Terribly terribly sorry for the many footnotes.
Operation Tidespring Pt.2
Shockwaves
On approach to RAF Wideawake, Ascension Island, 08:12 GMT, 2nd April 1983 (10:12 GMT)
“Red Crown Two-Five, this is Wideawake control, we have you on our screens at twelve miles out.”
The pilot of the de Havilland Nimrod Naval Reconnaissance plane banked slightly to starboard in order to get onto the correct approach vector. Even though he and his crew had flown from Iceland together with several Allied Squadrons, the pilot had done several tours on Ascension Island before, so he knew the waters and airways around the Island quite well. No.155 Coastal Command Squadron had had planes stationed here since the 60s as the Cold War between America and the British Empire had reached new lows. The Americans had begun to extend their direct influence into South America during that time and the fear had been (and still was) that in case of a war between the blocs the American Navy would stage out of South America to threaten and raid the African parts of the Empire. As a result, the Island was now some of the most militarized real estate on the planet, and that did include the Nimrods, even though normally only two were actually stationed there. When the Falklands Islands had fallen yesterday, the first act by the Admiralty had been to request that the Ministry of Defence instruct the Air Staff to bring the aviation assets on Ascension Island to full war establishment, and Red Crown two-five was the last of the Nimrods that arrived on this day.
Pilot and co-Pilot were relaxed, after all Ascension Island was very much out of range of anything that the Argies had and the Lightnings[1] that the RAF had stationed there were more than enough to ward off any....
Suddenly the threat receiver wend mad and beeped out a missile warning. Someone somewhere had clearly locked onto the Nimrod with an AAM[2] and sure enough two seconds after the first warning, just as the aircraft began to perform evasive manoeuvres the co-pilot tracked the missile by it's smoke trail from where it had been launched.
“These bast..” was all that he managed to say before the missile exploded off the port wing. The Proximity warhead of the missile detonated as advertised and showered the wing of the British patrol aircraft with thousands of metal fragments that slammed into the engines and fuel tanks, setting the wing on fire immediately. Before the pilot could put out a distress call, the wing separated from the fuselage and the Nimrod crashed into the sea, taking the entire crew with it.
RAF Wideawake instantly registered the loss of contact both on the wireless and on the RDF screens with with Red Crown Two-Five. When attempts to regain that contact failed the alarm was sounded.
Red Crown Two-Five in happier days
The news of the loss raced up the chain of command with the speed of light, but even before London could send a proper response the base Commander showed initiative and acted already. None of the Squadrons stationed here were at full war establishment, that would take at least the remainder of the day, but he did already have several airplanes available that would be launched as fast as they could be armed, because now that his command was clearly under attack, the peace-time rules of engagement for his command allowed him to shoot back. First to go was a Canberra Mk.IXr/7, the 'newest' variant of the venerable plane on a hastily drawn up but vital mission that would make it necessary for her to meet an RAF Victor Tanker somewhere over the South Atlantic. The next one up where three Rotodynes, aircraft that were normally used for shore-based ASW but that today had rescue equipment and extra fuel in external tanks on board instead of the ASW torpedoes, soon joined by another Nimrod, and all this air power searched for the remains and eventual survivors of their missing comrade, and half an hour after that the Royal Navy presence, the Type 82 Destroyer-Leader HMS Glasgow sortied to assist in the search.[3]
RAF Rotodyne 'Yellow Two', 11 miles south-east of Ascension Island 10:22 Local Time (12:22 GMT)
The tip-jet powered rotor turned overhead so fast that it was impossible to see it with the naked eye and the two turbo-props under the short and stubby wings propelled the aircraft forward while the crew frantically searched for the missing Nimrod. The entire crew, ASDIC operators included, were staring out of the windows and searched the surface of the sea with binoculars. Their fuel was about one-third gone, spent in flying zig-zag patterns over the open sea.
“Anything?” came the question from the pilot, the only crewmember not actually searching.
“Nothing, Sir.” came the voice that belonged to the senior ASDIC operator through the Intercom.
“We are close to the edge of our search area, Bill.” said the Co-pilot after glancing at the map in his knee pocket.
Without a word the pilot eased Yellow Two into a gentle turn northwards so that the aircraft flew along the edge of the assigned search area as the pilot did some mental calculations. To the west were Yellow One and Yellow Three, to the east Red Crown Two-Two and to the south Glasgow would about now reach her position, her Lynx Helicopter probably already in the air. In this case the best thing to do was to repeat the search pattern in the opposite direction and hope that some of the poor souls aboard the Nimrod had made it into the rafts even though everyone knew that the odds for that were slight at best.
“Hold on, what's that?” asked the starboard lookout. “Green Three-Zero!”
The pilot banked to the right and flew down the bearing the lookout had indicated. Sure enough, there were some bits and pieces floating on the surface, and as he hovered nearby they could see that it was a piece of fuselage of an Aircraft that had worn Royal Air Force markings, surrounded by other pieces of wreckage.
“Bugger....” the pilot mumbled before keying the frequency of the base into the Wireless.
“Home Plate this is Yellow Two, come in..”
“This is Home Plate, go ahead Yellow Two.”
“Home Plate, we have located wreckage at...” he rattled off the position, “British markings from a plane, we believe crash site is located, over.”
“Roger that, Yellow Two.” A pause followed. “Swordsman has been dispatched to your location, ETA twenty minutes. Please advise Fuel state, Yellow Two, over.”
Swordsman was HMS Glasgow, they were twenty minutes out, and the Rotodyne still had almost two-thirds of it's fuel.
“Home Plate, be advised we can remain on present location until Swordsman arrives, over.”
“Acknowledged, Yellow Two. Swordsman has been ordered to make best possible speed to your location, Yellow One and Three have also been dispatched, over and out.”
All they had to do now was wait, all the while whatever had actually shot down Red Crown Two-Five might still be lurking in the vicinity. But the encounter with the mystery Argie submarine (as the Co-pilot theorized) or a secret American Stealth plane (as the ASDIC operator, having a keen interest in the more theoretical aspects of aviation thought) didn't happen, and instead Yellow Two was joined by Yellow One and Yellow Three and together the three RAF Rotodynes circled around the area and waited for HMS Glasgow to arrive on scene so that they could actually try and find anything else, even though the chances of that were beyond nil one had to try. With the establishment of the 300 mile exclusion zones around Ascension Island and the Falklands as of two hours ago the ship had other duties anyway.
ARA Santa Fe, edge of the Falklands Exclusion Zone, 3rd April 1983, 08:46 Local Time (14:46 GMT)[4]
The Junta that governed Argentinia in 1983 had all reason to pat on their own shoulder two days after they had seized back the Islands. A lack of any meaningful British reaction beyond press statements and addresses to Westminster and Imperial Parliaments had helped to convince the Junta that the British would eventually back down. Of course one understood that some sort of gesture would have to be made for internal political reasons and that a British Task Force would sail south within days, but while the British certainly weren't the sort of paper tiger they were portrayed as in the state media they would never risk clashing with the Americans, at least that was the shared opinion among the Officers of the Santa Fe.
She guarded the Argentine Exclusion zone which, unlike the British one, stretched out 400 miles instead of the 300 that the Royal Navy claimed but was utterly impotent to enforce. The Captain, with a legendary temper in a country that was legendary for it's tempers almost everywhere else, was wading through the mountain of paper on his desk when the Intercom Chirped.
“WHAT?”
“Comrade Captain, sorry to interrupt you, but we have a contact.”
“Why did you interrupt me then?” the Captain almost yelled, for he had a temper that was legendary within the Fleet.
“Well, you did order us to notify you if we made any...” The First Officer was clearly distracted for a second. “Captain, contact is at bearing 180, directly behind us... maybe another Submarine..”
Before the Captain could give any orders, the Submarine went to action stations. Even though no one would use a siren or anything if another Submarine was confirmed close, but the Captain could feel the shift in atmosphere within the Submarine and the fact that she turned slightly in order to allow her sonar operators[5] a better picture of just what was behind them.
As the Captain stepped into the CiC the lighting had already shifted to the slightly darker battle light and his Sonar men had made a first shot at identifying the contact. The Captain picked up the receiver of the intercom.
“Sonar, any idea about that contact?”
“Definitly sub-surface, Comrade Captain. Blade count indicates no more than 8 knots speed, propulsion noises and reactor Characteristics indicate a British Vanguard Class Attack Submarine.”
Great. The oldest Vanguard was only six years old and he would have very much preferred to go up against the older Swiftsures or the even older Valiants that he had encountered earlier in his career as a young Ensign in the pre-revolutionary Argentine Navy.[6]
“Boat is rigged for silent running, Comrade Captain.” whispered the first Officer.
“Good. Speed 2 knots, come right to course 045. Let's see if the Brits have really heard us.”
The Santa Fe slowly banked to go on her new course and her pursuer followed suit.
HMS Vanguard, 1.5 miles to the south, 08:48 Local Time (14:48 GMT)
“Distance to target?” the Commander in charge of the Vanguard asked. “One-point-five miles, Sir.”
“Plot target solution.”
The Combat Systems Officer keyed the targeting data provided by the passive sensors along the central axis of the Submarine and soon announced that the absolutely rotten and in the eyes of many in the fleet totally useless Tigerfish torpedoes in the forward launch tubes could be fired as soon as they were flooded and the doors opened.
“Number One, how close can you fix our position?”
“Within 300 Yards, Sir. We got the last fix during that NAVCOM[8] burst two hours ago.”
That meant that both the Vanguard and her prey could be well on either side of the line that marked the edge of the Exclusion zone, and the ROE were clear, he couldn't fire without warning if he wasn't perfectly sure that the zone had been violated by an enemy vessel.
“Battle-ASDIC, contact bearing change.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Number one, let's follow him some more.”
There were several things that could happen. Either the Argie Submarine retreated towards the Falklands and aircover that Naval Intelligence thought was there already, or the turned 'into the wind' so to speak to use his more numerous forward tubes. What was probably the most likely option was that he retreated southwards towards where in the distance the faint echoes of of a large number of surface vessels could sometimes be detected.
It was then that a young and inexperienced ADIC operator made a fatal mistake. The Santa Fe turned again and increased speed. As a precaution her Captain ordered the rear torpedo tubes flooded, but the duty operator on Vanguard let his nerves run away from him and he panicked. So instead of checking for the noise of the tube doors being retracted he simply yelled into his microphone.
“Contact is firing!”
The Commander's head whipped around, and before he think of asking for confirmation, his instincts took over.
“Fire tubes one and four!”
The doors retracted and HMS Vanguard spat out two Tigerfish torpedoes. Sure enough one of them dipped downwards and snapped the control wire, harmlessly drifting away into nothingness, but the second one tracked true. It was instantly picked up by the Sonar Operator on the Santa Fe. The Submarine fired a fish of her own down the bearing of the onrushing British Tigerfish and increased speed to maximum, shooting off countermeasures as she turned towards the Falklands, but to no avail. For once a Tigerfish worked as designed and homed in on the increasing propulsion noises of the Santa Fe. When it impacted several inches to the left of the screw, it shattered the seals that kept the water out of the driveshaft and instantly tons of water raced into the machinery and the aft spaces, and in this moment the Santa Fe was doomed. The last act of the Captain before he was killed by an exploding bit of equipment was to press the button for the release of the emergency buoy. The signal was picked up by the Argentine Naval Communications Headquarters outside Buenos Aires within minutes and thirty seconds after the Vanguard had fired, the Argentine High Command knew that at least one British Submarine was in the area that, at least according to the version that was made official, had fired at an Argentine Submarine returning to base and well outside even the Argentine Exclusion zone.
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As usual, Comments please and I am more than happy to answer questions about the Universe. And for the record: It's not that I am hating the Americans or anything, in the AAR I just needed an antagonist for the Empire that wasn't as obvious and predictable as the Soviet Union would have been. And sorry for the many, many footnotes.
[1] According to Derek Wood's 'Project Cancelled', talk of a Navalized Lighting with VG wings became public knowledge as early as 1964. The below is a scan from the book, the photograph is for the RAF variant, but IMO you get a better idea of what TTL's Lightnings look like by taking the lower picture and thinking away the arrestor hook and the collapsible tail rudder.
[IMG]http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/britwank/7d4a30d7.jpg[/IMG]
[2]Anti-Air Missile, TTL terminology for a SAM.
[3] Very similar to OTL's Type 82, only slightly slower. The ASROC wannabe from Australia has been ditched, instead the Type 82 carries two Lynx ASW choppers as the main ASW weapon, the Sea Dart remains but has been moved to where the Ikara was IOTL, a gun turret with a twin variant of the same fictional 6'' gun the Frigate in the Falklands had and of course the odd .50s and twin 20mm Bofors. Classified as a Destroyer-Leader since the Class is too small to be a Cruiser and too large to be a pure Destroyer even though no one actually uses the term Destroyer-Leader in everyday speech. Ten have been built, mainly used as escort Leaders when no Cruiser is present or as Station ship as is the case at Ascension Island while another one for example leads the China Station. Chalk it up to my irrational fondness for HMS Bristol, I kind of like her.
[4] Imagine the head-desk when I found out that DST was first used in the Falklands in...April 1983. For the sake of this story it hasn't been TTL.
[5] Depending on which side of the Iron curtain you are on it's Radar/RDF, Sonar/ASDIC, Radio/Wireless, CiC/Battlebridge.
[6] The Valiants were the first British Nuclear Subs, followed by the Valiants and then the Vanguards. The Dreadnought..well...wait and see.
[7] Combat Systems Officer
[8] NAVal COMmunications System, the RN's satellite system for communications with the Fleet.
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