Phoenix Sub Zero by Michael Dimercurio

Author:Michael Dimercurio
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780451406033
Publisher: Onyx
Published: 1994-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Commander, report status of the SCM.”

SCM was sonar countermeasures, a torpedo-deception system designed by the Japanese shipbuilders, a sort of ventriloquist sonar pulse generator built to fool an incoming torpedo and make it explode too early, the transmitters mounted in the two lower X-fins aft. The sea-trials test results on it had been inconclusive, but in a torpedo tail chase the SCM sonar received the pulse of a torpedo sonar, listened for how often the pulse came in, then on the next ping-listen cycle the SCM would transmit an identical pulse back to the torpedo.

The SCM transmission was designed to be heard by the torpedo before it heard the echo return of its own original transmission bouncing off the sub. It was simple in concept but close to impossible to make it succeed at sea. The problem that came up first was making the ship able to transmit a ping that exactly matched the torpedo’s ping, then changing it so it would sound like an echo return, adjusting the timing and frequency of the bogus echo so that the torpedo would be fooled into thinking the target was nearer, farther, slower or faster than it actually was. The system required the most sensitive receivers, the most perfect transmitters and the dedication of an entire supercomputer.

All these requirements had been worried over for years, the final hurdle for the computer. Computing resources were most at a premium during a torpedo evasion. Sensors were straining to hear another threat or locate

another target, weapons systems were programming the counterfire, reactor systems were controlling the potentially dangerous core as it approached its design limits, and ship-control systems were preparing to maneuver to evade—there simply was not time or machinery to do the intense calculations needed to put out the ventriloquist sonar pulses. The Japanese, as usual, had relished the chance to solve a seemingly impossible technical problem and had installed a separate compact supercomputer tied into a new hydrophone array on the X-tails. The system was expensive and not guaranteed to work, but about half of the tests had shown impressive results.

As they ran from the torpedo, Tawkidi and Sharef had been too involved with the incoming torpedo and activating the SCM system to notice what lay ahead: the minefield of two dozen Mark 50 weapons circling and quietly waiting for the Destiny submarine.

David Kane’s mind was operating on parallel tracks, and if he were not seconds from disaster he might have found the effect fascinating, the sudden expanded mental capacity the result of the rush of adrenaline and his own sense that he probably had less than thirty seconds to live.

Phoenix’s deck had plunged to a steep down-angle as a result of the diving-angle on the stern planes. One part of Kane’s mind acted as a recorder and impartial observer, seeing that the inclinometer mounted above the ballast-control panel was off the scale, which would be over a

fifty-degree down-angle. A grease pencil on a string suspended from the O.O.D’s status board hung very

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