[AAR] So Far, So Good - A Soviet Sub in the Arctic

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by ReallyDedPoet

Nice work here

Thank you and glad you're enjoying it

More soon

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Thank you and glad you're enjoying it

More soon

Look forward to it.

[CCIP]

Q: Did you leave the straits after that?

Actually, you would think that would be logical, but that would mean going back to where we had just been detected and where we knew the convoy and its escorts headed. I decided to instead go all the way through Soroysund and exit on the west side. This proved to be a good decision, because around 6:30 the next morning, we ran into an unescorted merchant vessel flying the German flag, silhouetted cleanly against the cliffs on the island of Stjernoya.



This time our position was perfect and I fired just two torpedoes at his port side. The first missed, but the second struck dead center. The ship - which I estimated to be about 4.5 thousand tons - blew up in a series of large explosions, which I figured were caused by ammunition it was carrying on board. Once again, it was satisfying to take out a target of such military value, knowing that we were helping our soldiers fighting on the front near Murmansk.





We then stayed submerged; we did run into another convoy entering Soroysund from the west late that afternoon, but were not in a good position to attack it. So we kept moving away. On our way out, we also observed a pair of German mine warfare ships passing by and heading out to do their business off the islands of Soroya and Stjernoya, which I took as a response to our sinkings here. I think it was quite obvious to the Germans by then that this was not a safe shipping lane and they needed to do something.



Q: But you were gone by the time they could react?

Not quite. We headed north into open waters right away, but the next day, the 31st of August, planes came after us. We had a close call with a large German seaplane some 200km off the coast. After that, weather started deteriorating a bit, and we headed towards the coast further to the south of our previous patrol area. We spent the evening of the 1st of September dodging a small patrol ship, and in the early hours of September 2nd we saw a transport.



Q: Another German sunk, then?

Norwegian. He might have seen us, or just been alerted as he was making frequent zig-zags, but nevertheless we managed to get into a firing position. Unfortunately, from here things did not go our way. We fired two torpedoes at it in our initial attack; one missed, the other ran under the hull of this fairly small ship without hitting it. At this point we had only 1 torpedo left in the forward and 1 in the aft tubes. I ordered depth settings adjusted and tried again before the Norwegian got away, but with the same result - one missed, one ran too deep.



Cursing the weather - which prevented us from surfacing and using guns to dispatch the ship - I was still not willing to give it up. We crept behind the ship and surfaced once he got far enough; and until 7 in the morning, as the sun kept rising, we followed at 9-10km distance in his wake, hoping the weather would eventually make it possible for us to gun him down.

To be continued...

[CCIP]

Q: Did something force you to stop the pursuit?

Oh, another air attack. Inevitably - and we pretty much expected it - two Messerschmitt fighters arrived from beyond Soroy island on the horizon (we wound up near it again after chasing the merchant on its northeastern course), attacking very aggressively with machinegun fire and bombs. We grudgingly gave up the chase, got ourselves closer to the coast underwater, and bottomed the boat until evening to save battery power.







Q: Did you head home after you ran out of torpedoes?

Yes, there was little else for us to do. We took a heading to the northeast, following the coast at 20-25km distance to report any traffic we ran into. The weather improved, but planes kept showing up, so we ran at a reduced freeboard and frequently went under. In the evening of the 3rd of September, we left our patrol area after nearly 2 weeks of non-stop patrolling.



Q: Any further contacts that you encountered, or was it a quiet way home?

We saw a couple of patrol ships which we didn’t approach, and a Norwegian fishing boat we spotted in very rough seas, so we did not attack him either. There was a warship mast that we saw over the horizon near cape Sletnes, which was moving fast - we figured it to be a destroyer and reported it by radio. But not much beyond that.



The most noise was on the radio. Those were some of the tensest days of the war - the Germans completely surrounded our forces in Estonia and forced our naval base at Tallinn to be evacuated; they broke through at Kingisepp towards Leningrad; and by September 5th Kiev was surrounded in the Ukraine as well. But as I said many times before, we stayed confident in our ability to eventually stop the Germans. We just didn’t know when and how.



We did have one last action during that patrol, though.

To be continued...

[Torplexed]

Quite possibly the most ambitious and meticulously done AAR I've ever seen on this forum. Especially considering that the Red Navy's war under the waves is a rather obscure topic for most of us.

I give this AAR five red stars.

[CCIP]

Thank you Torplexed, very honoured and glad you're enjoying it

One thing you might be able to tell from this AAR is that while playing/writing it, I've also been learning and researching Soviet submarine history which I didn't know very much about before, especially not about the Northern Fleet. Last time I learned anything substantial about it was around the time I visited the real D-2 nearly a decade ago. And I figure it's more fun if I share it on Subsim rather than keep it all to myself

I'm about a full patrol ahead of the posted AAR, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to cover the whole career in this one

[CCIP]

Q: What was your last action? Another air attack?

No, actually. In the morning of the 6th of September, as we were getting near our base, we decided to drop by the German-held anchorage at Varde - not to sink anything, just for reconaissance. We went in with decks awash got to within a few kilometers, observing quite a number of ships at dock there. But eventually they saw us and started firing on us - three patrol ships immediately headed in our direction.






Not wanting to be trapped and depth charged in coastal waters again, I ordered tanks blown and diesel engines to best speed ahead. We managed some 15-16kt on the surface, which was enough to outpace the armed trawlers and other auxiliary craft that Germans threw at us. They gave up the chase after only 25 minutes, at which point we again pre-flooded some of our tanks and proceeded away with caution. Sure enough, less than an hour later an airplane showed up, but we dived before they could spot us.





In the evening, we surfaced, sent our reconnaissance report to fleet, and took a final heading to port.



Q: What greeted you on arrival?

Well, when we got into Polyarnyi that afternoon, which was the 7th of September 1941, the first thing we did was announce our arrival with three shots from our “sotka” [100mm cannon] - one for each ship sunk, as per division commander Gadzhiev’s orders. That felt good!





And another new tradition awaited us when we docked. The greeting party, already alerted about our successes in advance, brought out three roasted pigs on trays - one for each German ship sunk. If that doesn’t make you want to sink more Germans during wartime, I don’t know what will!





(map of the 2nd patrol of the D-2 "Narodnovolets", August-September 1941)

To be continued...