Fictional Warships - Novels

[Graham1973]

John Winton, HMS Leviathan, 1967

HMS Leviathan
Third Audacious Class Aircraft Carrier ?
Details as per the real ships, circa 1960s.
Note: Name is that of a Majestic Class Carrier scrapped incomplete in 1968.

Plot Summary: A new captain has come to a troubled ship, can he turn things around?

Note: Two cover pictures are attached. The 1978 cover is from the first paperback release by Sphere Books which is clearly trying to present the novel as an action/adventure story, which it is not. However the 1984 cover is much more appropriate to the plot. Neither is credited.

In the book, H.M.S. Leviathan is described as having a flight deck of 900 feet. Therefore she is longer than an Audacious class, which had 808- foot flight decks. Her length is more akin to a Malta class; however, she cannot be a Malts class, because they were designed with single hangars, and the book describes Leviathan as having a double hangar. She must be, therefore a (fictitious) Leviathan class.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Graham1973]

Paul E. Erdman, The Crash of '79, 1976

Iran

Iranian navy in the novels 1979 is stated to consist of 39 combatants including the following

Unnamed
2 x Kitty Hawk Class Carriers
Details as per the real ships
Note: Stated to be USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) & USS Constellation (CV-64) 'under lease' to the Imperial Iranian Navy, what the Iranian's have named them is not given in the novel.

Unnamed
5 x Spruance Class Destroyers
Details as per the real ships
Stated to have been built for Iran by Ingalls Shipbuilding, other dialog in the novel references the four ships that became the US Kidd Class as being under construction. The Iranian class name and the individual names of the ships are not given in the novel.

Saudi Arabia

Unnamed
3 x 'Missile Destroyers'
Possibly equivalent to the Kidd Class
Stated to be on order from the US at the same time as the four ships that became the Kidd Class following the Fall of the Shah.
No other details provided.

Note: In the same dialog that mentions the three destroyers under construction by Ingalls for Saudi Arabia reference is made to the US Navy having six equivalent ships and the South Koreans two such on order from Ingalls as well.

Plot summary: How the Four Day War (March 19, 1979 - March 23, 1979) destroyed the world economy.

Note: The novel opens with a prologue set in December of 1984, the story proper takes place in 1978/79. The author was best known for a series of 'financial thrillers' written between 1974 & 1997, at least three, of which this novel is the first, dealt with either global or US economic collapse scenarios. The novel itself is firmly in the category of 'Future of the Past'. Other novels exhibiting this 'future of the past' quality I've covered are 'Seven Days in May' (1962) (Charles W. Bailey II & Fletcher Knebel), 'Thirty-Four East' (1974), 'The Hastings Conspiracy' (1980) (Both by Alfred Coppel), 'North Star Crusade' (1976) (William Katz), 'Side-Wall' (1982) (David Graham), 'CV' (1985) (Damon Knight), 'The Phoenix Odyssey' (1986) (Richard P. Henrick), 'Debt of Honor' (1994) (Tom Clancy) 'Rites of War' (1998) (Cyn Mobley) and 'End Game', 2011 (Matthew Glass), along with what is probably the most well known 'alternative history' sequence, 'Raise the Titanic' (1976), 'Vixen 03' (1978), 'Night Probe' (1981) & 'Deep Six' (1984) (All by Clive Cussler) which are set in an alternative 1980s (The novels are set between 1987 ('Raise the Titanic') & 1989 ('Deep Six').) with many differences from what actually happened, most notably Canada being absorbed by the United States (Something Cussler quietly dropped in later novels.).

 

[Graham1973]

Bill Knox, Whitewater, 1974

United Kingdom

Marlin
Fishery Protection Vessel
Crew: 24
Length: 180ft (55 m)
Weight: 400 tons
Engines: 2 x 2000hp Diesels
Speed: 30 knots (Max)
Armament: None fitted, provision exists to fit weapons in wartime.

Snapper
Fishery Protection Vessel
Same details as Marlin.

Henrietta Appleyard O'Hagan
Fishery Protection Vessel (Requisitioned)
Fishing Boat (Drifter)
Described as 'Big' and a typical type used on the East Coast of Scotland
Note: Name is that of the Skippers mother.

Plot summary: What starts out as a simple courtesy visit to a Highland Wedding turns into a hunt for a killer...

Note: This is one of a long running series centered on the Marlin and her crew.

 

[MJBurmaster]

As I recall, although not into book form, there were some internet writeups for a post WW1 scenario of Imperial Germany, successful in the war, protecting its colonies in Vietnam against the Japanese. There were some Konig class battleships mentioned. I had penned an insert with the USN battlecruiser squadron of Constellations as the beginning to USN response to the upcoming war to protect the Philippines and presage any Orange Plan action. What happened to the writeups I do not recall.

 

[Graham1973]

Welcome to the thread, MJBurmaster. If you ever find those writeups I look forward to seeing what you came up with.

 

[DWG]

If we push the boundaries a little, to book format but not novels, Avalanche Press have Janes style guides to the "Fleets of Imperial Germany" and "Fleets of Imperial Russia" due out as supplementary material for their Second Great War series of naval wargames (same system as their Second World War at Sea historical games).

SGW is basically WWII kicking off roughly to schedule, but after the Woodrow Wilson peace efforts in 1916 led to a WWI ceasefire before any regime change or economic ruination and with the Allies as the Revanchist aggressors (which I find slightly distasteful). So you have updated WWI designs, including those cancelled late in WWI, and a couple of decades of inter-war building for both sides, with a different treaty system, and limited development of aviation compared to OTL. The "Second Great War" sourcebook describes the political background, but never gets down into the nitty-gritty of designs.

Also covered in the SGW games so far, but not the supplementary material: France, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and a handful of British and Italian designs, with Austro-Hungary, Sweden and the Baltics announced, and UK, Turkey and Persia promised, with slightly more nebulous promises of the US and Japan at some point in the future. The Dutch fleet had appeared before the SGW storyline settled, was written into it, but are now OOP/promised for a second edition (as already happened with the Austro-Hungarians).

Avalanche also have a second AH timeline "The Long War" in which Plan Z happens and the RN responds with a more extensive rebuild programme, with coverage of the USN vs IJN announced, but that doesn't have any text format supplements.

Their WWI system Great War at Sea (from which SWWAS is a spinoff) has a bunch of supplements covering semi-speculative late war designs (basically pre-history for SGW), a supplement in which Italy stays loyal to the Triple Alliance and teams up with the Austro-Hungarians against Britain and France, and another looking at the Chinese fleet plan c1908 and late WWI Sino-Japanese hostilities. Three WWI era Confederate States Navy supplements are now out of print. It also has older games covering the USN's Plan Red (1920s war with the UK), and the bizarre Plan Crimson, which postulates a US-Canada naval building race on the Great Lakes. OOP games covered Plan Black (USN vs Germany), Plan Gold (USN vs France), and Plan Orange (USN vs IJN)

A lot of the background to all of these, including details on the ships, is also up as part of their Daily Content line on their website: http://www.avalanchepress.com/

 

[Graham1973]

Thanks,

I think Hood may have covered these in his own listing.

List of Ships in Fiction - Page 5 - Shipbucket

 

[Hood]

Thanks,

I think Hood may have covered these in his own listing.

List of Ships in Fiction - Page 5 - Shipbucket

Yes, these are in the listing too as an important resource for what-if naval gaming.

 

[Graham1973]

Dale Brown & Jim DiFelice, Dreamland: End Game, 2006

India

INS Shiva (ex-Kiev)
Kiev Class Aircraft Carrier (Modified)
Details identical to the INS Vikramaditya (ex-Baku), save that the armament adds SS-N-19s and SS-N-9s. Where these are mounted is not specified, presumably under the forward flight deck. Aircraft carried include Su-33s
Note: Conversion into a conventional aircraft carrier of the Kiev similar to the one carried out on the Baku. The authors used the same name for a modified Kilo Class (Pr. 877) Submarine in the August 1997 set novel 'Dreamland: Pirahna' (2003). This novel is set in January 1998.

INS Calcutta
Delhi Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

China

Deng Xiaoping
Aircraft Carrier, class not specified
Description: "The nickname "flattop" fit Deng Xiaoping perfectly. Unlike nearly every aircraft carrier since the CV-1 Langley, the Deng Xiaoping did not have an island. Her surface and antiair radars were located at the sides of the craft, adjacent to but not on the flight-deck surface.

The Deng Xiaoping's flat deck was shaped like a fat V, with elevated ramps at each head. The arrangement allowed the carrier to launch two J-13s almost simultaneously and still have space to land planes behind them..."

Airgroup: 36 x J-13 Fighters (Fictional, 2 have been configured for nuclear strike under the code name 'Tai-Shan'), 4 x Ka-27 'Helix' Helicopters, 6 x Z-8 Helicopters (Copy of the French Super Frelon, 4 of them are configured for Airborne Early Warning, 2 are configured for Search-and-Rescue)
Armament: Pili (eng: Thunderbolt) missiles (Described as an anti-Cruise Missile derivative of the LY-60, speed is Mach 4 and the range is given as 20km), if any other anti-air missile is carrried it is not specified. At the aft end of the ship are sponsons fitted with 1 x 57mm and 2 x twin 37mm on either side of the stern. No other armament details are specified.
Note: In the succeeding novel 'Dreamland: Retribution' (2007) the events involving this ship are mentioned, but for unknown reasons the carriers name is changed to Khan.

Iran

Mitra
Covert Operations Support Vessel (Converted Oil Tanker)
Has been converted into a mini-sub support vessel.
No other details provided.

Parvaneh
Mini-sub (Class)
Crew: 6
Length: 8.40m
Beam: 1.65m
Draft: 1.35m
Engine: Electric driving lateral & vertical waterjet thrusters
Speed: 10 knots (Max)
Note: Described as a militarized version of a civilian mini-sub called the 'Nautical Adventure 2000' made by a unidentified German firm. Used in a manner similar to the WWII X-Craft, carrying combat divers close to targets that can be dealt with either by limpet mines or hand carried missile weapons (RPGs.)

United States

USS Abner Read (DDL-001) (Novel gives the pennant in the form DD(L)-001)
Littoral Destroyer (also referred to as a 'Littoral Combat Vessel')
Armament 2 x 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) (Single turrets), 2x 20mm Phalanx ?x VLS (SM-2 & Harpoon), ?x TT, radar & towed sonar array, ?x heli/UAVs, 1997
Note: This first ship appears in an earlier novel 'Dreamland: Satan's Tail' (2005) and appears to have been based on the Zumwalt Class. The backstory is that the ship is the US Navy's attempt to match the capabilities of the US Airforce's EB-52s.

'Pirahna'
Experimental Unmanned Underwater Vehicle.
Described as looking like "...an oversized torpedo with extra sets of fins on the front and rear."
Fitted with nose mounted sensors including, optical, thermal and current sensors in addition to passive sonar. Capable of tracking targets up to 75km from the UUV.
Speed: 50 knots (Max), 36 knots (Cruise), propulsion system is designed to be extremely low noise at all speeds.
Powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
Product of joint USAF/USN program to apply technologies developed for USAF drones to aquatic applications. Can be controlled from aircraft using relay buoys.

Note: This fictional UUV appears in the earlier novel 'Dreamland: Pirahna' (2003).

And for the aircraft mavens.

China

J-13
A fictional two seater copy of the Su-27 intended for carrier use.

Plot summary: The year is 1998. Tensions between India and China are rising again, as in 1997, outside forces seem to be pushing the two states towards nuclear war. The United States again finds itself forced to act to prevent the outbreak of all out war.

 

[Graham1973]

Duncan Long, Grim Reaper, 1990

United States

USS Patrick Henry (DDG-??)
Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (Flight I)
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Explicitly identified as this class by the author. At the time the story is set the name would not have clashed with a serving US warship as the previous holder, the George Washington Class Submarine USS Patrick Henry (SSBN-599) had been scrapped in 1984.

USS Thomas Jefferson (DDG-??)
Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (Flight I)
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Explicitly identified as this class by the author. At the time the story is set the name would not have clashed with a serving US warship as the previous holder, the Ethan Allen Class Submarine, USS Thomas Jefferson (SSBN-618) had been scrapped in 1985.

USS Oklahoma (SSBN-???)
Ohio Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Explicitly stated to be a member of the Ohio Class by the author.

And for the Aircraft Mavens

United States

CONCOP
Attack Helicopter
Manufacturer: Reed-Dallas
Nationality: United States
Description: "...an impressive machine ... carried more armament than many larger helicopters. ... Its rotors were mounted high and toward the front of the helicopter, which allowed them to be tilted forward for a maximum speed and range nearly a quarter greater than most larger helicopters."
Length: "...barely fifteen meters long..."
Crew: 2 (Pilot, Gunner/Navigator)
Controls: Fly-by-wire
Armament: 5.56mm Mini-gun (Four barreled gatling weapon, nose mounted.), 1 x Rocket Pod containing 24 x 2.75 inch rockets (right pylon), 4 x AGM-114 Hellfire Missiles (left pylon)
Sensors: Nose mounted FLIR and Laser Designator (Like the Mini-gun, this is slaved to the gunners helmet motions.)
Electronics: Doppler Inertial Navigation System, flight control computers.
Note: Other electronics and sensors are not specified. While the name is clearly an acronym what the acronym stands for is never revealed.

Plot summary: The year is 1990, a chance find in Antarctica has unleashed a biological nightmare dating back to WWII.

Note: This is the second in a series of nine 'gung-ho' action novels based around the US 160th Special Airborne Operations Regiment (aka 'The Night Stalkers'), originally published in the 1990s, the books have been re-issued in eBook form by the author. Other volumes in the series I have covered are 'Sea Wolf' (1991) and 'Avenging Storm' (1992). The plot for this one is heavily based off a 1980 novel entitled 'The Gold Crew' by Thomas N. Scorita & Frank M. Robinson, which was filmed as 'The Fifth Missile' in 1986.

 

[Graham1973]

John Wingate, Target Risk, 1978

United Kingdom

HMS Audacity
'Frigate', class not specified (Possibly a Type 21, given the 'A' name.)
No other details provided

Non-Warship but interesting.

Planeka Shipping International Ltd.

NS Leviathan
Oil Tanker (Ultra-large Crude Carrier)
Length: 1475 ft (449.6m)
Beam: 226ft (68.9m)
Draft (Fully laden): 104ft (31.7m)
Displacement(Empty): 88,025 tonnes, Displacement (Fully laden): 674,025 tonnes
Carries: 586,000 tonnes of Crude Oil
Crew: 38
Engines: Nuclear/Steam Turbine, 4 x reactors each of which produces 34,000hp (Four shafts/propellers)
Rudders: 4 (One for each propeller, the design of the rudders is described as being based on the rudder design of the Batillus Class of ULCCs)
Speed: 17.8 knots (Fully laden), 19.2 knots (In ballast)
Note: The forward island (Containing the bridge) is located 100ft (30.5m) from the bow. The ships helipad (Large enough to take a Westland WS-61 Sea King Helicopter) is located on the port side.

NS Goliath
Oil Tanker (Ultra-large Crude Carrier)
Same details as NS Leviathan

Note: Both ships were built in the US under a subsidy scheme designed to keep US shipyards in operation. The ships are registered in Panama.

Plot summary: The story of the 'Leviathan Affair'.

Note: Author John Wingate is (was?) a British writer of nautical fiction whose career began in the late 1950s with the publication of the 'Boys own Adventure' - style series 'Submariner Sinclair' (I've covered the second volume of the series 'Jimmy-The-One: A Submariner Sinclair Story' (1960)) in this thread along with his later 'The Sea Above Them' (1975).) In the early 1980s he wrote a trilogy covering the naval aspects of World War III. The third volume, 'Submarine' (1982) has been covered in this thread.

 

[Graham1973]

A return to 'Boys Own Adventure'...

James Shuster, H.M.S. Outcast and the V.I.P., published in Leonard Matthews, Super Story Book for Boys, 1976

United Kingdom

HMS Worthy
W & Z Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Based on the ships name and the year the story is set (1944)

HMS Outcast (ex - HMS Dauntless)
'Destroyer' Class not specified
Displacement: 1500 tons
Main Battery: 4 inch guns, Other armament unspecified.
Described as being a WWI era vessel still in service
Note: Former name clashes with the D Class Cruiser HMS Dauntless which was in service 1918 - 1945 (Scrapped 1946). Hypothetically the renaming could have ocurred due to the launch of the D Class Cruiser, there is historical precedent to this. This would imply the ship was launched/commissioned prior to 1918.

Japan

Various Unnamed Warships.

United States

Various Unnamed Warships.

Plot summary: A tongue-in-cheek story involving a blowhard US Senator who, when inspecting the British Pacific Fleet, decides to pick a ship at random to take him to his next destination.

Note: Locating this story in time is pretty easy, it has to be set after the creation of the British Pacific Fleet in November 1944.

The contents of this volume derived from children's magazines published by IPC in the years prior to this compilation coming out (One amusing/ironic misprint sees an illustration taken from a story aimed at girls printed next to an unrelated story, the image depicts the heroine entering a lions cage....). Other stories from similar compilations I've covered are 'The Ship That Vanished' (1967/1979), 'The Straggler' (1977) and 'Depths of Fear' (1982). The story covered is actually part of a series focusing on a rattle-trap British destroyer that manages to avoid disaster in various amusing ways. I have memories of at least one other Pacific set story, but no idea of the title of the collection it appeared in.

Later:I have discovered the series in question, in fact started life as a comic strip in Fleetway publishing's 'Hurricane' comic book which was printed between 1964 - 1965 after which it was merged into another Fleetway comic book 'Tiger'. After this merger 'Hurricane' annuals continued to be printed in to the 1970s.

 

[Graham1973]

Anthony Molloy, Hoist The Black Pennant, 2015

United Kingdom

HMS Waterloo
Battle Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Flagship 31st Escort Group. The name is that of a Battle Class Destroyer that was broken up on the slips in 1945 without being completed.

HMS Atrebate
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Iceni
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Lugi
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

Note: All the Tribals associated with the 31st Escort Group (aka Special Force Orca.) have been refitted with 4 inch high angle guns replacing the 4.7 inch guns and a Squid mortar replacing Y Turret. As far as can be determined HMS Waterloo is a standard member of the class.

HMS Antler (ex-U-491)
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: See the entry for 'Dead Reckoning' (2013) for her backstory.

HMS Canute (ex-S-???)
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Captured by 31st Escort group as a replacement for units lost in the Mediterranean.

Germany

Schwerin
Koenigsburg Class Cruiser
Details as per the real ships

Z-85
Type 1936A Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The Pennant is well outside the range reached for destroyer pennants by the Germans during WWII (The highest was Z-51, assigned to an experimental diesel powered destroyer, designated Type 1942 that was ordered in 1942, but never completed and scrapped post war.), another Type 1936A with an out of range pennant number Z-84 appeared in the authors 2013 novel 'Long Day's Night'.

U-423
Type VII U-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant clashes with that of a Type VIIC U-Boat sunk in June of 1944. The submarine in the novel is sunk in February of 1944. Author explicitly identifies it as a Type VII.

S-585
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships

Unnamed
2 x Type 1936A Class Destroyers
Details as per the real ships

Plot summary: As 1944 moves on the 31st Escort Group find's it's specialist skills deployed in support of Operation Bodyguard, the deception campaign that will protect the planned landings in mainland France.

 

[Graham1973]

Returning to comic strips...

Ron Carpenter, The Coffin Sub (Published in Action (UK Comic Book)), 1976

United Kingdom

HMS Conquest
T-Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.
Note: This class identification is based on the artwork. Name does not fit the class.

HMS Defiant
'Battleship', class not specified
No other details provided.

Italy

Intrepido
'Destroyer', class not specified
Main battery: 6 x 4.7inch guns (Twin turrets. Turret layout is A, B & X)
Other Armament: Depth charges, other armament not specified.
No other details provided, other than the ship has two funnels.
Note: The comic strips artist appears to have based this ship and several other Italian destroyers that appear in the comic strip off either a British or American design. The main battery is based off what the Italians actually fitted their WWII era destroyers with.

Germany

U-75
U-Boat, type not specified (Probably a Type VII)
Note: The pennant clashes with a Type VIIB that was sunk in the Mediterranean by HMS Kipling in 1941.. In the comic strip, this submarine is sunk by HMS Conquest in an underwater duel somewhere between 1941 and 1943.

Plot summary: A submarine sunk in 1941 is salvaged and placed under the command of the only surviving member of her crew. Driven by his loss the captain takes dangerous risks in his quest for vengeance.

 

[Graham1973]

Kevin Miller, Raven One, 2014

United States

USS Valley Forge (CVN-??)
Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier
Details as per the real ships.

USS Tinian (LHD-??)
Wasp Class Amphibious Assault Ship
Details as per the real ships.

USS Stout (DDG-55)
Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer
Real ship, details as in service.

USS Richard Best (FFG-?)
Oliver Hazzard Perry Class Frigate
Details as per the real ships

And for the Aircraft Mavens

Iran

MiG-35 'Flatpack'
Details as per the MiG 1.44, had it gone into production.
Note: In the novel it is stated that the Russians had built five aircraft before cancelling the program. In real life only one aircraft was completed. While the full details are not given in the novel, it is safe to assume that the Russians sold all five aircraft to the Iranians.

Plot Summary: The year is 2008, a US carriers operations in support of the occupation of Iraq are abruptly switched into high gear as the Iranian's decide to up the ante in the Gulf.

 

[Graham1973]

Edwyn Gray, Diving Stations, 1984?

United Kingdom

HMS Rapier
S Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Firefly
Insect Class Gunboat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: In WWI the name had been used for a member of the Fly Class of Gunboats, which was captured by the Turks while serving as part of the Tigris Flotilla in 1915, the ship was recaptured by the British in 1917 and disposed of in 1924, after having being paid off in March of 1918.

Japan

Suma
Chidori Class Torpedo Boat (5th member of class)
Details as per the real ships
Note: The author continually refers to the ship as a 'destroyer' and states that it did not receive the post-1934 stability modifications unlike the other members of the class. The name itself was used in real life for Insect Class Gunboat HMS Moth following it's capture by the Japanese.

Plot summary: A fictionalized account of the last days of Hong Kong prior to the Japanese entry into WWII.

Note: I have covered one other novel specifically dealing with this part of WWII history, Douglas Reeman's 'Sunset' (1994)

 

[Graham1973]

Edwyn Gray, Crash Dive 500, 1985?

United Kingdom

HMS Rapier
S Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Boxer
B Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Name clashes with an LST in service 1943 - 1958. Class determined by name only.

HMS Castleton
Castle Class Corvette
Details as per the real ships.
Explicitly identified as a member of the Castle Class by the author.

HMS Markham
M Class Destroyer
Details as per the realships.
Note: Class determined by name only.

Germany

Oldenburg
Armed Merchant Ship (Commerce Raider)
Armament details as per other German Commerce Raiders of WWII.
Note: The Germans named their Armed Merchant Raiders after various birds and animals, not towns.

Plot summary: The year is 1943, for HMS Rapier worn out by hard service, it's all come down to the final mission, converted into a floating bomb, she'll be expended in an assault on some German E-boat pens being constructed on the Belgian coast.

 

[Graham1973]

Greg Dinallo, Rockets' Red Glare, 1988

United States

USS Marathon (PG-89)
Asheville Class Gunboat
Real ship, details as in service
Note: In real life the ship was decommissioned in 1977 and transferred to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in the same year. In the novel the ship is still in US Navy service in 1990 and is transported to Lake Geneva to act as part of the security force for a disarmament conference.

USS Finback (SSN-670)
Sturgeon Class Submarine
Real ship, details as in service

USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)
Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier
Real ship, details as in service.

Russia

MV Kira
Oil Tanker (VLCC)
Launched: 1959
Mothballed: 1968-1972
Refitted: 1973
Displacement: 145,000 tons
Can carry 125,000 tons of oil
Twin diesel engines driving two propellers
Registry: Liberia
Owned by: Leashold Shipping Ltd (Havana, Cuba (e.g. A Russian front company...))
Note: The ship has been modified to transport and deploy SS-16A 'Heron' missiles (At the rate of one missile per trip). The bow area has been rebuilt to contain the checkout and deployment systems which are used when the ship takes on cargo. At the time the novel is set, some 40 missiles have been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico.

For the rocketry mavens

SS-16A
Type: Ballistic Missile
NATO Reporting Name: Heron
Propellants: Storeable (Not specified if solid or liquid fuel.)
Method of deployment: The missile is deployed mounted inside a 6ft (1.83m) by 30ft (9.14m) tube that is fitted with a steam generator identical to that used on ballistic missile submarines and a radio receiver to permit the missile to be fired remotely after deployment. The outside of the tube is designed to allow the tube to be drilled into the seafloor so that when deployment is complete only the top of the tube is visible at the surface.
Warheads: Multiple Independant Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), 7 Warheads.
Note: The designation SS-16 (NATO Reporting Name: Sinner) was given to a land based mobile ICBM system based on solid fuel rockets that entered service in 1976. It is conceivable that the SS-16A is a shortened derivative of this weapon.


For the aircraft mavens

United States

CC-10-60
Type: Airliner
Engines: Jet
Manufacturer: Churchco Aero-Space
No other details provided

CC-65 'Viper'
Two seater attack helicopter
Manufacturer: Churchco Aero-Space
No other details provided
Note: CC-65 is probably the companies internal designation, the US army designation would be in the 'AH' series (e.g. AH-65 'Viper')

Russia

TU-144 (Fictional)
Supersonic Airliner
Civilianized, passenger carrying version of the TU-160 'Blackjack' bomber.
Note: The designation TU-144 was actually used for a completely unrelated aircraft built as a rival to Concorde and the aborted Boeing 2707 SSTs. Plagued with technical issues the plane went out of service in the early 1980s. The author was probably inspired by the relationship between the TU-95 turboprop bomber and the TU-114 turboprop airliner.

Plot summary: The death of an American industrialist in unxplained circumstances leaves his heir searching for answers at the same time as another American is searching for her true father. Both searches lead into the heart of a Soviet plot that began in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Note: The author seems to have been heavily inspired by Anthony Trew's 1979 novel 'The Antonov Project' which also featured the Russians using an ostensibly commercial vessel to covertly deploy weapons ahead of an anticipated conflict.

The novel is another work that fits into the category of 'Future of the Past' since it completely ignores the changes taking place in Russia at the time. Other novels exhibiting this 'future of the past' quality I've covered are 'Seven Days in May' (1962) (Charles W. Bailey II & Fletcher Knebel), 'Thirty-Four East' (1974), 'The Hastings Conspiracy' (1980) (Both by Alfred Coppel), 'The Crash of '79' (1976) (Paul E. Erdman), 'North Star Crusade' (1976) (William Katz), 'Side-Wall' (1982) (David Graham), 'CV' (1985) (Damon Knight), 'The Phoenix Odyssey' (1986) (Richard P. Henrick), 'Debt of Honor' (1994) (Tom Clancy) 'Rites of War' (1998) (Cyn Mobley) and 'End Game', 2011 (Matthew Glass), along with what is probably the most well known 'alternative history' sequence, 'Raise the Titanic' (1976), 'Vixen 03' (1978), 'Night Probe' (1981) & 'Deep Six' (1984) (All by Clive Cussler) which are set in an alternative 1980s (The novels are set between 1987 ('Raise the Titanic') & 1989 ('Deep Six').) with many differences from what actually happened, most notably Canada being absorbed by the United States (Something Cussler quietly dropped in later novels.).

 

[Graham1973]

Anthony Molloy, Smoke and Mirrors, 2015

United Kingdom

HMS Waterloo
Battle Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Flagship 31st Escort Group. The name is that of a Battle Class Destroyer that was broken up on the slips in 1945 without being completed.

HMS Iceni
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

Note: See the entry for 'Rejoin With All Speed' (2014) for details of the ships listed above's armament, except HMS Waterloo.

HMS Edward
S-boat
Details as per the real ships

HMS Antler (ex-U-491)
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: See the entry for 'Dead Reckoning' (2013) for her backstory.

Germany

L-653
'Armed Launch'
No other details provided

Wilhelm von Detten (TA-48) (ex-HNoMS ?)
'Destroyer', class not specified (Most likely Sleipner Class, in which case it would be a seventh member of the class.)
Details as per the Sleipner Class.
Note: Former Norwegian destroyer taken into German Service after being captured during the 1940 invasion of Norway. The captured members of the Slepnir class, unlike other captured destroyers were all renamed using the names of former Reichsmarine gunboats rather than being given 'TA' (Torpedoboot Ausland) numbers, the name given to this destroyer does not fit this scheme. The pennant number given in the novel clashes with that of a former Yugoslav navy torpedo boat acquired from the Italians following the Italian surrender in 1943.

Georg Werke (Z-32)
Type 1936A Destroyer
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant matches that of a Type 1936A Destroyer in service between 1942 & 1944. None of the Type 1936A Destroyers were named.

Z-89
Type 1936A Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The Pennant is well outside the range reached for destroyer pennants by the Germans during WWII (The highest was Z-51, assigned to an experimental diesel powered destroyer, designated Type 1942 that was ordered in 1942, but never completed and scrapped post war.), another Type 1936A with an out of range pennant number Z-84 appeared in the authors 2013 novel 'Long Day's Night', one numbered Z-85 appeared in the 2015 novel 'Hoist the Black Pennant'.

Horst
Submarine supply ship (Converted oil tanker)
No other details provided.

U-1250
U-Boat, type not specified
No other details provided
Note: Pennant matches that of a Type IXC/40 U-Boat whose construction was cancelled in 1944.

U-5863
Type VII U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The pennant is well outside the range reached for U-Boats. The highest number assigned was U-4870 assigned to a Type XXI U-Boat that was ordered in November 1944, but cancelled before construction started.

U-6754
Type VII U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The pennant is well outside the range reached for U-Boats. The highest number assigned was U-4870 assigned to a Type XXI U-Boat that was ordered in November 1944, but cancelled before construction started.

Plot summary: The year is 1944, the battleship Tirpitz remains a threat to both northern convoys and the forthcoming landings in Normandy. The men of the 31st Escort Group (aka 'Special Force Orca') are given the job of providing additional eyes on the battleship ahead of a planned carrier strike against it (Operation Tungsten, 3 April 1944.). What they stumble across is a potential threat to the entire operation and find themselves having to act fast to prevent disaster.

 

[Graham1973]

Anthony Molloy, Stemming the Tide, 2015

United Kingdom

HMS Waterloo
Battle Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Flagship 31st Escort Group. The name is that of a Battle Class Destroyer that was broken up on the slips in 1945 without being completed.

HMS Atrebate
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Iceni
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Lugi
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

Note: See the entry for 'Rejoin With All Speed' (2014) for details of the ships listed above's armament, except HMS Waterloo.

HMS Antler (ex-U-491)
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: See the entry for 'Dead Reckoning' (2013) for her backstory. When she first appears in this novel she has been temporarily fitted with two canisters for carrying Chariot type UDVs.

HMS Edward
S-boat
Details as per the real ships

Germany

Tölpel (Eng: 'Gannet')
Type 23 Torpedo Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Historically the Germans only built six of this class of Torpedo Boat, another boat of the same class appears in the authors earlier novel 'Conqueror of the Oceans' (2013).

S-3512
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant is well out of range of those actually assigned to S-Boats.

S-3703
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant is well out of range of those actually assigned to S-Boats.

S-8531
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant is well out of range of those actually assigned to S-Boats.

S-9856
S-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant is well out of range of those actually assigned to S-Boats.

T-22
Type 35 Torpedo Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant clashes with a Type 39 Torpedo Boat in service 1942 - 1944.

? (ex-San Jean de Monts)
Depot Ship
12,000 tons
No other details
Note: Former French Depot ship seized by the Germans after the Fall of France and used as an S-Boat Depot ship. If the Germans have renamed the ship post-capture, that information is not given to the reader.

Plot summary: The year is 1944 (The novel runs between the 24th of April, 1944 and the 18th of May, 1944), with the Tirpitz no longer a full scale threat, the focus of the 31st Escort Groups activities moves south as they work to degrade the capabilities of the German Navies small forces to interfere in the Normandy Landings before moving north again as it becomes vital to obtain information on the V-Weapons program.

 

[Graham1973]

Anthony Molloy, Turn Towards and Engage, 2016

United Kingdom

HMS Waterloo
Battle Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Flagship 31st Escort Group. The name is that of a Battle Class Destroyer that was broken up on the slips in 1945 without being completed.

HMS Atrebate
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Iceni
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Lugi
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

Note: See the entry for 'Rejoin With All Speed' (2014) for details of the ships listed above's armament, except HMS Waterloo.

HMS Antler (ex-U-491)
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: See the entry for 'Dead Reckoning' (2013) for her backstory.

HMS Edward
S-boat
Details as per the real ships

Germany

U-412
Type XB U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIC U-Boat commissioned and sunk in 1942. The Type XB U-Boat in the novel is still extant in June 1944.

U-517
Type VII U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: The pennant number clashes with that of a Type IXC U-Boat that was commissioned and sunk in 1942. The Type VII U-boat in the novel is still extant in June 1944.

U-613
Type VII U-Boat
Note: The pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIC U-Boat commissioned in 1942 and sunk in 1943. The Type VII U-boat in the novel is still extant in June 1944.

Plot summary: For the Men of the 31st Escort Squadron (aka 'Special Force Orca') all the hard work to date is rewarded with more work, the time for deception is over as the Normandy Invasion begins, D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Note: As with the Salerno set books in the series, the author, once the main historical events start, rightly shows that, whatever his heroes do, it is all just part of the bigger picture. Once the landings kick off, the ships of the 31st Escort Group take their place in the gunline off Sword Beach just like any other unit assigned to the landing.

 

[Graham1973]

Kevin Miller, Declared Hostile, 2016

United States

USS Coral Sea (CVN-?)
Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Not explicitly identified as a Nimitz Class, but the details provided match that class of Aircraft Carrier.

USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier
Real ship, details as in service

USS Gettysburg (CG-64)
Ticonderoga Class Cruiser
Real ship, details as in service

USS Independence (LCS-2)
Independence Class Littoral Combat Ship
Real ship, details as in service

USS Max Leslie (DDG-?)
Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships
Note: Equipped with MQ-8B 'Fire Scout' UAVs (Real UAV)

USS Norman Kleiss (DDG-?)
Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships
Note: Equipped with MQ-8B 'Fire Scout' UAVs (Real UAV)

USNS Patuxent (T-AO-201)
Henry J. Kaiser Class Replenishment Oiler
Real ship, details as in service.

Non State

Venezuelan Cartels

Unnamed
Armed Yacht
Length: 100ft
Armament: 1 x 'Blinding Laser' (Output in the 15 to 20 Kilowatt region)
No other details provided

Plot summary: The year is 2013 (While no specific dates are given the events are described as taking place five years after the events of the previous novel.), a seemingly routine exercise turns into all out war, after the Cocaine Cartels, stung by covert US attempts to interdict their smuggling operations call in a few of their 'markers'.

 

[Graham1973]

C.S. Forester, The Ship, 1943

United Kingdom

HMS Artemis
Arethusa Class Cruiser (Modified)
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Armament layout is modified. Standard Arethusa Class Cruisers had a main battery layout A, B & Y. The layout on HMS Artemis is A, B & X. (E.g. the after turret is one deck higher.)

HMS Hera
Arethusa Class Cruiser (Modified)
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Details identical to HMS Artmeis

Italy

Legnano
Littorio Class Battleship
Details as per the real ships
Note: Named after the Battle of Legnano (1176) a victory over the Holy Roman Empire which inspired those who later fought for the unification of Italy.

San Martino
Littorio Class Battleship
Details as per the real ships
Note: Named after the Battle of San Martino (1859), part of the Battle of Solferino.

Plot summary: It is early 1942 (An opening statement refers to the war being "...nearly three years..." old.). The Italian Navy attempts to stop a British convoy from reaching Malta.

 

[Graham1973]

Hammond Innes, Wreckers Must Breathe, 1940

United Kingdom

Various Unnamed warships including destroyers and motor torpedo boats.

Germany

U-15
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IIB U-Boat in service 1936 - 1940

U-21
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IIB U-Boat in service 1936 - 1945

U-24
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IIB U-Boat in service 1936 - 1944

U-27
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIA U-Boat in service 1936 - 1939

U-34
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIA U-Boat in service 1936 - 1943

U-39
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IXA U-Boat in service 1938 - 1940

U-41
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IXA U-Boat in service 1939 - 1940

U-47
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIB U-Boat in service 1938 - 1941

U-54
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat (Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type VIIB U-Boat in service 1939 - 1940

U-62
Type IX (Mod) U-Boat(Fictional)
See below for details
Note: Pennant number clashes with that of a Type IIC U-Boat in service 1939 - 1945

Type IX (Mod) U-Boat
Dimensions: As per the Type IX U-Boats constructed prior to WWII.
Armament: 6 x 21in Torpedoes (4 Forward/2 Aft), 2 x 5.9inch guns (Fore and aft of the conning tower.), 1 x 2 20mm AA mounted on the conning tower.
Crew: 60

Note: From the authors description all the U-Boats above which have their pennant numbers given were not a standard U-Boat Type, but rather a 1930s version of the U-Cruisers of WWI. For simplicities sake I have made use of editorial discretion and assumed that this was a modified version of the Type IX U-Boats built prior to the war, which I have designated Type IX (Mod).

U-30
Type VIIA U-Boat
Real ship, details as in service.
Note: The author does not specifically identify this U-Boat, but states that one of the U-boats mentioned as making use of the base (He indicates that 17 U-Boats in total are making use of this facility.) is the submarine that sank the SS Athenia on the 3rd of September 1939. In the real world this was the U-30 (Type VIIA), under the commanded of Fitz-Julius Lemp. The Germans kept the facts covered up and the truth did not come out until after the war. I have chosen to go with history in this case.

Unnamed
Six U-Boats of unspecified type.
No other details provided.

Unnamed
'Supply' U-Boat
The author anticipated the idea of the Type XIV U-Boat when he mentioned that the Germans use submarines to supply the 'Secret Base'. However there is never a clear description of what he refers to as the 'supply barge'.

The 'Secret Base' (Author never gives it a formal German name.)
Converted Tin Mine (Formerly named 'Wheal Garth')
The original mine closed in 1928 due to a mine collapse. It was purchased by a German front company in March 1937 and over a period of 18 months converted into a U-Boat Base under cover of failed attempt to re-locate the ore body.
Located on the northern Cornish coast near the town of Pendeen. (Note: Pendeen is a real town.)
Has docking facilities for 7 U-boats at a time.
Can accommodate a maximum of 700 men.
Repair facilities include a forge.
Supplies include all materials to support the base proper and re-supply the U-Boats based there.
The base is capable of handling light repairs, in one scene they patch up a U-boat that has survived a ramming attempt by a British destroyer so that it can return to Germany for more permanent repairs.
Access is via an underwater tunnel. This passage from early in the novel describes the basic process: "Right at the bows three men were working to cast off a big cylindrical buoy to which the submarine was moored. The buoy itself was attached to a big chain which ran round a powerful-looking donkey-engine and dropped back into the water. I gathered it was by this chain that the submarine had been dragged through the underwater entrance and guided to the surface."

The connection point outside the base is marked by a buoy designed to look like a fisherman's float. Once the appropriate signal is given by a U-Boat a second buoy containing a telephone connection to the base is released so that the commander can communicate directly with the base. At this point the buoy attached to the donkey-engine is released and attached to the bows of the U-Boat and it can submerge preparatory to being towed into the base. (This summarizes material given in Chapters Three (The Gestapo) and Chapter Four (U-Boat Base) of the novel.)

Plot summary: It is August/September 1939, the earliest days of the Second World War. Reports of U-Boats in the Western Approaches increase dramatically. What is the link to the disappearance of a holidaying reporter who reported a strange event while fishing...?

Note: I have covered one of the authors later novels 'Medusa' (1988) earlier in this thread. This early novel is quite the surprise, regarded as one of the 'big three' Post-WWII British action writers (The others being Alistair MacLean and Desmond Bagley.), in this book he shows his links to the earlier generation of writers. One early edition of the novel compares it to the works of John Buchan and the author name drops Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at one point during the course of the story. To that list I would add the now forgotten author Percy F. Westerman, several of whose stories have been posted to this thread by Hood. I am also surprised this novel was not filmed either in the 1950s or the 1960s, as one reviewer, classifying the work as a 'proto-spyfy' novel, in much the same way that 'The Riddle of The Sands' (1903) is a proto-technothriller, stated that what is found by the heroes is "...certainly worthy of set design by Ken Adam."

 

[Graham1973]

J. C. Carlson & Robert C. Hinz, The Somali Pirate Project: Human Prey in the Gulf of Aden, 2011

United States

USNS Stalwart (T-AGOS-1)
Stalwart Class Ocean Surveillance Ship
Real ship, details as in service (1992 - 2002)
Note: May have been fictionally retained in US service past it's historic end of service date.

USS Shalom (aka SV Shalom)
Q-Ship (Converted Yacht)
Length: 60ft
Propulsion: Sail/Diesel
Crew: 8
Electronics: Military Grade GPS & Communications
Armament: Small Arms (1 x M2 Machine Gun, 1 Mk-19 Automatic Grenade Launcher, 8 x Sig-Sauer P228 handguns, M72 LAW (Anti Tank Rockets) & combat knifes)
Note: CIA Owned, cover registration is Israeli.

Non State

Unnamed
Various Somali Pirate vessels including two former trawlers.

Plot summary: It is the 2000s. There has been a rise in Somali piracy targeting private yachts, following an incident in which the crew of a yacht were executed by pirates, the intelligence agencies of several countries come up with a scheme to send 'Q-ships' (Yachts with operatives onboard.) into the affected area. The novel follows the crew of the ship provided by the US CIA.

Note: The authors do not provide specific dating information, the presence of the USS Stalwart suggests the early 2000s. But as I suspect this story was inspired by the 2011 SY Quest incident which ended in the deaths of the crew of a yacht taken by Somali pirates, it might be set in 2011. I've covered a novel with a similar plotline, 'Chasing Pirates' (2006), earlier in the thread. The main difference between the two is that in the earlier novel, the crew of the yacht are US Navy personnel rather than a team of CIA operatives.

 

[Graham1973]

Raymond Benson (Pen name: David Michaels), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda, 2005

United States

USNS Fisher (T-AKR-301)
Bob Hope Class Vehicle Cargo Ship
Real ship, details as in service.

Mission-Reconfigurable Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (MRUUV)
Prototype UUV
Diameter: 21in (533mm)
Length: 6ft (1.83m)
Weight: 2,800pds (1270.06 kg)
Electronics: Identical to that fitted to the the AN/BLQ-11 UUV.
The guidance system is described as follows: "...operated from it's mother sub and it communicates directly to the mother sub or indirectly via satellite communications with other nodes. The system uses it's mother sub's navigation systems for mission planning and is capable of receiving mission updates from the Global Positioning System."

Note: All mission specific equipment is modular and can be easily swapped for other equipment as needed. Designed to be launched from standard 21inch torpedo tubes. It is stated that the 'Flight I' versions are to be deployed with Virginia Class Submarines.

Covert High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft (CHARC)
Stealth Assault Boat (Class)
Manufacturer: Lockheed-Martin
Crew: Up to 2
Armament: "...Hellfire missiles, twenty-millimeter guns, forty-millimeter grenade launchers and torpedoes. We added drop-mines that will sink to the bottom of the sea and knock out anything in their paths."
Speed: Unspecified but presumably quite high.
Description: "...CHARC is about twelve meters long and consists of two levels of hydroplanes topped by the actual boat. ... The entire thing can be collapsed to fit into a 3.6-by-3.6-by-12-meter box and transported on deck or in a cargo hold. ...a high-speed platform that uses SWATH, or Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull, technology. It's small, stealthy and is plated with bulletproof material."
Note: Stated to have been fitted with equipment to allow it to carry out mine hunting tasks if needed.

China

Mao
Xia (Type 092) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships
Note: The submarine is explicitly identified as such by the author. Three of the ships torpedoes have been replaced with Chinese copies of the MRUUV, one of which has been armed with a stolen Soviet nuke.

Plot summary: It is the early 2000s, investigations into the rumored sale of stolen nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union and Chinese espionage targeting a new piece of naval equipment start to converge.

Note: The novel is from one of a number of 'spin off' series based around properties that author Tom Clancy had leased his name to be used with in the early 2000s. In this case the series, of which this novel is the second, derived from the computer game 'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell' published by Ubisoft between 2002 and 2013.

 

[Graham1973]

Last posting for 2019...

Anthony Molloy, Before First Light, 2016

United Kingdom

HMS Waterloo
Battle Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Succeeds HMS Regni as the flagship of the 31st Escort Group, the name is that of a Battle Class Destroyer that was broken up on the slips in 1945 without being completed.

HMS Iceni
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

HMS Lugi
Tribal Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships

Note: See the entry for 'Rejoin With All Speed' (2014) for details of the ships listed above's armament, except HMS Waterloo.

HMS Antler (ex-U-491)
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: See the entry for 'Dead Reckoning' (2013) for her backstory. Has been fitted with a snorkel.

Germany

U-402
U-Boat, Type not specified
No other details provided
Note: Pennant clashes with that of a Type VIIC U-Boat in service 1941 - 1943. The submarine in the novel is still extant in June 1944.

U-405
U-Boat, Type not specified
No other details provided
Note: Pennant clashes with that of a Type VIIC U-Boat in service 1941 - 1943. The submarine in the novel is still extant in June 1944.

U-463
Type IX U-Boat
Details as per the real ships
Note: Pennant number clashes with a Type XIV U-Boat in service 1942 - 1943. It is towing a submarine barge containing a V-2 Rocket.

R-7986
R Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Pennant is well beyond the highest number reached by the class in WWII, which was R-448, assigned to a unit that was not completed by the wars end.

Unnamed
40 x Type XXI U-Boats
Details as per the real ships
Note: All in various stages of construction at Base Thule

Laura Jesson
Supply ship
Displacement: 12,000 tons
Armament: Machine Guns.
No other details provided.

Non-ship but interesting

Base Thule (AKA Base 211)
Large scale factory complex and dockyard constructed inside an ice cavern in Greenland.
Note: This facility is derived from a story that dates back to 1946, in this tale the Germans had constructed a secret city in Antarctica from whence they would re-emerge to conquer the world. A far more modest version of this base, comprising a submarine pen and associated support facilities built into the Ronne Ice Shelf appears in the 2017 novel 'Ice Fortress' by author Robert B. Williams, which I've covered earlier in this thread.

Plot summary: The D-Day landings have been a success. But a chance discovery points to a new threat to the landings, can it be stopped in time?

 

[Graham1973]

First posting for 2020, and an unexpected one...

Jeff Rovin, Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Divide and Conquer, 2000

Russia

Admiral Lobov
Slava (Pr. 1164) Class Cruiser
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Name is close to that of a real member of the Slava Class. Currently unnamed (ex-Ukrayina, ex-Komsomolets, ex-Admiral Flota Lobov), the ships construction (At the former Nikolaev Shipyard on the Black Sea.) was suspended in 1990 and not resumed as of the date of this post. The ship in the novel forms part of the Russian Caspian Flotilla.

Admiral Chabanenko
Udaloy II (Pr. 1155.1) Class Destroyer
Real ship, details as in service.
Note: Like the ship above this unit forms part of the Russian Caspian Flotilla. In real life it is a member of the Russian Northern Fleet.

Note: The Russian Caspian Flotilla is as the name suggests, based on the landlocked Caspian Sea. In real life it has nothing larger than frigates. For either of the two ships above to have formed part of it, they would have to have been built at one of the ports surrounding the sea.

Plot summary: An Iranian oil production facility on the Caspian Sea has been attacked. Evidence points to a Russian or Azerbaijani source for the attack, but something is not quite right and the team at the Op Center needs to find out the truth fast...

Note: The 'Op-Center' series was one of a number of licensed properties author Tom Clancy created in the late 1990s. I've covered one other novel in the series, 'Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Sea of Fire' (2003) earlier in this thread. Series author Jeff Rovin later tried to create his own action series, the first of which 'Tempest Down' (2004) has also been covered earlier in the thread.

 

[Dilandu]

Note: The Russian Caspian Flotilla is as the name suggests, based on the landlocked Caspian Sea. In real life it has nothing larger than frigates. For either of the two ships above to have formed part of it, they would have to have been built at one of the ports surrounding the sea

Well, purely theoretically, completely unloaded & with bow 20 meters cut off "Chabanenko" may be able to squeeze through Volgo-Donskoy Canal locks...

 

[Graham1973]

Peter Berresford Ellis (Pen name: Peter Tremayne) , Nicor!, 1987

Venezuela

Bolivar
Type 42 Class Destroyer (The Venezuelan class name is not specified.)
Details as per the real ships
Note: Author does not explicitly state this, but the specifics he does give regarding the armament/dimensions fit this class. He does not describe the ship as being a former RN vessel which implies that, like the two members of the class built for Argentina in the 1970s, she is most likely a Batch 1 ship constructed for Venezuela around the same time. Ships helicopter like the British vessels is a Westland Lynx, rather than one of the types of helicopter actually in service with the Venezuelan Navy.

Diego de Losades
Sábalo (Type 209) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.
Note: This would be the third member of the class had she existed. In this case the pennant number (Which the author does not give) would have been S-33. Stated to be '...over twenty years old..." at the time the novel is set.

Plot summary: Something strange is happening near an oil platform off the coast of Venezuela.

Note: While the author does not give a year, the reference to the submarine being '...over twenty years old...' suggests that it is set in the late 1990s, the two Type 209s constructed for Venezuela were built in 1976 & 1977 respectively, suggesting the story is set in either 1998 or 1999 rather than contemporaneous with the date of publication. It is likely that both ships entered service in the late 1970s.

The author under his real name created a well known series of historical murder mysteries, the 'Sister Fidelma ' series. Under the Peter Tremayne pen name he wrote a series of horror and fantasy novels starting in the 1970s with 'Hound of Frankenstein' (1977). This novel was apparently the last of a sub-set of this series, all of which had titles ending in an exclamation mark.

 

[Graham1973]

A return to fiction 'Self-Published on Amazon'...

Gordon A. Kessler, Dead Reckoning, 2001

United States

USS Enterprise (CVN-65)
Enterprise Class Aircraft Carrier
Real ship, details as in service (1961-2012)

USS Spartanburg County (LST-1192)
Newport Class Tank Landing Ship
Real ship, details as in service (1971-1994)

USS Atchison (FF-????)
'Frigate', class not specified, most likely a modified Bronstein Class Frigate, in which case it would be the third member of the class.
Armament: 2 x 3inch Guns, 1 x ASROC Launcher, 6 x 324mm TT, 4 x BGM-109 Tomahawk Missiles (Fantail mounted Box launcher.)
Crew: 217
Engines: Twin steam turbines, driving two screws.
No other details provided.
Note: The ships name does not fit the general rule for destroyers and frigates employed by the US Navy, see my entry for 'Empty Nets & Promises' (2016) for more details.

Plot summary: An investigation into drugs turns up something much more troubling.

Note: The author does not provide specific dating information, but going on the ships used this is probably set in the early 1990s. I'm not that impressed with this story which mixes the Walker Spy Ring with 'Generic Islamic Terrorists', the climax is overly busy and the coda to the story really does not help matters.

 

[Graham1973]

Robert R. McCammon, The Night Boat, 1980

United Kingdom

HMS Hawklin
'Cruiser', class not specified
No other details provided.

Germany

U-198
Type VIIC U-Boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Explicitly identified by the author as a Type VIIC U-Boat. The pennant number clashes with that of a Type IXD U-Boat in service November 1942 - August 1944. The submarine in the novel was lost in March 1942.

Plot summary: A chance find in the Caribbean opens up a mystery dating back to the Second World War.

Note: The author was one of the 'Big Three' in 1980s horror alongside Stephen King & Dean Koontz. His style rapidly evolved away from straight horror towards his own unique take on Gothic horror. This was his third published novel.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Dark Horse Comics, Terminator: Hunters and Killers, 1992

Soviet Union (Originally)
Commonwealth of Independent States (Pre-Judgement Day)
Human Resistance (Post-Judgement Day)

TK-210 Korolev
Typhoon-class (Project 941 Akula) SSBN

Details as per the real vessels, with the exception that it's SLBMs are SS-NX-26s (not to be confused with the SS-N-26 "Strobile" [P-800 Onyx] cruise missile). In our timeline, the SS-NX-26 was a mysterious liquid fuelled SLBM being developed by the Makeyev design bureau during the 1980s/early 1990s, but cancelled with the fall of the Soviet Union. Intended payload was six MIRVs along with pent-aids.

Notes:
In this spin-off from the original Terminator timeline, the Soviet Union collapsed before Judgement Day in a manner similar to our timeline, but with it's initial primary successor state the Commonwealth of Independent States remaining much more intact and centralised than OTL (due in part to the KGB surviving as the 'I.S.A', which in turn backed a successful military coup a few years after the C.I.S's formation). This version of the C.I.S procured from Cyberdyne Systems technology to form the basis of MIR, a software based 'Defense-Grid computer linked to an extensive Strategic Defense Net', in other words it was Skynet's (then non-sentient) Russian counterpart in this timeline. When Skynet launched it's first strike against Russia/C.I.S as part of the opening moves of Judgement Day, MIR automatically launched a full scale retaliatory strike against the United States and it's allies. In the aftermath of Judgement Day, Skynet quickly infiltrated MIR and converted it into a sentient subordinate in the extermination of mankind, albeit with a few built-in safeguards against treachery. MIR acts somewhat in the manner of a feudal vassal to Skynet as it's proxy in the subjugation of the Eastern Hemisphere.

(In a side note, the idea of a software based A.I. was later reused as the basis of Skynet's incarnation as the CRS Skynet Battlefield Management System in 2003's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, set in yet another timeline.)

The Korolev is implied to have been the last Project 941 class submarine built by the old Soviet Union, which would make it TK-210. In-universe, it was apparently named after Sergei Korolev. In our timeline, the TK-210 was scraped incomplete on the ways.

Plot summary: "In the 21st Century, Skynet and its Terminators are on the brink of defeat at the hands of John Connor. Meanwhile, half a world away in the wreckage of the Soviet Union, a second sentient computer network carries out Skynet's deadly mission; when Skynet falls, its comrades will continue the systematic extermination of mankind. And a new breed of infiltration unit has been created to penetrate the Soviet resistance: Terminators copied from real people. They have the same faces, fingerprints, memories, and personalities of their human counterparts, plus "stealth" circuitry that makes them impossible to detect. They could be anywhere. They could be anyone. And no one will know... until it's too late!"

(As you can probably tell, the comic was originally supposed to come out in 1991, but was delayed and hastily revised in an attempt to take into account the fall of the Soviet Union in real life, in the process effectively creating a spin-off timeline.)

EDIT:
I missed one other naval vehicle from the series, a stealthy WIG naval spetsnaz transport (see attachment below). As you can see, it is a wingship rather than a ekranoplan design unlike most Soviet WIG craft. Defensive armament if any not seen in action. It's probable that in the 'original' version of the comic it was a pre-Judgement Day Soviet Navy transport specifically designed for the covert insertion and extraction of naval spetsnaz teams, as well as alternatively other Naval (& GRU) intelligence personnel along with their equipment. At one stage it is referred to as a 'hovercraft', but this could simply be a error resulting from the rushed changes to the comic I that referred to earlier (back in the day Ekranoplans and other WIGs were occasionally referred to as 'hoverships', though somewhat confusingly this term was sometimes also used for hovercraft [usually large ones] as well).

 

[Graham1973]

Dick Shead, June'41, 2018

United Kingdom

HMS Retribution
Revenge (R) Class Battleship
Details as per the real ships
Note: Described as being part of Force Z along with HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse following the events of this story. The name does not clash with any serving Royal Navy ship having last being used for an Apollo Class Cruiser scrapped in 1911.

HMT Abalone
Armed Trawler
Armament: 1 x 4 inch gun (Bow), depth charges, Unspecified cannon mounted aft of the funnel.
No other details provided.

Germany

U-27
Type VII U-boat
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Pennant number clashes with a Type VIIA U-Boat in service 1936 - 1939. The submarine in the novel is extant in 1941. Author Hammond Innes also used this pennant for a fictional U-Boat in his 1940 novel 'Wreckers Must Breathe'.

Unnamed Base
Submarine Pen located on the Venezuelan island of Blanquilla. Has docking facilities for one U-Boat. Implied that following the events of this story, the US Government applied pressure on Venezuela to dismantle the facility.

Plot Summary: It is June 1941, an American pilot working for an air charter firm in the Caribbean finds himself and his friends caught up in intrigue surrounding the passage of a British battleship through the Panama Canal.

 

[Graham1973]

Richard P. Henrick, Cry of the Deep, 1989

United States ('Present Day')

USS Swordfish
Barbel Class Submarine (SS)
Details as per the real ships
Note: Commissioned in 1961, name does not fit the class naming scheme for the Barbel Class (Fish names starting with 'B') and it clashes with a Skate Class Submarine in service 1958 to 1989. This would have been the fourth member of the class had it existed.

USS Turner
Electronics Intelligence Ship
Crew: 210
Length: 455ft
No other details provided.

USS Global Explorer
A fictional version of Howard Hughes Glomar Explorer, details are identical.
The author has a character describe this ship as "...the U.S. Navy's infamous marine salvage vessel..."

San Clemente
Mystic Class Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle
Details as per the real ships.

USS Pegasus (PHM-1)
Pegasus Class Fast Attack Craft
Real ship, details as in service.

USS Pelican
Pigeon Class Submarine Rescue Ship
Details as per the real ships
Carries the DSRV San Clemente
Note: Name clashes with a member of the Osprey Class of Minehunters. This ship is described as one of a class of two vessels specifically designed to work with the DSRVs, meaning that it's a fictional replacement for either USS Pigeon or USS Ortolan.

United Kingdom

Unnamed
Trafalgar Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

Russia (1962)

Kalinin
November (Pr.627) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships
Mentioned in a characters backstory as being part of the force involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia ('Present Day')

Kirov
Alfa (Pr.705) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships
Submarine has been fitted with anechoic tiles to reduce the ships underwater sonar signature.
Note: Name clashes with the lead ship of the Kirov (Pr.1144) Class Battlecruisers.

Caspian
Typhoon (Pr.941) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships
Explicitly described as the fifth member of the class to be completed.

Unnamed
Victor III (Pr.671RTM) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

Plot summary: The year is 1988. As the world moves to the brink of war following the assassination of the Soviet President, the Russians decide to 'up the ante' by sending a Typhoon Class Submarine into the Caribbean. A bold maneuver that ends in disaster when the submarine becomes disabled off the US Virgin Islands. Now the race is on to save the crew...

Note: The author simply states that the story is taking place in the 'Present Day', but at one point mentions that the current captain of USS Swordfish first served on her 26 years earlier during the Cuban Missile Crisis indicating that the 'Present Day' is 1988. Richard Henrick wrote a number of submarine action novels for newsstand paperbacks in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s, shooting to prominence when he was bought in to revise the script to the film 'Crimson Tide' for which he supplied the novelization. I have covered one other novel of his in this thread, 1986s 'The Phoenix Odyssey'.

 

[Graham1973]

Richard P. Henrick, Beneath the Silent Sea, 1988

United States

USS Copperhead
Sturgeon Class Submarine (Short hulled subclass)
'Launched': 1974 (Not clear if author means completed or commissioned), this would make her one of the last members of the class to be completed. However the last 'short hulled' Sturgeon Class, USS Drum (SSN-677) commissioned in 1972.
Details as per the real ships.

Unnamed
Spruance Class Destroyer
Details as per the real ships.

Russia

Baikal
Akula (Pr.971) Class Submarine
Electronics: Fitted with an Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) receiver.
Fitted with an underwater escape capsule.
Details as per the real ships

China

Red Dragon (Chinese: Hong Long)
SSBN, Class not specified
Length: 140m (Note this is 20m longer than the Type 092 and 5m longer than the succeeding Type 094)
Armament: 16 x A7a (Also referred to in the novel as 'A7fl' and 'Xia Class') SLBMs (Each missile carries six MIRV warheads, yield not specified), range is sufficient to reach both US and Russian targets from a mid-Pacific location.
Electronics: Fitted with an Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) receiver.
Note: Described as a design "...loosely based on that of the Soviet Union's Delta I-class boats." It is also stated to be China's first ballistic missile submarine.

Plot summary: It is the 'Day after Tomorrow'. As the Soviet Union and the United States move to sign a nuclear disarmament treaty, a faction in China has come up with a most cunning plan to rewrite the balance of power.

Note: The novels plot-line puts it firmly into the category of Yellow Peril (China). Other novels of this type I've covered in the thread are 'Sunstrike' (1979), 'Sky Masters' (1991), 'By Stealth' (1992) 'Flood Tide' (1997), 'Icefire' (1998), 'Carrier: Joint Operations' (2000), 'China Sea' (2000), 'Two Peasants and a President' (2012), 'White Plague' (2015) and 'Rising Sea' (2018). See the preceding post for a history of the author.

 

[Graham1973]

Richard P. Henrick, When Duty Calls, 1988

Germany (World War II)

U-313
Type XXI
Fitted with a snorkel.
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Pennant clashes with a Type VIIC U-Boat that was commissioned in May of 1943 and which survived the war. At one point in the novel the submarine is referred to as a Type XII U-Boat, however this was a pre-war class of 'fast attack' U-Boats that never got beyond the drawing board.

United States (World War II)

USS Abalone
Gato Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

United States ('Present Day')

USS Stingray
Barbel Class Submarine (SS)
Details as per the real ships
Commissioned: 1959
Note: The name does not fit the class naming scheme for the Barbel Class (Fish names starting with 'B'). Stated to be "...almost thirty years old." in the 'Present Day'. The previous holder of the name was a Salmon Class Submarine that was in service 1938 - 1945.

Russia ('Present Day')

Ivan Komarov
Krivak (Pr.1135) Class Frigate
Details as per the real ships

Dneiper
Whiskey (Pr.613) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.

Pravda
Whiskey (Pr.613) Class Submarine
Commissioned: 1954
Details as per the real ships.

Baikal
Akula (Pr.971) Class Submarine
Details as per the real ships.
Stated that the bow has been "...heavily reinforced..." to allow ramming maneuvers against a US Submarines bow mounted sonars. It's implied this is a standard feature of Akula Class Submarines. Specifically mentioned to be carrying RPK-6 'Vodopad' (eng: Waterfall) torpedo tube launched anti submarine missiles in addition to the weapons normally fitted to the class.
Note: The author uses the same name for an Akula Class Submarine in the novel 'Beneath the Silent Sea' also published in 1988, however the two novels are clearly set in separate fictional 'universes'.

Plot Summary: It is 1988. Evidence emerges that the Soviets have completed testing of a laser based ABM system. With the American 'Star Wars' program still in the development stage, this threat to the balance between the superpowers cannot be left unanswered.

Notes: The year it is set is based on the information given about USS Stingray. The novel is one of several I've covered based on the long running fear that the Soviets had obtained a decisive lead in the development of directed energy weapon based anti-ballistic missile systems. The other novels are, 'Poseidon's Shadow' (1979), 'Flight of the Old Dog' (1987) & 'The Cardinal of the Kremlin' (1988)

For the authors history, see the entry for 'The Phoenix Odyssey' (1986).

 

[Graham1973]

Michael Jahn (Pen name: J. D. Cameron), Omega Sub, 1991

United States

USS Roosevelt
Aircraft Carrier, class not specified
Length: 780ft (238m)
Airgroup includes "...Advanced Harriers and the Sea King and LAMPS helicopters..."
No other details provided.
Note: Author refers to this carrier as being a CVV, this was a 1970s proposal for a conventionally powered Nimitz type carrier that was cancelled at the start of the Regan Administration for building further Nimitz Class Carriers. However the dimension given does not fit that design, which was 912ft long (278m), the competing Sea Control Ship proposal was for a carrier 620ft long (190 m). Tzoli has suggested that the authors may have actually been thinking of a later SCS proposal called the VSTOL Support Ship, whose dimensions are a better fit for those given by the authors than either of the other two ships. (See the Sea Control Ship (SCS) and VSTOL Support Ship (VSS) thread.)

USS John Quevedo (FFG-97)
Oliver Hazzard Perry Class Frigate
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Author does not explicitly state the class name, but gives dimensional details that exactly match a ship of that class.

USS Edders
Oliver Hazzard Perry Class Frigate
Details as per the real ships.

USS Tompkiss
Ticonderoga Class Cruiser
Fitted with "...Mark 2 Aegis Weapons Control System..."
Details as per the real ships
Note: The ships name does not fit the Ticonderoga Class naming scheme, but would fit the Arleigh Burke Class naming scheme. However the author describes this "...Aegis guided missile destroyer..." as having a Spruance Class derived hull which to my knowledge fits the Ticonderoga class better than the Arliegh Burke Class.

USS Liberator
Omega Class Submarine (SSN)
Length: 400ft (122m)
Beam: 37ft (11.3m)
Engine: Nuclear, a Westinghouse "...NCS Superfluid Metal Coolant Reactor..." driving three General Dynamics T7W Turbines connected to a single shaft.
Speed: 40knots (Cruise), 60knots (Flank), not specified if these are surfaced or submerged speeds.
Armament: 4 Torpedo Tubes, 40 x Mk.70 Torpedoes (Described as being "...long range, laser-guided, acoustic homing..." weapons. Range: 27,000yds (24.7km)), 24 x Mk.97N 'Anti-ship missiles' (Nuclear warhead.) (Range: 250mi (402.3km)) 2 x Blue Green Lasers
Electronics: Cyclops, combat display system. It takes all sensory data (radar/sonar/laser ranging/satellite imagery) to generate a 3-D image of the submarines surrounds, this is shown to the helmsman and commander via a holographic display unit.
Crew: 45
Description: "The teal-colored hull of Liberator moved swiftly, almost silently across the calm surface of the Bering Strait. Her lines were gently rounded, like the back of a propoise, and unmarred by ballistic missile tubes. Even the four torpedo tubes and the planes blended into the ship's overall gracefulness." Overall the appearance is apparently somewhat similar to the Soviet Victor class of submarines.
Note: Backstory states that the Omega Class is a successor to a fictional San Diego Class of Submarines. And, that only one unit was completed following a political backlash against nuclear power and military spending following the South American Wars.

Unspecified nation

'Nemesis'
Identical dimensions and specifics to USS Liberator, although the propulsion system appears to be different.
Described as a second Omega Class Submarine that was sold incomplete to a scrapper and thence to 'Greater Germany', its subsequent fate is unclear to the characters at this point in the series.
Note: The name is that given to the submarine by the crew of USS Liberator, her actual name is not revealed until later in the series.

Plot summary: It is the early 21st Century. The United States most advanced submarine surfaces after a test run under the northern polar ice to find the world devastated by nuclear war, seemingly alone, the crew launch a desperate search for survivors.

Notes: This novel is the first in a series of six post-apocalyptic action novels published early 1990s by Avon Books as the 'Omega Sub' series. From what I've been able to learn about the series, it was clearly intended to run longer than the published six volumes with the last one apparently setting up plot threads for future volumes that were never published. One probable reason for this is the authors rather cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear weapons. The other is found at the end of the story where the author includes a brief statement that 'future historians' noted a particular event as being a key one in establishing the world they knew, thus indicating to the reader that no matter what happened in future books the heroes would win.

Like many action novels written during the late 1960s - early 1990s, the story is one that has a 'future of the past' quality. In this case the novels back story includes such things as a military campaign against South American drug lords in which tactical nuclear weapons were used on drug crops, the creation of an AIDS vaccine some time in the late 1990s. German re-unification resulting in the Germans being up to their 'old tricks' again, and a relaxation of gun control laws in the United States under the Quayle Administration in the late 1990s. For those who are not entirely familiar with 1990s US history, Dan Quayle was the United States Vice President during Bush the Elders years as President. Most well known for a series of public gaffes, Quayle lost to Clinton in 1992 and never ran for President again.

Other novels exhibiting this 'future of the past' quality I've covered are 'Seven Days in May' (1962) (Charles W. Bailey II & Fletcher Knebel), 'Thirty-Four East' (1974), 'The Hastings Conspiracy' (1980) (Both by Alfred Coppel), 'The Crash of '79' (1976) (Paul E. Erdman), 'North Star Crusade' (1976) (William Katz), 'Side-Wall' (1982) (David Graham), 'CV' (1985) (Damon Knight), 'The Phoenix Odyssey' (1986) (Richard P. Henrick), 'Rockets' Red Glare' (1988) (Greg Dinallo), 'Debt of Honor' (1994) (Tom Clancy) 'Rites of War' (1998) (Cyn Mobley) and 'End Game', 2011 (Matthew Glass), along with what is probably the most well known 'alternative history' sequence, 'Raise the Titanic' (1976), 'Vixen 03' (1978), 'Night Probe' (1981) & 'Deep Six' (1984) (All by Clive Cussler) which are set in an alternative 1980s (The novels are set between 1987 ('Raise the Titanic') & 1989 ('Deep Six').) with many differences from what actually happened, most notably Canada being absorbed by the United States (Something Cussler quietly dropped in later novels.).

 

[Graham1973]

With thanks to Hood for sorting out a geographical question, we continue this survey of cheap newsstand fiction...

Manning Lee Stokes (Pen name: Ken Stanton), Cold Blue Death, 1970

United States

USS Poseidon
'Nuclear Submarine', class not specified.
Speed: 40kts(Submerged)/??kts(Surfaced)
Has been modified to carry the KRAB internally, when the minisub is deployed it is through a hatch in the underside of the Poseidon.
No other details provided.

Kraft’s Reconnaissance And Base (KRAB)
Minisub
Crew: 1 + 1 passenger
Engine: "...miniature atomic reactor..."
Speed: 50kts (Max) (Submerged speed)
Maximum operating depth: 6mi (9.7km)
Description: "She was jet propelled, built like that most graceful of sea creatures, the manta ray..."
Equipment: "...exterior fangs and claws and legs and arms...", capable of producing "...oxygen from sea water...", also has an "...inertial navigation system..." that "...gave a constant position without need for external observation..." Fitted with a camouflage system that works in a similar way to the one that appears in the film 'Predator'.
Armament: 4 x torpedo tubes (2 forward, 2 aft) fire 'miniature torpedoes', three different guidance systems, thermal, acoustic, magnetic.

Sea Base 1
Underwater habitat.
Located on the seafloor 100ft (30m) beneath the surface of the sea in the Sir Frances Drake Sound, somewhere on a line between between Spanish Town (The one on the island of Virgin Gorda, not the Jamaican Spanish Town) and Ginger Island.
The bases ostensible purpose is similar to that of the other Sea Labs the US operated in the 1960s. The real purpose is to provide a base for a detailed underwater survey of the Caribbean to identify sites for underwater ICBM and ABM installations.

Sea Scout (Class)
1 man battery powered minisub
No other details provided.

For the Rocketry Mavens

In the novel it is noted that Polaris equipped submarines will be refitted to carry a new multi warhead missile named Mars.

Plot summary: The year is 1969. The commander of a US Navy Sea Lab has died in suspicious circumstances. Due to the security implications of this death the US Navies newest organization, the Secret Underwater Service is bought in to investigate.

Note: This novel is the first in an eleven book 'Men's Adventure' series published initially by McFadden Books as the 'Aquanauts' series and then republished by Manor Books, firstly under 'Aquanauts' series title and and later under a revised series title, 'Tiger Shark'. Created by Lyle Kenyon Engel, a 'book producer' also responsible for the 'Nick Carter: Killmaster' James Bond rip-off series that ran from the 1960s to the 1990s, this series built around the concept of a US Navy secret intelligence/commando unit should have been more of a success, but it appears that Engle picked the wrong author. Instead of fast moving action adventure, Stokes produced something more akin to a murder mystery series which suggests that he was either improperly briefed or not properly subject to editorial supervision. The only real highlight of the series was the action artwork used on the covers, which often had little or no connection to the plots contained within.

From research into the US Navy Sealab program it would appear that the death that starts the story is based off that of Navy diver Berry L. Cannon who died while working on Sealab III in 1969.

 

[Graham1973]

Continuing my look into the cheaper end of the action novel market.

Tom Willard, Strike Fighters: Blood River, 1991

United States

Carrier Battle Group 26 (Or as referred to in the third novels opening Carrier Battle Group 'Z'.)

USS Valiant (CVN-85)
Nimitz Class Carrier
Details as per the real ships.
Note: Author explicitly identifies the ship as being of the Nimitz Class. The pennant number which is given in the first novel is well outside the range ultimately assigned to the Nimitz Class and clashes with one assigned to an unbuilt member of the succeeding Gerald R. Ford Class.

Certain refrences in the early novels in the series indicate it was involved in one of the Gulf of Sidra incidents, of which there were three, one in 1981, one in 1986 and one in 1989 (Details provided in the first two novels suggest strongly that it was the last of the three incidents.) as well as an action in the Persian Gulf during 1985. The third novel in the series, provides dating information that suggest both it and the novels that preceeded it are all set in 1989.

USS Larrimore (CGN-??)
Described by the author as an 'Aegis-class nuclear guided missile cruiser'.
No other details.
Note: Most likely this ship would be identical in specifications to the 'Strike Cruiser' (CGN-42) concept that was cancelled in favor of the Ticonderoga Class.

USS California (CGN-36)
California Class Cruiser
Real ship, details as in service (1974 - 1999)

USS Portland (LSD-37)
Anchorage Class Landing Ship Dock
Real ship, details as in service.

For the Aircraft Mavens

Russia

Wolfhound
Stealth Fighter
Armed with a 'particle beam' weapon (also described as a 'laser'), other armament unspecified.
Capable of supersonic speed.
No other details provided.
Note: Described as being "...similar in design to the F-117A stealth fighters..."

Plot Summary: As US forces head to the Persian Gulf to confront Saddam Hussein following the invasion of Kuwait, the 'White Lions' (A fictional version of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.) launches a coup attempt designed to preserve white minority rule in South Africa, with their opponents split by decades of distrust, is there anything that can prevent catastrophe.

Notes: This is the seventh novel in a nine book action novel series about which I've been able to find out little. Published between 1991 and 1992, the series rode the boundary between action novel and techno-thriller. The plotline reflects a real fear that existed at the time that white extremists in South Africa would attempt to prevent any move to end white minority rule by force.

Other novels in the series covered in this thread are 'Strike Fighters' (1990), 'Strike Fighters: Bold Forager' (1990), 'Strike Fighters: War Chariot' (1990) and 'Strike Fighters: Sudden Fury' (1991).