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strong as any submarine and just as watertight. If she sank, likely someone
would be along directly to pull the old girl up."
So they did the "get it when you want it" routine with themselves as well as
with us. It figured.
Much of the interior space was taken up by four huge Rolls-Royce gas turbine
engines.
"She'll cruise at fifty knots, and hit sixty in a pinch. Planing hull, don't you
know. She draws eighteen feet in harbor, but at cruise she'll raise up to six."
"Yeah, but those engines look hungry."
"Quite right, sir, and I suppose you'd say that's her weak point. She can only
cruise for twelve hours without refueling. Yet in a left-handed way, it
increases our security. We could defend San Sebastian fairly adequately, I
expect, but we simply don't have the range to attack anyone. It makes us a safe
neighbor, don't you think?"
Fire control was just forward of the engines and below the bridge. Judging by
the heavily padded chairs and the seat belts, theHotspur had a pretty rough
ride.
"Twelve turret control stations here, sir. One for each of the deck turrets. We
have eight machine gun turrets and four missile launchers. This station is for
the fire control chief and that forward is for the Exocet operator."
"Exocet?"
"It's a French surface-to-surface missile, sir, with enough of a punch to take
out just about any modern warship. Not an old battle wagon like theMissouri , of
course. At least not with one shot, but we carry four aboard. Our Monday punch,
as it were. Launched from the bow tube you doubtless noticed."
"Oh, I thought that was for torpedoes."
"No, no torpedoes, I'm afraid. We carry a dozen homing depth charges though,
which are fairly similar. They pop out the back."
Leftenant Fitzsimmon's accent sort of came and went depending on whether he was
thinking about it.
The auxiliary bridge was forward of gun control. Most of the electronic
equipment was down here, with repeaters going up to the "main" bridge. One odd
fitting turned out to be a periscope.
"It eliminates the need of having lookouts up in a crow's nest, sir. It has a
pair of gyro stabilized lends' a hundred feet or so above the deck, and doesn't
retract like the periscopes used on subs. Also, it doubles as a range finder, in
case our radar goes west."
The story below was taken up with fuel and ammunition storage.
"That's about it down here, sir. Shall we go up to the main bridge?"
"That's it? Don't you have any crew's quarters or a galley?"
"No sir. With only twelve hours of fuel, our usual patrol is eight hours.
There's a coffee pot on the bridge, and we brown bag it for lunch."
Barb and the others followed us up a ladder to the bridge. They'd been quiet,
probably bored, having seen it all before.
The machine gun turrets were hemispherical, reminiscent of a belly gun on an old
bomber. Four of them hung over the side of the deck so as to be able to defend
against boarders. They could actually shoot straight downward. The other four
were mounted more conventionally. Repairmen had the covering of one of them
removed, exposing a Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun with a smaller thirty-caliber "mini"
beside it. Above the two sat a telescope with a TV camera attached. There was a
third, empty mounting on the servo platform between the two guns.
"Hey, what normally goes here?"
"Well, nothing, sir. Presently that is, but you never can tell what the
designers will come up with." I noticed that he was trying not to stare
enviously at the "sword" clipped to my belt.
"Right. I don't see how you operate these guns. Where does the man sit?"
"Below, sir, in gun control. I showed you."
"What, nobody up here at all?"
"At full speed, this deck is a dangerous place in peacetime and in daylight.
Fighting from it would be absurd. Between the radar and a TV camera on each
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turret, the operator can see everything he needs to. Loading is automatic, of
course."
"Well then, what do you need with all these people? There must be a hundred
aboard."
"This isn't my crew, sir. Maintenance comes under the Harbor Master. TheHotspur
's compliment is twenty-four. They'll be along directly. We're due to go out in
a half hour to relieve theNonesuch ."
"So, there are more ships than just these two?"
"Six, sir. The other four are on patrol."
"Oh. Is that usual? Two in and four out?"
"It's typical, sir, although we try not to be too regular in our movements."
I did some quick calculations. "I see. I gather then that you have multiple
crews, like some of the U. S. Navy submarines."
"Oh no, sir. I wouldn't want to share theHotspur with another skipper."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Barb turning red, shading to purple.
"Hey, but you've told me that this ship averages two eight-hour patrols a day, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]