Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

CHAPTER 34
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN GULF OF OMAN
(SOUTH OF THE STRAITS OF HORMUZ)
SATURDAY; 19 MAY
1830 hours (6:30 PM)
TIME ZONE +4 ‘DELTA’
In Combat Information Center, Ensign Patrick Cooper stood near the
Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer and looked down at the digital flatscreen
display that covered the unit’s entire upper surface. Five feet wide
and nearly six feet long, the CDRT display screen was much too large to
fit on a regular operator’s console. It had to be large, because Anti-
Submarine Warfare was complex and intricate. Displayed on a normalsized
operator’s console, a typical ASW engagement would clutter the
screen with so many tracking symbols and trial target geometries that it
would quickly become impossible to sort anything out. The large CDRT
display allowed the symbols to spread out enough to remain legible.
Cooper shifted his weight from his left leg to his right. The large size
of the display had a downside. It was impossible to see the entire screen
clearly from a sitting position. To take in the complete display, it was
necessary to stand close to the unit and look down, directly into the screen.
Consequently, the CDRT was the only watch station in Combat
Information Center without a chair for the operator. Cooper had been on
watch for less than an hour, and he could already feel his leg muscles
beginning to tighten up. The hours of standing made for some long
watches.
Ensign Cooper shifted his weight again and scanned the display.
Friendly ships appeared on the display as small green circles, each with a
single line sticking out from its center, like the stick of a lollipop. The
lines were called speed vectors. The direction of each vector indicated the
course of the ship it represented, and its length indicated the ship’s speed
through the water. Fast-moving ships had long speed vectors; slower ships
had shorter vectors. The circles and lines were called NTDS symbols,
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