Episode 20

Condor 49 (VP-4)

FL 200, Philippine Sea

Captain Nancy “Ping Pong” Travers was a career Navy pilot.  After ten years in the P-3 fleet, the transition to the P-8 had been a godsend.  While the P-3 was a trusted old steed, the P-8 was superior in every way.  Easy to fly, reliable and modern, it was everything the P-3 was not.

While some lamented the loss of the MAD boom in the old bird, Travers wasn’t one of them.  The reality was that modern ASW warfare was about queuing the fast attack boats, not about dropping torps on target.  To be sure, she would be happy to paint a Chinese sub silhouette on the side of her new bird, the reality was that she was the quarterback, not the deep threat.

That job went to the fast attack boats.

Today, the question was, “where are the Chinese subs?”  The USN was very aware of the Chinese submarine threat.  They had a relatively modern fleet and could be very dangerous when operating in their home waters.  The huge unknown was their ability and appetite for operating in the blue waters of the pacific.

Needless to say, any significant Chinese submarine presence in the Pacific would be very bad news for the Navy.  It was Travers’ job to ensure that they didn’t operate there effectively.

ASW was a long game.  The odds of actually detecting an enemy submarine were very slim.  You needed to get lucky or for the enemy to screw up.  However, a patient hunter only needed to get lucky once.  Travers was very patient.

Her co-pilot, however, was not.  “Dammit Ping Pong, we are just drilling holes in the sky up here while the Chinese are pounding the crap out of us.  When are we going to get into this war?”

“Patience my padawan.  We are doing our job.”

Young Lieutenant Karsen was not impressed.  “Like we helped the Kidd?”

“What should we have done, kamikaze’d the Chinese?  Watch and report, that’s the job.  Learn to love it or find a new gig.”

“I want to drop some ordnance on these fuckers.”

This conversation wasn’t going in a productive direction.  “Lieutenant, focus on the mission.  Do your fucking job.  That is how we will win this war.”

The formal use of his rank and her stern tone finally broke through.  “Yes, sir.”

The Lieutenant (O-3) heading up the mission specialists onboard spoke up over the intercom.  “Skipper, we may have a snorkel, 9 o’clock at ten miles.”

“Roger that Lieutenant, vectoring on the contact.”

As the P-8 turned towards the possible submarine contact, Travers began to descend in order to get a better resolution on the contact.

“Plot a line of passives.  Let’s try to localize.”

“Plotting.  Come right ten degrees.”

In the rear of the aircraft, crew members programmed the air dropped sonobuoys.  Sound based location was still the primary method of detecting submarines.  Over the years, the state of ASW capability in the USN had atrophied.  Because the Soviets were no longer a threat, there was really no reason to invest in hunting subs that weren’t there.  All of this had changed recently with the resurgence of the PLAN, but it was going to take years for the USN to make up for lost time.

The possible radar contact had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.  There may be nothing there, but then again, it may be a Chinese sub.  Patience. 

“See if we can raise the Mississippi again.   We are still in her patrol area.”

While aircraft could not directly talk to submarines while submerged, US Navy submarines were able to use buoys equipped with satellite communications to communicate with aircraft or other friendly units.  In the case of the P-8, the normal operating doctrine was to keep in close contact with fast attack boats in their patrol sector and to work as a team.  In theory, the P-8 was also supposed to work closely with the MQ-4C Triton drone but to date, only two had been built.  In practice, the US subs did not enjoy giving away their positions by coming to antenna depth.

“Sir, I have a twitch on buoy two.  Possible Chinese submarine.”

“Triple check.  It’s not friendly, right?”

“Affirm.  It’s a diesel boat.  If she’s friendly, the boys from Oz are WAY out of their patrol sector.” The Australians often referred to their country as “Aus” or in their accent “Ohz” and the Navy had taken to calling them the boys from Oz. Their support of the war had been small but steady from the beginning.

“Right, let’s make another pass.”

More sonobuoys were dropped.  The P-8 carried over a hundred in her large bays.  A converted civilian airliner, the P-8 was not fast but it was very good at ASW and had the tools to do the job.

“Firming up on the new line.  Positive contact, Chinese diesel boat.”

“Any update on the Miss?”

“Negative.  She is not scheduled to check in for another fifteen minutes.  Trying on the CSD.”

“Contact!  Positive contact!  Chinese submarine at 600 feet.”

“Ready on torpedo.  Drop.  Drop. Drop.”

While in theory, the Mark 54 torpedo was sufficient to take out any Chinese submarine, in practice scoring a hit was quite difficult.  The aircraft had the advantage in detecting a periscope or other surface contact, once submerged, the sub had every advantage. 

“Pinging.  The torp is acquiring.  Countermeasures.  The sub is going under the layer.”

The layer, a sharp change in water temperature, functioned as an acoustic barrier.  The change in water temperature tended to reflect sound waves.  For a submarine, the thermocline layer was something they had intimate knowledge of.  They could use this layer to hide from hunters by slipping up or down, under or over the layer.  For an aircraft, it was very difficult to maintain an accurate picture of the layer.  Yet another advantage the sub had over the aircraft.

“Torp is pinging.  The torp has not acquired.”

Patience.  The good hunter is a patient hunter.

“OK, set up two new lines of buoys.  Alternate under and over the layer.  Let’s re-localize.”

The cat and mouse game was playing out across a wide swath of the Pacific.  While Travers didn’t agree with the Chinese brass on their ability to operate in the blue water Pacific, she didn’t doubt their courage.  Six Chinese subs had been taken out so far with no US submarine losses.  By staying out of the littorals in the South China Sea, the USN had negated the Chinese advantages of land-based aircraft and the ability to loiter their diesel boats.  As a defensive measure, diesels were tough to beat.  Very quiet when submerged, they were very hard to detect when moving slowly.  As an attack platform, however, they had drawbacks.  One key reason why the USN had moved to nuclear only was that they made a far superior strike platform.  As an offense-oriented Navy, the USN exclusively operated nuclear attack subs.

While the Chinese had two nuclear attack boats in commission, the vast majority of their submarine fleet were conventionally powered.  Although these boats were very quiet, they were not as fast as Nuclear boats and had endurance limits.  The USN assumed that the rumored “Air Independent Propulsion” system had been deployed in the fleet, but there were still limits to the endurance of these boats.  If the mission was to guard the Chinese coast, these limits were not significant.  However, in order to keep the USN at bay and away from remote outposts like Woody Island, the boats needed to operate further out and this made them vulnerable.

While nobody on the American side knew what the Chinese war plans called for, there was clearly a difference between the pre-war build up to defend the Chinese mainland and the wartime reality of operating in the Pacific.  Most American planners assumed that the Chinese had based their planning on an American strike on the Chinese mainland.  A sensible planning imperative since this would have catastrophic effects on the Chinese population and perhaps on their industry.  What the Chinese had not really thought through or had been unable to implement completely was a strategy for taking on the USN away from land.  In reality, the USN had zero intention of invading the Chinese mainland.  The goal was to keep the Pacific open and ensure that the US could respond to any Chinese advance.  Invasion was simply not an option and had not been seriously considered by any US pre-war plan.

Long range CAP by USAF F-15’s out of Japan, Philippines and Guam had limited the Chinese ability to fly long-range maritime patrols.  Very aggressive sweeps by USN fast attack submarines and air strikes by the USAF had pushed the PLAN surface fleet back behind the nine-dash line.  With no air cover and limited surface support, the submarine fleet was in trouble if it peeked out into the blue waters of the Pacific which is just what this ballsy sub driver had apparently done.

“Do we have the Miss on CSD?”  While the new “Communications at Speed and Depth” systems were supposed to make submarines as easy to communicate with as any surface ship, the implementation had been less than ideal.  Like any new technology, the implementation was still not up to the promise.  Most fast attack boats still used SLOT buoys to announce their intentions and ELF to receive mission orders.  Because SLOT was broadcast only, they could not receive mission orders or coordinate with friendly forces.  The ELF system required very large land-based arrays and was capable of only sending very short, coded messages.  Any real time communications required the sub to come to a shallow depth and risk detection.  This close to the nine-dash line there was a real threat of being detected by a Chinese surface ship or another asset.  With CSD, the idea was to provide real-time communications without exposing the sub to enemy detection.  In theory.

“Not at the moment.  If she comes to antenna depth, we will squirt the bird.”

“Roger that.”

Patience.  Time and patience.