In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 19

We were safe for now tracking the Russian Diesel on the surface, while charging its batteries. We were dead astern at periscope depth and it was heading dead away from us. I had my best guess as to the range and the OOD gave me an update on that visually. I updated the solutions in all of the machines and since we were behind it and it was heading perfectly away from us, all of the bearings were 000, for a while.

I noticed two bearings from Sonar came back right around 357 (slightly to the left), but then settled back on 000. Everything was tracking along fine, then I noticed the contact seemed to be getting a little louder…then more and again more. There is an indicator on my console that displays the ratio of background noise to target noise. It’s called Sound Noise Ratio (SNR).

I sat and watched the SNR climb for a minute or two, then called out “Possible target zig”. This gets everyone’s attention whether the FT, Sonar or whoever’s on the scope calls it out. It means you think the target has changed course. In this case, I figured the Diesel Boat had spun on a dime and was heading back towards us.

The OOD called to Sonar for verification, but they said no to the idea (I don’t know what they were smoking that day). The OOD then told me to take the scope and went over to my station to analyze the data on the Weapon’s Control Console.

We were in heavy swells, but small waves, which meant you only caught a glimpse of the target when we were both riding high on swells at the same moment. I would just catch a glimpse of the dim single light on the sail of the Diesel once or twice a minute. The OOD went back to the Sonar shack real quick and I ran over to the WCC to see the SNR up higher, then ran back to the scope (so I wouldn’t get busted for doing that).

The OOD came back in and went back to the WCC. I was still on the scope when I suddenly caught a perfect glimpse of the bow of the Diesel Boat heading straight for us. I called out, “Confirm angle on the bow, 000”. This meant the target was heading straight for us.

It is a basic concept taught to any cadet that when you are tracking something from a Sub, don’t do it from directly in front or behind, be off to one side. Why, you ask? It is to avoid situations like this. We had been tracking this target the whole time surfaced, without a single course change on our part. A major fucking blunder.

The OOD almost knocked me off the scope and I told him, really calmly and quietly, “We should go deep”. He called it and we did sink the boat.

We were less than a 1000 yards apart (I would estimate 700) and closing when we changed course and dove. Collisions are bad. We only dove a little and then came up to PD again once we had passed the target. I had a rock solid solution locked into the FCS at this point.

Now we watched the target with a little comfort, trailing along side, far enough away so our periscope wouldn’t be noticed. Like I said, the seas were pretty bad and it was raining too, we weren’t worried about it. And those were the basic weather conditions we stayed in for the next 6 weeks. There were breaks here and there, but mostly crappy rainy weather.