CHAPTER 10 – FIRE IN THE CAUCASUS
The Caucasus Region.
02:16 (East Coast Time)
Wednesday, November 29, 1995 ‘C’
Bridge of the battle carrier U.S.S. NEPTUNE
Inside Drydock Number One of the Roanoke Shipyards
Virginia, U.S.A.
‘’The drydock doors are now fully opened, sir. We have authorization to leave the drydock.’’
‘’Thank you, Miss Woods. Engines one quarter ahead, take us out.’’
‘’Engines one quarter ahead, aye, sir!’’ replied the young bridge duty officer, who then retransmitted the order to the petty officers posted at the engine controls and at the ship’s wheel. Soon, the 73,000 tons, 420-meter-long aircraft carrier started slowly sailing out of the covered drydock where it had been built, which was presently lit only by red lamps, and into the night, floating into the shipyard’s completion basin. Normally, a newly built ship would be taken out of drydock well before that, to be completed at quayside in order to free the drydock for another ship to be built, but the level of secrecy concerning its design and capabilities had pushed the Navy and the Roanoke Shipyards into completing the U.S.S. NEPTUNE inside Drydock Number One. Even the transfer onboard of sixty aircraft of its embarked wing and the filling of its vast magazines and storage spaces had been done while inside the drydock. The battle carrier was thus already fully ready to go to sea and, if necessary, into combat while sailing out for the first time. However, the first mission of Rear Admiral Mack ‘Big Mac’ Benson, its captain, was to conduct the initial sea trials of the huge warship, in order to be able for it to be officially accepted into the United State Navy. Since the battle carrier’s design incorporated so many new or even revolutionary designs, it had been decided that the initial sea trials would also include the certification of its pilots for landing and takeoffs from the battle carrier and a series of test-firing of its weapons systems once at an official naval firing range.
Rear Admiral Mack Benson, a big, 188-centimeter-tall man with broad shoulders, muscular built and red hair, felt immense pride as his new command slipped out of its construction drydock. At the age of 48, this was going to be his third command at sea but it also was going to be by far the most significant one, as the advent of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE could well signal a revolution in ship design and in aircraft carrier operations, on top of revolutionizing naval warfare. Some forked tongues in the Navy Department had alluded that Mack had been given command of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE thanks to his friendship with the Secretary of Defense, John McCain, who was an ex-naval aviator. However, while Mack Benson was indeed a good friend of John McCain and was still a fully-qualified and flight-certified Navy pilot, he owned his new command to something else entirely. When Admiral Klasser, the Chief of Naval Operations, had wondered who he should select as the first commander of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, General Ingrid Dows had answered that Klasser should choose someone able to ‘think outside of the box’, in view of the revolutionary design of the new battle carrier. Klasser’s reply to that had been that he in fact knew a qualified and competent commander who, in his opinion, ‘lived outside of the box’. That commander had been Mack Benson. Benson, a naval aviator who had flown combat missions during the Second Korean War, was widely known as an unorthodox officer who exercised a high level of initiative, something that was grating on many senior admirals and had been endangering his prospects for further promotion in the Navy. Thus, Mack Benson could truly say that he had earned his new command thanks to his habit of ‘interpreting his orders in innovative ways’. As for his relations with his younger crewmembers, his nickname of ‘Big Mac’ reflected the respect his sailors paid to him as much as it reflected his physical size. That his new command had come along with a long-delayed promotion to the rank of rear admiral (lower half) was the cherry topping up his cake.
The night of the sailing out had been chosen mostly because it would be a moonless one, something that would seriously impede the efforts of any would-be spy to take photos of the new carrier as it left its drydock for the first time. However, that moonless night presented no problems to the pilot and navigator of the battle carrier, thanks to the ship being equipped with the most modern ship sensors available, including thermal viewing cameras and ultra-high-definition navigation radars. Once fully out of the drydock building, Mack Benson then activated one other anti-spying device.
‘’Light up the anti-snoop projectors!’’
On his order, forty powerful projectors equipped with conical reflectors and temporarily positioned along the edges of the flight deck lit up. While their conical reflectors would stop their light from illuminating the ship itself, they would also project outward blinding spots of lights that would make any attempt at photographing the ship fruitless, especially with low-level light lenses.
On the opposite bank of the Albermarle Sound, Peter Shilling, whose real name was Piotr Smirnov, thought at first that his long period of waiting inside his isolated shoreline cabin would finally be rewarded and hurried to prepare to take as many pictures as he could of the new American carrier. However, before he could even take his first photograph of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, a number of powerful projectors lit up on the ship, blinding him completely and also half-burning the sensitive night scope attached to his still camera. Exploding in frustration, he violently swore out loud as the carrier, visible only as a group of blinding lights, sailed past his cabin and down the Albermarle Sound.
‘’KAKOGO CHYORTA? SOOKSIN{6}!’’
03:52 (East Coast Time)
Combat Information Center (C.I.C.) of the cruiser U.S.S. BUNKER HILL
Sailing 83 nautical miles to the northeast of Norfolk, Virginia
Captain James Thurnbull was standing near the main tactical plot table of his ship’s C.I.C., along with a Navy radar systems engineer provided by the Pentagon for this occasion, when his signals officer approached him and stopped at attention.
‘’Sir, we just received a message from the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, announcing that it has sailed from the Albermarle Sound and is now at Point Alpha.’’
Somehow, that seemed to confuse Thurnbull, who looked at the radar systems engineer next to him.
‘’But we have not detected it yet on our radar. At our present distance from Point Alpha, we should be getting a firm radar echo, especially when considering the size of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE. What do you make of that, Commander Jones?’’
The said Jones gave an embarrassed smile to the cruiser captain at that question: he was fully in the know about this detection test, while Thurnbull was not.
‘’I would say that it seems that the design of our new battle carrier is as stealthy as we had hoped for, Captain.’’
‘’But my cruiser is equipped with the best radar suite that we have in the Navy. How could it not detect such a big ship at such a relatively short range?’’
‘’Because of the hull forms of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, Captain. All its sides and its superstructures are sloped inward at significant angles which redirect incoming radar waves away instead of bouncing them back towards us. Right now, it seems that this new design is working perfectly. I would thus ask you to have your ship approach further Point Alpha, so that we could see at what distance we will be able to finally detect the U.S.S. NEPTUNE with our radars.’’
‘’Very well!’’ replied Thurnbull before shouting an order to his operations officer.
‘’Commander Jenkins, have us sail to Heading 170 at top speed! Keep a tight radar watch for the U.S.S. NEPTUNE!’’
‘’Aye, Captain!’’
Thurnbull then looked back at Jones.
‘’We will see soon enough how good that ‘stealth’ concept is, Mister Jones.’’
‘’Indeed, Captain!’’
Some two hours later, with the BUNKER HILL now a mere 25 nautical miles from Point Alpha, Captain Thurnbull grumbled something to himself and threw a dark look at his sensors officer.
‘’Mister Gorman, are you sure that our radars are functioning properly? We should have had the U.S.S. NEPTUNE appear on our radar screens a long time ago.’’
‘’I know, sir! However, I can certify that all our radars are functioning correctly and at full power.’’
‘’Which makes this cruiser show up on passive electronic warfare sensors like a bright floodlight.’’ said Jones, nearly jubilant by now: this was a most convincing proof that the stealth design of the new battle carrier was indeed extremely effective. ‘’Right now, the NEPTUNE could probably target your ship with its own fire control radars, Captain.’’
‘’Let’s continue to approach Point Alpha at top speed: I want to see when we will finally be able to detect this damn NEPTUNE.’’ replied Thurnbull, hiding his frustration as best he could. If such a formidably armed ship as the NEPTUNE was indeed this close and still undetected, then it would be able to make minced meat of his beloved cruiser…or of any other warship.
Another twenty minutes or so passed, with each of them aggravating Thurnbull further as he waited for his sensors officer to finally announce that he had the NEPTUNE on radar. Suddenly, the cruiser launched into a hard turn to starboard, throwing many crewmembers on the deck and forcing Thurnbull and Jones to hurriedly grab the edge of the tactical plot table in able to steady themselves. Furious, Thurnbull grabbed a ship’s telephone receiver and called his navigation bridge, getting his navigation officer on the line.
‘’WHY THE HELL DID YOU STEER THE SHIP THIS HARD WITHOUT WARNING, MISTER DAVIS?’’
‘’It’s the NEPTUNE, Captain! We had to do an emergency collision avoidance turn to starboard in order not to ram it. We saw it only when it lit up its own projectors and blew its horn.’’
‘’At what distance was it to us then?’’
‘’Less than 2,000 yards I would say, Captain.’’
‘’WHAT? WE HAD A CARRIER LESS THAN 2,000 YARDS AHEAD OF US, WHILE WE STILL DON’T HAVE IT ON RADAR? THAT’S PURE SORCERY!’’
‘’No, Captain.’’ replied Jones to that. ‘’That’s the future of naval warfare at work.’’
15:43 (East Coast Time)
Navigation bridge of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE
Sailing towards the south off the American East Coast
‘’Sir, our top speed has now been verified twice and recorded as being 41.5 knots.’’
‘’Forty-one point five knots… Goddam! It is even better than what I was expecting. What is our present draught, Mister Collins?’’
‘’Our keel is presently 32 feet below the surface, sir. We are at full load displacement, plus 2,000 tons of water ballast, to keep our underwater hulls fully submerged.’’
‘’Hmm… I would like to test the ship’s stability when it has its ballast tanks full, but the sea is presently a very moderate one. Very well, Mister Collins: register our top speed test result in the ship’s log, then check with our meteorological section to see if there is any storm brewing down our path to Puerto Rico. I really want to test the stability of our new carrier while sailing through a strong storm.’’
‘’Aye, sir!’’
As his navigator walked away from his command chair, Benson gave an order to the petty officer sitting at the engine control bridge station.
‘’Reduce speed to thirty knots! Keep the present heading!’’
‘’Reducing speed to thirty knots, keeping present heading, aye sir!’’
Mack Benson then sat back in his command chair, a satisfied smile on his lips. While all the existing nuclear-powered American aircraft carriers could easily reach and sustain speeds of thirty knots or more, the NEPTUNE possessed one big advantage over all of them: it didn’t need to be accompanied by an escort flotilla of cruisers and destroyers. Those cruisers and destroyers could theoretically also maintain a speed of thirty knots but could only do so by burning huge amounts of oil fuel, thus cutting significantly on their autonomy. Because of that, a nuclear-powered carrier was in effect constrained by the range limitation of its escort flotilla, something that largely negated the value of being nuclear-powered itself. Those limitations also meant that a support fleet of tankers had to follow nearby, in order to refuel the flotilla every few days, unless the carrier group reduced its speed significantly to the cruising speed of the escort ships. In the case of the NEPTUNE, its formidable armament and full range of sensors, including sonars, meant that it didn’t need an escort flotilla, thus was fully free to maneuver and sail at full speed whenever and as long as it wished, which was a huge advantage in Mack’s opinion. Also, any non-nuclear enemy ship trying to keep up with his new battle carrier would quickly run out of fuel…if it was not sunk first by missiles from the NEPTUNE.
His navigation officer returned on the bridge some fifteen minutes later, a meteorological map in his hands.
‘’Sir, a storm has been signaled off the coast of Florida. Here is its present position and estimated heading and speed.’’
Taking the map offered by Collins, Mack studied it for a moment before nodding his head.
‘’That storm suits me just fine, Mister Collins. Steer us towards it: we will enter it first at our present displacement, to see how it affects us, then we will fill our ballast tanks to attain maximum stability. Be ready then to record in detail the data from our inclinometers while we sail through that storm. I want to verify that we could then still be stable enough to launch or retrieve our aircraft.’’
‘’Understood, sir!’’
As Collins plotted a new course heading and gave orders to the helmsman, Mack mentally hoped that this new SWATH hull design would truly prove as stable in bad weather as it had been promised to be. An aircraft carrier that couldn’t operate its embarked aircraft because of bad weather was basically reduced to a nearly-impotent floating parking lot for combat aircraft. Sure, the formidable missile battery of the NEPTUNE, along with its four 127mm and six 76mm dual-purpose guns, would then still make it a most lethal ship, but not being able to launch or retrieve its embarked aircraft would be a severe handicap in combat. Those thoughts made Mack remember the incident in World War 2 when Admiral Halsey had made his fleet sail through a typhoon. His fleet had sustained some heavy damage and had even lost a few of its smaller ships, while his carriers had seen many of their aircraft parked on their flight decks being either swept out by huge waves or damaged. Right now, the flight deck of the NEPTUNE was empty of aircraft, but not because it had none aboard: 56 aircraft presently sat in its huge aircraft hangar, with enough space left for 24 more aircraft, if they were crammed in tighter, another advantage provided by its SWATH design’s roomy shape.
17:04 (East Coast Time)
Bridge of the Russian cruiser GROZNYY (KYNDA-Class)
Sailing off the Florida coast
Russian KYNDA-Class missile cruiser
Captain Valentin Klimov was both elated and worried as his cruiser was starting to follow the unknown American aircraft carrier they had spotted by sheer luck a few minutes ago. Elated because that spotting was giving him the opportunity to examine from up close a totally new and unknown type of American carrier; worried because the fact that the Americans had built an aircraft carrier which was apparently invisible to radar represented a huge threat to Russia if it ever started hostilities against the United States. Klimov’s cruiser had sailed out of Havana Harbor a day ago after conducting a classic ‘showing of the flag’ around Cuba and had been on its way back to its home port of St-Petersburg, in the Baltic, when a huge aircraft carrier of unknown type had been spotted in the distance. Klimov had immediately ordered his pilot to reverse course and get closer to the giant carrier, so that photographs of it could be taken. Unfortunately, that American carrier was proving to be a very speedy one, forcing Klimov into pushing his cruiser to the limit of its machinery. In turn, that meant that he was going to drastically cut his autonomy, possibly to the point where he would be forced to return to Havana in order to refuel before heading home again. However, learning about that new American carrier was well worth the trouble, in his opinion. His first officer, Commander Konstantin Marchenko, then appeared on the bridge and went to Klimov’s command chair before speaking to him in a lowered voice.
‘’Captain, we were unable to send our sighting report to Fleet Headquarters: we encountered strong radio jamming before we could complete our message. We attempted to use another frequency but that was also jammed nearly at once.’’
Klimov swore at that, making a couple of sailors nearby turn their heads for an instant.
‘’Chyort{7}! It must be that American carrier: they probably want to delay as much as possible any information about it to filter back to Moscow. Well, we will send our message from Cuba if need be. What do you think about that new American carrier, Konstantin?’’
Marchenko couldn’t help glance out through the windows of the bridge at the dark silhouette of the giant American ship some eleven nautical miles away.
‘’That it is definitely a new worry for us, Captain. The fact that we still can’t see it on our radar despite its relative proximity is frankly disturbing. Also, its size means that it can probably transport a large number of aircraft, possibly up to a hundred or more of them. If it ever attacked Russia or our ships, then it would probably cause us a lot of damage. Moscow definitely needs to know about it.’’
‘’I concur! We will thus do our best to trail it and get closer to it in order for us to examine and photograph it. Tell our ship’s photographer to be ready with his cameras loaded with low light level films.
‘’Yes, Captain!’’
Marchenko then left the bridge, leaving Klimov free to return his attention to the American carrier. Despite going at its maximum speed of 34 knots, Klimov’s cruiser was only very slowly cutting the distance between it and the carrier. In turn, going at such a speed in a less than calm sea meant that the GROZNYY’s ride was a bumpy one. Klimov was too well aware of the fact that his ship and the other three cruisers in its class were known to be top-heavy and to be somewhat unstable in rough seas, which meant that he had to run some risks in order to trail that American carrier. The fact that they could still not see it on radar prompted Klimov into calling to him one of the bridge officers, who was in charge of the lookouts. That officer, a young man of 24, also happened to be one of his nephews.
‘’Sergei, I want you to double our lookouts around our open bridge wings. We cannot afford to lose sight of that carrier. Also, have them don life vests before stepping outside: we are approaching some bad weather.’’
‘’Understood, Captain!’’ replied his nephew, saluting Klimov before going to see his lookouts standing outside the bridge.
17:49 (East Coast Time)
Navigation bridge of the battle carrier U.S.S. NEPTUNE
Mack Benson, standing next to one of the armored windows of the bridge, looked critically at the state of the sea around his ship, then at the inclinometers that indicated the angle at which his carrier was pitching and rolling. While the ride was definitely rougher than before they entered this storm area, it still was quite manageable, the huge size of his ship in terms of length and beam helping to soak up the effects of the waves. It was now time to see how he could effectively gain more stability despite of that storm.
‘’Mister Collins, fill our ballast tanks! Go to overload condition!’’
‘’Aye, Captain!’’
As Collins relayed his orders and checked on his bridge personnel, Mack returned his attention to the dark sky and agitated sea outside. One objection he had heard against SWATH hull designs was that managing any change in a ship’s loaded condition would be difficult, due to the tight buoyancy margins of a typical SWATH hull. The designers of the NEPTUNE had gone around that problem by fitting it with larger than needed underwater hulls, giving it much higher buoyancy than what was required, and to add ballast tanks that would allow the ship to adjust its displacement independent of how loaded the ship really was. That in turn allowed the NEPTUNE’s keel to stay at a depth that would help strongly attenuate the effect of waves, thus making it more stable in rough seas. A pair of stabilizer ailerons linking the lateral and centerline underwater hulls together would also help dampen their rolling and pitching. He was soon going to know if that concept truly worked.
The answer to that question came quickly enough, with Mack feeling after only a couple of minutes a very apparent and dramatic improvement in the ride and stability of his ship as its keel went down to a depth of 12.5 meters. Looking in turn at the sea state, the speed of his ship and the inclinometers, Mack nodded his head, impressed.
‘’Wow! This is really working! The sea must be at least at sea state five and we are doing thirty knots, yet the ship is rock steady, with our flight deck barely rolling or pitching. We could easily launch or retrieve aircraft right now. Miss Woods, do we still have this Russian cruiser tailing us?’’
‘’Yes, sir, but it is rolling and pitching like a cork plug. They must be enduring quite a beating right now. If I was the captain of that ship, I would abandon that pursuit and slow down drastically.’’
‘’I would too, but I can understand why they are persisting in their efforts. Keep me advised of any change in their course and speed, Miss Woods.’’
‘’Aye, Captain!’’
On the GROZNYY, Captain Klimov and his crew were effectively getting severely beaten by the sea and were having to hold on tight to fixed objects in order to stay on their feet. Klimov, holding tight to the armrests of his command chair, swore silently to himself as the giant American carrier was gradually disappearing out of sight with the coming darkness of the evening. Soon, he was going to be unable to sight it visually, while his ship’s radar could only get a very faint echo from the stern aspect of the carrier, even at the short distance of six nautical miles. However, his main worry now was about his own ship: its rolling was approaching the maximum safe angle preventing it from capsizing and the storm appeared to be intensifying further as the minutes passed. The GROZNYY and its sister ships had been scheduled to be retired a few years earlier already, but the chaotic days after the Moscow Coup had resulted in severe cuts to the military budgets of Russia and there had been no money available to build new replacement ships. The GROZNYY, now having been in service for 33 years and with ageing machinery and hull, thus had to go on, at least for another few more years.
The cruiser had just recuperated from a brutal slamming caused by the ship pitching down hard and digging inside the sea when an alarmed shout came from one of the bridge lookouts.
‘’BIG WAVE COMING FROM STARBOARD!’’
Snapping his head in that direction, Klimov immediately felt his blood freeze in his veins: what he was now looking at could easily win the title of ‘rogue wave’. Worse, it was going to slam directly into the starboard flank of the cruiser, the worse possible scenario for Klimov in the present circumstances.
‘’ALL CREW: BRACE FOR IMPACT!’’
A mere few seconds later, that giant wave slammed into the cruiser’s side, even submerging its decks as it washed over the ship. A horrible noise of tortured metal was heard as the cruiser rolled hard to port. Klimov, watching the readings from his inclinometers, then saw with horror the needle of his roll indicator reach and then pass the red line indicating the safe rolling limit. He had no time to give an order before the roll turned into a capsizing, with his cruiser’s port side ending on the surface of the sea. The bridge windows on the port side exploded under the pressure of the water as the GROZNYY completely capsized in seconds, with Klimov and his bridge crew drowning shortly afterwards, trapped inside their sinking ship.
On the starboard open bridge wing, Ensign Sergei Klimov and two of his lookouts were able at first to hold on to the bulwark of the bridge wing as their cruiser capsized, but soon found themselves swimming for their lives in the cold Atlantic water. Only their life vests allowed them to reach the surface and burst out in time to gasp for air. Seeing one of the two lookouts close to him, Sergei Klimov swam to him and grabbed his left arm.
‘’LET’S HOLD TOGETHER BY OUR ARMS: WE WILL BETTER BE ABLE TO FLOAT THAT WAY.’’
‘’VASYLI, I DON’T SEE HIM!’’ said the lookout, referring to the other lookout.
‘’HE WAS PROBABLY WASHED AWAY FROM US. WE WILL PROBABLY BE ABLE TO SEE HIM SOON.’’ replied Sergei, not really believing his own words but doing his best to reassure his sailor. Another wave then crashed over their heads, sending them down again. Thankfully, they were able to keep hold of each other and they resurfaced again after a few seconds. The lookout, a young man barely out of his teens, then cried out in fear.
‘’DEAR GOD, I DON’T WANT TO DIE!’’
‘’YOU WILL NOT DIE, YURI! DO AS I SAY AND YOU WILL LIVE.’’
On the bridge of the U.S.S. NEPTUNE, Mack Benson suddenly heard an alarmed shout from First Lieutenant Betty Woods.
‘’SIR, THE RUSSIAN CRUISER HAS JUST DISAPPEARED OUT OF SIGHT. I CAN’T SEE IT ANYMORE AND IT ALSO DISAPPEARED FROM OUR RADAR.’’
That made Mack snap his hear around at once, concerned. Even in war, the laws of the sea dictated that any sailor from a sunken or sinking ship, be it enemy or friendly, had to be rescued from the sea. Mack may have been innovative about his tactics, but he still believed in naval traditions and honor.
‘’HELM, TURN HARD PORT! HEAD AT TOP SPEED FOR THE LAST POSITION OF THAT RUSSIAN CRUISER.’’
As the helmsman was obeying him, Mack grabbed the ship’s telephone next to his command chair, dialing his air operations center.
‘’Air Ops, this is the Captain! Launch immediately our plane guard aircraft: the Russian cruiser trailing us apparently just sank. Do your best to find and rescue any survivors from that cruiser.’’
‘’Understood, Captain. Our duty PELICAN should take off in less than five minutes.’’
‘’Good!’’ said Mack before calling his operations officer, presently on watch in the ship’s Combat Information Center. ‘’Mister Carpenter, the Russian cruiser trailing us apparently just sank and we are turning around to render assistance. Have both a boat crew and divers plus a small detachment of marines on standby in case we find survivors. I also want our medical center to be ready to treat those survivors.’’
‘’I’m on it, Captain.’’
Benson then put back down his telephone receiver and looked out through the bridge’s windows and grimaced: in such a strong storm, he didn’t expect many survivors to be found, if any.
Inside the flight deck-level aircraft hangar that was part of the aft superstructures, the six-person crew of the plane guard Hiller PELICAN ‘A’ rushed to their aircraft as the doors of the small hangar were being opened, letting in strong winds and some rain and sea spray. At the same time, the hangar operator opened wide the back doors, designed to allow an aircraft to light up its engines inside the hangar for a quick exit. As soon as Lieutenant (Navy) Diane Bowman was strapped into her pilot’s seat and saw that all her crewmembers were aboard, with no deck technicians in the way, she lit up in succession the four interlinked turboshaft engines of her aircraft, a militarized and navalised variant of the very successful Hiller AIRBUS civilian VTOL{8} short-haul transport. After a quick instrument check with her copilot, Second Lieutenant Jerry Kronenberger, Bowman switched on the electric motors of the retractable landing wheels which were lodged inside the two long cylindrical floats running along the sides of her machine, then made the PELICAN ‘A’ roll out of its hangar on its own power. The strong winds started shaking the PELICAN as Bowman unfolded and locked into position the four large ducted propellers of the craft, which had been folded to the vertical along the sides while inside the hangar.
‘’Damn! We can expect a bumpy ride, people. Make sure that you have your seat belts on before we take off.’’
After a quick look at her crewmembers behind her, in the passenger cabin,