Attack of the Seawolf

“Sonar display room. Sonar’s come a long way since the original Q-5. We’ve got two towed arrays; the hull one has six bulges isolated from internal noise, the spherical array is bigger, with more hydrophones, more sensitivity.”

Keebes pushed through the door leading aft into a room the full forty-two-foot width of the submarine.

Pacino whistled. The room looked absurdly open and comfortable to Pacino’s eyes, accustomed as they had been to the old Piranhaclass’s cramped control spaces. The center of the room was taken up with the periscope stand, the conn, an elevated platform built around the wells for two periscopes set side-by-side.

At the aft end of the conn was a display console housing repeater panels for the sonar set and the firecontrol computer as well as the red handset of a NESTOR satellite secure-voice radio system. Beside the radio gear was the underwater telephone console.

In the port forward corner of the room were the ballast-control panel wrapping around from port to forward, and next to it the ship-control panel, a set of three control seats situated around airplane-style controls. The panels performed similar functions to their ancestors on previous ship classes, but the level of computerization had progressed enormously — the panels had almost no hardware instruments, only computer video screens where the ship’s combat computer displayed the faces of the instruments the crew would configure.

“Looks like something out of a sci-fi flick,” Pacino said, staring at the ship-control console.

“We still haven’t gone all the way to computer ship control — the planes and rudder and ballast systems are still controlled manually by the four-man ship-control team instead of by the computer,” Keebes said.

NAV SEA still isn’t comfortable with computers driving the boat. Their mentality is still in the 1940s. Why pay for all these computers if it still takes four men to take the ship from periscope depth to test depth?

But one step at a time, I suppose.”

Keebes moved to the starboard side of the room, where a long row of firecontrol computer consoles were set up. Instead of three displays, there were five.

“The combat control system is the BSY-2/Mark II.

A lot like the old CCS Mark I of the 688 and 637 classes, just more capabilities. Ties into the nav computers, so it automatically writes records of any combat encounters. The input from the hull, spherical, and towed arrays is integrated pretty well into this beast.

Target acquisition and tracking are simplified. Weapons can be programmed from any of the panels.

Works well.”

“Let’s get to the lower level,” Pacino said.

They went down the aft-stairs to the lower level.

“Aux Machinery,” Keebes said.

“Emergency diesel lives here.”

Pacino tried not to look too impressed by the sheer size of the diesel engine. It dwarfed the engine he’d had on Devilfish.

“Torpedo room has space for fifty weapons. We’ve got eight torpedo tubes. Like earlier classes the tubes are amidships. These are canted outward ten degrees.”

Pacino followed Keebes through the torpedo room, walking the narrow aisle beside the tall racks of the weapons. He looked back at the room from the forward end, impressed by the huge size of the ship. The Mark 50 torpedoes and the Javelin cruise missiles were twenty-one inches in diameter and twenty-one feet long, graceful, sleek weapons.

“Want to see the engineering spaces, sir?”

Pacino looked at his watch, conscious that every moment that passed was another chance for Sean Murphy and his crew to die. Still, as commander of the rescue mission, he’d better have a mental picture of every aspect of the Seawolf, no matter how abbreviated.

“Let’s go.”

“Better put on your TLD, sir,” Keebes said, reaching into a pocket and producing a black plastic cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. The thermoluminescent dosimeter would measure Pacino’s radiation dose from the reactor. As Pacino took the dosimeter he recalled the radiation sickness he had battled two years before, his strongest memory of that time being the hours he had spent vomiting and dry heaving. Pacino fastened it on his belt and gestured to Keebes to continue on.

Keebes led the way up the ladder to the middle level and aft, to a large watertight hatch that led through a long tunnel.

“Shielded tunnel, sir. This door here leads to the reactor compartment. Take a look through the lead window. We’re in the power range and steaming, natural circulation mode, normal full power lineup, divorced from shore power with the main engines warm.”

Pacino put his face next to the thick leaded glass of the reactor compartment viewing port while rotating the viewing mirror. That gave him a view into the compartment, to which entry was prohibited while the reactor was critical. The equipment was huge. No wonder the ship could produce such horsepower.

Keebes waited until Pacino was ready, then continued aft through the tunnel to another massive hatch and into the engine room