Sub hunters: the frigate loads Harpoons, the P-3 and Seahawk go dipping c93570d

The battle group has teeth and ears now. A hostile submarine prowls the deep water west of the group — she surfaces, she creeps, and when she’s hurt she goes deep and shows again somewhere else. Everyone with a dog in that fight now fights it:

1. USS Klakring FFG-42 answers air raids. Any hostile aircraft that closes the group inside twenty-two kilometres eats an SM-1 off her forward launcher — we watched a MiG-29 take one over the bow and auger in. That is what a guided-missile frigate is for.
2. And she carries Harpoons. When the submarine surfaces in reach, Klakring puts a two-round Harpoon salvo in the air — then holds fire: you don’t shoot into a dipping zone with friendlies in the SAC. “WEAPONS HOLD — FRIENDLIES IN THE SAC.”
3. The P-3 is a proper sub hunter. She diverts off her patrol to the contact, wheels overhead at five hundred feet and seeds sonobuoys — orange cans riding the swell. Two wet buoys near the contact and the picture firms up: LOCALIZED. Then the torpedoes start: “TORPEDO IN THE WATER — RUNNING HOT.”
4. NAVY 701 dips too. The cruiser’s Seahawk flies out to the contact, winches down to sixty feet for a six-second dipping-sonar hold — buoy away — climbs, dips again, and once the contact is localized she puts her own torpedo in. Then home to the pattern.
5. She doesn’t die easy. Hurt her enough — Harpoons, torpedoes — and she goes deep and silent, contact lost, to surface again miles away when the coast is clear. The hunt never really ends; it just moves.

All of it runs on its own in free flight — find it on the map, or ride along with J: the P-3 sings the prop whirr, the Seahawk too, and the Harpoons fly quiet.