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By Root 1309 0

both unnerving and annoying to American sub crews. As a result, U.S. fast-attack subs often accompanied missile submarines to sea. Their mission was to force the Soviet subs off. This was accomplished by the simple expedient of offering an additional target for sonar, confusing the tactical situation, or sometimes by forcing the Russian submarine off-track by ramming - called 'shouldering,' to defuse that most obscene of marine terms. In fact, American boomers had been tracked, only in shallow water, only near well-known harbors, and only for brief periods of time. As soon as the American subs reached deep water, their tactics were to increase speed to degrade the trailing sub's sonar performance, to maneuver evasively, and then go quiet. At that point - every time - the American submarine broke contact. The Soviet sub lost its track, and became the prey instead of the hunter. Missile submarines typically had highly-drilled torpedo departments, and the more aggressive skippers would have all four of their tubes loaded with Mark 48 torpedoes with solutions set on the now-blinded Soviet sub as they watched it wander away in vulnerable befuddlement.

The simple fact was that American missile submarines were invulnerable in their patrol areas. When fast-attack boats were sent in to hunt them, care had to be given to operating depths - much like traffic control for commercial aircraft - lest an inadvertent ramming occur. American fast-attack boats, even the most advanced 688-class, had rarely tracked missile submarines, and the cases where Ohios had been tracked could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Nearly all involved a grievous mistake made by the missile-boat skippers, the ultimate 'black mark in the copybook,' and even then only a very good and very lucky fast-attack skipper had managed to pull it off - and never ever without being counter-detected. Omaha had one of the best drivers in the Pacific Fleet, and he had failed to find Maine despite having some good intelligence data provided - better than anything a Soviet commander would ever get.

"Good morning, sir," Dutch Claggett said on his way through the door. "I was right down the hall at personnel."

"Commander, this is Dr Ron Jones."

"This the Jonesy you like to brag on, sir?" Claggett took the civilian's hand.

"None of those stories are true," Jones said.

Claggett stopped cold when he saw the looks. "Somebody die or something?"

"Grab a seat," Mancuso said. "Ron thinks you might have been tracked on your last patrol."

"Bullshit," Claggett observed. "Excuse me, sir."

"You're pretty confident," Jones said.

"Maine is the best submarine we own, Dr Jones. We are a black hole. We don't radiate sound, we suck it in from around us."

"You know the party line, Commander. Now, can we talk business?" Ron unlocked his briefcase and pulled out a heavy sheaf of computer printouts. "Right around the half-way point in your patrol."

"Okay, yeah, that's when we snuck up behind Omaha."

"I'm not talking about that. Omaha was in front of you," Jones said, flipping to the right page.

"I still don't believe it, but I'll look at what you got."

The computer pages were essentially a graphic printout of two 'waterfall' sonar displays. They bore time and true-bearing references. A separate set showed environmental data, mainly water temperature.

"You had a lot of clutter to worry about." Jones said, pointing to notations on the pages. "Fourteen fishing boats, half a dozen deep-draft merchant ships, and I see the humpbacks were up to thin out the krill. So, your sonar crew was busy, maybe a little overloaded. You also had a pretty hard layer."

"All that's right," Claggett allowed.

"What's this?" Jones pointed to a blossom of noise on the display.

"Well, we were tracking Omaha, and the captain decided to rattle their cage with a water slug."

"No shit?" Jones asked. "Well, that explains his reaction. I guess they changed their underwear and headed north. You never would have pulled that off on me, by the way."

"Think so?"

"Yeah,