Kilo Class

Synopsis:

The Russian-built
Kilo-Class
submarine: diesel-electric, with nuclear capability, silent and undetectable under 5 knots. The only true enemy of the American Carrier Battle Groups — the stealthy, underwater marauder that can chill the hearts of US Navy commanding officers. The
Kilo
is now available, at a price, to aspiring nations around the world. China has ordered ten, Russia, desperate for foreign currency, has agreed to sell them. The first three are already on their way. The American Government must stop the order in whatever way necessary to safeguard American interests. The submarines would enable China to take control of the Taiwan Strait, and America’s ally on China’s doorstep would fall. A secret war is launched that will be fought out in the icy depths of the world’s oceans and in the vast hinterland of Russia’s rivers and lakes. With China determined to have its submarines, Russia desperate to earn its currency, and America resolved not to allow the delicate balance of world peace to be threatened, this is a war where there can only be one victor…
KILO CLASS
— a white-knuckle novel of action and suspense that could become reality tomorrow.

This book is respectfully dedicated to the
US Navy’s Submarine Service —
to the men who wear the dolphins
and who operate in the
deepest waters

M
Y PRINCIPAL ADVISER FOR THIS SECOND novel was Admiral Sir John “Sandy” Woodward, the Battle Group Commander of the Royal Navy Task Force in the 1982 Battle for the Falkland Islands. After the war in the South Atlantic, he was Flag Officer Submarines, and in later years he became Commander in Chief, Navy Home Command. It would scarcely have been possible to work with a more knowledgeable and experienced officer, the only man to have commanded in a major sea battle in the last forty years.

Kilo Class
is a thriller about submarines, and it required months and months of planning. My office was permanently engulfed by charts, maps, and reference books, in the middle of which stood Admiral Sandy, relishing the weaving of the various plots. I was actually quite surprised at his devious cunning and careful attention to the smallest detail. Generally speaking I think the West should be profoundly glad he’s not Chinese.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Lesley Chamberlain, the English author of the most beautifully written, scholarly book about Russia,
Volga Volga
. Lesley guided me and my Kilo Class submarines all along the great river and was more than generous recounting her memories of days spent as a lecturer in the tour ships of the Russian lakes.

In the USA I was assisted by a great many Naval officers, many of them still serving. I am deeply grateful for the many hours they all spent checking my work, correcting my errors, keeping me “real.”

To them, I owe much. But to Admiral Sandy, I owe the book.

— P
ATRICK
R
OBINSON

Senior Command

The President of the United States (Commander in Chief US Armed Forces)

Vice-Admiral Arnold Morgan (National Security Adviser)

Admiral Scott F. Dunsmore (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs)

Harcourt Travis (Secretary of State)

Rear-Admiral George R. Morris (Director, National Security Agency)

US Navy Senior Command

Admiral Joseph Mulligan (Chief of Naval Operations)

Vice Admiral John F. Dixon (Commander Atlantic Submarine Force)

Rear Admiral John Bergstrom (Commander, Special War Command, SPECWARCOM)

USS
Columbia

Commander Cale “Boomer” Dunning (Commanding Officer)

Lieutenant Commander Mike Krause (Executive Officer)

Lieutenant Commander Lee O’Brien (Marine Engineering Officer)

Chief Petty Officer Rick Ames (Lieutenant Commander O’Brien’s Number Two)

Petty Officer Earl Connard (Chief Mechanic)

Lieutenant Commander Jerry Curran (Combat Systems Officer)

Lieutenant Bobby Ramsden (Sonar Officer)

Lieutenant David Wingate (Navigation Officer)

Lieutenant Abe Dickson (Officer of the Deck)

US Navy SEALs

Lieutenant Commander Rick Hunter (SEAL Team Leader and Mission Controller)

Lieutenant Junior Grade Ray Schaeffer

Chief Petty Officer Fred Cernic

Petty Officer Harry Starck

Seaman Jason Murray

US Air Force B-52H Bomber

Lieutenant Colonel Al Jaxtimer (Pilot, Fifth Bomb Wing, Minot Air Base, North Dakota)

Major Mike Parker (Copilot)

Lieutenant Chuck Ryder (Navigator)

Central Intelligence Agency

Frank Reidel (Head of the Far Eastern Desk)

Carl Chimei (Field Agent, Taiwan Submarine Base)

Angela Rivera (Field Agent, Eastern Europe and Moscow)

Military High Command of China

The Paramount Ruler (Commander in Chief, People’s Liberation Army)

General Qiao Jiyun (Chief of General Staff)

Admiral Zhang Yushu (Commander in Chief, People’s Liberation Army-Navy, PLAN)

Vice Admiral Sang Ye (Chief of Naval Staff)

Vice Admiral Yibo Yunsheng (Commander, East Sea Fleet)

Vice Admiral Zu Jicai (Commander, South Sea Fleet)

Vice Admiral Yang Zhenying (Political Commissar)

Captain Kan Yu-fang (Senior Submarine Commanding Officer)

Russian Navy

Admiral Vitaly Rankov (Chief of the Main Staff)

Lieutenant Commander Levitsky

Lieutenant Commander Kazakov

Russian Seamen

Captain Igor Volkov (Master of the Tolkach)

Ivan Volkov (his son and for’ard helmsman)

Colonel Borsov (former KGB staff, senior officer on the
Yuri Andropov
)

Pieter (wine steward)

Torbin (head waiter)

Passengers on Russian Tour Ships

Jane Westenholz (from Greenwich, Connecticut)

Cathy Westenholz (her daughter)

Boris Andrews (Bloomington, Minnesota)

Sten Nichols (his brother-in-law)

Andre Maklov (White Bear Lake, Minnesota)

Tomas Rabovitz (Coon Rapids, Minnesota)

Nurse Edith Dubranin (Chicago)

Russian Diplomat

Nikolai Ryabinin (Ambassador to Washington)

Taiwan Nuclear Planning Group

The President of Taiwan

General Jin-chung Chou (Minister for National Defence)

Professor Liao Lee (National Taiwan University)

Chiang Yi (construction mogul, Taipei)

Commander Taiwan Marines (Head of Security, Southern Ocean)

Officers and Guests
Yonder

Commander Dunning (CO)

Jo Dunning (his wife)

Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge (Kansas rancher and navigator)

Laura Anderson (his fiancée)

Ship’s Company
Cuttyhunk

Captain Tug Mottram (Senior Commanding Officer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

Bob Lander (Second in Command)

Kit Berens (Navigator)

Dick Elkins (Radio Operator)

Scientists
Cuttyhunk

Professor Henry Townsend (Team Leader)

Professor Roger Deakins (Senior Oceanographer)

Dr. Kate Goodwin (MIT/Woods Hole)

Newspaper Reporter

Frederick J. Goodwin (
Cape Cod Times
)

S
HE WAS ONCE A FAMILIAR SIGHT ON THE ocean waters surrounding the European coastline — the 240-foot-long Soviet-built Kilo Class patrol submarine. Barreling along the surface, her ESM mast raised, she was a jet black symbol of Soviet sea power.

Throughout the final ten years of the Cold War, the Kilo was deployed in all Russian waters, and sometimes far beyond. She patrolled the Baltic, the North Atlantic, the White Sea, the Barents Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and even the Pacific, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Japan.

At three thousand tons dived, the Kilo was by no means a big submarine — the Soviet Typhoons were twenty-one-thousand-tonners. But there was a menace about this robust diesel-electric SSK because, carefully handled, she could be as quiet as the grave.

Stealth is the watchword of all submarines. And of all the underwater warriors, the Kilo is one of the most stealthy. Unlike a big nuclear boat, she has no reactor requiring the support of numerous mechanical subsystems, which are all potential noisemakers.

The Kilo can run, unseen, beneath the surface at speeds up to seventeen knots, on electric motors powered by her huge battery. At low speeds, the soft hum of her power unit is almost indiscernible. In fact the only time the Russian Kilo is at any serious risk of detection — save by active sonar — is when she comes to periscope depth to recharge her battery.

When she executes this operation, she runs her diesel engines — a process known as “snorkeling,” or, in the Royal Navy, “snorting.” At this point she is most vulnerable to detection: she can be heard; she can be picked up on radar; the ions in her diesel exhaust can be “sniffed”; and she can even be seen. And there is little she can do about it.

Just as a car engine needs an intake of oxygen, so do the two internal combustion diesel generators in a submarine. She must have air. And she must come up to periscope depth, at least, in order to get it. A patroling Kilo, in hostile waters, will snorkel only when she must. She will snorkel only at night — to reduce the chance of being seen — and for the shortest possible time — to minimize the chance of being heard and pinpointed for attack.

Running slowly and silently, the Kilo has a range of some four hundred miles before she needs to recharge. She can travel six thousand miles “snorkeling” before she needs to refuel. It takes a crew of only fifty-two, including thirteen officers, to run her as a front-line fighting unit. She carries up to twenty-four torpedoes, as well as a small battery of short-range surface-to-air missiles. Two of the torpedoes are routinely fitted with nuclear warheads.

Today the Kilo is rarely seen on the world’s oceans. At least she is rarely seen anymore flying the Russian flag. Since the shocking demise of the Soviet Navy in the early 1990s, the Kilo has mostly been confined to moribund Russian Navy yards. There are only two Kilos in the Black Sea, two in the Baltic, six in the Northern Fleet, and some fourteen in the Pacific Fleet.

And yet this sinister little submarine still serves her country. She is now being built almost entirely for export, and no warship in all the world is more in demand. The huge income derived from the sale of the Kilo pays a lot of bills for a near-bankrupt Russian Navy and keeps a small section of the Russian fleet mobile.

The Russians, however, have demonstrated a somewhat alarming tendency: to sell the Kilo Class submarine to anyone with a large enough checkbook — they cost $300 million each.

While no one particularly minded when Poland and Romania each bought one, nor indeed when Algeria bought a couple secondhand, a few eyebrows were raised when India ordered eight Kilos. But India is not seen as a potential threat to the West.

It was Iran that caused worry. Despite a bold attempt at intervention by the Americans, the ayatollahs managed to get ahold of two Kilos, which were mysteriously delivered by the Russians. Iran immediately ordered a third, which has arrived in the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas.

This buildup, however, pales when compared to the activities of a new and deadly serious player in the international Navy buildup game. This nation built the world’s third largest fleet of warships in less than twenty years — a nation with 250,000 personnel in her Navy yards, and an unbridled ambition to join the superpowers.

This is a nation with a known capacity to operate submarines, and a known capacity to produce a sophisticated nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a torpedo.

A nation that suddenly, against the expressed wishes of the United States of America, ordered ten Russian-built Kilo Class diesel-electric submarines.

China.

September 7, 2003

T
HE FOUR-CAR MOTORCADE SCARCELY SLOWED as it turned into the West Executive Avenue entrance to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Guards waved the cars through, and the four Secret Service agents in the lead automobile nodded curtly. Behind followed two Pentagon staff limousines. A carload of Secret Service agents brought up the rear.