SSN

    Mack didn't know about the Alfa yet, but he did know that his submarine and his crew were ready for anything the Chinese cared to throw at them, though with the sheer numbers of assets the Chinese had hunting them, Cheyenne would have to be cautious. The Chinese had the advantage of being used to dealing en masse; Cheyenne had the advantage that their enemy obviously had no coordination of surface and subsurface forces- something Mack had noted in his previous encounters.

    After the briefing, Mack's officers went back to Cheyenne to get her ready for departure. Mack stayed behind for a little while longer.

    Mack met with the McKee captain and CTF 74 in the admiral's sea cabin. Cheyenne was facing the possibility of shallow water operations, and her crew needed to prepare for that. Shallow water operations were difficult and dangerous, and there had simply been no opportunity to practice before Cheyenne was ordered to ready herself for deployment.

    In the admiral's sea cabin. Mack reported to the other two officers that after departure, Cheyenne's crew would practice shallow water, high speed maneuvering, and shallow water towed-array operations first. That way, if the TB-16 array were to touch bottom before their proficiency had peaked, the soft bottom of the Sulu Sea would ensure that the array would be undamaged. Mack needed to ensure that his diving officers, helmsmen, and planes-men were ready so that they would not overreact during high speed, shallow water maneuvers, and either broach the ship or drag the propeller and lower rudder through the bottom. Mack knew that it didn't take much angle for a 360-foot submarine in 20 fathoms of water to subject itself to the dangers of the surface or the ocean bottom.

    In addition, Mack requested and received permission to use the McKee captain's gig in their exercises. This would provide an adequate surface target for active sonar detection and tracking in the irregular contours and the varying wind driven thermal gradients. Mack would use the gig to practice active sonar tracking with the BSY-1 spherical array at low power and short pulse lengths and with the higher-frequency MIDAS under-ice and mine-hunting sonar as they approached the Balabac Strait south of Palawan.

    Cheyenne would have to wait for the rocky bottom and shoals off Cuarteron Reef to once again be their proving grounds should the Chinese submarines decide not to venture forth into deep water. The Captain hoped MIDAS would be able to distinguish between the coral reefs and the anechoic coatings of the Chinese submarines. But then, active sonar would be used only if Cheyenne's presence were otherwise known.

    There was one other point Mack had to bring up. He liked to assume that the Chinese had equivalent overhead satellite imagery capability, and he was concerned for McKee's safety.

    The admiral advised him not to worry, however, since they intended to weigh anchor shortly after Cheyenne's departure and would periodically relocate outside the Chinese intelligence satellites' footprints. The actual location of the next rendezvous would be provided to Cheyenne as soon as it was decided upon. It might even be in port in Brunei, or off that coast, where carrier air protection could be afforded both McKee and Cheyenne during their next reload period.

    Mack was pleased to hear that-and doubly pleased to know that chances for another reload were good-but he also knew that it would only be true if he could keep the Chinese submarines away from the basically defenseless McKee before the Independence Battle Group arrived to relieve him of the burden of protecting the tender.

    Shortly after getting under way from alongside McKee, Cheyenne quietly submerged. They weren't scheduled to come to the surface again for quite some time-and, depending on how much action they saw and how well they fared in Cheyenne^ next war patrol off Cuarteron Reef, it might be even longer before they saw McKee again.

    As he had briefed his admiral. Mack made sure that they practiced the shallow water, high speed maneuvering en route. This maneuvering was not unlike flying an airplane-even some of the terminology was similar. In deep water, where the automatic depth-control system would frequently be used, the submarine's vertical position in the water column was referred to as "depth." During these maneuvers, however, the term was "altitude," with added emphasis on maintaining a comfortable safety margin or altitude in the water column above the ocean bottom. To help with this, the upward-looking beams of the under-ice sonar, MIDAS, continually displayed the distance to the surface, while the secure fathometer, with its narrow sonar beam, provided the altitude information.