he still needed range data. There seemed to be a pair of escorts between him and the cruiser, and unless he had a proper range estimate, any missile he launched at the Soviet flagship might attack a destroyer or frigate by mistake. In the interim, the solution on the attack director set the Harpoons to fly straight for what he believed to be the battle cruiser Kirov.
Chicago began to zigzag left and right of her course track. As the submarine changed her position, the bearing to her sonar contacts changed also. The tracking party could use the submarine's own course deviation as a baseline to compute ranges to the various contacts. A straightforward process--essentially an exercise in high-school trigonometry--it nevertheless took time because they had to estimate the speed and course of the moving targets. Even computer support couldn't make the process go much faster, and one of his quartermasters took great pride in his ability to use a circular slide rule and race the computer to a hard solution.
The tension seemed to grow by degrees, then it plateaued. The years of training were paying off. Data was handled, plotted, and acted upon in seconds. The crew suddenly seemed a physical part of the gear they were operating, their feelings shut off, their emotions submerged, only the sweat on their foreheads betraying that they were men after all, and not machines. They depended absolutely on their sonar operators. Sound energy was their only indication of what was happening, and each new bearing report triggered furious activity. It was clear that their targets were zigzagging, which made the range computations even more difficult.
"Conn, sonar! Active sonobuoy close aboard to port! Below the layer, I think."
"Right full rudder, all ahead two-thirds," the executive officer ordered instantly.
McCafferty went to sonar and plugged in a set of headphones. The pings were loud but ... distorted, he thought. If the buoy was below the temperature gradient, the signals radiating upward would be unable to detect his submarine--probably. "Signal strength?" he asked.
"Strong," the chief replied. "Even money they might have picked us up. Five hundred yards farther out and they lose us for sure."
"Okay, they can't monitor them all at once."
The XO moved Chicago a thousand yards before returning to base course. Overhead, they knew, was a Bear-F ASW aircraft armed with homing torpedoes and a crew whose job it was to listen to the sonobuoy signals. How good were the buoys and the men? That was one thing that they didn't know. Three tense minutes passed and nothing happened.
"All ahead one-third, come left to three-two-one," the executive officer ordered. They were now through the line of buoys. Three more such lines were between them and their target. They'd nearly determined range for three of the escorts, but not to the Kirov yet.
"Okay, people, the Bears are behind us. That's one less thing to worry about. Range to the nearest ship?" he asked the approach officer.
"Twenty-six thousand yards. We think he's a Sovremenny. The Kresta is about five thousand yards east of him. He's pinging away with hull and VDS sonars." McCafferty nodded. The variable-depth sonar would be below the layer and had scant chance of detecting them. The hull sonar they'd have to pay attention to, but it wouldn't be a problem for a while yet. Okay, the captain thought, things are going pretty much according to plan--
"Conn, sonar, torpedoes in the water, bearing three-two-zero! Signal faint. Say again torpedoes in the water, three-two-zero, bearing changing--additional, lots of active sonars just lit up. We're getting increased screw noises for all contacts." McCafferty was in the sonar room before the report ended.
"Torpedo bearing change?"
"Yes! Moving left-to-right--Jesus. I think somebody's attacking the Russians. Impact!" The chief jabbed his finger at the display. A series of three bright spokes appeared right on the bearing to Kirov. The display suddenly went berserk. The high-and medium-frequency segment lit up with active sonar lines. The lines indicating ships became brighter as the ships increased engine speeds and changed direction as they began to maneuver.
"Secondary explosion on this contact--holy shit! Lots of explosions in the water now. Depth charges, maybe, something's really ripping the water up. There's another torpedo--way off, bearing changing right to left."
The display was now too complex for McCafferty to follow. The chief expanded the time scale to allow easier interpretation, but only he and his experienced operators could understand it.
"Skipper, it looks like somebody just got inside on them and launched an attack. He got three solid hits