AN: for those of you that have been patient enough to wade through this, yes I seriously realize that this can be taxing on your patience and that I am quite infuriatingly unclear sometimes about how submarine warfare actually works. unfortunately if i were to delve into that this would easliy be three thousand words longer and i feel that you seriously dont want to read THAT. if you want a better written version of sub warfare, i suggest The Hunt for Red October.
"XO I'll take the Conn." Toland said and Nolan stepped aside and went aft to get himself some coffee. The Conn had been in the red light for the past eight hours and Toland could never shake the feeling of how spooky it was when the ship was on battle stations. "All ahead one third, right full rudder make your bearing zero nine zero, ten degree rise on the planes." USS Chicago slowly made a ninety degree right turn.
"Sonar, Conn, Reevaluate range to targets."
"Sierra one is now at two point three klicks, Sierra two still unconfirmed sir."
This was pure submarine warfare. Silently slipping in, killing the prize ship of the fleet then slipping out like a boogey man. He would wait till his targets were less than a thousand meters away before shooting, the rough waters would throw off his aim a little bit and he wanted a sure kill. Tolands orders reflected the calm cold mood of the bridge, they were quiet and easy.
"Sound off the range, Sonar. Fire control I want full safeties on the torpedoes and updated firing solutions by the minute."
"Range two klicks."
"Firing solution."
"Don't flood the tubes yet." Toland said "Ease out on the planes" he ordered as he checked the planesmen's leveler. Chicago was now above the thermal layer where the cold water wouldn't interfere with the torpedoes running.
"One kilometer."
"all stop."
"Ship answering all stop."
"Reevaluate firing solution and make ready."
"Firing solution on Sierra two, Torpedoes loaded in one and two, Harpoons in three and four, flooding one and two and opening the doors-"
"Transients, Transients!" Sonar shouted suddenly "Torpedoes in the water crossing starboard to port bearings three one zero. Counting two, no, four fish in the water repeat four fish in the water and going fast-Jesus somebody's shooting the Euros!"
Toland wasted no time. "All ahead flank, down twenty on the planes new course bearing one eight zero left full rudder!" he barked and the Chicago suddenly went alive with noise as she rapidly turned to get clear from the Euros-
"Hit! That's a hit! Torpedoes were on target who the hell is out there Skipper?" Sonar shouted, Toland ignored him and concentrated on trying to get his ship away and not raging in his own conn.
Dammit he'd done everything perfect, he'd slipped through the net, got inside the formation, lined up the shot and then someone else had gotten there before and stolen the kill. It wasn't fair, where was he eight hours ago at the start of the engagement? He'd personally punch every USN commander just to find out who was captaining that boat.
"lots of screw noises now captain! Confirmed dragoon type sea screw bearing zero eight six and-
"All rise on the planes! Periscope depth!" Toland snapped and raised the periscope and Radar mast.
He turned the scope, the sky was a cloudy grey and off in the distance he could see the two frigates charging away to the left of a smoking ruin that had to be the carrier.
"Energize and give me a sweep!" he said and transferred the radar information into the fire control center. "Fire control reload with harpoons and make ready to fire!"
"Firing solution!" the officer shouted with a tone in his voice that was meant to remind Toland that the ship could lose buoyancy and control dangerously fast.
"Match radar generated bearings and shoot!"
"Fire sequence!" the roar of harpoon missiles leaving the tube and shooting into the water, rising then firing afterburners to roar into the sky filled the hull of the sub just over the noise of rumbling machinery as Chicago suddenly gained a whole bunch more buoyancy and began rolling dangerously from side to side in the rough storm waters. Toland stumbled slightly and snapped up the periscope as he tried to find his voice for orders. They began listing to starboard-
"Blow the starboard ballast tanks, all stop!"
"engines answering all stop!" the engineering officer shouted just over the sound of the violent decompression of all the starboard ballast tanks to keep the sub from capsizing. Chicago righted, then was pushed to port-
"Blow portside tanks, one and two!"
Two of the portside tanks blew out their air to keep Chicago level-
"All ahead flank," Toland barked "down full on the planes make your depth eight hundred!"
USS Chicago began its dive downward disappearing under the thermal layer.
"how's the bubble?" he asked the planesmen and took a look at the leveler.
"Permission to empty the number three port side ballast tank by one sixth." An ensign said as he mopped sweat from his brow. That would leave reserve air supplies dangerously low, they'd have to refill in the next two hours or they wouldn't have oxygen.
"do it." Toland ordered and the ensign flipped a switch and activated a timer. Fifteen seconds later he flipped the switch back down.
"leveling out sir." He breathed, Toland patted him in the shoulder and went back to the Conn.
"slow to one third, and open the torpedo doors."
"Aye sir, ship responding all ahead one third." It was only when the ship became quiet again did Toland allow himself to breathe.
"Quite a maneuver sir." Nolan said appearing from nowhere a mug of coffee in his hands and a telltale spill as to what happened to him during the rapid series of maneuvers.
"Someone ruined our approach and I had to break contact." Toland accepted the mug gratefully and drank, letting the caffeine sear down his throat and fuel the rage he felt.
He'd done everything right and some lousy motherfucker had ruined his approach and then he got mad and put his ship in danger by firing two harpoons in risky waters. He couldn't let that happen again. The fatigue was getting to him.
"I'll take the Conn sir." Nolan said and cocked a head to his quarters. Nolan was an extraordinary first mate, always putting the captain and crew before himself. Toland only nodded wearily in reply and stalked off to his quarters where he slept without briefing Nolan about their oxygen problem. Nolan could handle it.
"You see the powerplant Greyhound?"
Dean gestured rapidly for the binoculars, Corporal Dunns tossed him the heavy set from his pack.
"Yeah I see it Doghouse, want us to go in and shut it off?"
"Just keep your eyes on it Doghouse and keep your heads down, we're rolling in the strike packages in thirty minutes Zulu. Is there anything and I mean anything we need to know?"
Dean pulled out his map, he was so happy that they still printed some of this crap in paper, these things didn't break when they were dunked in water, just got wet and sticky for a little while but here in the arctic sun they dried fast. He unfolded it and noted all the red circles he had marked around Keflavik.
"Yeah, they got SAMs all over this area, one on each surrounding hill and I think a mobile radar site in addition to the bunkered one but I can't see that right now."
"Any enemy activity that we need to know?"
"No they're sticking to their normal routine foot patrols, cheetah helos, the odd disgruntled civvie, tanks haven't made a sound."
"Good report Greyhound, keep us posted and it'd be nice to know when some of those air assets lift off-"
"there they go right now Doghouse, I'm counting four pairs of contrails overhead, they're too high to see but they look like fighters, might be the new Hailstorm."
"Good to know Greyhound, we'll be checking up on Beagle now. Doghouse Out."
Dean shut off the transmitter and noted the battery was running a little low, the joys of not having some of this stuff tested with seawater came at a price.
"Fuckin A sir." Dunn shuddered in the cold, his coat had been ripped on the way up and now he was paying for it. Dean shucked his own and slid it over.
"0800, breakfast time." Sergeant Sanchez noted and opened up his MRE.
"What would you rather have, chef's special: rice without fish, rice without beef or rice without pork?"
"Well if you have some peaches I'll trade you for my peanut butter and crackers." PFC Wong said as he opened his own MRE. Sanchez looked inside his. "Deal." And tossed him the bag.
"Chow up, we rock and roll at 0830, air support is incoming." Dean ordered and contently crunched on one of the candy bars he had thoughtfully packed in a waterproof bag.
About two hundred miles away, Four B1 Lancer Bombers checked in at forty thousand feet, two were set to attack ground targets and were loaded with JDAM laser guided munitions, the other two had been outfitted with AIM-10 Quarrel Radar guided missiles and buddy fuel tanks able to transfer fuel to other planes. They were accompanied by four Air National Guard Raptors from the New York Attack squadrons, and an E-7 Eagle Eye AWACS, part of the Maine Attack Squadron.
"Buns" Macdonald checked her systems and eased off slightly on her forward thrust detatching herself from the buddy store and copied a "go."
A message sounded over the secure channel "Firelight, Firelight, Firelight, weapons free and good hunting."
Buns grinned. Here we go. She jetted forward.
Keflavik airfield's radar screens suddenly went white-
Jamming-
"Incoming air raid!" the officer of the watch shouted and gave orders to scramble. Raid sirens sounded over the city and sending civilians running to the nearest safety shelter and pilots to their planes. The first two planes- a pair of Hailstorms fresh from France - rolled down the runway and were airbone three minutes later, the SAM sites were flipped online and the operators pointed their radars skyward and tightened the focus to burn through the jamming.
"Confirmed type, American E-7 Eagle-Eye" the radar officer shouted and gave the bearing to be a hundred miles west by southwest. The commander in the flight control tower directed the four Hailstorms toward the area and gave them clearance to engage.
The four Hailstorms nodded and at a crisp order from their commander spread to a "finger four" formation, with the commander spearheading in a "V" his wingmate at his right, and the other two to his left. They switched their Air intercept radars to full and waited to burn through the jamming.
Fifty miles to the target, the jamming abruptly stopped. The commander gazed in confusion and paused for a fatal second.
All four fighters' lock warnings lit up and were blotted out of the sky before they could react.
From the east, directly opposite of where the Hailstorms had been scrambled another four Rafael IIIs, green and grey camouflage perfectly matching Iceland's mountainous terrain and bearing markings of the Royal Air Force, streaked in low hugging the mountains and hills to hide themselves from radar. Soldier's posted on the mount only recognized that they were Rafeal IIIs and assumed they were friendlies. The RAF fighters popped up simultaneously and lit off their antiradar seeking missiles and fired.
It was a textbook perfect wild weasel mission, the Rafael IIIs had come in without warning and loosed a volley of eight missiles at eight targets. Four SAM sites didn't know what hit them, one managed to shut his radar to try to decoy the missile but failed and the concrete bunker housing the main Radar coverage for the Eastern sector was cratered. Two spun off when they lost targets and detonated among the hilltops. Free of their missiles, they turned to visually aquire the rest as they fired off flares and foil chaff and switching on their tail jamming pods at such close range SAMS were useless. In the next ten minutes they savaged the rest of the SAMS with JDAMs and cluster bombs and were only forced to disengage when two European Rafaels attempted to engage them. The other Rafaels dropped whatever bombs they had left (making sure they aimed for the airfield and away from the Civilians) and went to afterburner towards the west, the European interceptors angrily scrambling behind them. What had been two European fighters suddenly became eight, then twelve in hot pursuit as the Rafaels jinked high and low and expended the remaining countermeasures to deflect locks.
Macdonald and her Baseplates got locks, and using their helmet systems painted all twelve enemies with locks and transmitted the firing sequences to the pair of B-1 lancers not far behind. Sixteen Quarrels were launched, twelve from the Lancers and Four from the Raptors.
The Euros were taken completely by surprise and scattered in all directions firing countermeasures desperately. Eight went down and the others were directed to turn back under the cover of the Anti-Air weaponry that surrounded Keflavik.
"I think I got one!" Baseplate three shouted.
"That's phase one." Macdonald breathed, it had taken less than two minutes to engage and shoot down those fighters. She checked her fuel states and was pleased to see they were operating within acceptable parameters. "here goes two." She muttered and hit the afterburners, thumbing the chaff as she did.
"Holy Shit!" Dean didn't even hear himself say that over the roar of the fighters screaming over head. "those are F-22s! Our boys!"
Wong said something that Dean didn't hear, flares and chaff popped out at even intervals as the Raptors came in low overhead. The roar of their engines was soon eclipsed by the falling note of a-
Bombs fell from overhead, Dean made sure that the Laser designator in his binoculars was pointing squarely at the power plant, he saw six bombs fall dead on target. The station went up in a fireball, a bright light that heralded the darkness that would envelop Keflavik for a long long time.
The Raptors, while stealthed to radar most certainly provided good infrared and visual targets as the remaining SAM launchers switched to infrared to try to identify but the Raptors had come in low popping flares as they went and providing such a large heat bloom so close to the infrared sensors they overloaded and presumptuously didn't engage anything at all. The gunners had a choice to engage by visual and did so quickly, tracer rounds laced the air around the Raptors and eventually to the B-1s as they streaked slowly overhead laden by bomb loads. One took a hit on its return pass, a lucky shot that seared through the wings and sliced into the rear engine quarters exploding it and sending the B-1 tumbling down. It crashed not two hundred meters from the SEALs position knocking PFC Walker who was kneeling flat on his side and sent rocks and pebbles into the air to shower the ground like hail. It only took Dean one look to understand that nobody had gotten out of that plane alive, he searched the air-no parachutes.
"Lets move SEALs," he said. If they hung around any longer this place would be crawling with European Enforcer troops. "And bring your trash, Walker get off your ass and make sure we don't leave tracks."
Like ghosts they disappeared running away from the flames and silently checking one victory for the good guys.