Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

128 JEFF EDWARDS
says right here that the Germans are almost certainly trying to sell those
subs to Siraj. As far as I’m concerned, that makes them proven hostiles.
But we’re being ordered to turn their submarines around with a kind word
and a smile.”
“They wouldn’t be stupid enough to take on a carrier strike group,
would they, sir?”
“Probably not,” the admiral said, looking up at the tactical display
screens again. “But I’d sure hate to guess wrong.” He stopped himself
before he spoke the next words on his mind: History was written in the
blood of thousands of poor bastards who had underestimated their
opponents. Instead, he said, “Turn the formation around, Ernie, and crank
it up to flank speed. We’ve got a date with some submarines.”
The carrier strike group tore across the water, heedless of the noise it
was making. Six ships, all racing through the morning sun at thirty knots,
their propellers churning up frothy wakes that stood out against the dark
blue waves like vibrant stripes.
Stealth would come later, when they arrived on station. Until then,
speed was more vital than silence. If the submarines made it through the
choke point and out of the Red Sea before the admiral’s blockading force
arrived, the mission would be a failure before it had even begun.
At the center of the formation was the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.
Stationed around her in a protective screen were two frigates, two
destroyers, and a cruiser. The positioning of each ship was carefully
calculated to provide the maximum possible amount of sensor and
weapons coverage overlap.
Even the order of the ships was important. For the moment,
submarines were rated as the highest potential threat, so the frigates, USS
Wallingford and USS Trippler, which had been built primarily for
Undersea Warfare, composed the leading edge of the formation. On the
carrier’s flanks ran the destroyers, USS Fort Pulaski and USS Bollinger,
multi-mission ships that were also highly effective USW platforms. The
cruiser USS Chancellorsville comprised the trailing edge of the formation,
protecting the carrier from air attack along the axis that led back toward
the Arabian Gulf—where the majority of potentially hostile aircraft in the
region were based.
The layered screen defense concept had been around since the Cold
War. Its longevity could be attributed to two simple words: it worked. Or
at least it had worked against every naval threat encountered in nearly fifty