Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (6 page)

Chapter 5

Air
Commandant Bogrov
watched the status board as the
Abakan
began to ease away from the
mooring tower, nose up. The ship had gained a lot of potential buoyancy when
the troop contingent debarked, and to compensate for the sudden loss of weight,
water was pumped into the ballast tanks from hoses at the top of the mooring
tower. Now the weight balance was restored to “neutral buoyancy” allowing the
ship to operate normally, but it had a lot of ballast that could be jettisoned
to gain altitude if needed.

 “Five degrees up elevator,” he
said. “Engines one and three ahead one third.”

"Aye sir, one and three
ahead one third.”

Bogrov keyed the airship’s
internal intercom. “All hands,” he announced, “prepare to lift ship. Moorings
away and ascending now.”

An Airman called out their
status.“Climbing through 500 feet. Wind steady at five knots. All mooring lines
secured.”

Abakan
rose through the
serried cloud deck and emerged like a behemoth, a massive silver fish in the
sky. Sunlight gleamed on the long graceful curve of the hull, her sides and
tail trailing white vaporous mist as the airship broke into clear skies.

Karpov was standing on the bridge
near his chart table, one hand clasping the wall rail to steady himself as the
ship continued to climb. What was Volkov up to with this maneuver, he thought?
Here we have just reached an understanding at Omsk. He goes so far as to
withdraw from the city, and now he has the temerity to run airships about like
this—into Free Siberian airspace! Is he doing this to test my resolve?

The more he thought about that,
the more he realized that there was something else behind this maneuver. Volkov
clearly knows I am here, and Bogrov is correct, why would he be trying to
threaten me when he had me three feet away just last week with a revolver
pointed at my chest? That was theater, but the threat was real. I took a very
great risk with that meeting. No, there is something more to this. He is
curious. His intelligence services don’t know what I’m about here, so he is
sending a reconnaissance in force.

This is a very risky thing to do.
How many airships did he send? He must know that I have both
Abakan
and
Angara
here. That means he most likely sent three airships on this mission, and they
could be transporting a full regiment between them. But why? What good would it
do him to put troops down here? Even if he could take Ilanskiy or Kansk, how
could he hold them? His men would be isolated and we can bring up reserves on
the rail line from both directions. Our main defense line is west, anchored on
Novosibirsk, and I have a full division in reserve at Krasnoyarsk, and the
latter is no more than 200 kilometers away by rail. Kolchak’s army at Irkutsk
is just 700 kilometers away to the southeast. What is he doing here? It just
doesn’t make any sense. Unless…

Now Karpov began to entertain
even more suspicions. If Volkov wanted to mount a further offensive on the
border zone he would definitely want to cut the Trans-Siberian rail, and an
isolated place like Kansk is a perfect place to do that. We’ve moved the whole
18th Siberian Rifle Division into Omsk, except for this battalion I have with
me here. If Volkov cuts the rail line here, and manages to also tie down two or
three of my airships in this little spat, then everything we have east of Kansk
is cut off from Kolchak at Irkutsk until we re-open the rail line. He could
have five or six more airships loaded with troops and ready to swing across the
border zone at any time. What if this whole mission is aimed at pulling in all
our mobile and ready reserves here, well away from the front?

Technically a state of extended
truce is now in force after the Omsk accords. Is Volkov going to throw that all
out the window? If so there would have to be a major operation in the works. Could
he be coordinating with the Japanese on this? There’s been a considerable
buildup in Mongolia in the last three weeks. Damn! Too many questions and not
enough answers. I need to know what’s going on out west.

“Signalman!”

“Sir!” The young mishman rushed
to Karpov’s side and saluted crisply, ready for orders.

“Signal all western frontier
stations to report any unusual troop movements on the border, anything at all.
And all Topaz stations are to report to me over the military fleet channel
every half hour. I want to know if any airship movement is detected. Cable
Tomsk. I want that airship to move north and scout along the Ob River line as
far as the Chulym tributary. ”

The man saluted again and was off
at a run.

Karpov walked to his map room,
leaning over the table where he had set up the current strategic situation.
Volkov was very accommodating to give us Omsk back like that. With his troops
there the entire region between that city and Novosibirsk had been a no man’s
land for the last three months. Karpov had pushed his 82nd Motorized Division
forward to keep a wary eye on the border with Orenburg, and his tough 2nd
Siberian Cavalry was patrolling well north of Omsk itself. But the bulk of his
forces had remained in their defensive positions along the Ob River from Tomsk
through Novosibirsk, and then in the wide bend the river made as it came north
from Barnaul, and the high mountains south of that city.

He had four divisions along that
line, though they were under the nominal control of Kozolnikov. As far as his
intelligence served, Volkov’s troops were all still in their old winter line
positions as well, six divisions at intervals along the long border zone from
Oskemen in the south to Tyumen in the north. These were largely infantry
formations, though there were undoubtedly more mobile formations behind that
line somewhere.

Yet now that Volkov had openly
joined with Nazi Germany, what were his plans for the main front along the
Volga? That had to be the reason he took that meeting with me at Omsk in the
first place. He wants to quiet his eastern sector down so he can move those
mobile reserves to the Volga, and perhaps even pull one or two infantry
divisions off his line here in the bargain. Then why make a move like this? Why
risk a provocation, unless he is finally seeing the connection to his strange
fate and Ilanskiy. He certainly knows I got real curious. I was foolish to come
here so directly. I should have busied myself with routine matters, and then
worked my way here in due course. Volkov saw me make a beeline to this place,
and now he wants to know why.

Now
Abakan
was nose up and
still climbing to reach that favored position of superior altitude in the event
things should come to a fight. There were twenty helium gas bags within the
main enclosure of the airship, each one nested within an air sack called a
ballonet. The air in these external sacks could be vented and refilled by
pumps, a procedure that was essential in managing the altitude of the airship. Venting
air from a ballonet decreased the ratio of lighter than air helium to that of
the heavier air inside the ship. A positive helium ratio meant the ship would
rise, lighter than the surrounding air. Venting air from the forward ballonets
lightened the ship there, and helped get the nose pointed up for a climb while
the Elevatorman was working his wheel.

Because the helium expanded as
the ship gained altitude the ballonets also had to be vented to allow for that
expansion. The procedure required careful monitoring to avoid a situation where
the helium gas bags would reach maximum expansion, known as the “pressure
height” of the ship, also called the “design ballonet ceiling.” For
Abakan
that ceiling was about 7000 meters, or 23,000 feet. Climbing beyond that point
risked a rupture of the gas bag, and so emergency valves could vent helium to
prevent that, which was never desirable. The engines and horizontal fins could
also incline to assist the ascent, and in this case where an emergency ascent
had been ordered, ballast was dropped from the forward sections as well.

The procedure was reversed during
a descent. All they had to do was take in more air from the atmosphere and pump
it to the ballonets until there was more heavy air relative to the helium. If
necessary, helium could also be pumped to steel storage tanks. At this point
the airship would become negatively buoyant and begin the descent. Once at a
desired cruising altitude, manipulation of the elevator controls and minor venting
or inflation of the ballonets would be enough to make trim adjustments. These
methods eliminated the necessity of venting any helium gas, which was a
commodity that was simply too rare and valuable to lose in typical operations.

Abakan
had dropped off all
but a single platoon retained aboard the ship for a security detail. One of the
airship fleet’s greatest utilities was its ability to move troops and supplies
rapidly from one place to another. Every airship carried at least a platoon of
25 men, but they had enough lifting power to accommodate ten to twelve times that,
a full battalion.

Debarking the men at a mooring
tower was accomplished easily enough, but for deploying them in the field where
no facilities were available, another procedure was necessary. It involved more
significant pumping of the helium in the main gas bags to smaller pressurized tanks
spaced at intervals along the keel. When pressurized, helium became heavier
than air to help compensate for the sudden gain in positive buoyancy when the
men deployed. The airship stored a small amount of this helium as a reserve in
highly pressurized tanks that could be sent to the main gas bags in the event
of a helium loss that threatened the buoyancy of the ship, yet this was only
for emergency situations.

Heavier ballast could also be
taken on in the form of water from the air moisture condensers and rain
collectors if necessary, but there were limits to both these technologies in
1940. For practical purposes, it was risky to try and debark more than a single
company, or 120 men at any given time without being properly moored to a tower
with a ground anchor.

Airship operations were all a
careful balance of buoyancy, pressure, ballast, fuel and cargo weight, elevator
and rudder control, and engine thrust, but in the hands of a well trained crew,
the airship was easily maneuvered.

Air Commandant Bogrov watched
carefully as
Abakan
passed through 1000 meters. The Airship was a “high
climber,” which was a designation that arose during the First World War when
the Germans built high flying airships that could operate well above the flight
ceilings of British fighters of that day. He would take the airship up to 5000
meters, which was normal combat altitude by 1940, a little over 16,400 feet. If
necessary he could climb another 2000 meters after that if the situation demanded
such a maneuver, and reach a ceiling pressure height of 23,000 feet.

At such heights there were a
whole new set of challenges for the crew—oxygen deprivation and altitude
dizziness, bitter cold that could affect weapons, engines, oil and lubricant lines.
Even the viewport windows could frost over and crack.

“Take us north at your best
speed, Commandant.” Karpov wanted to see what he was up against as soon as
possible.

“15 degrees right rudder, and
coming around to zero-one-zero north.” Bogrov gave the order, and the ship
began to turn as it climbed, nosing up into the endless skies.

“Have our fighters scrambled?”

“We got a report from
Krasnoyarsk, sir. They have three I-15 bi-planes and another three I-16s
available. Most everything else is farther west near the main front.”

“They will have to do,” said
Karpov, making a mental note to increase fighter deployments to the Krasnoyarsk
airfield. The I-15 and I-16 fighters were old models, some flying in Spain in
the mid 1930s, but mostly getting their combat experience against the Japanese
where they dueled with Ki-27 fighters over Mongolia. The newer Yak-1 had just
been introduced by Soviet Russia in January of that year, but in spite of
efforts to purchase them, the Free Siberian State had not been able to acquire
any. Air power was limited in the eastern state, though newer models were in
production at Novosibirsk as the war began to heat up. In 1940, however, they
had ten to twelve squadrons of these older fighters, and few squadrons of
Tupolov twin engine bombers or Ilushin-2 and Ilushin-4 fighter-bombers.

The I-15s could reach 7000
meters, but their four 7.62mm machine guns would not bother a Vulcanized
airship much, if at all. They did carry six RS-82mm rockets that could do a
little more damage if they scored a hit, though they were notoriously
inaccurate. Even fired from a range of only 500 meters, only about one in a
hundred RS-82’s could hit a stationary target on the ground. While the massive
bulk of a zeppelin made for an enticing target, the pilot would still have to
get very close to fire those rockets, braving the intense anti-aircraft fire
from the airships to do so.

Abakan
had five MG dimples
along each side where twin 12.7mm heavy machine guns could rattle out a fairly
lethal fire out to 2000 meters. This meant a fighter hoping to deliver its
RS-82s would have to run that gauntlet to get close enough to have any chance
of scoring a hit. To make matters worse, there were four ShVAK 20mm autocannons
mounted atop the airship on a reinforced open air firing platform.

Against a formation of airships,
this handful of fighters would be good for little more than reconnaissance,
thought Karpov. Yet they can get around much easier, and if they find a target,
I can order them to shadow it and radio back the enemy course and altitude.
Then we’ll get up to a good firing position above that, and see if they want
any trouble here.

Using instincts long honed in
combat at sea, Karpov knew information was his first weapon. Find the enemy,
get into the best firing position, kill the enemy. It was a lethal formula that
he had used time and time again. It wasn’t long before his fighters had found
something and his battle plan could take more definite shape.