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Rory Noonan -> Operation Ivy Bells, 1983 AAR (10/13/2016 4:08:32 AM)
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I've been reading 'Blind Man's Bluff' (finally), and had a go at the recently released Ivy Bells scenario by Vettim89
I haven't done any creative writing in years, so figured I'd do an AAR. Hopefully you enjoy it.
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‘Sir? Sir? The XO requests your presence on the bridge’
CMDR James Stanley looked at the crewman from the bed in his state room. ‘Thank you. I’ll be there shortly’
‘Yes, sir’ the crewman acknowledged, as he left the room.
Stanley sat on the side of his bed for a moment to wake up. Two days ago he had received a briefing in port at Pearl Harbour, and taken aboard divers for his current mission—another sortie in support of Operation Ivy Bells. Enroute to his assigned station, Stanley had received orders via satellite link to retrieve data from a device straddling a Soviet communications cable, just west of Cape Patience (known by the Russians as Mys Terpeniya) in the Sea of Okhotsk. He’d asked his Executive Officer, LCDR Miller to take the conn several hours ago and send for him when the boat was approaching the Kuril island chain. Initially he’d closed his eyes for a few moments, but he now realised that he must have fallen into a deep sleep.
As Stanley entered the conn, the atmosphere was professional but relaxed. The XO was known for being a competent officer and was very popular with the crew, owing to his sense of humour and easy-going leadership style. Parche was no stranger to these waters, and her crew was not only amongst the best in the fleet, but also well versed in operating close to the Soviet homeland. Turning to the XO, Stanley received a handover. There had been no significant events in the past few hours since he’d left the conn. Most of the crew had been resting as Stanley ordered, in preparation for their entry into the heavily guarded Okhotsk.
Stanley approached the navigator’s station and looked over the plot. LT Boyne, the navigator gave his report. The boat was currently situated over the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench outside the Kuril Islands. The position of the cable-tap was roughly 20 nautical miles off Sakhalin Island. The Parche was currently situated outside the Bussol Strait between Urup Island and Simushir Island, the widest and deepest strait giving access through the Kurils into the Sea of Okhotsk. Prior experience told Stanley that the Soviets would keep a careful watch over the Bussol, usually one or two surface ships and occasionally a nuclear attack submarine.
To the north-east lay Diany Strait, a deep if somewhat narrow channel between Simushir Island and the small, volcanic island of Ketoy. Stanley had used this ‘back alley’ into the Okhotsk before, and had found it to be less vigilantly guarded. His mind made up, he ordered a course change towards the Diany Strait.
Stanley gave orders for the boat to slow to five knots and conduct sonar sweeps of the surrounding area. When these were completed without incident, he ordered the sub to periscope depth to listen for surface traffic and monitor the ESM mast for any sniff of Soviet aircraft or surface ships using radar. Nothing. So far so good, thought Stanley.
‘X, get some rest. I’ll take the conn for now. I’ll send for you when we’re approaching the Diany.’
‘Aye Sir’ LT Miller nodded. Turning to the control room crew, Miller reported ‘Attention on deck, the skipper has the conn’. The crew acknowledged, and Miller retired to his state room.
Stanley brought the boat deep and commenced a sprint at 15 knots towards the Diany Strait. Every two hours—30 nautical miles; which fit nicely with the prevailing sea conditions as it matched the first convergence zone—he would slow the boat to 5 knots and turn 180 degrees to scan his sonar baffles before coming to periscope depth to visually scan the area and listen with the ESM mast for any hint of Soviet radar.
The transit to the channel was uneventful. The process of clearing baffles, coming shallow and doing an ESM sweep at periscope depth before diving and sprinting at 15 knots was repeated as planned without any sign of Soviet activity, and the Parche’s systems were running perfectly. Despite being probably less heavily guarded than the Bussol, the narrow chokepoint transit through the Diany Straits was regarded by Stanley as one of the most dangerous parts of the mission. The close confines of the channel would leave Parche little room to evade a determined pursuer. Nearing the approach to the channel, Stanley sent for LT Miller. Once Miller was at the conn, Stanley gave the order for general quarters.
With the entire crew at their assigned stations, Stanley skilfully drove Parche through the narrow channel; alternating scant minutes creeping along at periscope depth to gain visual references on the land masses either side of the strait as well as to search for Soviet air and surface threats, with short, sharp sprints at 15 knots at 1000 feet, only a hundred or so feet from the ocean floor. By 1150Z, Parche had transited the halfway point of the channel and was now officially in the Sea of Okhotsk. Once the straits were cleared, Stanley relaxed battle stations, leaving non-essential crew time to get some rest while maintaining full sonar and fire control parties.
Inside the Sea of Okhotsk, the ocean was unusually quiet. There was a distinct absence of the usual fishing trawlers, merchantmen and sea creatures that contribute to the background cacophony of the ocean. Stanley resumed his routine of sprinting at 15kts deep below the thermocline at 1000ft for 2 hours before checking baffles and coming shallow to scan for contacts for a few minutes at a time several times over the following hours without incident. At 1700Z while coming shallow to perform a search manoeuver, Stanley gave the order to stream the VHF antenna. Immediately on breaking the surface the antenna received a flash message from COMSUBPAC warning that a major sortie of soviet surface vessels in the area has been detected. Stanley, and indeed COMSUBPAC, were not aware of any scheduled exercises for the Red Banner Pacific Fleet. Stanley’s orders were to continue with our mission if possible, but abort if necessary to avoid detection.
Reading between the lines, Stanley knew he was up against it. It was possible the Soviets had caught a whiff of Parche on one of their sonar nets, or maybe they had been detected by a maritime patrol aircraft. It was even possible that there had been an intelligence compromise at higher levels. Then, it was also possible that the Russians were simply embarking on an exercise that NATO sources were not aware of.
He walked over to the chart table. Addressing the XO and Navigator, he spoke. ‘Gentleman, we're on a schedule. We've 260 miles to run to our objective, and we’ll need to sit there for a minimum of two hours to get our job done.’ Stanley was intentionally vague, as the control room was small enough that the conversation was by no means private, and only a select few of the senior crew members were aware of the exact nature of their mission.
‘Then,’ he continued ‘if we turn around and come back the way we came we have 570 miles to run to clear the Sea of Okhotsk. We've got about 60 hours to do all of this in...' he scribbled on his note pad 'and by the looks of it, that's not enough.'
He took a breath, tapping his pencil on the pad. Looking to the chart, he came up with a new plan. 'Instead, we're going to run the Etorofu Strait, south of Urup Island. That will leave us with 450 miles to run to the safe zone, which if we continue our current sprint drift regime translates to...' Stanley finished his calculations on the note pad 'Fifty-three hours and change.' With that, Stanley ordered the boat deep again to commence another sprint towards the cable tap.
At 0650Z the next day, Stanley was returning to the control room after his daily meeting with the heads of department. He could hear and feel the boat slowing down for its scheduled search manoeuvres as ordered, and was mulling over the proceedings of the meeting. As Stanley entered the control room the boat was slowing through 10 knots, and he was about to receive his handover from the officer of the watch when he heard the faint but unmistakable sound of a distant low frequency sonar ping. Moments later, an excited sonarman called ‘Conn, Sonar! Low frequency pinging off the port bow! Sounds like one of their light frigates... It's a convergence zone contact’
‘Very well. Chief of the boat, sound general quarters.’ Stanley replid, the COB immediately taking to the 1MC and sounding general quarters. Those crew members not already at their battle stations raced to their assigned positions. Stanley took stock of the situation. ‘We're 70nm from our cable tap, we're beneath the layer, and whatever is doing that pinging is at least 30nm away. I'm tipping he hasn't seen us. What do you think X?’
LT Miller paused. ‘I agree it’s unlikely we’ve been detected. I say we give him a wide berth, but otherwise continue on as normal.’
Stanley agreed. He gave orders to perform the routine search manoeuvres as planned, then resume with another deep sprint towards the cable tap. Time was of the essence, and Stanley was confident that if he maintained his distance from the nearby Soviet frigate he would avoid detection. Stanley had already decided he would remain in the control room until the cable tap had been retrieved and the boat was well and truly clear of the Okhotsk.
At 0855Z Stanley commenced his planned search procedure—the final on approach to the cable tap, which was now only 40nm away. Up until now Stanley had occupied himself with ensuring preparations for the upcoming diving operations were progressing smoothly, and had left conning the ship to whoever was Officer of the Deck. At this current moment it was a young LTJG named Scott Clarke—a new addition to the crew who had shown competence and maturity beyond his age.
‘Clarke, I’ll take the conn.’
‘Aye, sir’ replied Clarke.
Stanley felt at home giving conning orders on his boat. Most captains were happy to leave the manoeuvring of their ships to their subordinates, but Stanley liked to keep his hand in and regularly took the conn himself.
‘Make turns for 5 knots, rudder green one five.’ The helmsman acknowledged the order and the boat tilted smoothly to starboard and began making a rapid right turn. As the heading indicator quickly rotated through 062 Stanley ordered ‘Ease to five’. The indicator slowed as it passed 092. ‘Rudder amidships, rudder red five’. The rate of turn slowed further, and as the boat slowly came through a heading of 107, Stanley ordered ‘rudder amidships, steer 112’. The boat settled on heading 112, 180 degrees off the previous course, ready to clear baffles.
Stanley smiled inwardly. While the Officer of the Deck, Diving Officer and helmsmen were more than capable of performing such manoeuvres without direction, Stanley viewed conning as the hallmark of a good skipper, and took the opportunity to practice whenever possible. And besides, he thought, it doesn’t hurt to show the others how it’s done. Parche crept along this reverse course for a full five minutes, her bow sonar searching for tell-tale sounds of any trailing subs. With nothing detected, Stanley turned to the young Officer of the Deck ‘Take her up to periscope depth, Clarke—carefully. You have the conn.’
LTJG Clarke responded ‘Aye sir. Attention on deck, I have the conn. Diving officer, make my depth 130 feet.’
Reaching 130 feet, Parche turned and continued north-east on the original course of 292 for another 5 minutes. Still no sign of any contacts, apart from the Soviet frigate pounding away with its active sonar off to the south west. Stanley took a sip of his coffee and gave a nod to Clarke, silently signalling his assent to bringing the boat to periscope depth. His gesture was interrupted by a loud, violent underwater explosion. Stanley’s blood froze. Several seconds passed, which felt like minutes. Stanley looked towards Clarke, who stood with his mouth agape. Stanley’s brain kicked into gear. ‘Dive! Emergency deep! Launch countermeasures, right full rudder, all ahead flank!’ The sound of another explosion boomed through the hull, this one closer. The boat plunged through the frigid waters, gaining speed as the engine revved up, and heading deeper into the murky sea, away from whatever was attacking her, and towards safety.
Another explosion rocked the Parche, throwing Stanley to the deck as well as many of the crew in the control room. A ruptured pipe sprayed seawater throughout the compartment, and as two fire control party members left their station to seal the leak, Stanley saw that LTJG Clarke was lying on the deck apparently unconscious, bleeding from a wound to his forehead. Damage control reports flooded in. The stern of the boat had been hit—rudder, stern planes, propellers and the aft portion of the ship were all gone. The boat was flooding rapidly. Stanley barely had time to process the information. His ship was all but doomed. Only one option remained. ‘Blow ballast, emergency surface!’
Compressed air forced seawater out of the Parche’s ballast tanks, altering her buoyancy and sending her rapidly towards the surface. As the Parche neared the surface, Stanley distinctly heard a metallic object strike the hull and clatter down the port side. Outside the boat, a PLAB-250 depth charge had just contacted the Parche. As it rolled down the side of the boat, it reached its pre-set depth of 250ft and exploded. The 250kg of high explosive shredded the hull of the Parche, opening the submarine’s control room to the freezing cold waters of the Okhotsk Sea. The submarine instantly flooded, with not a single water-tight compartment on the port side left without a hull breach. Death was mercifully quick for the crew; and the twisted wreckage of the Parche sank rapidly towards the bottom, coming to rest in over 2300 feet of water.
Above, the crew of a Be-12PL Mail—a Soviet maritime patrol aircraft—circled over the ocean, eyes fixed on the surface of the water. They had been alerted to the presence of an American SSN by one of their passive sonobuoys. After dropping a string of 4 depth charges, they were rewarded with a high order detonation on the final explosion. Wreckage—both human and machine—floated to the surface. The pilot radioed back to headquarters that they had destroyed an American submarine operating about 45 miles off Mys Terpeniya. His satisfaction with a job well done was tempered by the slow realisation that not only had he just sent dozens of men to their death, but that this strike against the Americans would surely not go un-noticed...
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