Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (19 page)

Kirov
traded eighteen missiles for planes
in the attack. Every missile fired found a plane, but the inventory also fell
to a dangerous low of only nineteen missiles remaining. Eight
Vals
, four
Kates
and six brave
Zeros died, leaving only the three that had been assigned to Hayashi as his
personal escort. Before it was over
Hoashi
, and
Ichihara were dead, both squadron leaders off
Shokaku
, but all the other
buntaicho
leaders survived. The strike
wave had been largely destroyed. Only twenty-eight strike planes and three
fighters remained, and the Japanese would have had a much more satisfactory
result by simply bailing out to save their pilots once they crossed into the
lethal target envelope of the missiles, but that factor was simply not in the
equation for them. They pressed on, thirty one planes now able to see and
target their enemy for the first time.

They were ten miles out and coming
fast, and Hayashi heard Sakamoto shouting orders to his widely dispersed
shotai
. The dive bombers would come down from their
present altitude, though Sakamoto was taking his section up to 15,000 feet to
overview the attack. The last eight torpedo bombers were taking an everyman for
himself strategy, and diving to lower altitudes to approach from all compass
headings.

Hayashi and his three fighter escorts
were somewhere in the midst of it all now, and he signaled to those planes
nearest to him. “Stay with me. We’ll all go in together, brothers
,
Jinrai
Butai
!”

There was an agonizing wait as the
planes drew ever closer to the dark ship below them, then Sakamoto gave the
order and the Aichi D3As tilted their noses into the gleaming sun and started
to dive with shouts and curses and exclamations of
bonzai
!
The attack was finally pressing home, with fewer than half as many planes that
took off from the carriers.

*
* *

Karpov
immediately engaged the same system
he had used earlier to repulse the first surprise dive bomber strike—the deadly
Kashtans
. The missile element of the system
sent up sixteen rockets in two barrages of eight. Traveling at nearly 3000 feet
per second, they were quick to the targets just after the planes began their
dives.

The first planes were hit, some by two
missiles at once, and sent spinning wildly out of control. One had a wing
sheared off, which in turn was struck by another missile and incinerated. In
all the sixteen rockets claimed another twelve
Vals
,
leaving only eight intrepid planes who got close enough to try and drop their
bombs. Of these the lethal Gatling Guns rattled out death and destruction for
three. Five bombs were actually released, two were from Squadron Leaders Ema
and Sakamoto, and they straddled
Kirov
with two near misses that shook
the ship very hard and sent steel fragments into systems along the lower port
side weather deck. The other three bombs fell wide off the mark, while the
AR-710 main Gatling gun systems were quickly engaging the eight torpedo bombers
with sharp, deadly bursts of riveting fire. Of these, six were knocked down on
approach, and only two got close enough to release their torpedoes, which ran
wide of the mark, being poorly aimed in the frantic energy of the battle.

Then Hayashi and his three Zeros came
screaming in, and the
Kashtans
rotated their
long black barrels to train on the targets. The horrid whir and sharp rattle of
the guns split the air and the whine of the oncoming planes seemed a terrible
agony. Two of the three Zeros were struck and on fire, their engines riddled
with 30mm shells, power lost and sent into steep unrecoverable dives. But
Hayashi kept on, he was very close now and should have quickly released his
bomb, but his face was set in a deadly mask and he opened the throttle full
out, forsaking his dive brakes. Then he felt his lumbering plane hit first on
one wing, then another, astonished to see segments of both wings sheared right
off. The stick jolted in his hands but he was no longer concerned to aim or
deliver his bomb. Instead he struggled with all his might to keep the plane
aimed at the enemy ship, and then the last of the Thunder Gods, the brave
Jinrai
Butai
, the
last plane off
Zuiho
, rode his flaming D3A right into the heart of the
ship.

Lt. Ema had managed to evade the awful
close in Gatling fire, only because his plane had not yet been targeted, and he
was skimming low on the water, craning his neck over his right shoulder when he
saw Hayashi’s brave dive. There was a massive explosion, just aft of the second
tower where the Fregat 3D radar system rotated fitfully to trace the battle out
in milky green screens on the main bridge. Smoke and fire broiled up from the
heart of the ship.

“
Bonzai
,
Hayashi!”
he yelled
“
Bonzai
!”

The first to find and hit
Kirov
was now the last, and Hayashi had scored one more vindicating blow in trade for
the lives and planes of Hara’s entire strike wing.

The battle was over.

Part V

Damage Control

“When we mourn those who die young –

those who have been robbed of time –

we weep for lost
joys
.

We weep for opportunities and pleasure

we ourselves have never known.

We feel sure that somehow that young body

would have known the yearning delight

for which we searched in vain all our lives.

We believe that the untried soul,

trapped in its young prison,

might have flown free

and known the joy that we still seek.”

―
Josephine Hart, Damage

Hayashi
and his plane struck the ship about
seventy-five meters from the stern, smashing right down onto the armored roof
of the aft auxiliary command citadel. The “battle bridge,” as it was sometimes
called, this facility had been used by Admiral Volsky to regain control of the
ship during the ‘Karpov incident’ in the North Atlantic. It served as an
auxiliary command center for the ship in the event the main bridge was damaged
or otherwise out of action. It had control stations for every vital ship
system, including a combat information center, helm station, communications,
radar and sonar, and it was also protected by an armored shell of 200mm Kevlar
coated hardened steel armor, just as the main bridge. That was the only thing
that prevented the plane from plunging right into the guts of the ship at that
point.

The armored roof buckled, then
collapsed under the intense kinetic impact of a plane weighing over 5,600
pounds, and the immolated D3A ravaged into the citadel, her bomb then exploding
in what was essentially an armored box with 200mm reinforced steel for walls
and flooring. Nothing in the box survived, the equipment, computers, ship’s
stations, were all completely destroyed, but the box itself held as designed,
and the explosion was prevented from doing further damage below decks. The
facility was not in use at the time, but three duty officers there were killed
instantly.

The explosion was largely directed
upwards through the already penetrated roof, and seared fragments of the D3A
and the exploding bomb, became a rain of shrapnel that shot up like grapeshot
and caught the spinning panels of the Fregat-3D radar system, severing control
wires, smashing sensors and immediately darkening the ship’s primary long range
defense radar.

Kirov
groaned with the hit, but it was not
to be a fatal blow. That said, a fire started in the blackened battle bridge,
and fire was the nemesis of every ship at sea since the Greeks had first used
it as a weapon in ancient times. Damage control parties scrambled to the scene
and the ship shuddered, still at high speed until Volsky gave the order to slow
to twenty knots.

On the Tin Man HD display they could
see that the Fregat system was no longer rotating, and one of the fire control
radars for the Klinok system silos mounted under the aft deck was a blackened
wreck as well. It had been on the roof of the aft citadel.

It wasn’t long before Byko had an
overall assessment. The fires would be contained within an hour, but the battle
bridge was a total loss, destroyed beyond their capacity to ever repair. Three
men were dead, seventeen injured. All things considered, it was good news. If
Hayashi had struck another fifty meters forward he would have blasted right
into the rear of the main tower, where two hidden steam vents stood in for what
was once a smokestack on older warships. With no armor to speak of there, his
plane would have plummeted deep into the ship, perhaps not stopping until it
struck the armored shell that surrounded the ship’s reactor core.

“We’ll need time, sir.”
Byko pleaded on the intercom.
“There
were two other near misses, one very near the reactor core amidships. Thank God
they didn’t hit us, but I would advise we put divers down for a quick
assessment. You can’t continue to run at this high speed. These fires are
serious.”

“Tell him we have reduced to twenty
knots and will slow to one third if he cannot contain the fires. When the
divers are ready, have him call the bridge.” Volsky folded his arms, a worried
expression on his heavy features.

“Gentlemen,” he said gravely, “that
was nearly the end of us. It was well fought, Karpov, particularly considering
the situation with our missile inventories. Yet we have long known of the
determination and reckless bravery of the Japanese. This attack was a perfect
example. They were willing to die to a man to get this one single hit, and God
help us if we ever forget it in these waters again.”

“The Japanese Navy was perhaps the
most skilled fighting navy in the world at this moment, sir, said Fedorov.
Their equipment was not the best, but their knowhow and tactics were second to
none, and no one will ever question their bravery. I believe we have just taken
the first ever kamikaze attack of the war. That did not happen until much later
in the war in the old history.”

 Historically the
Tokubetsu
Kogekitai
units had not even been formed yet. The first attacks were not made until
October of 1944 when
Masafumi
Arima
,
even now aboard the carrier
Shokaku
, led an attack much like this one
against an American carrier task force. One of the planes struck the USS
Franklin
,
a large
Essex
class carrier, and
Arima
was
immediately elevated to the status of a demigod by the war propagandists. The
Special Attack Unit was formed that month. Shortly thereafter the cruiser
Australia
was hit, and a few smaller ships, but the first official attack by the special
Kamikaze unit itself hit the USS
St. Lo
, a light escort carrier in the
Battle of Leyte Gulf.

“Well now they have the idea a few
years early,” said Volsky. “Who knows what they will do to the course of the
war? What does Byko say about our radar?”

“The Fregat system is off line, sir.
We won’t know how bad the damage is for some hours, at least until they put the
fire out and can get men up on the aft mast. The smoke there is too thick now.
We lost the Klinok aft fire control radar as well, so it may be wise to move
any missiles in those aft silos to the forward deck.”

“Have Martinov see to it,” said
Volsky, squinting out the window and frowning at the smoke and fire aft. “That
will be sending up a charcoal marker into the sky to designate our position for
miles in every direction. Where were those pursuing ships, Rodenko?”

“I last noted them about twenty-seven
nautical miles behind us, sir. I am trying to switch to the active phased array
systems now in place of the Fregat, but some of my panels are yellow lighted,
and not responding.”

“Most likely the aft panel that was on
the citadel there,” said Karpov. “I doubt it survived that hit.”

“Most likely, sir,” Rodenko agreed.
“That will leave us with panels forward and to both sides of the ship, and it
will only give us a 120 decree arc of coverage to port and starboard. Without
that aft panel and the Fregat system, we now have a hole directly aft where we
are relatively blind on radar.”

“We still have the Voskhod-2 Top Mast
radar,” said Karpov. “It’s not a fully integrated 3D system, but it has
excellent range and we can still use it and route signals to the CIC.”

The
Voskhod
or ‘Dawn’ radar system had once been a main 3D defense system, but the new
Voskhod-2 had handed over that task to the updated Fregat system and was now
used primarily for long range weather forecasting and general surveillance.
Then Fedorov had another idea. “We also have the KA-40, sir. We can mount an
Oko panel and get good returns that way.”