“Standard hit!” The voice of CIC broke the silence. “Remaining incoming
missiles now at one-zero miles.”
“Heading now steady on two-six-five, Captain,” the helmsman reported.
That meant Hopkins was steaming at a sharp angle to the oncoming missiles,
presenting her stern.
“Missiles still coming,” CIC reported. “Five targets, range from nine
miles to one-five miles. Speed steady.”
“Are you tracking with the Mark 75?” Hopkins carried a single OTO Melera
Mark 75 turret on her deck housing amidships.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Commence fire.”
The banging of the Mark 75 began almost at once, a steady
boom-pause-boom-pause-boom from aft that hurled fourteen-pound,
sixty-two-caliber shells at the rate of seventy-five per minute. It was
designed for use against shore targets, ships or aircraft, and its
effectiveness against a fast-moving missile was questionable at best. The
remote-controlled gun had a range of ten or eleven miles but did not have the
Phalanx’s self-aiming radar lock.
But at least the reassuring thump of gunfire would help the waiting.
“Range six miles.”
“Bridge, CIC! Firing Standard!” Raw noise filled the bridge.
“Confirm CIWS on auto!”
“Confirmed, Captain.”
Two more pinpoints of light arrowed away from the Hopkins, and after a
pause of several seconds, two from the Jefferson.
Sea Sparrows and Standards had a kill probability of less than fifty
percent on small, fast targets like antiship missiles. How many would get
through? “CIC, Captain,” Strachan said. “Manual select on the CIWS. Protect
the Jefferson.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Our range to Jefferson now fourteen thousand yards.”
Eight miles. Hopkins was squarely between the oncoming missiles and the
carrier she was trying to protect. “Ready on the RBOC.”
“Standing by, Captain.”
“Seduction mode. Fire!”
“Firing chaff.” There was a thump from aft, blending with the steady
thud of the ship’s turret gun. The Mark 34 was a twin-tube chaff launcher
installed aboard small Navy ships. Called RBOC, for Rapid-Bloom Off-board
Countermeasures, it fired chaff shells into the path of oncoming missiles. By
firing before the ship-killers’ on-board radars locked on, it might be
possible to lure them off course with several well-placed clouds of
aluminum-coated mylar thread.
“RBOC fired, Captain.”
“Keep firing, damn it!” They might not be able to decoy all of the
missiles, but the more chaff clouds they could plant out there, the better
their chances.
One of Jefferson’s Sea Sparrows struck, the detonation a brilliant flash
only a mile off Hopkins’s port side. “Four missiles now,” CIC reported. “One
locking onto Jefferson. The others aren’t spoken for yet.” Then things began
happening with inhuman speed.
1444 hours Zulu (1544 hours Zone)
Soviet AS-15
Viking Station, the Norwegian Sea
As the cruise missiles reached their search zone their radar seekers
snapped on. The search radius was small enough that only one target should
appear within each zone, yet large enough that the target would not have been
able to escape during the missile’s flight time.
But three targets showed where there should have been one. The missiles’
brains were too primitive to register anything like surprise at the appearance
of an extra target. Following programming, they began locking on the largest,
strongest target.
Normally, that would have been the carrier, but Hopkins was dispensing a
steady stream of chaff into the air astern of the fast-moving frigate, chaff
that was blooming into an enormous, radar-reflecting cloud.
One of the AS-15s was diverted by the chaff, locking onto a ghost echo
and veering sharply south. The remaining three missiles still had to lock on,
and at this range selection was controlled by Moving Target Indication
circuitry, or MTI, a feature designed to eliminate ground clutter and provide
the missiles with a clearer lock on surface targets.
Moving targets. At sea level, chaff quickly loses any momentum imparted
by the launcher as it disperses into a cloud, then falls at a rate of one or
two feet per second.
Hopkins was still steaming northwest at thirty knots as the radars of
three AS-15s ignored the chaff cloud and the more distant Jefferson, and
locked onto her.
1445 hours Zulu (1545 hours Zone)
Hangar, U.S.S. Esek Hopkins
Viking Station, the Norwegian Sea
The first cruise missile came in from Hopkins’s starboard quarter, ten
feet over the water, as Hopkins’s Mark 75 banged away, sending geysers of