SSN - Tom Clancy [107]
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13. Typhoon Hunt
The combat systems officer and engineer officer and their other division officers remained on board Cheyenne to take care of the weapons loading from McKee and reactor start-up preparations. Captain Mackey, along with his executive officer, operations officer, and navigator, proceeded to the headquarters of the Tsoying Naval Base for their pre-underway briefing. They weren't sure why the briefing wasn't in McKee's war room where their previous briefings were held. Although the hospitality of the Taiwanese was fantastic, it was still hard to be sure whom they were talking to when the Chinese were just across the strait.
Upon entering the conference room on the second floor, the captain was happy to see that security personnel from the CTF 74 staff were conducting an electronic sweep of the room, hunting for listening devices. This had been standard practice when the foe was the Soviet Union and now it continued as standard practice no matter who the foe was or where the meeting room was.
After Cheyenne's officers arrived, and before they could settle into their places, a couple of heavies preceded what appeared to be a distinguished Chinese gentleman. He was Chinese; he turned out to be President Jiang. The heavies were two of his bodyguards.
Mack wasn't too sure about this. A war patrol briefing with the Chinese there?
Noting Mack's concerned expression, President Jiang told him to rest easy. He had only wanted to meet the famous Cheyenne captain Bartholomew "Mack" Mackey, and to thank him for his feats of fortune on behalf of all his people on the mainland. In direct defiance of the renegade Li Peng, songs were being written about Cheyenne in nearly every province of his country, children walked to school chanting "Cheyenne, Cheyenne," and Wyoming had become the main subject of United States geography lessons.
After an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries, Jiang left as quickly as he had arrived. Mack, who had been taken completely by surprise, was pleased to see him go. Cheyenne's commanding officer wasn't much for Chinese politics.
His war was a different story; Cheyenne was following orders. It didn't matter much who the enemy was since the Russians were supplying submarines to nearly every Third World country that could afford the bill. Mack and his officers had become intimately familiar with the Romeos, Kilos, Alfas, and Akulas by now.
When President Jiang left, the briefing began. The Chinese had heard of Jiang's surfacing in Taiwan, so they spent some of their dwindling currency on the purchase of a Russian-built Typhoon-class SSBN. Apparently they couldn't trust their own Xia SSBN to be much of an intimidation factor, what with numerous CSS-N-3 ballistic missile test-launch failures, so they took delivery of a North Fleet Typhoon that had already completed its under-ice transit and was nearing the South China Sea. The briefing officer also mentioned that the Typhoon probably had some North Fleet Akula II SSNs "riding shotgun."
That's a waste, Mack thought to himself.
The Typhoon had been built with its double-hull construction not just for survival against torpedo attacks, but also to allow it to punch through the polar ice cap and launch its missiles with near impunity. The Mk 48s would have to be accurately placed to damage the SSBN. Screw damage would be assured; but the Typhoon also had dual spinners, in addition to the two main screws, with their 90,000 SHP (shaft horsepower), for enhanced slow-speed maneuverability and depth control in and around the ice keels.
The Typhoon's ability to "ice-pick"-to hover in place under the ice for months at a time-would also make the Typhoon hunt more than a challenge. The lack of KISS in the South China Sea didn't help much, either. Mack decided he would probably have to use some Mk 48s in the "swim-out" mode as off-board search sensors in the patrol-area locations where Naval Intelligence estimated the Typhoon could be located.
Naval intelligence, Mack knew, was basing