Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

212 JEFF EDWARDS
For the next few hours, Cooper was the ship’s USWE, or Undersea
Warfare Evaluator. It would be his job to coordinate the actions of the
Towers USW team: cross-referencing contact reports from the ship’s
sonars, targeting information from the fire control computers,
oceanographic data—particularly the thermal structure of the water and the
topographic shape of the ocean bottom—predicted acoustic ranges, nonacoustic
sensor information, the locations of friendly or neutral ships and
aircraft, and an almost overwhelming array of other variables that could
affect the tactical situation. And to make matters more interesting, much
of the data was based on computer projections, not all of which would be
correct. The USWE was expected to take this mishmash of information,
swirl it around in his head for a bit, discard some pieces of it, latch on to
others, and come up with a mental picture of the tactical situation. Then, if
the contact was designated as hostile, the USWE would supervise the
programming and launching of USW weapons. If the USWE’s tactical
picture was accurate enough, those weapons should get close enough to the
target submarine for their acoustic seekers to lock on, and (hopefully)
destroy the bad guys. Conversely, if the USWE’s tactical picture was too
far off the mark, the ship’s weapons wouldn’t be properly placed or
programmed, and the submarine would eat their lunch.
Hunting submarines was still more art than science, and the best
computers in the world—while they could help him—could not do the job
alone. Ensign Cooper smiled nervously to himself. He might not have
Chief McPherson’s years of experience, but he was good at this part. At
least he had been in school. He’d been the best USWE in his class, and his
tactical awareness had been excellent. He’d killed the sub in sixty or
seventy percent of the tactical simulations the course instructors had
thrown at him—a far better record than anyone else in his class.
Of course, this was not a simulation. The enemy subs out there were
real, and their weapons were real. If Cooper guessed wrong at a critical
juncture, people would die. The wrong people. His people.
Which meant that he couldn’t let that happen.
The search continued. Seconds dragged into minutes. Then the
minutes began to stack up.
He keyed his mike. “Sonar—USWE, testing Net One One.”
The Sonar Supervisor answered instantly. “Read you Lima Charlie,
USWE. How me?” (Lima Charlie was net-speak for Loud and Clear.)
Ensign Cooper keyed his mike again. “Read you same, Sonar.”