Second Front (Kirov Series Book 24) Read online

  Kirov Saga:

  Second Front

  By

  John Schettler

  A publication of: The Writing Shop Press

  Second Front, Copyright©2016, John A. Schettler

  KIROV SERIES:

  The Kirov Saga: Season One

  Kirov - Kirov Series - Volume 1

  Cauldron Of Fire - Kirov Series - Volume 2

  Pacific Storm - Kirov Series - Volume 3

  Men Of War - Kirov Series - Volume 4

  Nine Days Falling - Kirov Series - Volume 5

  Fallen Angels - Kirov Series - Volume 6

  Devil’s Garden - Kirov Series - Volume 7

  Armageddon – Kirov Series – Volume 8

  The Kirov Saga: Season Two ~ 1940-1941

  Altered States– Kirov Series – Volume 9

  Darkest Hour– Kirov Series – Volume 10

  Hinge Of Fate– Kirov Series – Volume 11

  Three Kings – Kirov Series – Volume 12

  Grand Alliance – Kirov Series – Volume 13

  Hammer Of God – Kirov Series – Volume 14

  Crescendo Of Doom – Kirov Series – Volume 15

  Paradox Hour – Kirov Series – Volume 16

  The Kirov Saga: Season Three ~1942

  Doppelganger – Kirov Series – Volume 17

  Nemesis – Kirov Series – Volume 18

  Winter Storm – Kirov Series – Volume 19

  Tide Of Fortune – Kirov Series – Volume 20

  Knight’s Move – Kirov Series – Volume 21

  Turning Point – Kirov Series – Volume 22

  Steel Reign – Kirov Series – Volume 23

  Second Front – Kirov Series – Volume 24

  More to come…

  Kirov Saga:

  Second Front

  By

  John Schettler

  Kirov Saga:

  Second Front

  By

  John Schettler

  Part I – Tiger by the Tail

  Part II – Achilles & Hector

  Part III – Fafnir

  Part IV – PQ-17

  Part V – North Cape

  Part VI – Page 117

  Part VII – Charlemagne’s Ghost

  Part VIII – Lighting the Torch

  Part IX – Firebrand

  Part X – Amok Time

  Part XI – Second Thoughts

  Part XII – The Wolf

  Author’s Note:

  Dear Readers,

  Karpov started it, beginning his own Second front against Japan when he first began stalking the Kido Butai. Now, with the arrival of the United States military in our tale, the real Second Front in the West is about to be opened. But first, we have unfinished business off Sakhalin Island. The battle that has been looming on our radar screens for some time is about to begin. That and other naval action in the Norwegian Sea will start us off, and then we will move to Operation Torch, which will cause dramatic changes in the West as the allies finally go on the offensive.

  As 1942 proceeds, our intrepid Mister Fedorov realizes that the history they once lived through is being re-written, and he has concerns as they approach the time when Orlov made his fateful jump from that KA-226. After much deliberation, he thinks he sees another possible paradox looming, but realizes that he must have the cooperation of Karpov to do anything about it. The two of them put their heads together on this as we reach the final segments of this installment, and Fedorov has a plan. Yet he does not count on the whims of the Siberian, and things take a most unexpected turn that, among other things, will be complicated by a most unwelcome visitor in the skies over Siberia. Finally, we get to hear from a couple characters that have been missing from our tale since Paradox Hour—Pavel Kamenski and Ivan Gromyko.

  There’s a lot more action to come in Season 4. Should this line of history continue, the Allies must now fight their way into Algiers and Tunisia, while O’Connor and the British 8th Army must push Rommel from the other side. In the east, Manstein’s offensive pushes to reach the Volga and link up with Volkov’s Orenburg Federation, while Sergei Kirov, his very life at stake now, struggles to regroup and reequip the weary Soviet Army. That season will take us deep into 1943, and all the great military action as both sides finally match one another, and the outcome of the entire war rides in the balance.

  For now, I hope you enjoy opening up that Second Front.

  - John Schettler

  Part I

  Tiger by the Tail

  “A man who takes a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”

  ― Mark Twain

  Chapter 1

  Sea of Okhotsk, 20 May ~ 12:38

  Now they reap the whirlwind, thought Fedorov. He had seen this all before, just after they manifested in this very year in the Pacific, when the Japanese raid on Darwin had first looked down to see a lone Allied cruiser running out to sea. Down they came, thinking to quickly dispatch the ship and get on with their mission. For Kirov, it was a sudden and unexpected shock, and they were fortunate that Karpov was on the bridge at that time, knowing exactly what defensive system to activate, and how to use it.

  This time they get the surprise, he thought, but he was very wrong. The Japanese knew exactly what they were doing now. The pilots had been briefed, and told they would be looking for the mysterious ship that had been attacking the navy, Mizuchi. They were more than willing to try and find it, and also headstrong enough to think they could take hold of it like a cat by the tail and kill it. Yes, they expected a few scratches, knew that planes and men might be lost in any combat sortie they flew, but this was no ordinary cat.

  Kirov was a lethal beast that was entirely beyond their comprehension, a tiger with claws that would soon rend their way through the sky with their slashing anger. They really had no idea what was about to hit them, thought Fedorov, feeling a spasm of guilt. Then he remembered how they came at the ship, engines wailing, the cold whistle of deadly bombs falling, the hiss of the defensive fire and the rattle of the 30mm chain guns on defense—and he remembered the battle bridge. One man had been so driven in a later attack, that he put his plane right into the ship. Had he aimed for the open deck, smashing into the missile armed vertical silos beneath it, the results could have been catastrophic.

  “S-300 system ready sir,” said Samsonov.

  Grilikov was sitting right next to him, his eyes narrowed as he watched the other man work on a bank of equipment that seemed entirely confounding. One thing caught his eye, the winking red lights, a bank of eight, and Samsonov had told him they each corresponded to a missile ready for launch. The ship could have carried as many as 96 S-300s at one time, the missile the West called the SA-N-20 Gargoyle. It was an older system by 2021, replaced on most ships with the new S-400F system. In its second coming, this Kirov had a mix of missiles, some old, some new. There were 36 S-300s, as the Navy still had them and wanted to use them for the live fire exercises Kirov was to have conducted in the Norwegian Sea. A second bank carried the ship’s current long range defense system, the S-400F.

  Behind those, the ship possessed another formidable inner air defense shield, a missile of many names. It was the Kinzhal, or dagger, a variant of the land based Tor system that the West now called the SA-N-9 Gauntlet. The Russians also called it the Klinok—blade—and it was very sharp indeed. They were stored in clusters of 8, on rotary VLS modules. First introduced in 1989, this was a much improved version of that missile, with updated electronics and a much longer range, out to about 80 kilometers to move it from its roots as a short range missile to medium range defense. There were 128 of those missiles hidden beneath the decks.

  The innermost defens
ive ring was the province of the Kashtan system, a short range missile that fired in conjunction with two 30mm Gatling guns that sat like the heavy black arms of a robot mounted beneath the missile tubes. This deadly combination could produce kill probabilities of over 95%, and it was further assisted by several single 30mm gun mounts elsewhere on the ship.

  For anything to get through those three concentric circles of fighting steel would be a very daunting prospect, particularly a slow, easily tracked aircraft like those in the skies now. The 15 contacts to the west were Nakajima Ki-43 Fighter bombers, the Peregrine Falcon to the Japanese, but dubbed by the far less complimentary name of “Oscar” by the Americans. They were each carrying two 250kg bombs, a heavy payload of over 1100 pounds.

  “Target speed at 230 knots,” said Rodenko. “These nine contacts to the south are slower, about 175 knots.”

  “Most likely G4M medium bombers,” said Fedorov. “That’s a plane the Americans called the Betty, a level bomber, and not much of a threat in terms of accuracy. The others are probably land based fighter bombers. They’ll be the main threat here.”

  “If you can call that a threat,” said Karpov.

  Fedorov gave him a quick look, as if to remind him of what had happened to them before. They were the only two men on the bridge that remembered that, as Orlov was below decks on his rounds that morning.

  “Do we have the battle bridge manned?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said Karpov, but that is no more than a formality for Air Alert One.

  “Nice to know it’s there,” said Fedorov, again with a knowing glance the Admiral’s way.

  Karpov gave him a flat grin. “Mister Samsonov, salvo of four S-300s. Target the group of fifteen planes and begin firing.”

  “Aye sir.” Samsonov was only too eager to comply.

  Sea of Okhotsk, 20 May ~ 12:44

  “Sir,” said Otani. “Sierra One has detected missile fire, bearing west towards Sakhalin. They must be firing at our land based aircraft.”

  Takami had been watching and waiting, cruising silently in EMCON about 40 kilometers south of Kurita’s surface action group. They had deployed a single helo, Sierra One, low and slow at first so as not to arouse undue suspicion, and it was loitering at about 2000 feet, a hundred kilometers to the northwest.

  “So much for that dangling left jab,” said Fukada. “Those have to be S-300s, or even the newer S-400s. We could warn those planes to disperse. It might give them a ghost of a chance out there.”

  “We’d have to blab that in the clear, or relay it through Kurita on the secure comm link. Neither case would matter much. Those missiles are too damn fast. I’m afraid they were too quick to get up there. We’re still too far south to use our missiles, and the naval air strike isn’t even on our screens yet.”

  “Trying to coordinate this in EMCON is going to be like herding cats,” said Otani.

  “True, but the more we say in the way of any radio traffic, the more chances they have to intercept a signal that gets their attention.”

  “Let’s just hope they don’t give our Sea King the same treatment when they finish off those planes,” said Fukada.

  “I doubt they’ll target that. They have to think it’s a seaplane, just a lone slow contact to their southwest. It’s no threat unless it comes with in visual range, and even then why would they care? Notice they haven’t thrown anything at Kurita either. But they have a helo up too, and so they know he’s there. Hell, they probably have us on the contact board as well, but as far as they are concerned we’re just another surface ship of this era. So far they’re acting as if they don’t know a thing, which is how we need to keep it until we get inside 120 klicks.”

  “Then what?” said Fukada.

  “Then we go active and throw everything we have at them.”

  “What about Kurita?”

  “What about him? You know damn well that Kirov won’t let him get anywhere close enough to use his main guns. As far as I’m concerned, it’s as if those ships weren’t even there. I think the Russians will take down any air threats, but probably make Kurita’s surface action group a second priority target.”

  “And if they go after them with those Sunburns?”

  “Then we have a choice to make. We have Kurita under our SM-2 umbrella. We could go active, get a fix on their missiles and fire.”

  “That gives up the game from that point on.”

  “Right,” said Harada. “The other choice is to do nothing, let Kurita take one on the chin and see how much iron he has there. We keep on north, fast and quiet, and get as close as we can to those bastards before we fire.”

  “This is going to get ugly,” said Fukada, “and real fast. This ship was built for defense. Our entire loadout is based on that. Yet here we sit, trying to creep up and get inside on these guys with one good right hand. You realize that after we throw that punch, we’re done.”

  “So we have to hope we land it,” said Harada. “After that, we could still use the SAMs in an anti-ship role. If nothing else it might keep them off balance.”

  “We should use the rail gun.” Fukada folded his arms, eyeing the Captain. “We should use it the moment they put lead on any of Kurita’s ships. We fire that while our Type-12s are outbound, and before we do that, we have to take down their helicopter. That’s job one.”

  “Agreed,” said Harada. “At least on the helo. As soon as we fire anything, the jig is up and we go to full active sensors. Then I’ll put an SM-3 on their helo and take out their eyes. That way they won’t pick up our SSMs until they get much closer. As for the rail gun, I’m not so sure it will do us any good, but we might get lucky.”

  “It has them in range right now,” said Fukada.

  “Right, but we don’t even have a hard fix on their location with all our sensors passive like this. If we fire it now, we just give them something to chew on if they pick up incoming rounds on their radar.”

  “They may see them, but they’re too fast for them to do anything about it. That gun fires at Mach 7!”

  “Correct, but that will sure prickle their curiosity. No. The less they know, the better. I want to sit tight until we’re ready to take our shot. After that, anything goes.” He looked at Hideo Honjo now. “Lieutenant, crack your knuckles and warm up those hands. We’ll be busy with the SM-2s as soon as they figure out what’s happening.”

  “Ready sir,” said Honjo. “We’ll knock down anything they throw our way.”

  It was all cat and mouse at this point, only the question remained—which one was the mouse? Kirov was a very big cat to be sure, with very sharp claws and teeth. Taking that cat by the tail was going to be very dangerous, and Harada knew that Kurita’s two battleships and three heavy cruisers would be nothing more than secondary targets. They could contribute nothing at all to the offense here, which would have to be carried by any aircraft they could shepherd to the target. He looked at his watch, wondering what was holding up the naval air strike. It was a sallow and cold thing to think now, but they needed to put as many targets into the air as possible. Kirov was already going after the land based planes, and he was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this whole setup.

  Just let me get close enough to get the first punch in, he thought. In modern naval combat, it was always the struggle to get off the first salvo that mattered. His missiles were much slower than those Sunburns, so he needed to fire first, before he had to go defensive. That would be the best they could do, get that salvo in the air before the Russians figured out what they were up against. All it would take is a single hit, on either side, to decisively shift the balance here. Harada was praying for all he was worth that Takami would be the one to get that first hit.

  Sea of Okhotsk, 20 May ~ 12:50

  The battleship Haruna was in the number two position that morning, following in the wake of Kurita’s old ship, the heavy cruiser Mikuma. As one of Japan’s most modern ships, it even had radar installed, the Mark II, Model 1 Shipborne Air and Surface Sea
rch Radar, capable of seeing planes out to 90 kilometers, or ships at sea 18 kilometers away. Unfortunately, it was found to be useless that day, a clutter of static under the routine jamming Kirov was putting out on frequencies known to be used by the enemy at this time. Kurita’s ships would have to rely on another system, a highly refined sensor that was directly connected to a fairly complex computer, more complex, in fact, than any computer aboard Kirov that day.

  It was installed on every mainmast in the task force, carefully searching the distant horizons in every direction. That system had come to be designated by a most iconic name in modern navy circles—the Mark 1 Eyeball, dual mounted on a swiveling platform called a head, and the complex computer it was connected to was the brain of the watchman inside that head. That was all Kurita had, the watchful eyes on his mainmast, their binoculars, their brains. Everything else was jammed and down, but the trusty Mark 1 Eyeball would see a good deal more than any man expected that day.

  They had closed to about 42 kilometers from the estimated position of their adversary, still well over the horizon, and unseen. But the morning sky was soon alive with the hot long contrails of the S-300s, one following another, scoring the mid-day sky. Heads turned, eyes saw, brains reacted and the shouts of alarm soon followed—Rockets!

  That was the word Kurita had been waiting to hear, and now he rushed out onto the weather deck off the bridge to put his own Mark 1 Eyeball into operation. There they were, those long ghostly contrails in the sky, but they were not aiming for his ships. Instead they were moving west towards the dark mass of Karafuto, and their speed was amazing.

  The planes they were after were well beyond his visual range, but seeing those missiles was enough. “Watchman! Report this sighting to the radio officer. Tell him to transmit it to Takami.”