Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2) by Bleichert Peter von

Author:Bleichert, Peter von [Bleichert, Peter von]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

7: JOUST

“No lance have I, in joust or fight, To splinter in my lady's sight; But, at her feet, how blest were I, For any need of hers to die.”—John Greenleaf Whittier

The South Atlantic looked like molten gold as the last rays of the sunset illuminated its gently rolling surface. A bubble rose, disturbing the tranquility. And then the bubble popped; foam erupted in its place. From within the eruption, a grey cylinder was spat. It leapt to the air, peeled apart, and opened like a flower. Inside hid a Klub anti-ship missile, an export version of the Russian Novator 3M-54, generally known by its NATO designation: SS-N-27 Sizzler.

Released from its watertight container, the Klub’s booster ignited and pushed it into the sky. Small wings unfolded and control surfaces adjusted. The Klub nosed over, leveled, and began to race across the sea. Near where it had sprung, sprang another such bloom. It, too, left the petals of its water-tight canister afloat. They lingered for a moment and then, sucked under, disappeared. As the canister petals fell toward the bottom, they passed two ropes of bubbles where San Luis II’s super-cavitating torpedoes had sped.

Torpedoes are named for ‘torpor’—a state of lassitude imparted by marine electric rays—and these Russian-made weapons were ready to deliver such a state prior to consuming their prey. The Squalls had been spit from the submarine’s hull. Their mid-body fins snapped open and with a pop, rocket motors ignited. Gases emerged from the conical cavitators at the weapons’ tips and bubbles formed around the casings, reducing drag and turning the Squalls into underwater rockets. The weapons then charged through the water as though it were air, quickly reaching 200 knots as they raced toward Dragon. Swaddled in their self-created gaseous atmosphere and practically tasting the coming kill, the Squalls anxiously screamed through the water.

Some 150 meters below the Squalls, two Type 53-65KE heavy wake-homing torpedoes snaked their way through the darkness. They had been released first, pushed from the San Luis II’s tubes by high pressure air and spat into the ocean. The export version of the Type 53 heavy torpedo used HTP—a concentrated solution of hydrogen peroxide. Once a catalyst was introduced, HTP decomposed into a high-temperature mixture of oxygen and steam. The oxygen allowed the weapon’s kerosene turbine to breathe, with the steam vented outside the weapon’s casing. This made the ‘53 a high-speed threat, and added to the torpedoes wake of bubbles, created lots of noise. (It also made the weapon very dangerous should it start-up in the submarine’s tube.) Western navies had abandoned HTP as a propellant for this very reason. Despite these worries, however, San Luis II’s ‘53s worked as they should, and their contra-rotating propellers accelerated them to some 44 knots. All the while, the sensors in the torpedoes’ noses got to work.

Designed to snake back and forth within the vee presented by the wake of an enemy ship, the ‘53s would approach a target, and when proximate, explode. San Luis II’s

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