened to
Barracuda
's machinery as
she submerged, prop
cavitating noisily in the shallow water of the bay. The sounds were
muddled by
the tanker that was now between the two subs.

Suddenly
the machinery noises stopped. They
heard the tanker, the ping of the fixed beacon that guided ships in and
out of
the harbor, but no submarine.

"Sonar
to control. We lost her on the
passive array. She disappeared."

"Springfield's
guessed that we're
here," said the XO, Commander Poland.

"Control
to sonar. Echo-range,"
ordered Flowers. "Find her."

"Sonar
to control. Echo-ranging."

The
bottom of the bay was studded with rocks,
sunken ships, mounds of garbage and waste from the deeply dredged
channels, all
of which deflected and distorted the sonar pulses from
Mako
's
echo rangers, transforming her
sonar screen into an undecipherable maze.

In
the control room Flowers scratched his
jaw, took off his headset and rubbed his ears.

Poland
said, "She's gone turbo-electric.
She's trying to sneak out on the quiet."

The
captain nodded, knowing that ballistic
missile submarines occasionally left port under turbo-electric power in
order
to evade a waiting attack sub. All SSN officers were, of course,
familiar with
the tactic.

"The
question is," said Flowers,
"does Springfield come after us or try to escape?"

"I
think he'll run," the XO said.
"He's faster than we are and he'll try to get around us. He'll use the
islands."

Pointing
at the electronic chart that
displayed the Bay of Naples and the islands of Procia, Ischia and Capri
just
offshore, the XO said, "If Springfield can get behind one of the
islands
and block our sonar he can escape. The channel between Capri and the
mainland
is the deepest and the safest for passage. I reckon he'll go south,
here,
around Capri. He's already moving in that direction."

"All
right," said Flowers. "We
have to go somewhere and Capri is as good a place as any. We sure as
hell can't
stay here now that he knows where we are. Sonar, belay the echo ranger.
All ahead
half. Course one three one. Let's try not to run into the son of a
bitch."

Originally
Springfield had proposed to Netts
that
Barracuda
make a run for Capri, counting on
Barracuda
's speed to get her past any picket.
Netts rejected that as too obvious. He suggested that Springfield hide
the ship
in the Gulf of Pozzuoli until the picket either was sunk or gave up and
returned to the fleet. After eluding the picket.
Barracuda
would run
north, pass through the Strait of Bonifacio between Sardinia and
Corsica, sail
down the west coast of Sardinia and surprise the fleet with an attack
from the
north.

The
plan was dangerous. First,
Barracuda
had to maneuver in the bay and then in the shallow gulf without
colliding with
a submerged obstacle. To do this it was necessary to echo-range and
thereby
announce her location to
Mako
.
Both Springfield and Netts found this unacceptable.

Sorensen
provided the solution. The Bay of
Naples was seeded with fixed sonars that transmitted sonic beacons on
regular
frequencies to guide ships in and out of port at times of low
visibility.
Sorensen demonstrated how it was possible to echo-range on the same
frequency as
one of the beacons. "All we have to do," Sorensen told
the captain, "is time the pulse to coincide with the moment
Barracuda
is directly in line between the fixed array and the picket. If it
doesn't work,
we'll still be inside the ten-mile limit and he can't shoot us."

"If
it doesn't work, Sorensen," Springfield said, "this exercise will be
over in five minutes, not five days."

When
Springfield submerged less than a mile out into the bay, he did the one
thing
no one on
Mako
expected. It was a most precarious
gambit. The channel
was barely deep enough to act as a sonar buffer, but the tanker coming
through
should provide enough cover to disguise his maneuvers.

Once
underwater, Sorensen immediately picked up the tanker and the garbled
but
distinct sound of coolant pumps throbbing ten miles away. He logged it
and told
Hoek he heard only pumps and no gears or prop. He knew the sub was
hovering,
but the sound was too distorted by other noises in the channel for an
absolute
fix. Hoek, watching the sonar display on his attack console, guessed
that the
sub was under buoy number five, and busily plotted an attack.

Springfield
took
Barracuda
on a wide sweeping turn to the left
at very slow speed.
When the ship was lined up between the beacon and buoy number five, he
ordered
sonar to echo-range once on the beacon's frequency. Sorensen sent one
narrow-beamed pulse of sound out into the channel. A single blip
appeared on
the screen, a sub lying quietly at radio depth.

"Lieutenant,
we've got him."

"Bearing?"

"Bearing
one five one."

"Speed?"

"Zero
zero, repeat zero zero."

"Range?"

"One
eight five
zero zero yards. He's
under buoy number five."

Sorensen
recognized her signature.

"It's
Mako
," he said a
split second before the computer.

Springfield
ordered, "All stop."

In
the engine
room turbine number one whirred
to a halt. In the maneuvering room an engineer throttled back the
steam. The
main feed pumps, with less work to do, became as quiet as possible. In
the heat
exchangers just enough steam was produced to power the turbogenerators.
Although with a loss in overall efficiency, the power from the
generators could
be used to run an electric motor coupled directly to the propeller
shaft. The
system had been devised to provide emergency propulsion if both main
turbines
failed. Barracuda would be slower than before, but
she also would be
almost totally silent.

When
the
propeller stopped turning.
Barracuda
's momentum carried her forward several hundred
yards. By the time
she came to a complete stop, her turbogenerators and electric motor
were
engaged.

With
a clear
picture of the bottom and the
traffic in the harbor.
Barracuda
made a tight
180-degree turn inside the
bay, carefully picked her way through the wrecks and silt mounds and
crept
north around the point of La Gaiola and into the Gulf of Pozzuoli.
Sorensen
informed Springfield that
Mako
held her southerly
course. Making a great
deal of noise with her own machinery,
Mako
apparently did not notice
Barracuda
's
maneuver.

As
soon as
Barracuda
cleared the
point, Sorensen picked up the signal from the beacon attached to the
hull of
U-62
. Most of the
gulf was
too shallow for submerged operation, but Springfield had studied the
charts
carefully and had determined that he could hide
Barracuda
behind the
wreck. Using the beacon as a guide, Springfield cautiously maneuvered
into a
position that allowed the rusting hulk of the dead German sub to shield
Barracuda
from probing sonars. The ship hovered just above
the bottom.
Right on time the battery in the beacon went dead.

Sorensen
kicked
his chair away and stood at
his console, listening to
Mako
conduct her search.
After a few minutes
she disappeared behind Capri.

"Control
to
weapons. Load a dummy in
tube number one."

"Weapons,
aye.
Loading dummy."

In
the torpedo
room the torpedomen loaded a
dummy Mark 37 wire-guided torpedo into tube number one.

"Flood
tube."

"Flooding
tube,
aye."

Sorensen
and
Fogarty heard seawater rush into
the torpedo tube. The ship tilted forward.

"Correct
the
trim, if you please, Mr.
Pisaro."

The
ship came
back to dead level.

"Control
to
sonar. This is the
captain."

"Sonar
to
control, aye."

"Well
done,
Sorensen."

"Thank
you, sir."

"Now
be quiet,"
Sorensen said to
Fogarty. "This is a special treat. It's not often we get to lie quietly
in
shallow water like this. You never know what you might hear. Maybe we
fooled
that other ship and maybe we didn't. For all I know the Italians are
going to
drop sonar buoys right on top of us any minute. They go
splish
,
just like that, sounds like a big
fish jumping, and then they drop a
Lulu and it's time to say adios."

Suddenly
he sat
up with a jerk. "Sonar
to control," he said into his intercom. "Lieutenant,
Mako
is
coming back this way, bearing one four three, course two five two,
speed eight
knots, range thirty thousand yards."

In
the control
room every officer experienced
a rush of adrenaline.
Mako
was going to pass right across
Barracuda
's bow and
give her a clean shot. Hoek was tracking the target on his
weapons
console, waiting for
Mako
's
tangent to carry her beyond the ten-mile limit.

Navigating
on a
course that would intercept
Barracuda
coming out from behind
the island of Ischia,
Mako
crossed
the mouth of the Gulf of Pozzuoli at an oblique angle. Her side-to-side
sweeping sonar would pick up
Barracuda
's coolant
pumps once the angle cleared
U-62
, but
it would be too late.

"Sorensen,"
said
Hoek, "get
ready. When I give the order to fire, you give them a blast with the
target-seeking frequency."

"Yes
sir, Mr.
Hoek." Sorensen
nodded to Fogarty. "You do it, kid. You blast 'em."