Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (18 page)

“A sound plan,” said Volsky. “Half our
S-300s and then probably half our Klinok missiles as well. That means we can
only play this game one more time! What else will those carriers have left,
Fedorov?”

“This will be the heart of their
strike planes, sir. Those two carriers could hold seventy-two planes each.
We’ve already killed twenty of a possible 144. That leaves 124 planes, with
fifty-four of them most likely being A6M2 fighters. That would leave seventy
strike planes, and Rodenko says he has nearly that many contacts. They may have
some fighters or torpedo planes in reserve, but not more than a dozen.”

“What about the third carrier?” Karpov
asked.

“A light escort carrier,” said
Fedorov. “They usually carried two groups, half fighter and the other half
strike planes of one sort or another. No more than twenty-four planes in all.
These may be their reserve.”

Volsky shook his head, remembering
that first British plane he ordered shot down with an S-300. Then the ship’s
silos and magazines had been full, glutted with reloads for the planned live
fire exercises. Now every missile he fired brought them one step closer to a
condition where even these old propeller planes, obsolete seventy years before
Kirov
had ever been built, could pose a real threat. One had already blackened the
aft deck and put a hole in the hull above the waterline.
Kirov
already
bore an unsightly scar from a war that would just not let them be. He sighed.

“We talked our way out of some real
trouble a few weeks ago at Gibraltar,” he said. “Something tells me these men
will not be so accommodating as Admiral Tovey, even if we did have someone
aboard who could speak Japanese.”

“No, sir,” said Karpov. “I’m afraid we
will have to let our missiles do the talking here.”

“It seems so. And what you have said
about taking a more proactive stance in these matters has not gone unheard,
Captain. You may be right, Karpov. We are measured against a foe here that will
be implacable. The Americans had to burn and blast their way from one desolate
island to the next in this war, and it ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we
do
manage to evade the Japanese, let us not also forget the Americans.
They will have a considerable score to settle with us too if they ever realize
we are the same foe they faced in the Atlantic. Very well, gentlemen. Man your
stations. Mister, Fedorov, you will maneuver the ship in this action.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Mister Karpov, you will make the
tactical weapons deployments… Fight your battle.”

Chapter
12

The Missiles
rose into the violet of the early
morning with sudden fury, the sound of their rocket engines shaking the air
when the main engines ignited. The current model of the S-300 system aboard
Kirov
was a vastly updated variant of the older S-300P missile, a rotating canister
of eight missiles mounted in an underdeck vertical silo. They ranged out to 150
miles, and would streak out at a blistering speed exceeding Mach 6.0 to deliver
a large 150kg warhead if the missile got anywhere near the target, and sending
a hail of withering shrapnel in all directions. They would have little or no
difficulty finding targets in a massed formation such as the one headed
Kirov’s
way now. They were so accurate that they could even be used against short range
ballistic missiles if necessary, but the relatively slow planes in their long
formation lines would make perfect targets.

One after another they fired and went
on their scorching way, and for the flights of planes that saw them coming it
was a nightmare the like of which they had never seen—save one.

*
* *

Hayashi
saw the evil contrails climbing up
for them at a hideous rate of speed and the awful memory of the death of his
squadron returned. The pulse of fear hit his gut, but he steadied himself. The
Dragon has fired, he thought. Last time we were right on top of this demon, and
these rockets tore my formation to pieces, then came the flak guns, so lethal
that he was amazed his single plane had managed to survive intact. This time it
will be even worse, he knew. Our planes are just waiting to be struck, all
lined up like birds on a fence! In a flash he knew what he had to do, clutching
the microphone at his throat he shouted out his warning.

“This is Hayashi! All
squadrons—disperse, disperse,
disperse!
We will regroup at 12,000 feet!”
And he immediately put his plane into a steep dive. The three fighters
escorting him were surprised by the sudden maneuver, but they soon recovered,
tipped their wings and dove with him. Above and behind, other squadrons close
enough to hear Hayashi’s plaintive warning reacted in different ways. Some kept
stubbornly on wondering if Hayashi had lost his nerve after all, and waiting
for further orders from strike leader Sakamoto. Then they saw the missiles
clawing up through the clear blue sky and their eyes widened with surprise.

Yamaguchi’s D3A2 squadrons off
Shokaku
were the first to be hit. Three S-300s ignited right across their flight path
and the whole of 1st squadron’s nine planes flew directly into the hail of
metal shrapnel. Of the nine
Vals
, five were hit,
three so badly that they tailspinned down out of control, the remaining two
were badly shaken and one was afire. 2nd Squadron was above and a thousand
meters behind, and when they saw what happened to their brothers, and spied
three more missiles heading their way, Hayashi’s warning made immediate sense.

“Follow me!” One man shouted as he put
his plane into a steep dive. The missiles veered to a new intercept course that
took them right through the remainder of 1st squadron, where two found planes
and ignited in great fireballs blazoning in the clear blue sky.

Several thousand feet below, the
torpedo bombers all got the word and began to disperse in groups of three,
their
shotai
leaders taking them down well
below the 12,000 foot elevation Hayashi had called for. One group was sought,
and hit, by the last two S-300s, and all three planes were destroyed, cut to
pieces by the intense shrapnel in the exploding missiles.

Yet the tally at the end of that first
salvo from
Kirov
was disheartening. For eight missiles they had
destroyed eight planes and damaged two others, one so badly that it had to turn
for home, a bad fuel leak making its prospects for a safe landing now very
unlikely. Instead it would look for the pursuit force and ditch in the sea near
Kirishima
, and its valuable pilot would live to fight another day.

Minutes later they saw more white
contrails arcing up into the sky, and the pilots braced for another round,
their engine throttles now open full as they bravely charged, yet not a single
man had even sighted the ship they were supposed to be targeting!

Three of the escorting A6M2 Zeros
bravely raced towards the oncoming missiles, their machine guns firing in a
vain effort to engage the sky demons. But the missiles were simply too fast,
faster even than the machine gun rounds that sought them out, and the fighters
had no chance in the world to ever shoot them down. Yet what they did have was
a chance to sacrifice themselves so that some of their brothers in the strike
planes could push on to the attack. Three of the eight missiles found Zeros,
blowing them to pieces, while the five remaining missiles pushed into isolated
groups of two and three planes, their contrails twisting like vapor rope as
they maneuvered, vectored in on targets, and blew them from the sky.

Three dive bombers died, along with
two more torpedo bombers. A third Kate had its wings so riddled with shrapnel
that it lost too much lift and fuel, and had to jettison the heavy torpedo it
was carrying. It was effectively out of the battle, and the count was now
eighteen planes lost for sixteen missiles. This left twenty eight
Vals
and twelve
Kates
still aloft
and inbound as the strike wave crossed through the ninety mile mark. Nine more
fighters remained as well, a total of forty-nine planes still headed
Kirov’s
way.

*
* *

Aboard
Kirov
Karpov watched the
results on radar, with Rodenko reading out these same numbers to tally the
score. It was  most disheartening.

“They seemed to react very quickly,”
said Rodenko. “Look how they dispersed in all directions, not like the first
two groups, which held formation the whole way in.”

“It seems they learn fast,” said
Karpov. “Just like the British. How long before they come in range of the
Klinok System?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Very well. Secure the S-300 system,
Samsonov. We will shift the defense to our intermediate range systems now. I
want to retain some long range defensive umbrella, and our S-300 missile
inventory has reduced to just nineteen missiles. This is not the way to
adequately repel an attack of this scale, but given our missile inventory, it
is all we can do at the moment.”

Kirov’s
systems were fully capable of defeating
a force the size of Admiral Hara’s strike wave, though in modern combat the
application of firepower in the defense would be much greater. If these had
been sixty American strike planes off one of their nuclear carriers, the ship
would have fired with everything they had. In modern combat it was always a do
or die proposition, and the careful, measured application of defensive
firepower was likely to only produce one result—a sunk ship. The tension
mounted as they waited, watching the slow advance of the enemy on radar.

“They seem to be reforming at 12,000
feet,” said Rodenko.

“When will they spot us?” asked
Karpov?

“At that height? The horizon is all of
130 miles away for them. They can see where our missiles contrails are leading
now, and soon we’ll be big enough to pick out with an unaided eye on the sea.”

“One disadvantage of our missiles,
eh?” said Karpov. “They lead the enemy right to our doorstep.” He stood up,
looking at the ship’s chronometer. “With your permission, Admiral, I will begin
the next engagement in ten minutes with the Klinok system.”

Volsky nodded. “Carry on, Captain.”

The Klinok missiles could strike
targets at almost 20,000 feet, and the strike wave was right in the middle of
this range envelope, moving inside forty miles. Sometimes called the
Kinzhal
as it was a variant of the older 3K95 missile
system. The Klinok, or ‘Blade,’ had once been an export version of the weapon,
but this latest variant was given that name when installed on the newly
remodeled
Kirov
. A cold launch system, the missiles were ejected via gas
catapult before their engines fired, and then sent on their way and controlled
by two radars, one for long range acquisition and the second for target
prosecution.

Each underdeck canister in the system
held eight missiles, though the radars had been designed to prosecute no more
than four simultaneous targets per canister. Klinok was, therefore, designed to
double team each contact, allowing for two missiles to vector in on the target
to assure its destruction. But given the circumstances,
Kirov
did not
have the luxury of expending its vital munitions in such an extravagant manner.

“Ready, Samsonov? These will be single
fire scenarios. No barrage. I want each missile to track and acquire before we
fire the next, clear?”

“Aye, sir. Switching to single fire
mode and all systems report ready.”

“Hold fire until they are inside
twenty kilometers.”

“The radars were acquiring targets
well beyond that, but the missiles would be much more effective inside that
shorter range envelope.

Samsonov began to key missiles to
targets with quick taps of his light pen on the screen. This was modern combat.
He was not hunched in the pilot seat like his enemy, listening to the roar of
his plane’s engines as they surged ahead through the wild missile fires, their
hands and feet tight on the yoke and throttle, faces set and grim. Instead he
sat in an air conditioned room, tapping glass to glass on a computer controlled
data screen, quietly completing all his missile assignments.

Karpov turned and nodded in his
direction.

“You may begin.”

*
* *

When
the next round of missiles came they seemed sleeker,
more deliberate, their contrails fine lines in the sky as they reached for the
planes. First one came, and it sought out a D3A Val. The pilot spun away,
tipping over and trying put his plane into an evasive dive, but the missile
would not be fooled. It maneuvered in a tight turn and struck the plane full
on, obliterating it in a bright orange and black explosion.

Another and another came up for them,
a slow, deliberate procession of contrails in the sky. Hayashi heard a shout of
‘
bonzai
’
in his ear and saw three A6M2
Rei-sen
fighters veer off to head for the missiles,
as if they might dogfight them. Their powerful engines and superior speed sent
them surging ahead of the main body of strike planes, where they quickly gained
the attention of the lead missile. The computer brains in the missiles adapted,
re-acquired, and targeted the Zeros. All three planes died spectacular deaths,
one by one, and then three more vapor thin contrails arced up at them as the
deadly game continued.