Operation Ivy Bells: A novel of the Cold War by Robert Williscroft

Author:Robert Williscroft
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Starman Press
Published: 2014-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

Soviet Whiskey Class Submarine

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Whiskey submarine is old even when it has just been built. It's based on a World War II German submarine model that even the Germans had stopped building. It's noisy, its sonar sucks, and its only good to 600 feet. Having said that, it's still a formidable foe. It has six torpedo tubes, and it shoots the same smart fish as Ivan's nukes. The obvious trick is not to let one find you in the first place.

Well, we had had one in our sights, but we had lost him. And now we were the prey. Fortunately, for him to hear us, he had to be well inside our detection circle on him – unless he shut down completely.

"Skipper," I said, turning around to look at him relaxing in his chair, "this is one smart Russian. He assumes we're out here, but he doesn't know for sure. So he dives and shuts everything down. That equalizes the playing field – we lose our only real advantage, our ability to hear him before he hears us."

I went over to the chart. "He was a mile or so away when he dove, and he was pointed toward the splash zone. If he flooded main ballast, angled her down, and kicked her in the rear before shutting down – well, he could drift right into the middle of the debris field, settle to the bottom, all without making another sound." I paused, looking at the Skipper. "We're at ultra-quiet. He might be able to hear us at several hundred feet, but beyond that – as long as we keep quiet, we're home free." I grinned at him. "Why don't we point toward the nosecone and quietly push in that direction. I think we can get there, find the nosecone with the Basketball, and commence operations without alerting the Whiskey." I paused. "We just have to do it silently."

The Skipper appeared to consider my words. "Look, Skipper," I said, "he can't do anything without our hearing him – anything that is but listen, and we listen a lot better than he does. If he actually ends up in our neighborhood, we might even be able to have a bit of fun with him."

"Okay, Mac," the Skipper said after a bit, "we'll follow your plan for the time being; but make sure Sonar is on their toes. There's no cavalry to come to our rescue up here.

The first part was easy. I just dropped the bow to three degrees down angle, and adjusted the heading to point directly at the nosecone on the bottom about two miles away. Then I let physics take over. I called King out to the Control Station to discuss the second part. I explained what we were doing. I told him to keep a close ear to the water landscape. We wanted to know where the Whiskey was the very first moment possible. Our cat-and-mouse game was fun, but also potentially very dangerous. The last thing we wanted was an underwater incident.

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