The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'Twelve more hours, then we must break contact and turn for home.'
'Too bad,' Ryskov observed, not meaning it. Six weeks at sea was enough for him.
***
'Make your depth six-zero feet,' the Officer of the Deck said.
'Make my depth six-zero feet, aye,' the Driving Officer replied. 'Ten degrees up
on the fairwater planes.'
The missile-firing drill had just begun. A regular occurrence, it was intended
both to ensure the competence of the crew and desensitize them to their primary
war-fighting mission, the launch of twenty-four UGM-93 Trident-II D-5 missiles,
each with ten Mark 5 re-entry vehicles of 400 kilotons nominal yield. A total of
two hundred forty warheads with a total net yield of 96 megatons. But there was
more to it than that, since nuclear weapons depended on the interlocking logic
of several physical laws. Small weapons employed their yield with greater
efficiencies than larger ones. Most important of all, the Mark 5 RV had a
demonstrated accuracy of ±50 meters CEP ('Circular Error Probable'), meaning
that after a flight of over four thousand nautical miles, half the warheads
would land within 164.041 feet of their targets, and nearly all the rest within
300 feet. The 'miss' distance was far smaller than the crater to be expected
from such a warhead, as a result of which the D-5 missile was the first
sea-launched ballistic missile with counter-force capability. It was designed
for a disarming first-strike. Given the normal two-at-one targeting, Maine could
eliminate 120 Soviet missiles and/or missile-control bunkers, roughly ten
percent of the current Soviet ICBM force, which was itself configured for a
counter-force mission.
In the missile-control center – MCC – aft of the cavernous missile room, a
senior chief petty officer lit up his panel. All twenty-four birds were on line.
On-board navigation equipment fed data into each missile guidance system. It
would be updated in a few minutes from orbiting navigation satellites. To hit a
target, the missile had to know not only where the target was, but also where
the missile itself was starting from. The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System
could do that with a tolerance of less than five meters. The senior chief
watched status lights change as missiles were interrogated by his computers and
reported their readiness.
Around the submarine, water pressure on the hull diminished at a rate of 2.2
tons per square foot for every 100 feet of rise towards the surface. Maine's
hull expanded slightly as the pressure was relieved, and there was a tiny amount
of noise as steel relaxed from the compression.
***
It was only a groan, scarcely audible even over the sonar systems and
seductively close to the call of a whale. Ryskov was so drunk with fatigue that
had it come a few minutes later he would have missed it, but though his
daydreams were getting the best of him, his mind retained enough of its
sharpness to take note of the sound.
'Captain . . . hull-popping noise . . . right there!' His finger stabbed the
screen, just at the bottom of the shadow he and Dubinin had been examining.
'He's coming shallow.'
Dubinin raced into the control room. 'Stand by to change depth.' He put on a