The Lost CHARLIE
NATO
gives each family of submarines a name.
For the most part, they follow the Military Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo,
etc.), but some carry their original Soviet names. All of them are devised for wartime use,
and they were worthy adversaries.
One
such group of nuclear submarines was built through the 1980's with a purpose
that made them a target of mine.
The CHARLIE Class, together with the fast VICTOR Class boats, were sent to sea with a primary mission of sinking our
Aircraft Carriers. Roughly
one-third of our ships, aircraft, and satellites were employed actively in
keeping these submarines at bay.
Everyone loved to compare these boats
to our LOS ANGELES Class nuclear subs.
The CHARLIE was louder, slow, deaf, and prone to fail mechanically, but
I watched them elude our best aircrews on several occasions. In this type of hunt, the fox tends to
escape, regardless of the flag she flies over her bridge.
Early
in 1983, I was doing my ORION time, flying in P-3 4-engine bombers out of Diego
Garcia in the
Often,
contact would never get closer; despite our best efforts, the murky depths of
the
I
watched the clouds track by in orderly columns, reflected and shadowed on the
gray empty waters below. The sea
from above looks like a beaten silver shield, with clouds hung on its surface
as garlands. Tactically, from
18,000 feet, you can't see jack.
The
big slow bird began to nose over, and the crew began to warm up their
equipment. Word was passed down
that the Co-pilot thought he had seen something in the warm waters, and we were
going down to investigate.
Well,
why not? The primary detection gear
had always been the Mark-1 Mod-0 Eyeball, so we crowded the windows and tried to
see something in the waves. We
passed through the thin cloud layer at 5,000 feet, wondering what phantom
the...
"TACCO
(Tactical Coordination Officer), RADAR SINKER, 3 miles! Dead ahead, Sir!" The Radar operator had caught the
"feather" or splash made by the sub's periscope as it cruised just
below the surface. SINKER meant
that we had been had - the sub's own gear had detected our radar prior to our
detection of him. The chess pieces
moved about the giant board....
We
arrived on top too late to witness the splash, but we littered the sea with
passive listening buoys and were rewarded with "contact" - our sonar
operators could clearly hear the CHARLIE's screw
(propeller) churning at speed.
Quickly,
other aircraft joined the fray, and we made our polite farewells to return for
fuel. We headed for the barn
knowing that before we landed, he would escape again.
The
file name assigned to this particular submarine, (called a PLARK in the Soviet
Navy, or cruise-missile nuclear submarine) was P-046.
Papa
-46 was the forty sixth submarine to sail from Soviet Pacific ports in 1983,
and there were many more before the year was out. It spent several months in our
Ocean, ranging from the Mallaccan Straits (
When
its time came, PAPA 46 completed its cruise and returned to its home port on
the
The
crew did not return. To keep this
unclassified, the submarine sank during an exercise near the harbor mouth of
its own port. On the final day of
its' six month deployment, something failed. No sailor of its 85 man crew survived.
For days, clusters of Red ships silently waited over the last known position of
their comrades.
Later,
this sub was refloated using giant air bags that we could clearly see on
satellite photographs and sold to the Indian Navy, but it was never fully
functional again.
Their
story is included here as a testament to their skill at the most difficult game
of all.
GPermann, 1995
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Last Modified: Thursday March 05, 2009