Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

222 JEFF EDWARDS
“I’ll say this for Whiley,” the captain said, “that son of a bitch can
shoot!”
The cheers were suddenly chopped off by a voice over the 29-MC
speakers. “All Stations—Sonar has multiple hydrophone effects off the
port bow! Bearings three-one-five, and three-one-seven. Initial
classification: hostile torpedoes!”
“Crack the whip!” Ensign Cooper said into his comm-set. “Bridge—
USWE. We have in-bound hostile torpedoes. I say again—crack the
whip!”
“Bridge, aye!”
In the background came the muffled wail of the gas turbine engines as
they spun up to flank speed.
The Officer of the Deck’s voice broke over the 1-MC. “All hands
stand by for heavy rolls while performing high-speed evasive maneuvers.”
The deck began to heel to starboard as the big destroyer whipped into
the first in a series of tight, high-speed turns. The crack-the-whip antitorpedo
maneuver would take the ship through a rapid succession of nearhairpin
turns, designed to create multiple propeller wakes at very close
intervals. A torpedo attempting to follow a ship through the aftermath of a
crack-the-whip maneuver would find itself faced with a confusion of
wakes to choose from, not to mention a wall of acoustic interference as the
millions of bubbles churned up by the ship’s screws collided, collapsed,
and popped. Coupled with the towed acoustic decoy system called Nixie,
the maneuver was highly effective. Some tactical analysts rated its
probability of success at nearly seventy percent. And in the world of
torpedoes, it didn’t get any better than that.
Ensign Cooper gripped the edge of the CDRT to maintain his footing as
the deck surged first one way, and then the other. The symbols on the
screen had devolved into a mad little dance as every ship in the formation
executed its own torpedo evasion maneuvers.
“Antietam is outside the screen,” he said quietly. He braced one hip
against the side of the CDRT and let go with his right hand so that he
could key his mike. “Captain—USWE. Both of the enemy torpedoes are
locked on Antietam, and Antietam is outside of our defensive screen.”
He stared at the CDRT’s tactical display, and then looked over his
shoulder at the big Aegis display screens. They all told the same story.
From the wild movement of her tactical symbol, it was obvious that
Antietam was running her own crack-the-whip maneuver. It was just as
obvious that the maneuver was going to fail. The hostile torpedoes had
been fired from too short a range. They had far too good a sniff of the