Kirov (54 page)

~
~ ~

Some
fifty
nautical
miles to the south, the fast destroyers of
Desron 7
under Captain J.L.
Kauffman were racing north. The squadron was composed of eight destroyers some
old, some new, just joining the fleet from shipyards all over the northeast
from Maine to Massachusetts. Kauffman was aboard DD 431, the USS
Plunkett
and leading in division 13 with
Benson
,
Mayo
and
Gleaves
.
Division 14 was on his right with DDs
Madison
,
Lansdale
,
Jones
and
Hughes
. Six of the small ships were the older
Benson
class, a
little over 1600 tons. The last two were
Gleaves
class, much the same in
design, yet fresh off the dock yards. An evolution of the older Sims class
destroyers, the ships were two stackers with a unique new feature that
separated the boiler from the engine room so that the ship could not be
disabled by a single hit. It was a fast, durable design, capable of a whisker
over 37 knots in trials, though top wartime speed would usually be in the range
of 33 to 35 knots. And the ships had a range of nearly 6000 nautical miles on
one load of fuel, which made them ideal for deployment to the Atlantic.

Now
they were racing north through the choppy seas like a pack of hunting dogs sent
to flush out prey. Little did they know that the dark panther they were
stalking had teeth and claws to defend herself better than any ship in the
world.
Kirov
was three times the size of these ships, though each
destroyer carried nearly as many deck guns as the big Russian battlecruiser,
with five 5 inch guns each. But their real teeth were the ten sleek 21 inch
torpedoes on two quintuple racks amidships. The destroyer’s job was to rush in,
fire their torpedo spread, then make smoke and withdraw, a determined
harassment that could be deadly to any ship hit by one of their underwater
lances.

Kauffman
was eager to get into the fray that day. Everyone aboard was equally ready to
avenge the loss of
Wasp
and deliver a sting to the enemy on the
carrier’s behalf. The watchmen were out on the bridge, eyes straining through
field glasses as the ships surged forward. Every man was at action stations
hoping to be the first to fire at the Germans. They would get their wish soon
enough.

As
the evening progressed
Desron 7
was running at high speed, closing on a distant
grey horizon. They had seen strange contrails light up the sky there, and
Kauffman followed them back to a single point on the horizon and steered his
ships accordingly. Word was that the Germans had some slick new rocket weapon,
and they had been lashing the Royal Navy pretty hard with it the last few days.
Then came the attack on
Wasp
, and the Americans got a firsthand look at
what these new weapons could do. Kauffman realized the danger ahead for them
now. Destroyer
Walke
had taken a single hit from one of these rockets
and was nearly blown in two, sinking in short order.

He
saw six, then eight contrails streaking across the sky, as if some enraged
monster had clawed the serried clouds with fitful anger. His hounds were racing
on, hot with the scent of the enemy now, the first sign they had of the Germans
at sea since one of his group had lobbed a depth charge at a Nazi U-boat some
months ago, the very first action against hostile forces in the Atlantic by a U.S.
Navy vessel. The Germans seemed to be firing at something, but the contrails
were not approaching his ships. Perhaps he could sneak up on them before his
task force was even noticed, he thought.

Piecing
together sighting reports from PBYs out of Argentia, he reasoned that his ships
were well inside a hundred miles south of where he suspected the enemy raider
was cruising. Now they hurried to put on all possible speed, surging forward in
the swelling seas, intent on battle. Their engines strained and their stacks
belched out thick smoke as they surged ahead, making nearly 35 knots. With
Kirov
cruising at nearly top speed, the two groups were now approaching one another
at over 75 miles per hour.

Desron
7
was closing in. While Karpov had
engaged the British fleet, Kauffman’s destroyers ate up the distance as they
pounded their way north, the bows of the small tin cans rising and falling,
foredecks awash in the churning seas. Some thirty minutes elapsed while Karpov
assessed damage to the British Home fleet and engaged in a discussion with
Orlov over how to proceed. In that long interval the destroyers had come within
15 miles of the enemy, though they did not know it yet.

Five
minutes later a watchman on DD-421, the
Benson,
spotted something
darkening the distant horizon. He stared, wiping his field glasses clean again,
and looking a long time. A shadow grew and thickened, resolving at last to the
tall silhouette of a large fighting ship. There it was! He called down to the
bridge with the news—
enemy ship sighted, dead ahead!

Soon
the signal lanterns were winking from ship to ship and battle ensigns rose on
the halyards, the flags snapping in the stiff headwinds to signal line abreast
for attack.
Desron 7
had finally found the Germans, or so they believed.
The eight ships spread out in a broad line, racing forward as the anxious crews
manned their battle stations. What was out there that had given the Royal Navy
such a problem? Any man that managed to crane his neck and squint out a look at
the distant enemy ship had but one thought in his mind when he first saw
Kirov
—the
devil to pay…

On
they came, the crews tense at the swivel racks where five sleek 21 inch torpedoes
were mounted on either side of the ships. Aboard
Plunkett
, Captain Kauffman
knew he was taking a grave risk charging in broad daylight like this given all
the scuttlebutt on this new German raider, but he wasn’t about to pass up this
opportunity to even the score for
Wasp
. The Admirals had chewed the fat
for some time over this, and turned his boys loose. Now he was going to attack
and do his damndest to put a torpedo into the enemy, even if it cost him his
ship.

Deep
in the heart of the destroyer sat the old electro-mechanical Mark I fire
control ‘computer,’ which was a bit of a misnomer given the modern day
understanding of that word. Developed in the early 1930’s by the Ford
Instrument Company, it was really something more like a massive finely tuned
Swiss watch, a bulky, six foot long metal sided box, all of three feet wide and
four feet tall. Inside it was a tightly packed menagerie of precision tooled
components: gears, rods, balls and bearings, metal plates, drive shafts,
couplings and differentials so tightly packed that you could barely insert a
finger into the device, and no one who ever looked inside one could believe it
was capable of achieving any unified purpose.

Yet
the Mark I system was, indeed, an analog computer of sorts, and it was capable
of interacting with both optical sighting and radar returns, along with
information from gyroscopes, to calculate range, speed, and reach a predictive
plot solution on a potential target to control the destroyer’s 5 inch deck
guns.
Benson
had two turrets up front, with a single gun each, and three
more aft. The guns could range out about ten miles, and so they were the first
to fire in anger at the enemy ship, the rudimentary Mark I giving the orders
and guiding the rounds in as best it could.

Kaufman
had the heat of battle on him. He signaled his destroyers to fire as soon as
they had the range, and
Benson
, eager to be both the first to see and
first to fight the enemy, opened fire at once. The charge of the tin-can
destroyers had begun, eight ships abreast and closing on an ever darkening
shadow the like of which they had never seen in their lives at sea, and would
never see again.

~
~ ~

Karpov
breathed in deeply, as if he were
taking in a new measure of strength. The choice was no longer his now, not his
alone. He at least had one confederate in Orlov and what would happen next
would happen eventually, he knew. This and a hundred other justifications ran
through his mind. The tactical situation was perfect. He had the element of
surprise. The enemy target was heavily concentrated. The weapon of choice was
clearly indicated, and his math was infallible.

Samsonov
interrupted him, his voice edged with urgency. “Sir, the number one contact on
my screen is very close.” Rodenko had been distracted by the close proximity of
the Captain and Orlov, his attention riveted to what they were saying to one
another in tense, hushed voices. When he saw Orlov’s Glock pistol, his heart
leapt to think what might be happening. What was the Captain doing?

A
moment later a watch stander at the forward viewing panes call out in a loud
voice: “Captain, we are being fired on!”

Karpov
spun about, somewhat shocked, his gaze drawn out through the view ports to the
gray sea, where he saw the unmistakable water plumes of shells landing some
ways off, well short of the ship, yet
Kirov
was racing on, right into
the range of the distant fire.

“Rodenko?”

“The
number one surface action group, sir. American destroyers, I read eight ships,
and they are fanning out in a line, range 20,000 meters and closing.”

“20,000
meters?” Karpov’s face reddened with anger. “How did they get so close? Have
you been sleeping?” Then to Samsonov he said, “Return fire at once. No
missiles. Use the forward deck guns and blow them out of the water.”

“Aye,
sir!” There were only two gun mounts that could bear on the targets given
Kirov’s
present heading, her bow pointed directly at the enemy destroyers. One was the forward
mounted 100mm battery, a single gun that they had first used to drive off the
impudent British destroyer
Anthony
near Jan Mayen. Samsonov activated
it, and fed in the initial targeting information. The second battery was the larger
twin 152mm deck gun, with heavier rounds, nearly 6 inches in diameter, and with
better range and accuracy. Both batteries began to engage, the crack, crack,
crack of their rapid firing guns punctuated by the metallic clatter of the
shell casings ejected from the turret. And the fire control computer that
guided these rounds was not an oversized Swiss watch, but a fully integrated,
state-of-the-art advanced digital computer, many orders of magnitude more
powerful than the largely clunky mechanical Mark I system on the American
destroyers.

Within
milliseconds the computer had the range and six shells from the 152mm battery
soon slammed into the
Benson
, pounding her with four direct hits on the
foredeck and forward battery, destroying the gun there immediately. All the
American destroyers replied with their two forward deck guns, outnumbering
Kirov
’s
batteries by sixteen guns to three. The difference was the fire control
systems. While the destroyers had yet to come into effective range for a chance
at accurate fire, nearly all of
Kirov’s
rounds were finding targets,
smashing into the lightly armored tin-cans as they boldly charged the raging
bull before them.

“Hit
on the lead destroyer!” said Samsonov.

“Good
shooting,” Karpov returned. “Put the guns on full automatic. I want those ships
chopped to pieces.”

Benson
was hit by two more 152mm rounds,
a large explosion amidships shaking the ship when the starboard torpedo mounts
went up. Soon there was a raging fire, and thick black smoke. The ship that was
first to see and first to fire on
Kirov
, was also first to die. The fire
control system on
Kirov
responded to a new target command sent by
Samsonov, and the gun shifted smoothly, ranged on the next target, and cracked
out a series of eight rounds in four tightly controlled two round salvos.

DD
Mayo
was hit by six of the eight rounds, the other two near misses given
the narrow beam of the ship. The 100mm forward deck gun had also ranged on
Kaufman’s flagship,
Plunkett
, and struck her with three rounds in rapid
succession.
Jones
was next in line, swamped by another eight rounds and
set ablaze by
Kirov’s
radar guided 152mm battery. Then all the American
ships seemed to be afire, with thick black smoke coming from every one. They
were deliberately making smoke, but Karpov interpreted the sight as evidence
his guns were making a swift end of the brash enemy.

The
Captain took up his field glasses, watched a moment longer, then snapped them
down, his lips tight, eyes gleaming with a smile. His guns would do the job
well enough. All the American destroyers were firing back at him, but they were
still short or wide of the mark. One round was a little too close for comfort,
and Karpov ordered chaff countermeasures just in case the enemy had a radar set
at a wavelength their jamming might not be effectively suppressing. Satisfied
that the engagement was bending toward an inevitable result, he turned to
Samsonov with new orders. Now he had bigger fish to fry.

“Mister
Samsonov,” he said in a loud clear voice. “Activate the MOS-III missile
battery, and enable CSSC module for the number ten missile.”