(I started a new series recently on this topic. Many of you would be incredulous but I vouch for their factual correctness. All of these are first hand.)
The first one was titled: ‘Facts Stranger Than Fiction – Part I – Mister India And His Ship‘. This was about a Seaward Defence Boat undergoing refit and everyone just forgot about it. The second one was titled: ‘Facts Stranger Than Fiction – Part II – All Cats Are Grey In The Dark‘. This was about some of my course-mates mistaking another tanker at anchorage for my ship INS Aditya when they were invited by me on board. The third one was titled: ‘Facts Stranger Than Fiction – Part III – Huge Mirages At Sea’. This was about a visual encounter between INS Ganga and INS Viraat when both of them were 180 nautical miles apart.
Here is the fourth one. It is about an exercise nearly four decades ago in the Navy that I was part of (circa 1981, that is 37 years ago). The exercise was called Maghreb.
In Arabic, the word Maghreb means ‘the place where the sun sets’ or the West, whilst Mashriq means ‘the place where the sun rises’ or the East. The Maghreb or Maghrib is the name given in pre-modern times by Arab writers on geography and history to the northern part of Africa, that which Europeans often came to call Barbary. In modern usage the Maghreb comprises the political units of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.
Now why would anyone give an exercise a mystical code-name Maghreb? Well, code-names are supposed to be like that; they shouldn’t ever give away what is actually happening.
But the Naval Headquarters authorities who code-named this exercise by this near occult name Maghreb won’t have ever known in advance what would happen during the first phase of the exercise, that is in the forces deployment stage.
Before the exercise, the available platforms of ships, submarines and aircraft were divided into two forces Blue (Friendly forces) and Red (Enemy forces); the colours that represent contenders all over the world and taken from the boxing ring. Neutral umpires were embarked on many of these platforms to decide on casualties during encounters. The Chief Umpire and his team operated from Bombay (now Mumbai). Every encounter between the platforms were to be signalled in a particular format. Based on the tracks of the platforms and other data, the Chief Umpire and his team would then signal Casualty by a pre-defined signal.
Despite all the modern means available such as radar, often ships would like to remain silent so as not to give away passive electronic intelligence to the other force. Even for a layman, it is easy to understand that in a radar (RADAR is actually an acronym that stands for Radio Assisted Detection And Ranging), radio signals have to travel two ways to and from an object for its detection to take place on the radar platform. However, for a passive detection (by another ship with Electronic Warfare equipment), it only has to travel one way. Hence passive detection ranges are anything between one and half to two times the radar ranges. Therefore, the radar ship, being active, loses the surprise element.
So, in the deployment phase of Maghreb, we had these two modern frigates, with (that time) state of art radars and other means, wanting to silently open out from each other and rejoin in wee hours. On one of these the OTC (Officer in Tactical Command; an admiral) Blue force was embarked.
Now, in case you have understood the scenario and the restrictions for both of them being silent on electronic means, the funny part starts. The funny part is somewhat similar to Spy versus Spy in Mad comics. To start with, here is the picture of both the ships about to part on opposite tracks:
They went their ways, silently, cautiously, thinking of enemy lurking in every part of the Arabian Sea, especially since the OTC had already made a signal to all the Blue forces to be extra cautious so that nothing untoward would take place during the initial stage of the war. Within two hours of their opening out from each other, the Naval Headquarters signalled commencement of the hostilities. The OTC patted himself on the back (I know it is not physically possible but in the Navy we do the impossible too) for having had the good sense to have given detailed orders before the commencement of hostilities so that no one would have to break radio and radar silence after that and thus give itself away.
Another two hours and now with their relative speeds away from each other, both the ships were more than a hundred miles apart. Each one had investigated suspicious contacts along the way and had to several alterations of courses to indulge in such investigations. The currents and winds played their parts too.
At the pre-planned time, they reversed courses so as to affect a rendezvous (RV) between the two. Lookouts with powerful binoculars had been placed on both the ships to scan the horizon all around. As Asrani would say in the movie Sholay: Hamari jail mein patta bhi pankh nahin fadfada sakta (Even a bird can’t flutter its wings in my jail). For the purpose of the remaining narrative, lets call them OTC Ship and Other Ship.
After about three hours of steaming (the world sleeps but we the guardians of the seas are forever vigilant), the Other Ship Lookout sighted a silhouette on the horizon and reported to Bridge: Bridge, Port Lookout, Red 20, a darkened ship on the horizon. The Bridge of Other Ship suddenly came into action. Action Stations were sounded and all sensors and weapons were manned. A similar scenario took place on OTC Ship too.
It occurred to both the ships that this could be friendly force. There was only one way to find out; which was to challenge the ship with a predetermined code on flashing light and receive either friendly reply or else.
Now, on the OTC Ship, the OOW (Officer of the Watch) of the First Watch (2000 hrs (8 PM) to midnight) hadn’t handed over these Challenges and Replies Codes and Replies to the OOW of the Middle Watch (Midnight to 0400 hrs (4 AM)). Hence, when the Other Ship visually challenged the OTC Ship with the Light as shown above, the OTC Ship’s OOW suddenly realised that he didn’t have the appropriate Reply Code to signal back. He sent for the First Watch OOW who had gone to sleep.
The delay in the challenged ship replying confirmed the suspicion of the Other Ship that this was indeed an enemy ship. To be on the safe side, she made another challenge on the Signalling Projector and still didn’t receive a reply. She remembered all the Principles of War and seized the moment and fired her Ship to Ship Missile at the ‘Enemy Ship‘ and then signalled Maghreb’s first encounter, within four hours of commencement of hostilities to the Chief Umpire.
You would recall Rudyard Kipling’s famous:
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;”
In this case, it wasn’t even Mashriq meeting Maghreb; but, the Other Ship, that night, successfully fired at his own OTC and nearly sank him. Blue OTC’s Ship was the first casualty of war in Maghreb and after quickly analysing the tracks and getting inputs from umpires on both the ships, OTC’s Ship was declared out of the exercise.
When I was at the Naval Academy, many years ago, I had done a small parody during one of the outdoor camps in which the Passwords and Responses of Friendly and Enemy Forces happened to be the same (as a coincidence) one night and two soldiers encountered each other with comical consequences as a result of this.
Little did I know that my parody would actually come true at sea with equally comical but results with far more enormity.
