To the Death

According to U.S. Naval Intelligence, that could mean anything from supplying missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon to opening fire on Israeli warships — the Russian Kilos carried 18 torpedoes — or perhaps even sinking a U.S. warship, since there is often an American fleet patrolling these volatile seas. This latter course of action would almost certainly turn into a suicide mission for the Iranians, but with Allah awaiting the crew in Paradise on the other side of the bridge, and sounding the three trumpets, this is not considered a bad fate for Muslim extremists. At least it’s never deterred them before.

The Type 877 Kilo is a formidable opponent for even the most modern surface ship, because she bristles with state-of-the-art radar surface-search systems. Underwater, she is even more dangerous, equipped with the highly efficient Russian Shark’s Teeth sonar.

She’s silent under five knots and can dive to seven hundred feet. Her range is six thousand miles cruising at seven knots. However, her single shaft and 3,650-hp electronic engine can drive her through the depths of the ocean at greater speeds. If she struck hard, however, underwater against an opposing warship, she would be damn near impossible to find if the CO cut her speed.

The Russians have long gloried in the potential of this export-only submarine. Indeed, they have a big four-color trade advertisement which reads “THE KILO CLASS SUBMARINE — the only soundless creature in the sea.” And when they wrote that ad, they had Hull 901 in mind. The address in St. Petersburg, complete with phone, fax, and E-mail, is that of RUBIN, Russia’s central design bureau for marine engineering.

This is where the design refinements for the 240-foot-long underwater boat were perfected. The RUBIN scientists have worked for years trying to make the Kilo as quiet as the grave, every engine mounting, every working part, every vibration considered, improved, and eventually silenced. Running deep, Hull 901 would make no more noise than a modern computer.

All three thousand tons of her, superbly streamlined, can slip through the depths at six knots, betraying virtually nothing. She cuts her speed below five, she’s vanished. Of all the underwater warriors, the Kilo is one of the most stealthy, partly because, unlike a big nuclear boat, she has no nuclear reactor requiring the support of God knows how many subsystems, all of them noisemakers.

There is but one flaw in this masterpiece of Russian design. And that happens when she needs to recharge the huge batteries that power her electric motors. The Kilo is vulnerable when snorkeling, because her generators are merely two big diesel internal-combustion engines, which, like a car, must have air.

And that requirement sends the submarine to periscope depth, where those generators can be heard, the air-intake mast can be picked up on radar, and the ions in the diesel exhaust can be “sniffed.” If she’s not careful, she can even be seen, and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.

The Kilo-class submarine, moving swiftly, must snorkel and recharge her batteries every two hundred miles. Through the Mediterranean Sea, from one end to the other, she needs to complete this process twelve times before exiting into the Atlantic.

Of course, the U.S. Navy’s detection systems are extremely advanced and the mighty Los Angeles-

class nuclear boats are certainly a match for the covert Russian submarine. The chances of a Kilo getting close enough to hit an American ship are remote, just as long as no one takes their eye off the ball.

Nonetheless, the retired American admiral residing in Chevy Chase, Maryland, continued to believe Iran’s Mediterranean submarine should be hit and sunk forthwith. President Bedford was inclined to agree, particularly since it was possible for a big U.S. nuclear boat to get rid of any foreign submarine and never be located.

In subsurface warfare, it has been ever thus. Because, contrary to popular perception, submarines cannot communicate with home base while they are underwater. Their only form of communication is via satellite, and for that they must have a mast, briefly, jutting above the surface.

Thus, all submarines have a daily call time, when they come to periscope depth, usually in the dead of night, and announce their course, speed, and position in a minisecond electronic burst to the satellite circling twenty-two thousand miles above the Earth. They then ask if there are any messages, scoop them up, and return immediately to the ocean depths. If the entire process takes more than fifteen seconds, then someone’s been grotesquely inefficient.