This is the story of world war III and in particular a single destroyer of the Royal navy.
There are no futuristic, or as yet unheard of fantasy weapons. No tactics that is impossible to carry out with warships, submarines, or aircraft.
The war in this book is fought with what is in service now, and with the weapons and sensors as fitted to our ships and aircraft at this point in time, or is due to enter service within the next three to five years.
The tactics of the ships on ASW Operations against the enemy are those that are employed now, and are continuously exercised throughout the NATO Navy's. The men of the navy in this book are not supermen, and they do not possess super abilities whilst listening to sonars, or whilst they man any other sensor for that matter.
This particular story revolves around one ship. HMS Saracen, a ship that had been originally built for export, but before the ship could be delivered its export licence was withdrawn by the government and so Instead of being mothballed she was purchased and retained for the Royal navy who were more than happy with her build as she had been constructed upon the hull of a cancelled type 45 Destroyer and had cost them a fraction of the price of a new type 45. The weapons and sensors that she had been originally fitted with had been purchased from 'off of the shelf,' and were the export versions of various sensors that were presently in service with several navy's. The Royal Navy though immediately changed several items from the export version to those as used within the fleet and she also had a complete Genset replacement and likewise her main engine was changed from Spey Diesels to the MT30 Gas turbine combined with the Advance electric drives, and with her new Thales towed arrays she had become one of the most stealthy and best ASW platforms in the world.
As war began she was in the western approaches carrying out a towed array barrier patrol, and she was summoned back to Devonport where she was ammunitioned and prepared for sea, and within three days she sailed to become part of the escort of the Prince of Wales carrier battle group and their orders were to meet in mid Atlantic a large convoy being shepherded across the Atlantic by two American Carrier Strike Groups as well as nearly every warship on the eastern seaboard of America.
The gathered warships had one task yo preform, and his was to get the convoy of ships through to Europe at all costs, as it was carrying the heavy equipment of nearly five divisions, and failure to get this convoy across the Atlantic could end in defeat for NATO.
They all knew that the Russians were going to throw everything they had at it and so this then is the story of the Saracen and her small part in the war.