Red Tide, стр. 11
But once a boat skipper, always a boat skipper. And keeping his mouth shut would be difficult.
The Raptors were clearly visible by then, white water spraying away from their bows as their large caliber machine guns opened fire. “Target dead ahead,” Sterling said. “Stand by to engage with the 76. Fire.”
The remotely operated 76mm autocannon was housed in a forward mounted turret and capable of firing 85 rounds per minute. GM (gunner’s mate) Ronny Silva, better known as “Guns,” was controlling the weapon via a joystick in the CIC, where he was back-to-back with Deen. “Roger that,” Silva replied. “Outgoing.”
Puffs of gray smoke blew away from the 76 as it opened fire. As he had many times before Ryson marveled at how steady the Peg was when foilborne. Not only that, but the hydrofoil was higher than the oncoming patrol boats and could fire down on them.
By contrast with the PHM, the Russian boats were bouncing in a slight chop which forced their remote operators to constantly re-aim the top-mounted machine guns.
The enemy shells threw up fountains of sea water along the Peg’s port side as the Raptor approached. Guns was hitting the Raptor and hitting it hard. Ryson could see the flashes as thirty mike-mike HE (high explosive) rounds struck the enemy boat. But only for a few seconds.
The Mammatus had a .50 caliber machine gun on each side, just aft of the wheelhouse. And Ryson heard a rhythmic thud, thud, thud as the port gunner raked a passing boat from end-to-end.
The battle was far from one-sided however. The Raptor had two stern-mounted machine guns, both of which fired at the PHM as the vessels parted company.
“The bastards killed the RIB boat!” a sailor exclaimed. “How will we go ashore for beer?”
“Belay that bullshit,” Master Chief Atkins growled from his position adjacent to the CIC. “You and I will chat later.”
All the Pegs had passed through the enemy line by then. “This is Six,” Ryson said. “All boats will turn and chase the Ivans down.”
The hydrofoils had numerous virtues, one of which was the capacity to execute incredibly tight turns. Ryson had an instinctive desire to shift his weight from one foot to the other as Po put the wheel over, but there was no need to do so, as the ACS put the vessel into a coordinated turn. The Russian gunboats appeared ahead.
They were just starting to come around. As they did so the Ivans exposed the entire length of their hulls to the streams of 76mm HE shells fired by the American vessels.
“Yes!” Sterling exclaimed, as geysers of spray led to the nearest Raptor and bright flashes marked hits. At least three hit the wheelhouse. Armored glass broke, a shell detonated, and the patrol boat slewed around prior coming to a stop.
The top mounted machine gun was still firing as the Mammatus circled its prey and Sterling was having none of that. “Kill that weapon!”
Silva responded with a terse, “Aye, aye, ma’am,” and brought the 76 to bear. Six shells struck the enemy gun in quick succession and the firing stopped.
“Well done,” Sterling said. “I owe you a beer.”
A faint cheer was heard, and Ryson forced himself to refocus. The problem with riding on a boat, any boat, was a loss of situational awareness. Sterling was responsible for one PHM. Ryson had four vessels to worry about. As he scanned the area, Ryson was pleased to see the amount of damage Squadron 3 had done.
Silva’s target was dead in the water and burning. Another Raptor was down at the stern and about to sink. Two vessels were fleeing northeast toward Sevastopol. Another was turning listless circles, as if under power, but with no one at the helm. But where was boat six?
Ryson opened his mike. “This is Six. I see 5 Russian boats? Where is number six?”
“This is Four-Six,” a male voice replied. “The vessel you’re referring to went boom. Over.”
Ryson had a vague memory of an explosion. “Nice work, Four-Six. Six-Two will set a course for Objective 2. Form a line astern. Over.”
As Po brought the Mammatus around Ryson took a moment to assess the larger battle. It wasn’t easy. Ryson could access individual pieces of data—only Canby and his staff understood the full sweep of events.
But according to the tidbits Ryson could glean from the fleet drone feeds, and the choppy radio traffic, it was clear that the drifting troop ship had been attacked by Russian planes and was sinking.
That meant critical resources were focused on rescuing hundreds of men and women from the dying ship and the surrounding water. That effort included two destroyers.
From what Ryson could tell the air war wasn’t being won or lost. Both sides had thrown everything they could into the sky and the result was a bloody draw.
As for the other small boat squadrons, Segal’s Super Dvora Mk III patrol boats were engaged with a hulking Project 22160 patrol ship, which was more like a destroyer than a missile boat, and heavily armed. If Segal’s sailors managed to defeat the 160 no one, Ryson included, would hear the end of it.
But with the Mammatus speeding north, it was time for Ryson to turn his attention to Objective 2, which was part of the so-called “Belkin Line” of defense towers, named after Russian Vice Admiral Viktor Belkin—the man credited with having created it.
And, according to the fleet Intel briefing Ryson had attended two days earlier, the entire Black Sea fleet was under Belkin’s command. Where was the bastard anyway? The spooks weren’t sure, but figured the vice admiral was aboard his flagship, the cruiser Omsk.
But the Omsk wasn’t the focus at the moment. The Belkin Line consisted of five towers, located approximately fifty miles apart, in a line that stretched from Constanta in Romania, to the city of Sevastopol in Ukraine.
According to Allied Intelligence each tower was one hundred feet tall and