View Full Version : [AAR] So Far, So Good - A Soviet Sub in the Arctic
PREFACE
Hi folks,
I wanted to start an AAR series, with something a little different from the usual!
Some of you may have heard of the Baltic mod for SH4, which eventually developed into a full Soviet campaign mod called "Советский Фарватер" ["Sovetskiy Farvater" - usually translated as "Soviet Fairway" or "Soviet Waterway", but more accurately "Soviet Waters"].
You can find more information about it here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159888
http://i.imgur.com/greHqZK.jpg
Unfortunately, the mod does not have an English version at the moment. However, since Russian is my native language, I thought I'd at least share some of my experience with the non-Russian speakers on this forum so you can see what the experience of commanding a Russian WWII is like.
By the way, the mod itself is excellent! :up:
A few years ago, I also posted pictures of my visit to the Soviet submarine D-2 "Narodnovolets", the world's oldest war veteran sub still intact as a museum (built in 1927-29, it served successfully in WWII, sank ships, and survived all of its patrols).
You can find my pictures from that visit here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=124914
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p301/myspb2006/PICT0011-4.jpg
Now, the real D-2 was originally part of the Soviet Northern Fleet, based on Russia's northern coast, but in early 1941 it was undergoing a major refit back in Leningrad on the Baltic. It was scheduled to rejoin the Northern Fleet in May 1941, but maintenance schedules slipped and it was caught up in Leningrad when the war started, and remained there, serving in the Baltic during the war instead.
For this AAR, however, I decided to play out a what-if story - assuming that the D-2 did in fact leave the Baltic on schedule, and was part of the Northern Fleet during World War II.
http://i.imgur.com/MyvI93H.jpg
The AAR will be written as an in-character interview, conducted after the war with the D-2's (fictional) commander, Nikolai Korobkov. There's obviously a bit of fiction and historical fact there besides the gameplay, which I thought would be fun to add.
So, without further ado, the story follows in the rest of the thread. Enjoy!
So Far, So Good
A Soviet Sub in the Arctic
The First Patrol
http://i.imgur.com/eGtf2dI.jpg
Q: What did you do during the war?
I was the commander of the submarine D-2, “Narodnovolets”, with the Northern Fleet.
http://i.imgur.com/1zVyqaJ.jpg
Q: How did you become a submarine commander?
The usual way. I graduated from the Frunze Institute [naval academy] in Leningrad in 1937, and then took up submarine training. I sailed on the Pravda and Iskra [large training submarines] in the Baltic, then served as starpom [first officer] on the Sch-402 in the Northern Fleet. Then in 1940 I got my first command, that was a harbour guard ship called “Tuman” ["Fog"] in Murmansk - a sturdy little boat, not a submarine of course.
http://i.imgur.com/0kBWfeF.jpg
I thought I would stay on the “Tuman” for some time from there, and then they would assign me one of our small submarines, an M-class “Baby” or something of the sort. And then imagine - one day I get called in to the fleet HQ and they say to me - “Korobkov, you are going to Leningrad to get the Narodnovolets and you will take her up the Belomor [Baltic-White Sea Canal] and join the 1st Division of Submarines here in Polyarnyi. You’ll leave Leningrad no later than 17th of May. That is your new command.”
http://i.imgur.com/XSmiv7g.jpg
Now, I was surprised of course - the “Narodnovolets” is not a small boat, and it’s a boat with a service record, and a good one. She was the Northern Fleet’s oldest boat. It was rumoured that she already had a commander and a crew assigned, and then they were removed from command at the last moment for some reason - you know how things were back then. Then again, the boat was at the end of a two-year-long capital refit at the time in any case, so it could’ve been just a rumour. We didn’t ask. Me and a few of the other officers from the Northern Fleet just went to the Baltic Works in Leningrad at the end of April, and there she was at the pier.
D-2 “Narodnovolets”* , Dekabrist* (D-I) class
Medium multirole submarine of the Soviet fleet
Double hull construction; twin diesels (direct drive propulsion), twin electric motors, twin screws, single rudder, fore and aft dive planes.
Displacement: 933t surfaced, 1354t submerged
Armament: 8 torpedo tubes (6 fore, 2 aft); 14 torpedoes carried (8 in tubes + 6 reloads for forward tubes; aft tubes can only be reloaded in port)
Single 100mm B-24-PL deck cannon on forward deck, single 45mm 21-K AA gun on conning tower (in 1941 configuration - originally built with larger conning tower mounting different guns)
Speeds: 14kt surfaced, 9kt submerged
Diving depth: 75m rated, 90m maximum (during one incident, D-2 is known to have uncontrollably dived to 125m without substantial damage)
Crew: 53.
Designed for 40-day patrol duration without resupply. Equipped with advanced survival and escape gear.
(*all submarines in this class, the first Soviet-designed underwater vessels, were named after historical revolutionary movements. The name ship of the class Dekabrist was named after the Decembrist uprising of the early 19th century; Narodnovolets was named after “Narodnaya Volya” (“Will of the People”), an anarchist radical group of the later 19th century)
History:
Built during 1927-1929, at the Baltic Works in Leningrad
Commissioned the the Soviet Navy’s Baltic Fleet in 1931 as “Narodnovolets”
Transferred to the Northern Fleet via the White Sea Canal in 1933
Received designation number D-2 in 1934
Throughout its pre-war career, participated in numerous expeditions and equipment experiments to assist with exploration of the arctic, and improving living conditions for submarine crew
Returned to Leningrad in September 1939 for substantial rebuild - new conning tower, weapons, and equipment installed
Scheduled to leave Leningrad by May 17th, 1941, and rejoin the Northern Fleet
Historical note: D-2 did not in fact leave Leningrad, and was caught up in the Baltic as the war started. It had remained in the Baltic Fleet ever since, serving as a static crew trainer from the 1950s until the 1980s, and survives today as a museum ship. It is the oldest surviving war veteran submarine in existence (with the possible exception of the CSS Hunley, however unlike the Hunley the D-2 returned from all of its patrols intact). It fired 19 torpedoes in 17 attacks during 4 war patrols, and is known to have sunk one German ship during its career, and severely damaged another.
This is an alternate story that assumes that the D-2 left Leningrad on schedule, and rejoined the Northern Fleet in the Soviet arctic.
http://i.imgur.com/X8bStxW.jpg
Q: What did you think of the submarine?
We all thought she was outstanding. Now, you might think that it being a Series I sub, that is the oldest submarines of Soviet production, there would be griping about how it’s old and obsolete, but about our sub there was none. As far as we were concerned, this was a ship that had just finished a complete modernization, had some very progressive equipment installed, brand new guns, brand new rubka [conning tower/deck house], all machinery in good shape. It even smelled freshly-painted.
http://i.imgur.com/9i6ZnmM.jpg
We knew the series had its flaws of course. Her sister, the D-1 “Dekabrist”, was lost without a trace November. It was probably something mechanical. That affected all of us, because all of the Northern Fleet had comrades and friends on that boat. But we didn’t let it get to us too much. More importantly, it was also a better sub to live in than most - relatively, of course. She held a steady ride with a heavy keel, and had a good amount of living space. The working spaces - diesels, command room, compass room - were very crowded, but not more so than in other boats. The aft room with the electric motors and two torpedo tubes was fully livable.
http://i.imgur.com/Xxe9kE4.jpg
Q: When did you first sail on her?
In early May 1941, right after the 1st of May celebrations. The boat was already working up before us and some of the crew had already been with her for weeks, including the chief mechanic and the B.Ch-5 commander [chief engineer]. We took her out briefly for some shakedown tests in the Gulf of Finland and everything went well. We signed off on the factory papers, set off up the Belomor waterway, and by the end of the month we were in Murmansk. There, we had to get her to combat readiness, and we determined that we want to meet the readiness milestones as soon as possible. We did a pair of three-day training cruises and drills, and then we began a 2-week stay in port, while the sub was outfitted with its combat load.
http://i.imgur.com/SnJ1N9W.jpg
The division command helped us along in meeting the milestones and getting us the best technical and personnel support. We were one sub short after the loss of the Dekabrist, so it was just us and our sister ship D-3 Krasnogvardeyets (“Red Guardian”) in the division, and the D-3 was scheduled for an overhaul before the end of June. So there was an order - we have to be a combat unit by the end of June. They wanted the division to be known for good performance, not the lost of D-1.
http://i.imgur.com/KSmLd9B.jpg
We also had a very keen politruk [political comissar, communist party representative] on board, I remember him well - Khokhryakov was his last name, very funny-sounding. It sounded like a name for something very short, fuzzy and grumpy. Sure enough, when he arrived on the boat, he was short, hairy, and very grumpy - but a good man. He gave some of the men a hard time but as a commanding officer I never had difficulties with him. A good politruk was a good man to have on board, especially once the war started.
http://i.imgur.com/uvuryG3.jpg
Q. How did your first war patrol begin?
Well, we didn’t really think war was coming, we were very busy in all the details of getting to sea. We had a sailing date of 21st of June for our full battle readiness exercise - basically a mock patrol, full combat load, lots of drills. We had a couple of extra men on board from the division technical staff to keep notes. If everything went well, we planned to be out for 2 weeks at least and to make a stop at Novaya Zemlya.
http://i.imgur.com/j3xF3B4.jpg
Now, the night of 21st-22nd of June for us back then only meant one thing - brightest night of the year. We were in the arctic, of course, and well north of the Polar Circle, which meant that during our cruise we’d see constant sunlight. That made certain things easier for training, and the weather forecast was excellent too.
http://i.imgur.com/pSi6uEu.jpg
Nobody thought of war the day we sailed. We left just before noon. I tried to pick out my old ship Tuman on the way out of port, but didn’t find it. There were some new ships that recently arrived, warming up in the Kola Bay - so we got to watch them as well. D-3 just returned from exercises at Motka Bay and their crew was waving at us from the dock as we left. When we got to sea, we had a great dinner cooked up from fresh supplies - submarines always had good provisions - and the gramophone was playing, records all picked out by the politruk of course. We got to our patrol station by 10pm, did a trim dive, then a motor calibration and some maneuver checks, and then I went to bed and left my starpom [first officer] Malyshev in command.
http://i.imgur.com/heBsClv.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/37YhJVt.jpg
Q: How did you find out about the war starting?
Well, actually we knew about the situation quite early. I barely slept that night, because about half an hour past midnight, on June 22nd, the radio man woke me up. I went to check what’s going on, and sure enough, there was a message from fleet for us. It was a rather timely warning - there’s always talk of how nobody knew anything that day, that it was confusion and chaos, but it wasn’t anything like that for us. Maybe Americans had that at Pearl Harbour later the same year, but for us, we had a solid 4 hours warning. What we got was:
“DIRECTIVE 1
During the period of 22-23 June, there is possibility of sudden hostile actions from Germany. These may begin with provocations. All units to remain on present station and assume immediate state of combat readiness. All further operations suspended. No further actions are to be undertaken without special permission.”
http://i.imgur.com/wTIYVcW.jpg
I went and woke the politruk, and we briefly talked about what to do. We took the directive quite seriously and I immediately pulled out our standing orders and operating procedure, and we went over what to do in case war breaks out. Since there was no direct instructions for us, we decided to remain on station, surfaced, listening to the radio carefully, and continue with drills unless instructed otherwise. We could have turned around and gone to port but we figured if something was indeed going on, then sailing at sea with a full load of torpedoes is where command would have wanted us to be.
http://i.imgur.com/Qi7BxLs.jpg
I’d gone to the radio shack again and ordered all ears. There was some chatter on KBF’s [Baltic Fleet’s] and Black Sea Fleet’s frequencies for the first couple of hours, but we did not have the code to some of it. Civil radio was silent that time of night. I gave the men an update on the situation, put the watch on highest alert, but otherwise nobody made a fuss and everything continued as normal.
Then about half past 4 in the night, we got a direct message from division, repeated also by Fleet HQ:
“Due to an attack by German military forces on our country, as of 4:00 on 22nd June 1941 we are in a state of war with Germany. All German ships now subject to immediate attack.”
And that was how we found out.
http://i.imgur.com/1TO0jae.jpg
Q: What was your reaction like? What did the men on the boat say?
Nobody said much, we had a lot of work to do, and there were procedures in place for exactly what a submarine does when a war breaks out. I don’t remember any strong reactions. We only had a few lines of text to go by and our standard operating procedures, but nothing else to act on yet. There was mostly silence on our radio for the next hour and a half, which was making everyone a bit nervous. Finally at 6 in the morning, as usual, the civil radio went live. Anthem for 2 minutes, then a brief from SovInformBureau:
“Today at 4 o’clock in the morning, 22nd of June 1941, without a declaration of war the German forces invaded our country, attacking our border from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, and bombed our cities including Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and others. Strikes by hostile airplanes and artillery were also carried out from the territories of Romania and Finland.”
http://i.imgur.com/ma4OwCD.jpg
The strongest reactions I saw were some nervous sighs, shaking heads, muttering something, that’s about it. I went up on the deck for a cigarette with the starpom after the news brief finished. Got called back 4 minutes later - we were finally starting to get our first instructions, although the first order of the day was: “Swedish and Finnish ships to be considered neutral. Any attacks against them prohibited. Avoid contact and detection by any Finnish and Swedish units.”
From about there there was a torrent of traffic on the radio. We knew the air and ground forces were mobilizing. We knew that strikes and counterattacks were ordered, and were hoping they were going well. But where we were, so far it was nothing but sun, waves, and seagulls. At 10 in the morning, we got a reassuring note from Northern Fleet HQ: “Central command has initiated deployment of submarines of the Red Banner Baltic, Black Sea, and Pacific Fleets for actions against enemy shipping.” We took that as “you stand by for orders next.”
http://i.imgur.com/UdjGsLq.jpg
The only noticeable lack of reaction that I recall was from the government in those first hours. It wasn’t until 12 when Molotov was finally on the radio - that got everybody’s attention, because we finally had some details about what was happening, and it didn’t sound good. The foreign minister said that there were reports of up to 200 killed in cities throughout the south of the country, in attacks starting from 4 in the morning; that the German ambassador in Moscow presented declaration of war to to him only at 5:30. The Germans falsely accused our army of concentrating on their border and trying to attack them - even though they never made any complaints to Moscow about that before.
http://i.imgur.com/ILjlyrL.jpg
Molotov went on to say:
“Now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already occurred, the Soviet government has issued an order to all our forces - to defeat the treacherous invasion and chase German forces from the territory of our Motherland… Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. Victory will be ours.”
That got some muted cheers on the boat, but a lot of faces looked lost. The politruk immediately disappeared - re-emerging with his full kit for making posters and the stengazeta [“wall gazette”, news and events bulletin posted on a wall], and got to work making posters posters with the last 3 phrases from Molotov’s speech, plastering them everywhere within an hour. Well, not everywhere. He actually saved some of the prime spots on the boat, because he figured Stalin was going to get on air soon and deliver a better slogan for an even better poster - but Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin] never went on air that day. So “Our cause is just! The enemy will be beaten! Victory will be ours!” was our battle cry, then.
http://i.imgur.com/MxTW41b.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/SXK1ts5.jpg
Q: What happened then? Did you get your orders?
Yes, I recall it was just before 4 in the afternoon. We got instructions to proceed to patrol position No.3 and intercept any German traffic, which was in a wide sector off the shore of occupied Norway, between the capes Nordkapp and Nordkin. We put our engines into normal ahead and headed there at about 12 knots, surfaced. Except for regular trim checks, we figured it was pointless to submerge - it was the brightest day of the year in the Arctic, and there was no good time for being surfaced, which we needed to be most of the time to keep our accumulators charged. At night we’d be silhouetted against northern horizon, so our best bet was to keep just out of sight of shore and move to our patrol area.
http://i.imgur.com/5AuS7J6.jpg
Weather kept up being good - sunny and with temperatures of 15-20 degrees. It really did not feel like war weather. It did seem unreal those first couple of days, but just before midnight on the 24th of June, we’d made it to our patrol area and assumed our daylight patrol routine.
http://i.imgur.com/fXgqGOZ.jpg
[B]Q: What was the patrol routine like?
Well, there was a lot of back and forth. For the first day or so, I decided to stay in the north of our patrol sector, away from the coast. Our patrol area covered the exits from Porsanger-fjord and Lakse-fjord, and extended about 200km off shore. So we went to that northern part, because I wanted us to have some time to complete the rest of our drills in relatively safe waters, and make sure the boat was as tight as it could be.
So we basically sailed on the surface, at about 9kt which was our slow ahead speed, making frequent course changes (to avoid German submarines) and regular dives for acoustic sweeps, and occasional emergency drills. The boat was not a quick diver. It always took about two and a half minutes to get under in a normal dive, and we never got it below a minute-something in an emergency dive. The problem was that the dive planes were high and the ballast tanks were fairly big, so until the planes got under water, it would just bob like a cork while the tanks flooded.
http://i.imgur.com/DbeGhAV.jpg
But once under, the submarine changed depth relatively quickly. Its main weakness underwater was keeping trim - it had a very finicky trim tank system that had to be operated all by hand valves, some in different compartments; and it turned rather sluggishly compared to some of the newer double-rudder boats. We only had a single rudder, and two screws. Besides that, it was quick underwater and once stabilized, dives were easy.
http://i.imgur.com/gDTiKMA.jpg
On patrol we had a very regular routine, the usual watch rotation every 8 hours, and we had to be ready to pull the plug the moment we saw something. But we didn’t see anything on that first day, and by afternoon on the 25th of June, I felt confident enough with our readiness to move closer inshore.
http://i.imgur.com/2m0ICtx.jpg
Q: When did you make first contact?
Just after 6 in the evening on June 25th. We were at the mouth of Lakse-fjord, just out of sight of shore (there was a bit of light mist in the air then), and the watch called out a ship far off our starboard. It took a good 2 minutes to flood the tanks and submerge. We got under, and sure enough, it wasn’t a false alarm - that was a fishing boat, some 6km away. We watched him sail off northeast, passing maybe 5km from us, and then surfaced after about an hour.
http://i.imgur.com/w1RfipD.jpg
Q: Why did you not try to attack them?
There was a bit of a swell and the guns would have been difficult to use, and an 80-ton fishing boat is no torpedo target. Besides, at the time, I had reservations about attacking mere Norwegian fishermen - eternal neighbours to anyone serving in the Northern Fleet. So we let them sail on, and headed off in the opposite direction, towards Nordkapp.
http://i.imgur.com/oiDdxhx.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/fRFhuqo.jpg
Q: What did you find at Nordkapp?
At first, just rougher seas. We got there by next morning and there was a really high swell with white caps by then, which was rocking the boat pretty firmly. We’d got to within sight of the coast, and then turned back around - and then suddenly, just after 7 in the morning, the watch calls out a contact on our port quarter. We dive, slowly as usual; about 5 minutes later I raise the scope and observe a small ship to our north.
http://i.imgur.com/NpNDY0I.jpg
Now, there was something pretty strange about that whole situation, and we still haven’t quite figured out what they were doing. The ship was sitting there, not moving, and making a fair bit of greasy smoke; we thought at first they were on fire, but I’m not so sure. I’d thought at the time that it was hit by an air strike, but that was some 800km from the nearest friendly aerodrome, and nothing turned up in our side’s records. On the other hand, after the war, not much turned up about it in the German records either.
http://i.imgur.com/RiVaqGs.jpg
Regardless, they sat there, drifting at 1-2 knots maybe. It was this small motor vessel - something like an ocean-going tug. At first I thought it was flying a Norwegian flag, but eventually I made out guns and a German marine flag. I remember that this boat reminded me of my own previous ship, the harbor guard Tuman - just like it. It looked a bit down by the bow, but there wasn’t any sign that it was in distress. They may have been stopped for a rescue, or laying mines, I’m not sure. I had a bit of a lump in my throat approaching it, but as they say, war is war.
http://i.imgur.com/zOsoTI9.jpg
Q: Did you sink this patrol ship?
By about 7:45, we reached an attack position just off his starboard beam. We couldn’t really hear much on the acoustics, but it looked like his motors were on and he was still puffing smoke. I ordered a torpedo set to as shallow as we could for the weather, which was about 3m depth, and opened the first tube. A minute later, we lined up our bow with his, I ordered “1 Apparat, pli!” [“Tube 1, fire!”], and the torpedo was on the way. I lowered the scope immediately; 40 seconds later, we heard an explosion, followed by a lot of secondaries. I raised up our scope, and only caught sight of the boat going down by the bow.
http://i.imgur.com/mKeKcNn.jpg
I stayed up at scope depth for about 5 minutes, saw some debris and possibly also some bodies floating around, and ordered 40m depth. We stayed down for the rest of the day, and I ordered the boat to move closer inshore to elude any searches for it. There weren’t any as far as we could tell, but we stayed down for a full 12 hours just in case.
http://i.imgur.com/kauUBGU.jpg
Q: You didn’t try to get on the surface and rescue or capture some of the Germans?
That was not the right weather for it, and we were not the right vessel for that job. War is war, as they say.
Q: Did you know the identity of the ship you sank?
At the time, no. I was able to identify it later though, it was what the Germans call a Vorpostenboot - so, a guard ship very much like my Tuman, listed at 885 gross tonnage. I thought of it a lot afterwards, I suppose it was fate. But we’d soon forgotten about it, because that was not the last ship we were to sink.
http://i.imgur.com/0Yx4oyV.jpg
To be continued...
Pigboatcook
03-31-15, 09:01 AM
Well done, comrade!
Удачной охоты!
Sailor Steve
03-31-15, 10:15 AM
Cool! Great story. :sunny:
Thanks folks :salute:
One more before work today...
http://i.imgur.com/kT23NMY.jpg
Q: What was your next encounter like?
Well, it didn’t happen right away. First we had to get clear of the area and recharge our batteries, which were some 60% drained by the time we surfaced. That took a while - until 10:45 the following morning, so that’s 15 hours from surfacing. We headed north in the meantime, with nighttime mists on the surface probably helping us out - I wasn’t sure if someone was looking for us, but nobody found us.
Once our batteries were recharged, we broke radio silence to raise HQ with the report of sinking, asking for further orders. They’d replied very matter-of-factly, leaving further actions to our discretion. So we sat down together with my starpom [first officer], the politruk [political commissar], and the shturman [navigator], and looked at the maps for a while. We decided to stay in our present patrol station, No 3, for a few more days to observe and report on what the Germans and Norwegians do here.
Now, the Germans at the time were running a fair bit of traffic up and down Norway’s coast; there was iron and nickel ore they were getting from northern Norway and Finland, where road transport was virtually non-existent. Our fleet had been observing that traffic for a while before the war started, so we knew that. Our patrol positions were already set up well in advance to blockade and intercept that coastal freight traffic, just in case.
So, we decided to focus on the southeastern part of our patrol sector for now, which was the exits from Lakse-fjord. We turned back towards the shore, and were sitting outside the fjord entrance by night. For a while there wasn’t much - we were just keeping a lookout, staying in deeper waters, and listening to the radio. The war still felt a bit surreal, but there was a torrent of news coming in, much of it worrying.
http://i.imgur.com/FTnbYf4.jpg
In the morning on the 28th of June, we were just off Cape Nordkin, and from there we headed west along the shore, zig-zagging. The mist was getting dense in places, so we were proceeding carefully and diving every once in a while to listen. Things continued to be very quiet. About noon, the winds picked up, as we reached a position just off Cape Kjollsneringen, and then headed closer to the shore to check out if there was any traffic at Kjolle-fjord. As the cliffs on the shore loomed into view in the distance, suddenly our watch called out a contact.
I immediately called battle stations and we went under. Raising the scope, I identified what looked like a big ocean-going tug or trawler off our port bow, coming towards us. I began maneuvering into attack position; it was difficult to maintain periscope depth in the heavy swells so I ordered 25m until we reached position.
http://i.imgur.com/BI71NvW.jpg
When we came back up, there was a surprise in store: as I raised the scope, not only did I clearly see that the tug was German-flagged and had at least three guns on deck - but that it was also leading a small Norwegian-flagged merchant, perhaps a kilometer behind it. I immediately made that a priority target, dove just below periscope depth, and ordered tubes 1, 2 and 3 flooded and set to about 3m. I estimated them to be going WNW at no more than 10 knots, but just in case, I planned to attack with a “comb” of 3 torpedoes.
http://i.imgur.com/IDsREgB.jpg
Q: Why a “comb”?
You can call it anything - it’s an attack where you fire several torpedoes in a straight line, with an interval between each. When you’re not sure of the target’s speed or distance, it helps. It’s different from shooting torpedoes in a “fan”, which is a more famous technique, but our submarines back then did not shoot like that, they could only fire torpedoes directly in a straight line from the bow or stern. We used speed tables to calculate the offset angle for the target, and aimed by steering the submarine itself. British boats were the same way.
http://i.imgur.com/O0zvE2V.jpg
During the First World War, the British sent some submarines to help us in the Baltic during, and we kept them - one of those old subs was even still in service in the Baltic. Estonian submarines, which came into our service the previous year, were also British-built. So a lot of what we learned about torpedo shooting and aiming came from the British. I think a lot of our naval officers were happy that we were allies with the British again.
Anyway, we barely had any observation time in this weather, so we had to work out the attack partly by guessing the enemy’s speed and heading. In fact, we’d got it wrong at first - when we came up to check our position, I discovered that we were coming too close to that tug’s and freighter’s course, and we couldn’t just stop without losing control of our depth. So I had to dive down and do a quick loop maneuver to avoid running right into them. It took us a full 3 minutes to do that loop, but when we came back around, I found the sub in a perfect firing position.
http://i.imgur.com/Vhwhqqa.jpg
From here, I fired a comb as planned - aiming at the bow of the target, releasing torpedoes when it passed 17, 13, and 9 degree marks off our bow. Basically, as long as we were close on the target’s beam, and it was going at somewhere between 5 and 10kt, we were virtually guaranteed to score a hit. The range didn’t particularly matter - for close attacks like this, we used a very simple set of offset tables.
http://i.imgur.com/9Y4YPDN.jpg
The first torpedo missed, but the other two hit after about a 40-second run. When I raised the scope, I only caught a brief glimpse of the target in the rough seas, but it looked like it was going down fast, with its back broken. It probably helped that it was loaded with heavy ore as its cargo. We didn’t stay around to mess with their escort tug - after confirming that the target was going down, which we knew by the horrible noises it was making, I ordered 40m depth, and turned back away from the coast. There was no sign of the escort following us, and in fact when I came up again to check the scope 20 minutes later, he was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, we once again decided to stay submerged - reloaded our torpedoes, and then I called “otboi” [stand down from battle stations]. I recorded our target as a Norwegian motor schooner, of about 1100t.
http://i.imgur.com/D6QWgY9.jpg
Q: What was your thought on the merchant being Norwegian?
War is war. He was under German armed escort and there was no doubt where that iron ore was going. When that same iron is falling on your cities and villages, you do not ask a lot of questions. Regardless, the sinking was completely in line with maritime rules, and we were within our right to attack. We didn’t need to wait for reminders about why we were in this war - when we surfaced some 6 hours later and tuned to the radio, the briefings from SovInformBureau were reporting that Minsk was completely surrounded, and the Finns were advancing on Karelia, which could mean cutting off our base from the rest of Russia by land.
http://i.imgur.com/QFOIeJR.jpg
We’d waited until our batteries charged up a bit, and then broke radio silence at midnight on the 29th of June to report the sinking.
To be continued...
Been away for a long time but saw this linked from FB. Great job on this AAR. :up:
The mod looks great, how difficult would it be for a non-Russian (or at least one with very basic Russian) speaker to play? :06:
The mod looks great, how difficult would it be for a non-Russian (or at least one with very basic Russian) speaker to play? :06:
It's possible if you've played a lot of SH4, but you would definitely be missing a lot of the flavour.
The main problem would be the radio messages and orders. They've done a really thorough job with them, as well as the maps. But the menus and interface are unchanged, besides the language.
If I have more time later, I'll definitely see if I can reach out to the mod's makers and help them with a translation. That'd be a bit of a big project in itself, though!
Longknife
03-31-15, 08:41 PM
Awesome AAR! now I wish I spoke Russian. Thanks for sharing :up:
les green01
03-31-15, 09:03 PM
great read wish I could speak Russian
http://i.imgur.com/Eck7JNK.jpg
Q: Where did you go after that?
Up to the north side of the sector, so that any German patrols wouldn’t find us. I knew that once a submarine lost its advantage of surprise, it was useless and would be hunted down if it stayed in the same place. So I always knew to keep moving, to keep the enemy guessing. The weather got cold for the next couple of nights, and we stayed out a hundred kilometers from shore, listening to the radio and waiting for further instructions.
http://i.imgur.com/zD2v5Zs.jpg
Q: When did you get your next order?
We got a report on the radio, around 1:30 in the afternoon on July 30th. Fleet intelligence reported an enemy convoy seen leaving Alten-fjord, westbound - that was about 600km away from us, or a full day’s sailing. I knew we couldn’t catch it, but I requested permission from HQ to shift to that area regardless so we could reconnoiter the approaches to Alten-fjord and Soroysund. Soon after, we received permission, along with information detailing known enemy minefield barriers at the entrances to Soroysund. We immediately set course to 160, speed to standard ahead, and exited patrol area No.3 at 12 knots.
http://i.imgur.com/Iwoqm41.jpg
The following day and night were quiet. On the radio, there were reports of enemy submarine sinkings in the Baltic and Black Sea, while the government announced the formation of the State Committee for Defense under I.V. Stalin himself. The sun stayed in the sky throughout the night, and by morning there was a drifting mist in the cold air. The first watch - it was headed by Kislayev, this red-headed guy who was always scratching his chin - wore their sweaters and caps on deck to stay warm.
They woke everybody up at 5:15 in the morning with an emergency dive, after they saw an aircraft approaching. The watch weren’t mistaken - as the boat was submerging, two explosions sounded in the water, luckily well away from us. We were certainly spotted, so I decided to stay safe and ordered the sub to remain submerged for 12 hours, in hopes that the enemy would decide that we were a false contact and give up their search. We surfaced again at 17:25, with batteries quite drained.
http://i.imgur.com/MUmU2bG.jpg
For some time, it was quiet. At 21:00, as always, the nightly news came on the radio - with reports of “battles on Murmansk, Keksholm, Dvina, Minsk and Lutsk directions”, and Finns advancing along with the Germans. But I did not get to finish listening to the news that night - because 7 minutes in, another emergency dive followed after report of an aircraft. At first it didn’t seem like he saw us, but as we settled in to 40m depth, the sound of a distant explosion rumbled somewhere behind us, and then another one a couple of minutes later. The pilots must have seen and bombed our wake.
Our batteries were still half-drained, so we surfaced after a couple of hours. The mist was blown away by strong winds overnight, but now we had an impressive sea to contend with. We’d made it to our destination, and took up patrol just north of Loppa island, near the entrance to Soroysund. There, we ran into another German Vorpostenboot on coastal patrol, but we kept our distance from him, hoping to find some better torpedo targets and avoid being detected. Mercifully, there didn’t seem to be any planes closer inshore.
http://i.imgur.com/YrqiMS5.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/3dbqrzS.jpg
Q: Were airplanes a big problem for you?
Certainly, and not just for us. That same evening, we had a briefing from Fleet on the radio, announcing a battle near Murmansk, where a few of our minelayers got attacked by 18 German planes and shot down two. The real problem, of course, was the conditions - as I said, in the Arctic there was not a moment during this patrol where the sun was below the horizon. When the skies were clear during the day, they could spot us from further away, but at least we had more warning of their approach. But when you had some cloud in the sky and the sun got lower, that’s when the real problems started. They would hide behind the clouds and come out of the sun. But more on that later.
http://i.imgur.com/duHPVnR.jpg
On July 3rd, we decided to try our luck and head into Soroysund. It was that morning that we finally heard comrade I.V. Stalin on the radio, after the morning news. He was speaking in his new role as chairman of the State Committee for Defense, and called “all the peoples of the Soviet Union, our glorious Red Army and the Armed Fleet, our pilot-falcons to a selfless, patriotic liberation war against the fascist enslavers, to victory.” I could tell that our politruk Khokhryakov was waiting for the speech all along, but so were the rest of us! Now the party, the people, and the military stood together. Looking back, it was strange that Stalin did not make an announcement for so long, but from here on he was a regular feature in the war, much to our relief.
http://i.imgur.com/oisepik.jpg
Our way into the straits was uneventful. Other than the one patrol ship showing up sometimes, we didn’t see much, and weather started getting worse. We finally managed to pick up a hydroacoustic contact moving along the south side of the strait, what sounded like a two-ship convoy just like the one we attacked before - small ship forward, larger slow ship behind it. But by the time we could start closing, a storm blew in, with heavy rain and zero visibility. In a situation like this, groping around in confined waters with minefields nearby is a bad proposition. So we gave up and headed out the way we came.
http://i.imgur.com/5zgsr8z.jpg
Q: Was the storm a big problem for you?
Oh, compared to the storms that we get in the winter, it was nothing. But it did rock us around a fair bit for the next day, and forced us to break off away from shore, to avoid running into any rocks or mines in the fog. And we also had to dive for hydroacoustic checks every half hour, which in itself was a very exhausting routine, because diving the boat involved a lot of crew and a complex procedure. However I also did not want to stay underwater for any length of time, because I did not want to come out of the storm with our batteries drained. As it turned out, it was the right choice.
http://i.imgur.com/DFKXh7P.jpg
Q: Why so? Airplanes?
Yes, airplanes indeed! The storm started lifting by evening on July 4th. I remember that they again interrupted us right in the middle of listening to the nightly news at 9 o’clock. At 21:07, two fighters came out of the clouds. We didn’t manage to submerge in time, but their bombs were well off mark. From then on, we were harassed relentlessly as long as the weather was flyable. Although we were now a bit off the coast, a Vorpostenboot - maybe that same one as before - also arrived in the area and started appearing intermittently.
http://i.imgur.com/fhQuRrZ.jpg
Eventually, we were forced to give up on that area, and moved up the Norwegian coast towards Hammerfest. But there too, there was no rest. It was usually single planes showing up, but next evening there were again two Messerschmitts - and this time, they seemed to coordinate their attack, first the lead plane attacking, then his wingman on the 2nd pass. They missed again, however. We tried to head to shallow waters off Rovlsoya island so we could rest on the bottom for a bit instead of draining our batteries diving from planes all the time, but when we got there, we saw two small boats going back and forth. While I suspect they were just fishing trawlers, my instinct told me not to get near in case they were laying a minefield. So, we got out.
http://i.imgur.com/LGukxLb.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/1r4UbQo.jpg
Q: Was there any way for you to fight the airplanes? Or dive before they got to you?
Diving early was what we did when we could, but the worst thing we could do is be caught in the middle of trying to submerge, because then the sub is at its slowest, least maneuverable, and not to mention blind. So we had to be smart about it. If the planes were close, we would fire at them with the 45mm gun on the conning tower, and then dive. In rough seas the gun was useless because we couldn’t aim at anything in the rolling seas, but by morning on the 6th of July, the sea got much calmer and the sky started clearing up.
http://i.imgur.com/KWWoRwc.jpg
Our lookouts were generally very competent. Kislayev, the redhead guy I mentioned before, was head of our first watch and a very smart man - I trusted him to make that decision about diving or fighting back on the spot, and usually he was right. On the morning of that day, a plane dived on us from the sun, and we threw off his attack with two shots from the 45mm, and then pulled the plug. In the afternoon, a Junkers dive bomber showed up, ugly little thing. We got 8 rounds from the gun fired in his direction, possibly even damaged him - but his bombing was closer to the mark too, shook us up. Then they just kept coming and coming.
http://i.imgur.com/x9vxfZz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/quZGWQc.jpg
Eventually it convinced us to give up on this sector and turn back to patrol area No.3, where we were originally assigned. We moved away from the shore, but the planes were unrelenting. On the morning of July 7th, we were a full 100 nautical miles off the Norwegian coast, and this little German seaplane still managed to dive in on us and drop a bomb so close that the shrapnel hit our conning tower. Semyonov, head of the 2nd watch, was wounded by a couple of small pieces, and seaman Dyadko got a light contusion.
http://i.imgur.com/bjj0PDY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8Z2qsGp.jpg
That was enough for us, and we stayed down for the next 12 hours. I ordered Semyonov and Dyadko off the watch bill and replaced them with the politruk and shturman, and got them treated by our voyenfeldsher [medic]. But they were already knocking on the doors of the politruk’s and my quarters before we even surfaced, asking to be put back on duty. Good men.
http://i.imgur.com/Io0AMPq.jpg
Q: The crew were taking the conditions well then?
I would not complain of them at all. The politruk often did, but they were doing their best and the results showed. As I said, I always had full confidence in my boat and in my crew too. But I also never overestimated the abilities of either. After that bombing, I knew we needed a break in quieter waters, so after we surfaced in the evening, I took it far offshore and spent the next day recharging our batteries. Then we were back in patrol area No.3.
http://i.imgur.com/LfKwuSG.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/q2sYw6C.jpg
Q: What was your new plan there?
My new plan was to do what we’d tried further south - to try and penetrate a little ways into the fjords themselves and see if we can spot some inshore traffic. By evening on the 8th of July conditions were favourable, and I took the boat into the mouth of Porsanger-fjord. I submerged as soon as we got close to the shore, and we got to within about 30 kilometers of Honningsvag, by which point our batteries were about ¼ of the way drained and I turned back around. It was on our way back out of the fjord that we finally got another contact.
http://i.imgur.com/WpSby5j.jpg
Q: What was this contact?
Well, would you believe - it was a pair of ships, a German armed tug at the front, and a small motor merchant at the back. Just like our previous successful sinking! The seas, too, were getting choppy, like they were the first time. I started maneuvering for attack, with the exact same plan - fire a “comb” of 3 torpedoes from close range at the merchant. We were in attack position by 6:50 in the morning.
http://i.imgur.com/UkSs2Az.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QleHGzP.jpg
Q: Did it go just like your last attack?
Well, almost! I fired the comb right on the mark - 17, 13, and 9 degrees offset. Just like last time, the first torpedo missed - but this time, the Norwegian coaster’s crew must have seen its wake, because before the next two torpedoes got to it, he made a very steep turn right into them. Very smart, that skipper. Our aim was still good, but the 2nd torpedo passed under his keel without exploding, while the third hit at an oblique angle with a “thud” but no explosion - well, it blew up a little while later after hitting the fjord bottom and made a racket.
http://i.imgur.com/J2LWCZa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XwcpqKM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jshIJcK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9xm9HFt.jpg
I wasn’t done with him yet, and ordered a sharp turn to bring our stern tubes to bear. But that didn’t work either - the Norwegian kept turning, and I’m sure he was trying to ram us. I ordered a dive, and it was a tight squeeze - we’d very narrowly cleared both the merchant’s bow and the fairly shallow bottom of the fjord, which we fortunately had to foresight to “ping” with our acoustic depth meter during the maneuver. I wasn’t ready to give up, but by the time I managed to get the boat to periscope depth, the merchant had turned tail to us and was getting out. There was no way we could catch up.
http://i.imgur.com/zAGa19F.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KZTGCHb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CpJLNY5.jpg
Q: Was it frustrating to see him get away like that?
Honestly, I don’t remember having any bad feeling about that attack afterwards. We’d got into perfect position and the shooting was accurate. We ran into a very good Norwegian skipper who acted smartly and saved his ship and crew, and I have to congratulate him on that. Our shooting was flawless otherwise, and as far as I’m concerned, that was 2 out of 3 torpedoes fired on the mark - a good record, even if they didn’t explode or sink anything.
http://i.imgur.com/KeY6O8v.jpg
Q: How did you feel about the torpedoes?
No particular way. They were based on Italian-made Whitehead designs and we didn’t really have much choice in them, they were all standard 53-38 type. I know some crews were a lot more experimental with their torpedo shooting, but kept my approach to them very simple - I knew that as long as we fired them at their slowest speed setting (30.5kt), moderately shallow depth (2-4m) and from a good close position (below 1km), they would sink ships. So I stuck to that. The two lowest apparatuses [tubes] in the front room typically had their torpedoes set to their fastest speed off 44.5kt just in case, but I preferred not to use them.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p301/myspb2006/PICT0161.jpg
I know one thing that our crew definitely felt about the torpedoes after that attack was… they were glad they had more space in the forward room! By that point we used up 7 of our 14 torpedoes on board, meaning all of the reserve torpedoes in the forward room had now been loaded into their tubes, and apparatus 1 was empty. This meant a lot more space and less chores for the crew there. By that point we’d also eaten our way through much of our provisions, so the boat got noticeably more spacious. Relatively, of course.
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p301/myspb2006/PICT0181-1.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/r8ezFPe.jpg
Q: What did you do after the attack?
Called “otboi” [stand down from battle stations] and headed out to sea, staying submerged. We surfaced a couple of hours later, and then just after noon saw a waterplane patrolling low over water in the mist and dived down. He didn’t see us. I tried to come up again two hours later, but after 10 minutes of scanning with the periscope, again spotted that same plane flying around. He did eventually get a shot at us later that afternoon, though, when he caught us on the surface and dived out of the cloud, but his bombs missed.
http://i.imgur.com/HfLaeGW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2c3EMh1.jpg
Then I decided to visit another fjord, Lakse-fjord. We learned that another submarine of ours, Sch-402, snuck into Porsanger-fjord by then - it reported a convoy, and a few days later it sank a big German transport at anchor at the anchorage of Honningsvag there. I think I mentioned this, but I was the starpom [first officer] on that boat for a few months before the war, so I was very happy for their success. So more hunting in the fjords was very much my plan. But another storm held us up for most of the next two days.
http://i.imgur.com/5VWsV3h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xVfnkmB.jpg
We finally got into Lakse-fjord by morning on the 11th. Instead of wasting our batteries creeping around the fjord on electric motors, I found a good shallow area inside the fjord some distance from shore, and we put the sub on the bottom. We just sat there and listened for a few hours, which gave us a good chance to relax after the storm.
http://i.imgur.com/5VWsV3h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3sAq0VR.jpg
Q: How well could you hear underwater?
Well, with the hydroacoustic apparatus we had, we could hear any traffic moving in and out of the fjord very well. Unfortunately, I made a bit of a mistake - when we bottomed out the boat, I had its bow pointed at the relatively empty shore and the stern - out towards the open fjord. Now, our hydroacoustic apparatus is at the front of the boat, and it can’t pick up anything about 30 degrees either side of the stern. So when we came up to periscope depth to look around at noon that day, I was startled to see this armed patrol boat 6km off our stern - we thought we knew everything about traffic there!
http://i.imgur.com/6UC4COz.jpg
It looked like just a small patrol craft bobbing in the waves, and we decided not to do anything, so I just repositioned the boat and got back on the bottom of Lakse-fjord. Later in the afternoon, after making sure there were no ships around, I repositioned the boat to the other side of the fjord, and again laid down on the bottom, listening for a few hours. When the sun got low in the sky and some mist appeared on the surface, I took the boat up and we sailed further into the fjord, towards the little town of Lebesby.
http://i.imgur.com/9RBCHYH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OhEoapO.jpg
Around midnight, we saw a fishing boat near Lebesby, but avoided contact with it. Then that patrol ship showed up again, but it headed off towards the port and we decided not to follow. In the morning, we bumped into what looked like a small minesweeper working in the shallows off Lebesby. That got my attention, because it made me suspect that the Germans could have laid minefields here. Soon, another Vorpostenboot showed up from the north. Seeing how heavy the patrols in the fjord are and estimating the risks from mines, I decided not to chance it and take the boat out of the fjord. But before that, I thought we’d take a shot at that Vorpostenboot…
http://i.imgur.com/hQRgR7c.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uNkWrVb.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/ujrLAXz.jpg
Q: Did you succeed?
Well, not quite. We weren’t in a great firing position,so I ordered the boat to dive a little deeper and make a dash at 5 knots to get in position. When we got to periscope depth again, it turned out that I overshot the planned firing position, but the Vorpostenboot also turned and then dropped a pair of depth charges somewhere far off our stern. He must have heard us at some point, so I certainly underestimated his abilities!
http://i.imgur.com/3141jML.jpg
Q: You were depth-charged in the fjord, then?
You could say that. The Vorpostenboot’s attack was nowhere near accurate, but his minelayer friend nearby also interrupted his duties and came. There was one tense moment after the minesweeper dropped his first pair of charges far off our stern, he ended up passing directly over our actual position. If he’d dropped the bombs then, we would have had a lot of problems. But he didn’t. They both just circled somewhere behind us for the next hour, sporadically bombing the water, and we slowly snuck away at 40m of depth, quiet as mice.
http://i.imgur.com/BfophCN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GnBENWc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Eq9wB6T.jpg
We spent the rest of the day getting out of the fjord, and then at midnight reported back to HQ by radio, detailing what what we’ve seen there.
http://i.imgur.com/l7bBI3q.jpg
To be continued
http://i.imgur.com/KdwT8np.jpg
Q: Where did you go next?
As I said, my view was that as soon as the element of surprise was lost, you had to move to a different area. That’s the way it goes on submarines. So, we headed out to open sea, and set off to patrol in the vicinity of Nordkapp. When we got there next morning, there was a strong wind and a heavy sea; but in the blowing spray, we soon spotted what looked like an armed tug or minesweeper. It was difficult keeping up with him, but when we dived down for a hydroacoustic check, there was a surprise in store for us - he was not alone. In fact, other noises soon revealed that he was the starboard escort to a convoy, which was passing to our north.
http://i.imgur.com/GgPuN6I.jpg
Q: Were you able to attack the convoy?
No, we were not - especially in that weather, keeping up speed was difficult. However we were able to determine that there was at least 3 merchants and 3 escorts in it, and they were heading due east at a speed of approximately 10 knots. I figured that it was headed to the Petsamo-Kirkenes area with supplies for German troops invading our country from there. I sent that information off to HQ, and they replied thanking us for the report, but ordering to break off contact. I think that was a smart decision on their part, and although it was frustrating that we didn’t get a shot at the convoy, it was probably for the better - the HQ surely wanted the prevent the convoy from getting spooked or scattered before they could send in aviation at it.
http://i.imgur.com/uaYYcx5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/C40ddOH.jpg
We broke off contact, but followed roughly in their wake just in case. By evening we were well to the east, near the entrance to Kjolle-fjord. The weather calmed down. It was the 13th of July, and hell was breaking loose all over the front - but the radio broadcasts tried to keep a very aggressive, attacking tone to encourage a fighting spirit. We certainly had a fighting spirit.
http://i.imgur.com/PAuuM3T.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/QzdWmlk.jpg
Q: What was your next fight like?
That same evening, we spotted a couple of small vessels off Kjolle-fjord. We moved in to investigate. One towards the north looked like a fishing boat, so we left it alone for a bit; the other turned out to be a Vorpostenboot in the shallows near shore. We cautiously headed towards him. As it turned out, he was moving very slowly through the shallows - almost not at all. I’m not certain what he was doing - perhaps laying mines, perhaps something else. Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to question the opportunity, and maneuvered to try and attack him.
http://i.imgur.com/Ah1qd24.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DaValZH.jpg
It was a bit misty in the evening, with the sun low in the sky. I figured if we approached him from just the right direction, the glare of the sun would actually prevent him from seeing us. I ordered some of the ballast tanks pre-flooded, and headed in with decks awash. We got to within 4km of him on the surface, and then dived to periscope depth. He did not see us. At 3km, I decided to take a chance and fire a torpedo. It missed.
http://i.imgur.com/nBTy6Vg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0ud338a.jpg
However, he did not see it pass by him, making it possible for us to continue approach. The sun still hung low in the sky, and almost 40 minutes later, we were able to maneuver within 1200m of the guard ship and launch another torpedo. This time, it hit. He was gone within moments. Fearing a minefield, we surfaced and set off back to the north to see if we could find that fishing boat again.
http://i.imgur.com/AtlwZl3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EwijPUj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cwBIGC1.jpg
Q: But you said you didn’t want to attack Norwegian fishermen?
War is war. We had to at least check, and it is our duty to deny communications in enemy territory, whatever they are. In any case, it turned out it was no fisherman. We found him in about an hour - it was a small motor schooner, just a little 100-ton boat of that sort that shuttled passengers and supplies to the many remote villages on Norway’s arctic shores. I’m not sure what brought him out of Kjolle-fjord that early morning of the 14th of July, but he was in our sights.
http://i.imgur.com/zKkDMKO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/a0VRd6e.jpg
We positioned ourselves in a way that cut him off from the shore, and then I called the gun crews to the deck and called full speed ahead. We quickly raced towards him and fired a warning shot over his bow from the range of just under 3km. He responded immediately with his light, flashing at us brightly - which I was worried would give us away, but he fortunately turned out to be cooperative. We gave them a generous 20 minutes to evacuate into a lifeboat, then approached to close range and dispatched their unfortunate little vessel with a single shot from our 100mm cannon, and five from the 45mm AA gun.
http://i.imgur.com/stnPYVf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KSEVuje.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/u84NzYu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WC7ZNgt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oneiPZZ.jpg
Q: Were the crew of that boat alright?
I think so. We did not approach their lifeboat - our only exchange with them was a short signal to them, ordering them into their lifeboat in the first place. There was nothing in our standing orders about taking Norwegian prisoners, and they were only about 15km from the coast when we sank them. We denied communications in enemy territory, and that was our only business with them. Hope they made it to shore that same day, and told their countrymen to stop helping the Germans.
http://i.imgur.com/AEHkcgs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kjZGFer.jpg
From there, we set off back towards Nordkapp. Our main problem was still German airplanes - that irritating waterplane, Arado I think it was, kept coming back and bombing us every once in a while. By this point, however, our fuel and supplies started running low. I decided that by morning on the 16th of July, we would depart the patrol area.
http://i.imgur.com/YzkSVdQ.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/xrvNFz9.jpg
Q: Did you have any further luck in the area?
No, not particularly. The last two days were uneventful except for that plane showing up, and after a final check on the approaches to Porsanger-fjord and Lakse-fjord, we rounded Cape Nordkin and set off back towards Murmansk.We did run into numerous small vessels on the way back, off the towns of Hamnvik and Berlevag, but they turned out to be armed patrol boats which stayed close inshore, and we decided not to take risks with them.
http://i.imgur.com/A8J3OeX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/od7VmUt.jpg
Our only other success was one more small coastal schooner, looking much like the one we sank on the 14th, that we found in the early morning on the 17th of July. Unlike his fellow, this one refused to cooperate with us, and tried to escape without evacuating. We fired several rounds from the 45mm into him, but they continued running and maneuvering. Eventually, we had no choice but to dispatch them with more 45mm fire, which thoroughly wrecked their boat.
http://i.imgur.com/BXNO71w.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EynqdTE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CFoqxB1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rkYYefz.jpg
Q: Were the crew alright?
Not so sure with that one. Again, we were quite close inshore - maybe some 6-7km - and we did not want to risk staying. They did not have a chance to launch their lifeboat, and I think I saw some bodies floating in the water among the debris. But we did not stay, because we were worried that he’d reported our position. With partly cloudy skies and constant sunlight, this was prime weather for airplanes.
http://i.imgur.com/pI5fShb.jpg
Airplanes continued to be our biggest problem, and the patrol wouldn’t be complete without one last bad encounter with them, which gave us a bit of a fright.
http://i.imgur.com/yCPodIn.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/qgHrFmQ.jpg
Q: What happened?
Well, by evening of the 17th, we reached a position due north of Varde. We decided to get a bit closer to that port, and soon spotted two guardships patrolling outside of it. After observing them for half an hour with our tanks partly flooded and decks awash, we turned around and headed back out to sea. Then, exactly at 7 in the evening, a single Junkers bomber came at us.
http://i.imgur.com/qbOmZ1A.jpg
We had time to dive, and did so, but our tanks were no longer pre-flooded and the sub was taking its time. And of course, once you pull the plug, you can’t undo it - you have to let the sub dive. So we did. We almost made it - our hull was under water when he came - but the Junkers pilot was accurate. A bomb blew up somewhere right next to the stern of our boat.
http://i.imgur.com/d5dvHhE.jpg
Q: Were you damaged?
Oh, yes. The boat got seriously shaken up. Nobody was seriously injured and we were able to level off in our dive just fine, but the aft of the boat took a beating and a lot of fittings were broken. The B.Ch.5 commander [chief engineer], Myatskevichus, immediately got a repair party together and disappeared in the back of the boat. We had reported leaks in the aft room and the compass room, and both the diesels and electric motors got shaken in their mountings, so the submarine’s drive system was barely operating.
http://i.imgur.com/4sbtHC6.jpg
The leaks were stopped in a few minutes, and we pumped out the water. Myatskevichus reported that all remaining damage was isolated to the two aft compartments, with the diesels, electric motors, and the main air compressor all damaged. Only one electric motor was actually producing power. Luckily, no batteries cracked, nothing caught fire, and the condition on the boat remained normal.
http://i.imgur.com/7pAleUu.jpg
Within two hours, the repair team worked on the drive system. The port side electric motor was quickly cleared, and soon so were the diesels. By 9:20 in the evening, we were back at periscope depth, surfacing at 10 to check for external damage and switch to diesel propulsion. The outside of the boat looked fine, much to our relief. By 11:30 at night, I called “otboi” [stand down from battle stations] and let the repair crew rest a bit before resuming repairs. The compressor was finally repaired about 40 minutes after midnight, but the port electric motor was still out of commission.
http://i.imgur.com/KsxBElU.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/SuFJZQL.jpg
final map for D-2's first patrol
Q: Were you able to make it home with that damage?
Easily! That was not so bad, although it could have been much worse. There were no further contacts, although during the next day, we decided to be cautious and travel with some of the tanks pre-flooded, just in case - it made us slower, but made it easier to dive. Especially with only one electric motor turning, an emergency dive would have been tricky. However, by about 3 in the afternoon on that day, the 18th of July, the B.Ch.5 commander reported that they’d managed to get the motor patched up and working.
http://i.imgur.com/NM6G47J.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lLPqfBD.jpg
Q: When did you return home?
The lighthouse on cape Set’-Navolok, our first sign of home territory, came into view at 7:10 that evening. Greeting us was none other than SKR-12 “Tuman” - my old ship that I’d commanded here just month earlier, doing their usual duties guarding our base. I’d recognized the ship right away, and as soon as they recognized us, I could tell they were quite happy. The Northern Fleet was a family - and not even a big one at the time. One always felt great relief at seeing their brothers come back safely from the sea.
http://i.imgur.com/MHEMdOG.jpg
We were inside Kola Bay by 9, flying our flag, and docked at Polyarnyi just before midnight. There, against the terrain of the inlet’s northern shore, we saw something we hadn’t seen for the last month - the sun setting below the horizon. And then we got our feet on firm ground, which was nice.
http://i.imgur.com/bYuT1Ba.jpg
Q: Did you receive any awards for you patrol?
No, not at the time. We sank approximately 3000 tons of shipping, but at the time, no special mention was made to anyone. This was not the time for it. Our base was still under dire threat of being overrun, and we had lots of business to attend to - including making permanent repairs to the boat after that bombing.
But we made it through our first patrol. As they say, so far, so good.
http://i.imgur.com/KlaaTkw.jpg
Besides, nobody thought of or got medals then, even if they far more deserved them than we did. Have you heard the story of the Tuman?
Q: Your old ship?
Yes, the guard ship that I was previously the commander of. She is a very famous ship in the Northern Fleet, but I had nothing to do with her famous final day.
Let me tell you the story of the Tuman…
http://i.imgur.com/Ur2k8Po.jpg
To be continued...
The Tuman’s Last Stand
http://i.imgur.com/PWIBqF7.jpg
(*semi-historical - the story of Tuman’s last battle and the Northern Fleet’s early-war activities is real history, while Korobkov and his D-2 crew are fictional)
The SKR-12 “Tuman” (“Fog”) was my first command assignment - a guard ship, which I was the captain of from mid-1940 until April 1941. She was a fine boat, a big 1200-ton trawler - I say that in the best possible sense, because trawlers are ships built for a life on a tough sea, and she handled the challenges of the Barents Sea superbly. Built in Danzig in 1931, the Tuman worked as a fishing trawler named “Lebyodka” (“Winch”) until being enlisted for war duty when we fought the Finns in 1939.
http://i.imgur.com/xBdnFbn.jpg
The Tuman had two cannons, two machineguns, a simple listening gear, and depth charges. She could make 9 knots at top speed, but had excellent range and good accommodations for her small 50-man crew. My assignment was very much intentional - putting a submarine officer in charge of an anti-submarine ship is a good experience, both for the future commander and the surface ship’s crew. You have to know your enemy, as they say. We spent the long winter months on our daily duty - guarding the approaches to the Northern Fleet’s main bases in Kola Bay.
http://i.imgur.com/7zwKZnX.jpg
The Northern Fleet was a young fleet back then, the smallest in the Soviet VMF [Navy]. We were only established as a flotilla in 1933, and were “promoted” to a fleet in 1937, the same year that I graduated from the naval academy. We had no ship larger than an esminets [destroyer], but when the war came, we were the only fleet fighting the Germans on an open ocean. It was not an easy task for our small ships, but we dealt with it superbly. We had no long tradition and no heroes just yet, but ships like the Tuman and the men I was fortunate to serve with created that tradition very quickly.
http://i.imgur.com/SwkF3Fr.jpg
We came back from our first patrol in July to find the Kola Peninsula a different place - the war was raging, the Germans and Finns were advancing towards our bases, and nothing was certain. In movies, you always see sailors or pilots or soldiers fight hard in their missions, and then return home to have a jolly good time, drinking and getting in trouble and falling in love with girls. For us, the truth couldn’t have been any different!
http://i.imgur.com/kMoSl6j.jpg
As I mentioned, there was no fanfare when we returned to port, no medals or awards. Our division commander Hajiev was out at sea on another submarine, and our boat needed immediate repairs. We had no time to waste and got to all sorts of work right away - patching up our boat, looking after machinery, helping resupply other boats, manning AA guns around the Polyarnyi base (including the one on our submarine itself), and drilling with rifles ashore just in case the Germans came by land.
http://i.imgur.com/HGyZUoS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/p0RBWZc.jpg
The Germans had a superiority over us in everything then - they had more ships at sea, more airplanes in the sky, and their equipment was more modern. Air raids were frequent and in the Arctic summer could come at any time of day, and did. German destroyers could show up any time to intercept ships directly off our base or bombard our troops, and their cruisers and even battleships looked in the Norwegian fjords, ready to strike at us at any time.
http://i.imgur.com/3heN4Rb.jpg
Against them, we had our flottilla of submarines to attack the enemy’s supply line, 8 destroyers for fleet work and convoy escort, and a lot of small craft and torpedo boats. Guard duty fell to ships like the Tuman, who in the early morning hours of the 10th of August was on patrol at the mouth of Kola Bay, covering approaches to our base. This was where just a couple of weeks earlier we met them coming back home.
http://i.imgur.com/do6vDkE.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/1DALsuj.jpg
Tuman was under the command of a new skipper, Lieutenant Shestakov. Though within sight of coastal guns on cape Tsyp-Navolok and Kildin island, the Tuman was alone out there this morning in the mist and drizzle. One of our destroyers, the Uritskiy, was supposed to be out there in support, but that morning they had a rendezvous with the british submarine Trident - the first of many Royal Navy visitors during the war - and left to escort them into port at Murmansk. Many more British navy ships would come this way during the war, and were always welcome visitors, though they often kept distance from us Soviet sailors.
http://i.imgur.com/S1OneVN.jpg
I didn’t know Shestakov very well, but I knew most of the other crew on the Tuman, and later they told me quite a bit about that morning. I am proud to say that many are still good friends! They said Shestakov was an ambitious young officer, and though he didn’t know it, on August 10th he was already a Senior Lieutenant. An order from Moscow from the previous day was sent down, approving his promotion - but by the time it reached Murmansk, Shestakov was dead.
http://i.imgur.com/heI7oF5.jpg
As he watched the entrance to the Kola Bay that morning from the bridge that I spent a great many cold days and nights on, the drizzle lifted and clouds started breaking. It was then that they must have been spotted. Shestakov radioed to base at about 3 o’clock in the morning, reporting: “One enemy bomber, heading 90 degrees, altitude 100 meters.” The plane left, but they must have radioed their fleet, because just about an hour later, three German destroyers came wheeling out of the fog from the northeast.
http://i.imgur.com/QWCCJ8s.jpg
Shestakov immediately turned his ship away, hoping to get in range of friendly shore batteries, and immediately radioed a contact report - three German destroyers of “von Roeder type”, 8-9 nautical miles northeast, heading directly for Tuman at heading 240 and a speed of some 30-35kt. Unfortunately, that report was sent not on the fleet frequency, but to the duty intel officer, who did not immediately forward it to fleet and instead observed and reported the situation himself. This meant that help would be slower in coming, and would not be coordinated by fleet command.
http://i.imgur.com/vbyE1Nh.jpg
Nevertheless, by reporting contact and alerting forces in the area, Shestakov had done his main duty on guard. He now had to save his ship from the three German opponents that outgunned and overpowered our little 9-knot boat by many times. He tried to lay a smoke screen and get into the range of shore batteries. But it didn’t work. Within just over 20 minutes, the German destroyers got within artillery range and reduced their speed to about 15 knots, opening fire.
http://i.imgur.com/ErOfuua.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MjOEOiB.jpg
The first shots hit the ship’s signal mast and radio antenna, knocking out all communications before shore batteries or destroyers could come to the Tuman’s help. The second salvo caused major leaks midships, and killed the ship’s politruk Strelnik who was returning to the bridge after personally checking battle-readiness at all stations. The third salvo hit the ship’s quarterdeck, creating the heaviest damage and casualties, and generating a blast wave so intense that it threw commander Shestakov off the bridge and into the water, never to be seen again.
http://i.imgur.com/Ed9sCrl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kMmlqt0.jpg
The Tuman was gravely damaged, its stern gun out of action through damage and the forward gun impossible to train that far aft. Lieutenant Rybakov, the B.Ch.5 commander [chief engineer] was fighting flooding below decks, while on the stern of the ship, starpom Lieutenant Bukin ordered all ammunition thrown overboard to prevent the spread of fires. But the best-known heroic act of that morning was by helmsman Semyonov and senior radioman Blinov, who no longer had a working radio to man. Despite their wounds, they made their way to the ship’s mast, with the ship’s colours in hand...
http://i.imgur.com/FWw6Ko7.jpg
You see, the operating procedure for patrol ships keeping guard at night was to keep the battle flag off the mast - being mostly white, it would easily give away its presence in the dark, especially to lurking submarines it was meant to look out for. That morning, they hadn’t yet raised it, and in the frantic efforts to report the enemy and save the ship, there was no time to raise it. Now the Tuman was in grave trouble - and the B.Ch.5 head Rybakov, realizing the extent of the damage, ordered the two men to get the flag up. The Tuman was a fighting ship, and it would be a shame for it to go down without its colours.
http://i.imgur.com/57l4zU5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/81j8KQf.jpg
Despite the machinegun ammunition exploding in the fires on deck, continued German salvoes, casualties and heavy flooding, there had been no panic on the decks of the Tuman. The ship kept her heading, losing speed; most of the assigned damage control team had been killed in the first minutes, so improvised teams tried to do what they could to stave off the damage. Semyonov and Blinov climbed the ship’s mast and raised her colours.
http://i.imgur.com/iakTguG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DrsiZ2R.jpg
The firing continued for 12 minutes, after which the German ships found themselves under fire from our coastal batteries and turned away, laying smoke screens and escaping damage. The Tuman’s crew worked diligently until her list became uncontrollable, at which point B.Ch.5 commander Rybakov - the most senior man remaining on board - ordered evacuation, and became the last to abandon ship around 5:30 in the morning. Small patrol cutters were already on the way to pick them up. 20 minutes later, the Tuman sank, her battle colours flying high on the mast.
http://i.imgur.com/dUI1Plp.jpg
15 of the 52-man crew died in the battle; not one of the survivors received a medal on returning to port, but each of them received personal gifts and gratitude from the workers of Murmansk, to whom the Northern Fleet sailors were protectors of their families. We were all immensely proud of them, and I think that meant far more than any medal. The Tuman had done her duty despite the odds, and would from then on be known as the first ship of the Northern Fleet to go down with her colours flying. To this day, every time a Northern Fleet ship passes the place near Kildin Island where she sank, they give a long blow of their horn in honour of the brave Tuman.
http://i.imgur.com/HQPCmlo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oD1Jfjz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BnAGCDj.jpg
As for us, we continued about our duties, and a week after the Tuman’s sinking, we were ready to head out for our next patrol…
http://i.imgur.com/1Sy6Rev.jpg
To be continued...
Before Patrol 2
http://i.imgur.com/ls412xq.jpg
Q: What was the situation like at base before your next patrol?
Like I already mentioned, the war situation was very severe and uncertain back then. Now, of course it was nothing like the fighting on the main front in the south, but the Germans and Finns were on advance and our troops were in retreat. We lived day to day, hoping that everything would turn out. The Germans were advancing towards our base along the coast from Norway, with solid support from aircraft and occasional bombardments by their destroyers - but they soon ran into an impenetrable defense on the small Rybachyi peninsula, where our troops were cut off but stayed firm in their positions. The Northern Fleet successfully kept them resupplied for many long months, until the Germans were driven out.
http://i.imgur.com/5GC3Cds.jpg
Further down south, they were also advancing towards the town of Kandalaksha on the White Sea, together with the Finns, trying to cut off the rail and road links to Murmansk and the Kola peninsula. That would have been a much more serious blow to us, and could have caused the Northern Fleet to evacuate from Kola Bay, which was our only warm-water harbour in the north - and that would mean that for months each year, we’d be unable to operate. Luckily, they did not succeed in this either. The Germans had a lot of military strength and better equipment, but their weakness was supply. And because most of their supply came by way of shipping along the coast of Norway, we knew that submarines were some of our best weapons to make a difference.
http://i.imgur.com/3xtk7yV.jpg
Q: How many submarines did you have in the Northern Fleet then?
Before the war started, the Northern Fleet Submarine Brigade was made up of 4 divisions of submarines, 16 boats total: three type D-type boats (including our D-2) in the 1st division, seven Sch-type medium submarines in the 2nd and 3rd division, and six M-type “baby” boats in the 4th division.The D-1 went missing without a trace in November 1940, so that left us with 15 boats when the war broke out. Luckily, the VMF [navy] command quickly realized that we needed more, and the big “Katyushas”, the K-type cruiser/fleet boats were reassigned to us from the Baltic Fleet.
http://i.imgur.com/ZZwFIQQ.jpg
(K-1 and K-2 arrive at Polyarnyi)
http://i.imgur.com/Rxapt0W.jpg
(D-2 and K-2 moored next to each other - note the size difference)
The K-1 and K-2 arrived together on August 6th, by way of the Belomor [White Sea-Baltic canal] and joined our division. Our division commander was very fond of these new boats and very quickly got to the business of introducing them to Arctic service. Meanwhile, as I mentioned when I was talking about the Tuman, just 4 days later we got another submarine visitor - the British submarine “Trident”, our first foreign visitor of the many that came during wartime.
http://i.imgur.com/IQBuIiQ.jpg
(HMS Trident)
Q: How did you greet the British?
The way we always greet guests in Russia - warmly and with friendship. War doesn’t cancel hospitality, and even though it was a tough day for us having lost a ship, we’d still put our best on the table, had newspaper and radio people come in, and lots of gifts. We even gave them a baby reindeer to keep as a pet, which they took on board the sub and which lived through a patrol with them. Who knew that deer could get used to submarines so well? We never had anything bigger than a cat on my submarines. But their deer did well and lived a long life at a zoo in Scotland after the war.
http://i.imgur.com/x3sqTSU.jpg
The Trident’s crew didn’t come empty-handed either - but their greatest gift to us was their operational intelligence and know-how on fighting the Germans. They’d been patrolling and sinking German ships off Norway for the better part of two years, so they had plenty to teach us. Fleet command, too, was very keen to quickly make friends with the British, because once the agreements for lend-lease were made, we especially needed their help to escort the convoys with military aid. We simply did not have the ships for such an operation. And those convoys came soon - in fact the first one left Iceland on August 21st, while we were still on our way to our patrol area.
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/JXP7vFx.jpg
Q: What was your next patrol assignment?
After we were done with repairs and resupply, we were ordered to sail by August 18th and head to patrol area No.2. The patrol zones were being rearranged throughout the war; at that point, No.2 was a large swath of the Norwegian coast stretching from Nordkapp and south all the way to the approaches to Tromso. This meant familiar waters - command had confidence in our understanding of the situation there, having dealt with the air and surface patrols in the area.
http://i.imgur.com/t7ZUXtD.jpg
Q: Who did you receive your orders from?
Well, the man in charge was vice-admiral Golovko - commander of the Northern Fleet through the entire war. He did not issue orders to us directly, but little in our operations escaped his attention. Golovko raised and nurtured our fleet, and did everything to protect it and our main base - even go against Stalin’s orders many times. When our sister ship D-1 disappeared the previous year, he personally went to sea to join the search for it.
http://i.imgur.com/5AtZnDv.jpg
(admiral Golovko)
Golovko was also one of the most forethinking officers in the Soviet military; he had no doubt the German attack was coming. A few days before the war, he permitted our pilots to shoot down any German reconnaissance planes that violated the airspace. He ensured our anchorages were defended, our coastal artillery on full alert, and our ships were stationed safely and were ready to strike at the enemy when the war came. I’m certain that it was no coincidence that our D-2 left base with a full load of torpedoes on June 21st, 1941 - we were exactly where Golovko wanted us to be next day.
Below Admiral Golovko there were two main officers that we were responsible to. These were rear admiral N.I. Vinogradov, commander of the Northern Fleet Submarine Brigade, and Captain Gadzhiev, commander of 1st Submarine Division.
http://i.imgur.com/GRL38xz.gif http://i.imgur.com/0f1F2ZC.jpg
(Brigade commander Vinogradov; 1st Submarine Division commander Gadzhiev)
Vinogradov was known to every Soviet submariner long before the war started; he sailed on submarines in all four of our navy’s fleets - Baltic, Arctic, Black Sea and Pacific. As chief of submarines, he knew well what our subs could and could not do, and would always issue postings and assignments that put us in the best position to use our own initiative and skill. Compared to, say, Doenitz for the Germans, he did not micromanage his submarine commanders and left all tactical details to us.
Our division commander was rightly a legend in the fleet - Captain of the 2nd Rank, Gadzhiev Magomet Imadutdinovich. When so many years later you can instantly recall such a long name and patronym, you know that you a man was respected! Gadzhiev was most concerned with the fighting spirit and initiative in a submarine commander, and from what I’ve been told, it was largely on his recommendation that my unexpected command of the D-2 was approved. Gadzhiev had a tough job starting out in the 1st Division - our submarines were the oldest and largest, and we’d just lost the D-1 the previous year, making us also the smallest division at the start of the war with just two boats.
http://i.imgur.com/RTgLN7D.jpg
When we returned from our first patrol, Gadzhiev was still at sea with the D-3; he returned a couple of days later and immediately went to work putting the whole division on a war footing. He introduced a lot of traditions that exist in the fleet to this day - including the firing of blanks from the deck gun when a sub returned to port after a successful patrol, one shot for each enemy ship sunk.
http://i.imgur.com/Zki974S.jpg
Gadzhiev stressed aggressiveness and initiative even more so, and encouraged commanders to make more use of their guns to attack the small, lightly-armed ships off the Norwegian coast. He was glad when the K-1 and K-2 arrived on August 6th, and worked on developing tactics for these large cruiser subs. But though he promoted high fighting spirit, he never liked arrogance. Gadzhiev used to say: “Nowhere is there such equality as on a submarine, where everyone either triumphs together, or dies together.” Going to see with the division’s boats frequently, Gadzhiev lived true to his words, on both counts.
http://i.imgur.com/7EyRkrS.jpg
And, when we sailed to our next patrol on the morning of the 18th of August 1941, Gadzhiev as well as Vinogradov were both present to see us both. Sailors from the newly-arrived K-1 and K-2, as well as the Englishmen from the Trident, saluted us, and off we were into the Barents Sea once again...
http://i.imgur.com/KQofgGq.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/8NucEOQ.jpg
Q: How did your next patrol start?
It started well. We started our diesel engines at 8:45 in the morning on the 18th of August 1941. Together with the shturman [navigator], we discussed our patrol options while the starpom [first officer] conned the boat on the way out of the Polyarnyi inlet and Kola bay. We agreed that at first we’ll concentrate on the exits from Uls-fjord and Lungen-fjord, since we had information on minefields that have been laid both further into the fjords and further out at sea. We plotted a course all the way to our patrol zone, some 1600km away, at a distance of 25-30km from the Norwegian shore so that we’d be able to watch for any coastal traffic.
http://i.imgur.com/bgsjHVF.jpg
Of course, we anticipated the enemy airplanes to be active, and took measures to avoid them as much as possible. It only took 6 hours of sailing out of port before we saw our first airplane - a distant enemy scout flying near cape Tsyp-Navolok. We made an emergency dive, but it seemed that they hadn’t noticed us.
http://i.imgur.com/6THLjoD.jpg
The first few days of the voyage were uneventful. The days of war elsewhere were anything but, of course - enemy forces were making breakout attacks in all directions, including encircling Kiev and punching through our lines in the direction of Leningrad. Mercifully, on the Northern Front they were unable to make such a breakthrough. We listened to the radio broadcasts intently in those days, nervous and hoping for something - anything - to stem the tide of the Fascist advance.
http://i.imgur.com/Y6IvvY1.jpg
It should be said that there was no defeatism on our boat, and we were sure we’d come through. The politruk, of course, did his part - one of the “upgrades” that the [D-2] “Narodnovolets” underwent during our time in port was a proper war propaganda kit: glossy new posters, slogans, literature, and even new records for the grammaphone. The sounds of the [popular song] “Katyusha” were now almost mandatorily followed by the “Sacred War”, a sort of official war hymn that was written within 2 days of the German invasion and became ubiquitous, with rousing content such as:
We shall drive a bullet into the forehead
Of the rotten fascist filth,
We shall build a solid coffin
For the scum of humanity!
And so forth. Comrade Stalin now appeared on the radio often, and in spite of the dark days that the country was living through, the broadcasts were certainly upbeat.
http://i.imgur.com/50lBu7k.jpg
By the 21st of August, 1941, we entered patrol area No.2, surveying the conditions. We’d decided to try and avoid the major entrances to Uls-fjord, and instead to try and sneak into it via one of the shallower inlets which were unlikely to see much shipping or patrols. Our new shturman knew the waters here very well and was confident in our plan. By now, although days were still fairly long, we did have a few hours of darkness every night. We figured that we would have no trouble slipping through on the surface by nighttime.
http://i.imgur.com/Sxu9GOD.jpg
The first couple of days of our journey were in sunny, warm weather with smooth seas. This allowed us to pre-flood some of our ballast tanks and proceed with a lowered freeboard (or even decks awash, although that was a bit more difficult as it required keeping watertight hatches from the tower all the way to the engine room open to provide air intake for the diesels - a safety risk in itself). Although this reduced our speed and fuel efficiency, it also allowed us to stay surfaced safely in heavily-patrolled areas, because we could dive very rapidly - in 30 seconds or less.
http://i.imgur.com/JNGlvkD.jpg
But in the early afternoon of the 21st of August, as we rounded Nordkapp, strong winds and high waves blasted us from the west. It was no longer possible to safely reduce the boat’s freeboard (unless we wanted to risk our watch deck being washed over by a high wave), and so we blew our tanks and hoped for better conditions soon.
http://i.imgur.com/5g6KGoE.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/h5Nszqj.jpg
Q: Did the weather conditions cause you trouble?
Oh, almost immediately! At 5:45 on the evening of the 21st of August, a Junkers jumped us from the sun at close range, and dropped two bombs before we could even react. His attack was accurate and one of the bombs - a small one, luckily - hit the upper deck aft of the conning tower. This immediately caused serious damage and made it impossible for us to dive. Both of the electric motors were knocked out, along with one of the diesels. Soon afterward, chlorine gas could be smelled both fore and aft as a few battery cells cracked.
http://i.imgur.com/V054tH0.jpg
We were stuck on the surface with limited maneuvering ability, and no ability to fire back. Only 40 minutes later, another Junkers dropped in, but missed. We had to hurry with urgent repairs in pitching seas, and while I was certain that we’d survive, I have to admit for a bit that I thought our patrol was already over and we’d need to head to base. The attack shook me up a bit.
http://i.imgur.com/oRS21j3.jpg
Q: Did it shake up the rest of the crew as well?
For the most part, everyone remained calm - a good crew is a well-drilled crew, and when something goes wrong, training kicks in. Not everybody was as professional as we hoped - senior machinist Maidanov again panicked, and I had to get him to a different station before the politruk had his head. Very disappointed in that guy.
http://i.imgur.com/Nmvsyba.jpg
By midnight, we were running on diesels quite reliably, but one of the electric motors was still out of order, the batteries were still leaking small amounts of chlorine, and the air compressor wasn’t working, ruling out any attempts to dive. As night fell, we headed north to get out of range of the dive-bombers.
http://i.imgur.com/HTybN7c.jpg
Not all was bad, of course - an update on the radio from fleet reported that the “baby” submarine M-172 broke through to the enemy anchorage at Petsamo and managed to sink a large transport there. That lifted spirits a bit!
http://i.imgur.com/3J5pQGp.jpg
By morning, most repairs were complete, save for one electric motor still out of order and uncertainty over hull integrity. For the next day, we were stuck well off shore trying to repair these, while maintaining radio silence to prevent the enemy from finding us. Eventually all repairs were made successfully, but the question of whether we could dive or not still remained. We could try out here in the deep water, but if there was some damage we failed to spot or an undetected hull breach, we risked diving out of control and never coming back.
http://i.imgur.com/hXMyP4c.jpg
So our options were either to return to base, scrapping the patrol; or to go to shallow waters near the coast where we could do a test dive, but risked being bombed again. We decided to go to the coast, and returned there by afternoon on the 23rd of August. In about 30m of water, we very carefully submerged, and with a bit of work, got the boat in trim and under control.
http://i.imgur.com/dZOTlKP.jpg
That was a relief. From here, we proceeded slowly underwater towards the island of Vanna, hoping to sneak into the fjords by darkness. However, as night fell, weather worsened and we turned back around, heading back to open sea and radioing our situation back to base.
http://i.imgur.com/U7n6Ahq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/p4rnu5P.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/KTSYVmR.jpg
Q: Did you receive any instructions on what to do next?
Initially, no, but in the evening on the 24th we did get a report of enemy convoy leaving Hammerfest and heading west, so we decided to try and stake them out at the exits from Soroysund. That night, a situation report from fleet suggested two German ships sunk by our forces off Norway - I wondered if those were from that same convoy. There was yet another, eastbound convoy reported around midnight on the 25th of August, but we were not able to catch up to it due to the heavy seas.
http://i.imgur.com/pVp9Z9H.jpg
By morning on the 25th, the weather cleared a bit as we approached the exits from Soroysund, which did not help our cause as it only exposed us to air attack, so we spent that day patrolling submerged, surfacing only at sunset. Overnight we moved deeper into the straight, and again submerged in the morning. Finally, at 9:15 on the 26th of August we got our first ship contact.
http://i.imgur.com/D57uTPI.jpg
Q: What was the contact?
It was a large German transport ship, and it was very close, heading into the strait of Soroysund from the west. I immediately raised battle alert and maneuvered for position, ordering our now-usual torpedo “comb” shot to be prepared - 17-13-9 degrees offset, depth 4 meters, standard 30.5kt speed. After about 15 minutes of maneuvering, I discovered that - perhaps due to the somewhat heavy seas - the enemy ship was going slowly, perhaps 5-6 knots, so I adjusted the torpedo offsets to 13-9-5 degrees instead.
http://i.imgur.com/iKf47zm.jpg
At 9:41, 26 minutes after we spotted the ship, we were in excellent position off his port beam and I released the torpedoes. After a brief run, the first two hit, and the third passed astern - still a good record. The transport quickly flooded, submerging by its stern and going down in less than 5 minutes time. Her boilers blew as the ship went down. I noted with some satisfaction in our board [war] journal - very large transport sunk, about 8000 tons.
http://i.imgur.com/rVVBaKi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/J33KOSn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EqYN9b9.jpg
We spent the next hour reloading the three torpedo tubes used in the attack, taking a heading out of the straits, so we don’t get trapped here by any responding ships.
http://i.imgur.com/ioS1NCk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gCkjoRe.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/yOgmAdX.jpg
Q: Did you make it out of the straits safely?
Oh, we did far better than that!
For a few hours, everything was quiet. We ran down our battery to less than half capacity by then, and were looking forward to surfacing once it got darker. I would take the boat up for periscope checks every once in a while, but on the surface all we got was rough waves, lots of spray and mist, and broken cloud. Then, just before 5 o’clock, we picked up a hydroacoustic contact to our southwest, and soon determined it to be a convoy.
http://i.imgur.com/Gj3lJyY.jpg
We again came up to check the periscope, and to my surprise, a huge tanker loomed in the mist, accompanied by a small armed vessel. We were already on their port beam, meaning that we wouldn’t be able to get ahead of them in a submerged position, but I decided to close distance and try our luck as best we could. At 17:10, I estimated the tanker’s distance at about 4.5 km away. The sea mist was fairly dense, and the boat was pitching hard, making measurements difficult (in fact it was even difficult to keep depth), but I knew we wouldn’t get a better shot. So I risked it.
http://i.imgur.com/snNHLnA.jpg
At 17:13, I released a “comb” of four torpedoes, firing at the target passed 21-17-13-9 degrees off our bow. Because of the distance, the intervals between torpedoes fired were larger than usual. Then all we could do is cross our fingers and hope our estimates were right. Fortunately, the tactic did not let me down - 3 and a half minutes later, two torpedoes hit, much to our exhilaration. That meant that they ran for some 3200 meters - not bad for a shot based largely on guesswork at a foggy target!
http://i.imgur.com/6JnURGC.jpg
When I raised the scope, I realized that the hits were less than ideal; we’d hit the target right in the bow and stern, not causing heavy flooding or structural damage. However, this mattered little, because it seems that the stern hit disabled the big tanker’s screw, leaving it helpless in the water. It had turned slightly before stopping, and I decided that as we had some time, we would turn around and finish it with a shot from a stern tube.
http://i.imgur.com/C8l5Ttx.jpg
Escort ships - turned out there were two of them - came to its aid. One seemed to approach the tanker itself, likely to help rescue the crew; the other dropped depth bombs somewhere far from our actual position. At 17:31, I fired a single stern shot; a couple of minutes later, the tanker exploded in a big fireball. All of this happened close to within sight of shore - quite a sight.
http://i.imgur.com/2fZXsZp.jpg
Q: How did you feel about blowing up a tanker like this?
Quite good, actually. We figured that the tanker must have been carrying aviation kerosene, because it detonated very violently when hit by the last torpedo, rather than simply burning up. This gave us some satisfaction, having taken our share of air attacks and being threatened by German air superiority over the front and our base as well. I estimated that tanker to have been about 10000 tons in size, and we knew that the Germans did not have many such ships - so this was an important victory for us.
http://i.imgur.com/KkPw1f9.jpg
The tanker crew had some 20 minutes to evacuate between the two torpedo attacks, and the convoy’s escorts seemed to give up rather quickly, perhaps to pull the survivors from the rough seas as quickly as possible. We left the area, reloading our torpedoes underwater, and avoiding all further contact. By then our batteries were ⅔ drained.
http://i.imgur.com/1sDcxu9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qBNWtyE.jpg
I called “otboi” [secure from battle stations], and we were safely surfaced just before 9 in the evening to listen to the evening news. We reported our own news on the radio to base, which I’m sure was greeted with approval.
http://i.imgur.com/tgOTvhp.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/wKDHTZR.jpg
Q: Did you leave the patrol area after this?
No, but we did keep a bit of distance for the next two days, resting and recharging our batteries. The weather gradually improved. Sometime around then, the K-1 passed our position, though we didn’t know it at the time - soon they reported from patrol position No.1 much further south. It seemed that our division commander Gadzhiev very quickly got the “Katyushas” on war footing, and this was to be the cruiser submarines’ first patrol (of many) in Arctic waters. It was also the furthest south any of our submarines went at that time.
http://i.imgur.com/Ohh9nV2.jpg
On the 27th of August, we decided to go reconnoiter the other side of Soroysund and the approaches to Hammerfest. The sea was calmer by then, and we figured we would approach the port on the surface with some of our tanks flooded and decks awash, and then go to the exit from the straits and lay on the bottom by day until it got dark again.
http://i.imgur.com/amdD8fj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/14qwFjy.jpg
Our plans to get near the harbour were cancelled by a patrolling anti-submarine cutter which we’d maneuvered away from, but by morning we entered the center of the straits and laid on the bottom.
http://i.imgur.com/YqW9hEl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RVGogc3.jpg
At about 6:20, we once again had a loud hydroacoustic contact. It was quickly determined to be a convoy - I counted 5 ships at minimum. However, perhaps because of the winding coastline, it seemed that we picked them up quite late and they were about to pass us on the other end of the strait.
http://i.imgur.com/GXR1qC2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/AmcseSx.jpg
Foolishly, I ordered quick speed submerged to get into an intercept position - but that not only failed to get us close enough to attack, it also seemed to attract the attention of the convoy’s escorts. They dropped a few depth charges, very inaccurately, but proceeded to circle and search for us overhead. We had only 30m of depth at best in that part of the strait, so it was very dangerous if we were to get bombed directly.
http://i.imgur.com/rcRHJb4.jpg
Q: How did you get away?
Silly as it sounds, mostly by playing dead. I ordered silence on the boat, turned off the electric motors and pumps, and let the boat sink down to the rocky bottom. This actually made us hard to detect, and the enemy seemed conscious of conserving depth charges. Their tactic seemed to be to trick us into surfacing. The larger escorts left towards Hammerfest to catch up with the convoy within about an hour and a half, leaving a small cutter to circle for about another hour and a half. We then heard them leaving.
http://i.imgur.com/rO4AchX.jpg
It was quiet for nearly 2 hours, so I was about ready to surface, but suddenly we heard a small boat coming back to the area. I figured they were still some distance away, but it seems our ears fooled us - when I ordered periscope depth to check, I stuck out the scope and found myself staring right at him, maybe a couple of hundred meters away.
http://i.imgur.com/nMRoeCC.jpg
Naturally, I retracted it back down and silently went to the bottom right away, but I’m certain he’d seen it. This time, the boat wouldn’t leave us alone - they dropped no depth charges, but continued circling directly over our position for the rest of the day.
http://i.imgur.com/F1gSDy9.jpg
Finally by 4 in the afternoon I had enough. I ordered the motors to the slowest speed and about 1kt of forward speed so we could change up our position. Surprisingly, not even half an hour later, the little boat left.
http://i.imgur.com/ZNZM0cT.jpg
I took no chances, though. I rested the boat on the bottom until dark, and it was only at about 8:30 - more than 14 hours since we first bumped into that convoy - that we finally surfaced and got some fresh air into the boat.
http://i.imgur.com/DNdlGTg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WYpw7Uq.jpg
To be continued...
ReallyDedPoet
04-13-15, 02:29 PM
Nice work here :yep::up:
Nice work here :yep::up:
Thank you and glad you're enjoying it :salute:
More soon :yep:
ReallyDedPoet
04-13-15, 04:14 PM
Thank you and glad you're enjoying it :salute:
More soon :yep:
Look forward to it.
http://i.imgur.com/mAaEDMn.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/XNHdhmq.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/zWhKQOg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kGWKh0O.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/eZ9ft6c.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/Dfvufu3.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/QqLFbJm.jpg
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...
http://i.imgur.com/TlTzqQj.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/SnK0geL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mMRWzoj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xGz4kHT.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/WqpfC2J.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/r2G3PSN.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/Se7Vyey.jpg
We did have one last action during that patrol, though.
To be continued...
Torplexed
04-13-15, 07:58 PM
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. :cool:
http://novelthoughts.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/five_stars.jpg
Thank you Torplexed, very honoured and glad you're enjoying it :salute:
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 :yep:
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 :)
http://i.imgur.com/n5uSqes.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/lrzZaR3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/azT1Sw5.jpg
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.
http://i.imgur.com/jdklxsx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DhcTaDV.jpg
In the evening, we surfaced, sent our reconnaissance report to fleet, and took a final heading to port.
http://i.imgur.com/JhbyDAV.jpg
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!
http://i.imgur.com/7S6r8RP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZG1sqEF.jpg
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!
http://i.imgur.com/Du37e9U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/V1UQxvB.jpg
(map of the 2nd patrol of the D-2 "Narodnovolets", August-September 1941)
To be continued...
Longknife
04-14-15, 03:25 PM
Awesome AAR! I thoroughly enjoyed the read & pictures! :up:
Awesome AAR! I thoroughly enjoyed the read & pictures! :up:
Thank you very much :DL
Continuing with more of it momentarily :)
BACK TO ARKHANGELSK
http://i.imgur.com/zI2snyh.jpg
*This part of the log is a semi-historical diversion after the patrol, which I took to make repairs on the White Sea industrial port of Arkhangelsk to penalize myself for the damage I took, which I think the game let me off too lightly on. Northern Fleet submarines did not typically go to Arkhangelsk for repairs, as the facilities in the main base at Kola bay were more than enough for that work. Still, this was a good excuse to do a bit of sightseeing and storytelling!
http://i.imgur.com/Sv8iN1S.jpg
Q: What was the mood back at base like?
Much the same as when we’d left. The situation in the war was still very dire, but we were holding up well and so far the Germans were not able to make much progress towards Kola bay. The fighting at the front was very heavy, and many sailors and dock workers from the Northern Fleet had volunteered to fight at the front. The exploits of the heroic seamen of the Northern Fleet fighting on land were all the talk then, along with the Germans’ rapid invasion in the south. As for us, we had lots to do when we returned, and little time to rest.
http://i.imgur.com/xPUO6OX.jpg
Division commander Gadzhiev was away again, on patrol with Senior Lieutenant Utkin’s K-2, where they soon became the first submarine to lay mines in the Arctic theater, and then sank a German transport with artillery fire. Just days earlier, the British brought their first convoy to Arkhangelsk safely under escort, and a few of their escorts anchored here in Kola bay - where they were promptly attacked by the Luftwaffe, though not successfully. With the convoy came a squadron of British fighter pilots, and a number of Hurricane fighters for us to assemble at Arkhangelsk - a very timely relief. Northern Fleet headquarters were busy arranging a regular convoy schedule then, which was about to start.
http://i.imgur.com/HPIb3Z0.jpg
(K-2 attacking a merchant off Norway)
Inspection of our boat showed that we certainly didn’t get away unscathed - and that we were lucky that we never needed to dive to more than 40 meters, as we sustained a fair bit of damage to the hull. Two things quickly became obvious: first, that we needed some significant structural maintenance; and second, that we wouldn’t be able to get it in Polyarnyi. We were truthfully a bit of a nuisance at our base the edge of a combat zone, threatened by airstrikes and short of manpower. When they realized that it would be quite some time until we were ready for patrol again, several of the D-2’s crew promptly volunteered into combat brigades to fight on land.
http://i.imgur.com/kN9cpRm.jpg
So, on the morning of September 13th, with our torpedo tubes empty and slightly short of our compliment, we set off to sea once again, but after exiting Kola bay this time we turned east instead of west, heading to my hometown of Arkhangelsk for repairs. The weather was quite good through our trip, and by noon on the 17th of September, 1941, we were in sight of the Mudyugskiy lighthouse at the mouth of the Northern Dvina river, docking at Arkhangelsk that evening. We had no contacts with any enemy, although reportedly a German long-range reconnaissance plane overflew Arkhangelsk the day we arrived.
http://i.imgur.com/K6tjHHJ.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/0T8lVN2.jpg
Q: What was your time in Arkhangelsk like?
It was a strange feeling, being back in your hometown and away from the fighting, while just days before you were in enemy waters and the rest of the country was fighting the greatest war the world has ever seen. Not that I would say it was peaceful - everything was on a war footing, and as we arrived, they were still busy unloading the first British ships that came with the “Dervish” convoy of August ‘41. Railway cars and lorries were being brought in from all over the country, ready to carry the newly-arrived British (and soon - American) weapons right to the defenders of Moscow. The ships left port on September 25th as convoy QP-1, to return in other convoys again soon.
http://i.imgur.com/jFZc7bJ.jpg
All over town, men and women were being enlisted for the war effort. We were greeted very warmly - and not only by my parents. In Arkhangelsk as in Murmansk, Northern Fleet sailors were very much hometown heroes. The politruk very quickly connected with the local communist party apparatus, and we were invited to a whole slew of events as speakers and guests of honour. It was particularly good to be able to say goodbye to friends and hometown comrades who were leaving for the front then - and many of them would not come back.
http://i.imgur.com/okh4gUF.jpg
Q: How long did the repairs take?
That depends on how you figure. The most significant part was the hull repairs took about two weeks in dock - that required removing the bomb-damaged section of deck, welding and patching work on the hull, and then a bit of metal work to build a new deck section to cover it. Luckily, between the departure of outbound convoy QP-1 on September 25th and the arrival of the first “serial” Allied convoy PQ-1 on the 12th of October, there was both dock space and labour in Archangelsk for such repairs to spare.
http://i.imgur.com/F4h4sGU.jpg
(convoys PQ-1 and QP-1 seen as map contacts)
After the convoy arrived, together with its British escort, we vacated the dock. We were eager to get back into the war - around then, the news from the front was particularly grim, and even the radio admitted the “worsening” of the situation. The Germans cut off Leningrad, captured Vyazma and Odessa, and a state of emergency was declared in Moscow itself. Everywhere, citizen volunteers were being mobilized for urgent training, and there was no such thing as extra manpower. We felt quite bad sitting around in port while the war raged on.
http://i.imgur.com/93cLLTc.jpg
HMS Suffolk escorting convoy PQ-1 through the Barents Sea
http://i.imgur.com/ixVSuMG.jpg
Soviet destroyer Valerian Kuybyshev taking convoy PQ-1, seen on the horizon, into the White Sea
On October 16th-17th, we we took the boat out for a bit of a cruise in the mouth of the Northern Dvina river. The politruk even brought two journalists on board to show them around. As a cruise boat we did fine, but a whole slew of mechanical problems were revealed in the process, particularly with the electric motors which took a bad beating on our previous patrol. We spent a few more days at Archangelsk patching up, and then headed back to our base at Polyarnyi. I was grateful to have had a chance to say goodbye to my family.
http://i.imgur.com/NE5opda.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FtGPD1q.jpg
The way back from the White Sea, into Barents Sea, and to our base was uneventful - except for a German Junkers-88 reconnaissance bomber that we saw flying west along the Kola peninsula’s coast in the vicinity of Seven Islands. He didn’t seem to see us at first, but then we saw him turn and took no chances, diving down and ending our only enemy encounter of the fall season. We were back at Polyarnyi by the end of October.
http://i.imgur.com/NtEoLfC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jp45O1l.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/xnU6fPv.jpg
Q: Were you able to sail on your next mission then?
Not yet, unfortunately. By the time we got back, the German advance had been more or less stemmed, but there was still immense pressure on our resources - and the D-2 still needed repairs and maintenance, and short a few crew members. Some of those that volunteered to fight on land did not return, including seamen Smolevich and Boskov, both very reliable guys who stood on deck watch with Kislayev, our chief lookout; as well as our chief torpedo mechainic Pastukhov. I also conceded to the politruk’s repeated suggestions to remove the senior machinist Maidanov, who’d shown cowardice and panic when we were bombed on our two previous patrols. But qualified replacements took a bit to find.
http://i.imgur.com/DbHXQNk.jpg
The necessary maintenance also dragged out - both the K-1 and K-2 cruiser subs returned from their first patrol, and division commander Gadzhiev prioritized getting these big boats ready for their next patrol, along with their just-arrived sisters K-3, K-21, K-22, and K-23. We weren’t the only ones having trouble of course - the Northern Fleet’s resources were stretched, and I’d reckon that half of our boats were at base and in need of maintenance.
http://i.imgur.com/7NgsMoF.jpg
So, we just had to be patient and make do. Soon our ticket came up.
Q: What were your orders?
Nothing out of the ordinary. By this point the Norwegian coast was divided up into fairly standard patrol sectors, some of which have been redrawn since our last sailing. Position No.2, the large section of coastal waters which we patrolled last time, had by now been split up into equally-sized 2 and 2A, 2A being the northeastern half, from the mid-point of the island of Soroya that we circled last time, up to Nordkapp. The advantage now would be that with polar winter coming, the light conditions would favour us and prevent enemy air patrols from attacking, meaning we could fight close inshore - provided we didn’t run into any mines.
http://i.imgur.com/Cy7KXyn.jpg
Part of the reason for the breaking up of the sectors was that our submarine “family” had got bigger with the new cruiser subs. Their entry into service wasn’t completely smooth - for instance the K-22 went on patrol in October, but had nearly sunk because of mechanical problems. So, division commander Gadzhiev was busy working on operating procedures for these boats. He emphasized their minelaying and artillery capabilities, and so far as our intelligence could tell, the minefields were proving very effective, claiming several German ships already.
http://i.imgur.com/RRLSqZM.jpg
It was these mining operations that were also stressed in our briefing - our boat was not outfitted for carrying mines, but since we often hunted close inshore, we had to know the positions of all these newly-laid minefields and avoid them on our hunts. While this put certain areas off-limits for us, it was no big loss to us as the Norwegian fjords are quite vast. And we’d have good conditions for hunting in the dark near the coast.
http://i.imgur.com/f9Q3lxt.jpg
Our politruk also got some orders and instructions of his own, among them - a propaganda manual detailing the successes of the various commissars in the fleet, and a summary of the fleet’s achievements. He’d proudly emphasized how we added to the tally - the Northern Fleet’s tonnage total was some 170,000 tons, of which we’d contributed some 25,000. Some 50 ships and 2 submarines were reported sunk by all of our fleet’s vessels, and 192 airplanes were reportedly downed, mostly by naval aircraft. At that point, we had not yet lost any submarines of our own. So far, so good, as they say.
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/y083bh8.jpg
crew on the Sch-403 clearing ice off their boat at Polyarnyi
Q: When did you sail?
We set off on November 27th, a few hours behind the Sch-403 which was heading to Patrol Area No.5 with captain Smirnov, a fleet staff officer who was on board to coordinate operations at sea. On our way out, we passed the British cruiser HMS Kenya, who arrived with a destroyer a couple of days earlier, to refuel after successfully escorting the convoy PQ-3. It was cold, dark, and icy, but we had no trouble getting out of port.
http://i.imgur.com/Rdqe7WN.jpg
Q: Was it really always dark and cold during winters?
Well, it was certainly not pitch black, but even at the end of November we no longer saw the sun. There were a few hours of relatively bright twilight each day, and whether from the horizon, moon, stars or aurora, there was almost always some ambient light. The visibility varied though, and the drifting mist was always a problem.
http://i.imgur.com/iYDXeiT.jpg
But as I said, it was a bigger problem for the enemy, who was robbed of effective air reconnaissance - so despite the bitter cold of that winter of ‘41-42, it was the time of highest activity for us. So much so that the British had planned to send all of the promised lend-lease supplies to us by spring, so that their convoys wouldn’t have to contend with German air power. They had the ships to protect against any surface attack.
http://i.imgur.com/CffPWLa.jpg
Q: But wasn’t it difficult for you to find contacts as well?
To a point - but as we saw right away, with a bit of work and cooperation, we’d always have something to sink!
http://i.imgur.com/85yIZH7.jpg
The very next evening, we were a bit northwest of Varde, and we got a contact report of a convoy not far from Petsamo, which we’d already passed. Kovalenko’s Sch-403, with staff officer Smirnov on board, had sighted them but then lost them in the mist.
http://i.imgur.com/2fi5ocw.jpg
We promptly turned around and went south to check. On the way over, we passed Varde and saw one of the patrol ships there that attacked us at the end of our last patrol. In the morning of the 29th of November we got into Varanger-fjord, and when it got brighter we submerged.
http://i.imgur.com/Ck0iiIw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1hc4RgV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OrSBpnr.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/39SdTc4.jpg
Q: Did you find that convoy?
I’m not sure if that was it, but we did find something. At around noon - which meant in cold, misty twilight - we picked up a hydroacoustic contact somewhere to the southwest of Kiberg. They were moving into the fjord, and I quickly realized that we wouldn’t be able to catch them before they sailed off to Kirekenes nearby - so I thought we could at least report them.
http://i.imgur.com/pjQhu4V.jpg
We surfaced very carefully and observed a small patrol ship - likely the trailing escort, sailing away from us. We sent a radio signal, and soon after, the ship suddenly turned in our direction. Careful not to get caught, we immediately turned away and opened distance on the surface. Soon, he disappeared from view and we headed back out of the fjord.
http://i.imgur.com/GQHpNdP.jpg
Less than 3 hours later, however, we ran into a transport moving into Varanger-fjord in the vicinity of Kiberg. We also spotted what looked like a small guard cutter sailing as escort ahead of him.
http://i.imgur.com/07fWDyV.jpg
It was already very dark by then, and we began our approach on the surface. However, with drifting mists, after we got to about 3.5km of him in favourable position, I decided to not take the risk of being detected, and submerged the D-2. 15 minutes later, the ships were approaching and we were busy setting up our standard 17-13-9 comb shot. At last, I raised the scope for our final observation, preparing to call out “pli!” [“fire!”] to the torpedo room.
http://i.imgur.com/n5vPCTi.jpg
...when suddenly, I heard strange noises all around the conning tower. I turned the scope to the left, and saw the little escort cutter firing a machinegun right at my periscope!
http://i.imgur.com/XW3iu8F.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wWZFk3r.jpg
Well, that was certainly irritating. However, we were so close to firing that, after momentarily lowering the scope, I raised it back up and, through a hail of machinegun bullets, fired our salvo of three torpedoes. We were so close to the transport that, although he did seem to maneuver, he had no chance.
http://i.imgur.com/FqzDVMx.jpg
Just over half a minute later, all three torpedoes hit the ship and it exploded in a series of loud explosions, again suggesting that it was likely carrying ammunition for German troops on the shore. His escort dropped two depth charges off our stern, but to no effect.
http://i.imgur.com/3Lxqj41.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SEcSypZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/A9lHJMO.jpg
The escort then went silent, and 10 minutes later we went up to periscope depth to check, and observed him still in water among the wreckage left by the exploded transport, shining two spotlights all over the water near him. It’s likely that at that point, he simply gave up on attacking us and was trying to find survivors of the wreck in the icy waters of Varanger-fjord.
http://i.imgur.com/xSP1W43.jpg
To be continued...
u crank
04-19-15, 09:41 AM
To be continued...
I hope so. This is great CCIP. First thing I look for when logging in. :up:
I hope so. This is great CCIP. First thing I look for when logging in. :up:
Thank you very much, I'm happy you're enjoying it! :yep:
It certainly is continuing - the log is consistently about a patrol behind my actual career, so I still have lots of good material to work with :salute:
http://i.imgur.com/SfPFF4O.jpg
Q: So you never caught up with that convoy?
No, they’d gone into Kirkenes by then and there was no point chasing them into a well-protected port. But we did find another convoy later.
http://i.imgur.com/HpMUR3d.jpg
Before that, we ran into a fishing boat out in the open water, in vicinity of cape Omgang, in the early morning hours of the 30th of November. It was a dark, misty, icy night; I ordered slow speed and followed it stealthily until we were able to sight its flag and identify it as a Norwegian trawler.
http://i.imgur.com/L1jtBcL.jpg
We fired a shot across their bow from reasonable distance and they seemed to understand their situation right away. They signaled us with their light, lowered their lifeboat and, soon after, I ordered fire to be opened on the trawler from our “sotka” [100mm cannon].
http://i.imgur.com/lN23awc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/I15B3Rw.jpg
With 4 shots, we cut down the trawler’s mast and set it on fire. It sank shortly thereafter and we did not approach the lifeboat. They were close enough to shore to take care of themselves.
http://i.imgur.com/izak13K.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dHNRfe8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iIr6YwW.jpg
We continued west along the shore; on Fleet frequency, we were advised of convoy activity. PQ-6 had just left Iceland, and a westbound convoy in the opposite direction was passing to our north. We scanned for hostile warships that could threaten it, but all we’d bumped into was a Vorpostenboot on the evening of the 30th. We watched him leave towards the coast, and then resumed our course to the west. And that’s when we found them…
http://i.imgur.com/MjfMsl0.jpg
To be continued...
ReallyDedPoet
04-20-15, 08:00 PM
These continue to be a great read CCIP :yep::up:
These continue to be a great read CCIP :yep::up:
My pleasure as always :salute:
http://i.imgur.com/1HfJRE2.jpg
Q: Your biggest battle yet?
I would say so.
As midnight struck on the 1st of December, 1941, we were racing to the front of an eastbound convoy that we'd just found, who seemed to be drawing closer to the Norwegian coast for the night. We were about 25km northwest of cape Omgang. The weather was much the same - icy mist, temperatures down in to -20s. All crew were standing by at battle stations.
http://i.imgur.com/sxEwa1V.jpg
From the deck, I was observing 3 transports and at least two small escort ships. The leading merchant was not a large ship, but the two convoyed ships behind it seemed a bit bigger, so I decided to focus on them and set aside 3 torpedoes for each. With the moon in the sky and visibility relatively unobstructed, I decided that a submerged attack would be wisest, especially since the convoy’s escorts were small and kept disappearing from view.
http://i.imgur.com/AsxeL8X.jpg
Half an hour after midnight, we were in position. I raised the scope and observed the first of the transports in the convoy passing by. I then looked carefully at the 2nd transport, and after consulting the recognition manual determined her to be a European transport with a relatively shallow draft of 4.7m. I adjusted torpedo depth to about 3m and, at 00:40, fired two torpedoes at it from somewhere about 700-800 meters range...
http://i.imgur.com/yDngqnX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/M4vOwZu.jpg
To be continued...
Top notch! This mod looks amazing as well. Hope it gets translated to English eventually! :)
Top notch! This mod looks amazing as well. Hope it gets translated to English eventually! :)
Cheers! :up:
I will see if, after I'm done with the AAR, I can find some time to at least translate the menus and text in the mod.
http://i.imgur.com/KvE6d6N.jpg
Q: You were confident that just two torpedoes was enough for a hit?
Yes, although my expectations did not pay off! Despite the depth adjustment, both torpedoes somehow ran underneath the merchant without exploding. I cursed, and waited patiently for the next ship behind him to get into position.
http://i.imgur.com/SapHu4v.jpg
At 00:44, I commanded “pli!” [“fire!”] - and this time things went better. The first torpedo explosion wrecked the ship’s forward section entirely, and it quickly buried its bow in the water, going down in minutes with its screws sticking up.
http://i.imgur.com/8IG4ElM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fMKsSfN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cFi7k17.jpg
Two small torpedo boats, which I had not seen before, immediately lit up searchlights behind the convoy. I was not yet done, however. As the convoy raised alarm and the surviving two transports maneuvered frantically, I saw an opportunity. Quickly commanding high speed on the motors, I ordered a hard turn to starboard, both to turn away from the wreckage of the sinking ship in front of us, and to bring our stern tubes to bear on the ship our torpedoes previously missed.
http://i.imgur.com/uJUiIgT.jpg
My stern torpedoes were set to run at fast speed - and I mostly reserved them just for the purpose of hitting targets of opportunity or ships chasing us. I found it generally more difficult to aim planned shots with the stern and, regardless, the tubes could not be reloaded at sea. I figured the odds of this one were low, but, relying on the Russian “avos’” [stereotypical Russian attitude of “ah heck, I have no idea what I’m doing, but maybe I’ll get lucky and this will work!”], I ordered tube 7 launched at 00:46.
http://i.imgur.com/cWZTBsL.jpg
Naturally, it worked; the panicking ship turned straight into our torpedo, exploding in a powerful series of secondaries. It must have also been carrying ammunition. Now our job was done and I ordered a depth of 60m and course away from the convoy. Above us, as many as 5 escorts continued making noise - far more than we first detected, so it was probably for the best that I attacked submerged!
http://i.imgur.com/o0tK48k.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CQZtg1s.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4psjo8X.jpg
When we came up to periscope depth to check at about 2:00, they were still circling somewhere astern. I figured we were far enough, and ordered reloading of torpedoes. By the time we were done reloading at 3:20, there was still some sort of small vessel nearby - either the lurking escorts, or just a fishing boat. I decided that it was enough for us, though, surfaced, and high-tailed it out of the area. At 5:00 in the morning, I finally called “otboi” [“secure from battle stations”].
http://i.imgur.com/07huRAK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MyLIVS8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8I8qTwS.jpg
To be continued...
ReallyDedPoet
04-21-15, 12:26 PM
Cheers! :up:
I will see if, after I'm done with the AAR, I can find some time to at least translate the menus and text in the mod.
If this could be done that would be great. Would love to try a mod on the Soviet side :yep::up:
If this could be done that would be great. Would love to try a mod on the Soviet side :yep::up:
Here's to hoping :yep:
I'm pretty sure there's even a "cheap" way of doing it by running the various menu files through google translate, but that's probably not the best idea :haha:
http://i.imgur.com/GLYmgB7.jpg
Q: This was a very successful start to your patrol, then! Did the success continue?
Well, luck doesn’t hold up that long - and it would not be a short patrol, that’s for sure. After this, contacts proved harder to find, but I would say the patrol was still a very interesting one. The bulk of it was spent in our fairly confined patrol sector, area No.2A just on the west side of Nordkapp.
http://i.imgur.com/Io5Tx9x.jpg
Q: What was your next interesting encounter?
The next one was with a Norwegian merchant, on the evening of December 2nd off the island of Rolvsoy in our patrol sector. This one was going east, and seemed to be completely alone and unarmed. Great, I thought, we can have this worked out the “nice way”. I got the crew up on deck and ready to fire with guns. We approached slowly, and got to within about half a kilometer of the ship. With nowhere for him to run, I ordered a warning shot to reveal our position, and prepared for him to surrender...
http://i.imgur.com/f7LVSxm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6CiC1E9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YQODQTl.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/wudLRM6.jpg
Q: Did the Norwegians surrender?
That’s the thing, no they didn’t! Instead, their response was to open up on us with machineguns that were apparently hidden on deck. That completely threw me off. I cursed, ordered full speed on the diesels, and maneuvered to avoid the fire, as our deck gun crew dodged behind the rubka [conning tower] to avoid the bullets.
http://i.imgur.com/Jo5aEdw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/P7VLmcV.jpg
Seaman Tikhonov, on the 45mm gun, opened fire, but was wounded in the arm by a ricochet. We had to drag him off the deck into the hatch.
http://i.imgur.com/it5iji0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iAr6XGx.jpg
Luckily, it didn’t continue for long. We soon recovered our composure, while their fire had trouble finding us. After two hits from the “sotka” [100mm] and at least one from the “sorokopyatka” [45mm], the enemy ship was on fire and we knocked out their searchlight.
http://i.imgur.com/DSF3Upk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7JpXhyx.jpg
We kept firing for the next five minutes, and after eight hits from the “sotka”, there was a dull explosion on board the Norwegian merchant, which then started going down. Besides the lightly-wounded Tikhonov, we had no other casualties or damage, save for a few nicks left by the enemy bullets.
http://i.imgur.com/KHgpKF4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/clbFfOn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1gWClvC.jpg
Q: You didn’t stop to check the lifeboats?
No, we did not - we did not stay around and I’m not even sure there were lifeboats out there. It was a freezing cold night. Regardless, that whole situation made us quite angry at Norwegian-flagged ships - they were not supposed to be firing at us, we thought, and I think that left a bad taste for us. The confusion and hostility created by this encounter resulted in a bad situation later on during the same patrol, which ultimately drove a wedge between me and our politruk [political commissar] Khokhryakov...
http://i.imgur.com/GZZiajn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8m7Hy2w.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zghHMNz.jpg
To be continued...
ReallyDedPoet
04-22-15, 01:29 PM
Continued great work CCIP :yep:
http://i.imgur.com/Y2XgjKz.jpg
Q: What happened with the politruk and you?
Well, here’s the story. Our next contact with any ship was not for another 10 days, until the 12th of December. Now, when you have a boat patrolling uneventfully in a cold, freezing, hostile sea, you have to keep your crew busy, warm, and motivated enough - and that’s where a good politruk comes into his own. Khokhryakov was a good politruk.
http://i.imgur.com/r6BPoUp.jpg
As I said, he was a short, energetic, grumpy man - very no-nonsense, very keen to get at the enemy and make a difference in the war. He was our chief bureaucrat, our journalist and poster designer, our disc jockey and censor, and sometimes a little bit of an inquisitor. When the cold, weary, seasick crew grumbled, he was always there; at regular intervals, he’d do rounds of every station on the boat and offer to lend a hand. Some found him to be a bit of a nuisance, but most appreciated his input, especially on the slow days.
http://i.imgur.com/gn22tqN.jpg
After that first encounter with the Norwegians, our next 10 days in patrol area No.2A were slow days. Sometimes it snowed, sometimes it was just freezing cold. Luckily, Khokhryakov had ripe material to work with in his role as information manager and motivator on the boat - these were anything but slow days in the war. The Red Army had just begun a counteroffensive against the Germans across the Moscow front on December 5th, and soon reports from the front were flooding our radio waves with very optimistic news. Town after town liberated. German units destroyed or pushed back. And elsewhere, from Rostov to Tikhvin, our troops were also defeating the enemy. There was a real glimmer of hope in this war at last!
http://i.imgur.com/B3rv02T.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fGR8ACH.jpg
The Allies were there too. We listened with interest about reports of the British fighting successfully at Tobruk. We liked the British here in the Northern Fleet, and we’d got to know their sailors personally - and their submarines were now on regular rotation in our waters as well, often coming to Polyarnyi for resupply. We greeted them as honoured guests, as we usually do in Russia, with good strong drink and even better chase.
http://i.imgur.com/fGdKnnI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yZsQqkx.jpg
Then on December 7th, news from America - Pearl Harbour! We listened with a lot of interest. Our imaginations ran a bit wild there since, unlike the news from our own front, information was scant. We didn’t know the Americans well, but by then we were eating their so-called “Spam” that was starting to come in with the lend-lease convoys, so that was something. And we certainly knew the Japanese - many of us had fathers and grandfathers who fought against them in 1905. We thought this was another Port-Arthur, and couldn’t believe the Americans didn’t see it coming.
http://i.imgur.com/uG6ATJA.jpg
Eventually though, between remembering heroes of pre-revolutionary [i.e. pre-1917] wars and sympathizing with a capitalist power, we all started getting on Khokhryakov’s nerves and he’d started sidetracking us into more politically-safe discussion. Like why we’d be leading the world to victory by showing them the right communist way, and why capitalists might be with us against the fascists but we still needed to set them straight….
http://i.imgur.com/SiRy9L3.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/pkw9nYA.jpg
Q: Was there a lot of communist propaganda and indoctrination on board?
Again, to a point. We certainly had party activity, like a good Soviet boat. On the D-2, we had 7 party members; 34 VLKSM members [communist youth organization, aka. Komsomol], including myself; and 11 of the “party-less” - mostly junior ratings, but also including our seasoned head of watch Kislayev, as well as the ship’s doctor. I should say, nobody thought of anyone else as better or worse for their political status - as division commander Gadzhiev said, the Soviet submarine was a model of equality among men. There was no tension on the boat, and no divisions or opposing camps among us - at least up to a point. All the same, it was one of Khokhryakov’s stated goals to reduce the number of “party-less” to as close to zero as possible.
http://i.imgur.com/yVc9Kzn.jpg
Honestly, most of the political activity boiled down to what every Soviet working person was used to, whether they worked on a submarine in the Arctic, a factory somewhere in the Urals, or a cotton-producing kolkhoz [collective farm] in Uzbekistan: it was comprised of a little motivation, a little information, a little political doctrine, a little general education, and a lot of committee and sub-committee and sub-sub-committee meetings of every breed, purpose and flavour.
http://i.imgur.com/Gxz9XZ9.jpg
We had those on the boat too, of course. Khokhryakov would chair the meetings of the party members, supervise the Komsomol [communist youth] membership meetings, have arbitration hearings and meetings on proposed policy changes. The sailors would gather for these, listen, affirm, vote - willingly or reluctantly - on the smallest and most irrelevant of details every small thing. Almost everybody on the boat was at least a deputy chairman of something. Deputy chairman of grain product rationing for example. We had a separate committee for bread rations, although all actual bread on the boat was usually gone two weeks into the patrol. But they’d keep meeting and reporting, meeting and reporting.
http://i.imgur.com/iwDxjIG.jpg
Khokhryakov always lent an air of importance to any committee. Every meeting had its chairman, every chairman had his deputy, every discussion had diligently-kept minutes. Everything resulted in a statement, decision, vote. Sounds like quite the democracy, right? The curious thing was that somehow in spite of all this, nobody ever doubted who was in charge on the boat, and everyone respected rank dutifully - nobody voted on my orders, and “yes, comrade commander!” was the immediate response to anything I said. Stranger still, I can’t remember a single vote or debate where the outcome didn’t go exactly in line with either our standing orders or the general line of party policy.
Making sure of that was the real job of the politruk. And, as I said, Khokhryakov was a good politruk.
http://i.imgur.com/CBu8q5O.jpg
To be continued....
Longknife
04-22-15, 03:04 PM
Another great post! :up:
Not only do I enjoy the marvelous screen shots but how you weave the story with history & especially the inclusion of Soviet images.
As an American that grew up when the cold war was at hottest I know virtually nothing of their history. It is a rich one indeed!
Cheers, thanks both of you :salute:
Like I said, it's a bit of a learning experience for me too, which makes it all the more fun!
http://i.imgur.com/yKM4lZ7.jpg
Q: So why was there a problem between you and the commissar?
It was because of an order I gave. It was on December 12th, as we were patrolling uneventfully off the Norwegian coast. It was afternoon, which meant it was of course very dark; after spending the previous couple of nights only a couple of kilometers from shore near the island of Rolvsoy, we found nothing there, and I decided to shift our patrol to 20-50km off the coast to see if that’s where they were hiding. We had just learned by radio that Germany and Italy declared war on the US, making the Americans our allies at last.
http://i.imgur.com/NWdjgPC.jpg
At 4:30 in the afternoon, the watch raised alarm - in the drifting ice mist, they spotted a ship dead ahead, with its lights dimmed. We quickly identified it as a Norwegian fishing boat, and I ordered the guns manned. At 4:35, we fired a warning shot; the trawler immediately turned on their lights and stopped, lowering their lifeboat. We approached them, our guns trained, ordering them off their ship immediately.
http://i.imgur.com/9sWqPSm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CIVl0US.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bl18t0h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YjsjQ9W.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HdjKanm.jpg
A bizarre exchange then took place. The captain of the fishing boat, who spoke pretty decent Russian, had somehow assumed that we only hailed them to buy some fish, and was offering cod to us! Khokhryakov, on the loudspeaker, plainly told them that this was not the case - and soon they realized that we were dead serious. Their captain pleaded with us not to sink his boat, and offered to surrender his vessel as prize. We would have none of it, and, after making sure the crew were off, opened fire and sank the trawler with 5 shots from the “sotka” at 4:46.
http://i.imgur.com/lALKM90.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LizzMFx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yCi6gQH.jpg
I then ordered the captain of the sunk boat on board the D-2 for questioning. He seemed visibly shaken, but cooperated fully. Khokhryakov immediately started grilling him about his knowledge of German positions, German military plans, and where Germans were running their shipping, and what their radio frequencies were - the poor fisherman knew nothing, and explained that the only German he ever spoke to was the military commandant at Hammerfest, to get his permit to fish. He said that the boat we just sunk was not German in any way - in fact, it was his own private property and his whole livelihood.
http://i.imgur.com/WifODeq.jpg
The notion of private property, of course, was totally alien to party commissar Khokhryakov, who continued grilling the poor Norwegian. I eventually changed the subject, asking the captain about his crew’s situation. As it turned out, all they had in the boats was the clothes on their backs and some cod fish that they’d wanted to trade with us. One look outside the tower hatch told the whole story - the temperature was approaching -30, with icy mist and hardly any wind; visibility was fairly poor and there were ice floes in the area. They wouldn’t last even a few hours out there, and we were some 70-80km off shore, in strong currents.
http://i.imgur.com/iXKfKWn.jpg
I ordered their boat taken in tow, and a course back towards the coast. That’s when Khokhryakov flew off his handle, protesting the decision and demanding that we stop aiding the enemy. As commissar, he could not override captain’s orders, but as I insisted, he began threatening to write a kompromat [denunciation] after we got back to port. I stayed firm in spite of his protests, explaining to him that we would leave them off the coast and depart. He countered that we were putting our boat and our mission in extreme danger by letting an enemy go with information about our boat and our patrol position. It would compromise our maskirovka [operational stealth] and jeopardize crew morale.
http://i.imgur.com/noim1If.jpg
I left him off with this question: what would happen if we were sunk during our patrol? Who would most likely be pulling us out of the water? Answer: Norwegian fishermen. I think for most of sailors who’d lived in the north and made our traditional living from the sea, this was not hard to understand. For the commissar from the Russian heartland, it seemed more difficult to grasp. Despite Khokhryakov’s threats and grumbling, we towed the Norwegian lifeboat to within 15km of Rolvsoy and released them, some 6 hours after we’d sunk their ship.
http://i.imgur.com/YKo6cu7.jpg
Q: Did the crew side with you or with Khokhryakov on this?
The crew knew who the commander was. During the patrol, I knew that this incident wouldn’t be an issue, because we had a job to do. I was more worried about what would happen when we returned to port, because I knew that Khokhryakov was already putting together his report on the incident, and I couldn’t imagine it being very good for me. You know how things were back then.
http://i.imgur.com/Pzv5mao.jpg
He convinced himself that the Norwegians were all on the enemy side, and considering our previous encounter with a Norwegian ship that turned out to have German machineguns on board, that argument was not very hard to make, so I’m sure there were some who agreed with his view because of it. And I’m sure there were some who’d be willing to sign the kompromat.
But for the moment, we had a patrol to complete.
http://i.imgur.com/oss5jqz.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/9gLzHoy.jpg
Q: You stayed in the same patrol sector?
Those were our orders. We remained in 2A, continuing the same patrol pattern. The weather deteriorated somewhat, and even without the enemy, every day was a battle - against the elements, for now. The boat kept icing over, and even inside the hull it could be frigid at times.
http://i.imgur.com/uy1fwR9.jpg
After absolutely nothing on the horizon for a few days, we abruptly ran into a German patrol boat in the mist, only some 1500m away. He saw us before we could submerge, lighting us up and opening fire, and then dropped depth charges. Fortunately, we were well on our way down and his attack was completely inaccurate. He remained in the area, so after getting to some distance away, we surfaced and hightailed it off to the north, away from the coast.
http://i.imgur.com/cbnLLIX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FIogW8J.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sMf1GfR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8Yc9D3b.jpg
Q: Was it possible to request a different patrol sector?
We did the next day, but were denied. Then the following evening, on the 19th of December, we received a report of a convoy passing through our sector - but it came late, as the convoy was already on their way out west, past Soroy island. Nonetheless, I requested permission to pursue this contact into patrol area No.2, and this time we were allowed to. By now our fuel tanks were down to ⅓ capacity, but we took off to a familiar hunting area just west of Soroy to chase this convoy.
http://i.imgur.com/FMPvncn.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/6aBdiEE.jpg
Q: Did you find the convoy?
We did not - it seems by the time we got there, they were already gone. However, it was a good opportunity to reconnoiter the sector. Surely enough, in the early hours of the 21st of December, I saw what I first thought was a transport, about 2km in front of us. I raised battle alarm, but soon figured out that it was actually another Norwegian fishing boat.
http://i.imgur.com/PtYYUaL.jpg
I dreaded having to deal with them after our last encounter, but nonetheless, ordered the warning shot as soon as we approached. Fortunately, this one made it easy for us - almost immediately after the gun fired, our radio operator reported that the fishing boat had started broadcasting distress signals on a frequency commonly used by Kriegsmarine guard ships. They also started shining a bright spotlight at us. I immediately gave permission to fire for effect.
http://i.imgur.com/M34EKN0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/z1MRg51.jpg
I got a bit of a fright moments later when, as we began firing on the boat, we saw another ship directly ahead of the fishing boat. Luckily, it turned out to be another fishing boat. With accurate gunfire, we knocked out his spotlight and radio antenna, and gave them a few minutes to evacuate before sinking the boat. Afterwards, we left the area without much regret, and turned back to patrol area No.2A. We only had ¼ of our fuel reserve left by now, so I knew it would soon be time to go back home.
http://i.imgur.com/sTcUJBV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/AwzDdbw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iqVOmXS.jpg
Before that, though, I plotted out a course to check up on all the key positions in 2A one last time.
http://i.imgur.com/rzScWbq.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/hiII6OV.jpg
Q: Did you find anything in your last search?
Actually, that plan got cancelled before we even got to 2A. At 4 in the night on the 22nd of December - the darkest day of the year - we got a report from fleet on the radio about a westbound German convoy rounding Nordkapp. Hoping to have enough fuel, I ordered 12kt speed and headed directly to intercept. We spent the day dashing towards our search position, but ultimately did not find it. However, not all was bad - the Sch-403, which had found the convoy, reported sinking a transport and escort ship late in the evening. We were very glad at their success.
http://i.imgur.com/J6Uh8V0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RyMZday.jpg
At 5:45 the following morning, I called off the search for the convoy, ordered a course out of No.2A, and headed back to base. I expected us to be back in port by the 26th. By that point, we will have been at sea for a month, having sunk 23,000 tons of enemy shipping. Well, at least by my count. My only worry now was fuel.
http://i.imgur.com/zKFMDAN.jpg
Q: Did you make it back to base?
With no trouble, save for the bitter cold. We arrived into Kola Bay just after midnight on the 26th, and, after spending the night anchored off the Oleniy lighthouse, were given an escort into Polyarnyi inlet at 11:00. We announced our arrival with 4 shots from the “sotka” and 4 shots from the 45mm gun - for the transports and fishing boats we sank. Convoy PQ-6 had sailed through to Arkhangelsk a few days earlier, and some of its escorts - a British cruiser and a pair of destroyers - had anchored here in Polyarnyi afterwards. We made sure to pass close to them with our victory salute, which surely woke them up a bit. Plenty of pork roast was then awaiting our hungry crew at the dock.
http://i.imgur.com/K4XYUUW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jtUrctq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0rXLjhI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FfAkL9o.jpg
However, my mind was a bit elsewhere at the time - I’d remembered about our incident with the politruk, and wondered what consequences his report would have for me...
http://i.imgur.com/k8wAZNu.jpg
map of D-2's third patrol
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/TVGsc0p.jpg
Q: What awaited you at headquarters?
The first bit of news that I got, actually, was that the D-2 was being transferred out of the 1st Division, which by now had grown and prospered into a unit of very effective K-type boats under Gadzhiev. The “Katyushas” were large, fast, long-range boats specializing in minelaying and artillery tactics; whereas our “Narodnovolets” was a relatively slow, medium-range torpedo boat - so we fit poorly into their operations. That initially worried me, as I knew I could rely on Gadzhiev, but was not sure what to expect from a new commanding officer.
http://i.imgur.com/qhm8fMI.jpg
And I had plenty to worry about, of course. A couple of months earlier, the commander of our sister ship D-3 “Krasnogvardeyets” [“Red Guardian”] was dismissed - because of a report by his politruk, citing lack of aggressiveness and questionable decisions when encountering Norwegian shipping. The D-3 was then transferred and, even though by that point I was the commander with the best tonnage tally in the fleet, I was certainly worried that this might be my fate as well.
http://i.imgur.com/EN7Md9f.jpg
Q: What was the outcome of your transfer?
Well, in the end, it turned out that my worry was mostly over nothing. Brigade commander Vinogradov was not terribly concerned about any incidents - this was the peak of winter, the Allies were running as many convoys as they could during the polar night, and all he needed was our submarines to be at maximum efficiency to support these operations. Luckily, my record with the D-2 showed no lack of efficiency.
http://i.imgur.com/bsF3CRa.jpg
I was transferred to the 2nd division, which before the war was one of our brigade’s two divisions of Sch-type medium boats. The Sch-402, where I previously served, was here as well - and they so they already knew me well. Our new division commander was 2nd rank captain Kolyshkin, a great man. Soon after we’d left for our next patrol, he became the first Soviet submariner to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
http://i.imgur.com/y0SQYMw.jpg
Khokhryakov’s report report did have some consequences, of course. One of them was that the issue of any awards to me was held back pending review. There were some medals on the boat, though. Tikhonov, lightly wounded in our action against the armed Norwegian ship, received the medal “For Bravery”, as did head of watch Kislayev - both deserved them entirely. Politruk Khokhryakov himself, as well as my starpom [first officer] Malyshev, were awarded the Order of the Red Star. This helped smooth things over and help Khokhryakov part my company the “nice way” - there was, of course, no question that I couldn’t continue working with him.
http://i.imgur.com/vei7Ik0.jpg
Q: Was it difficult to find a new commissar for the boat?
Not particularly, though as part of the deal to ensure that all was going well with my command, our new superior Kolyshkin ordered that the divisional commissar himself sail with us for the next patrol. That seemed worrying, until I realized that the division’s commissar was none other than politruk Tikhonov - before the war, he served together with me on the Sch-402, where I was the starpom. We’d got on well and I knew that the next patrol would go just fine.
http://i.imgur.com/zDiDAsR.jpg
(Submarine Sch-402 at Polyarnyi)
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/XgE3Yen.jpg
Q: When did your next patrol start?
Actually it was quite soon - we’d only spent a couple of weeks at base. We got to celebrate the New Years and greet 1942 at base, and that was enough. The boat was in good condition, and there were Germans to hunt. While the front at Moscow saw some major reverses, we knew that the war situation was anything but easy. Besides, it was anything but calm and easy at base - even with the polar night, the few twilight hours of the day would always bring German airplanes, which kept trying to bomb our ships and docks. So, we had orders to sail by January 11th.
http://i.imgur.com/viSMAAW.jpg
Q: What were your patrol orders?
Well, the situation had changed a bit for us, especially now that we were in the medium-range division. The Allied convoy operations to bring us lend-lease goods were ramping up, and they wanted to bring as many supplies as possible while days were still short and German air power was a limited threat. This meant that the enemy’s main weapons were submarines and surface raiders. The convoys had their own escorts, provided mainly by the British - so our job would be mainly to provide early warning and intercept these raiders and submarines as they were leaving the Norwegian coast. And, of course, continue to deny German communications along the coast.
http://i.imgur.com/cQD9eyA.jpg
We were assigned to Patrol Area No.5, the closest open-ocean sector, stretching from Sulte-fjord to cape Kibergnes and Varde. We were to be sharing the sector with M-175, one the “baby” submarines of the 4th division, which had departed two days before us. The nimble M-175 would scout near the coast, while we were assigned to search for enemy raiders, scouts and submarines north of the 71st parallel, and respond to contact reports if the M-175 or other subs found something.
http://i.imgur.com/5a7EM01.jpg
(Submarine M-175, under the command of Captain-Lieutenant Melkadze)
This seemed like a fair plan, although brigade commander Vinogradov explained that this was a transitional plan for convoy protection - we were still getting a sense for German operations off Norway, and ironing out cooperation with the British. A comprehensive procedure for identifying ourselves to Allied forces in the area was given to us, although we were still advised to keep away from all aircraft and warships, lest they mistake us for a German U-boat.
So, plans and codes in hand, we headed off to the pier for departure.
http://i.imgur.com/SmFhxzP.jpg
To be continued...
ReallyDedPoet
04-27-15, 09:06 PM
Nice. Enjoy the continued mix of real and in-game pics to go with the story.
Thanks as always, more of the same coming :D
The more I'm playing this career, the more I'm enjoying doing the research and reading up on what else has been going on in the war - it's suddenly made the "boring" patrols a lot more meaningful, and again I'm reminded that war history is way more interesting and strange than fiction more often than not! :yep:
http://i.imgur.com/5etLHqW.jpg
Q: How would you describe your 4th patrol?
Long!
It was a fairly uneventful patrol as far as combat goes, but we had a lot to contend with from the elements - after all, we spent the entire time in the open ocean, deep in the middle of the Arctic winter. We only had one significant encounter with the enemy, but the work of keeping the ship in good working order and the crew warm, healthy, and safe from frostbite proved grueling.
http://i.imgur.com/J8gONuq.jpg
We were a bit late getting out of port, and fleet command was keen to push us out to see - the convoy QP-5 was already gathering for departure from Murmansk in about a day, while the inbound PQ-7 was already approaching and due to take its place immediately after. They needed us out of the bay before they came through. It was fairly quiet at Polyarnyi; there hadn’t been any attacks from German aircraft for a while, and no British ships were in sight at harbour - they’d left to escort PQ-7 in.
http://i.imgur.com/dnUELg9.jpg
The war on land was once again a radio chronicle to us. The Moscow counter-offensive was coming to an end, but the Germans were pushed back quite soundly. Even in encircled Leningrad, delivery of food and supplies resumed by the ice road across Lake Ladoga. The winter was bitterly cold all around the front.
http://i.imgur.com/aoVshNQ.jpg
As we rounded cape Tsyp-Navolok, conspicuous absence on the radio was the M-175, our companion for this patrol who’d left 3 days earlier and should have arrived in the patrol sector by now. On the other hand, we were getting plenty of reports of German U-boats in the area. That was a bit worrying.
http://i.imgur.com/ZVWgxt4.jpg
Q: Did you ever hear from the M-175?
No, and nobody else had, either. They never made it to their patrol area. As we found out much later, it was one of those U-boats lurking in the Barents Sea that spotted it - the U-854, I think. The M-175 was a “Baby” boat, so it would not have been easy to find in the dark polar night, but the Germans heard their diesels on hydroacoustics, and happened to be in the right position to attack. Captain Melkadze was a very experienced officer, but he had no chance - he went down with the whole crew, as well as the 4th division’s chief engineering officer Shilyayev who was on board with them to supervise the patrol.
http://i.imgur.com/pjrHXip.jpg
That was our first submarine loss of the war in the Arctic.
To be continued
http://i.imgur.com/eZ2iTzh.jpg
Q: How did you feel about the loss of your fellow submarine crew?
Sad, of course.
But you could look at it another way - despite all that had been going on at the front, and the difficulties of patrolling both the polar day and night, facing overwhelming German air and naval superiority, we did not lose a single submarine during all of 1941. That’s a pretty impressive achievement. Our brigade grew from 15 to 21 submarines during that first year of war, sank many ships, and yet it was not until nearly 6 months into constant combat that we lost one of ours. We did well.
http://i.imgur.com/DjzYREC.jpg
We knew how bad it could’ve been from the experience of the Baltic fleet, which had faced a bloodbath and lost something like 28 submarines before the ice set in and stopped operations for the winter. And we didn’t even have that winter pause, as Kola Bay was ice-free year round. Of course, “ice-free” is a very relative term in the arctic ocean - and in fact, ice was perhaps our biggest nemesis this patrol.
http://i.imgur.com/wepVgM1.jpg
Q: What kind of difficulties did ice cause for you?
Well, water is that weird chemical that loses density it solidifies - not many do that! But ice is still hard and heavy, and we’re no icebreaker. We had to watch out for drifting ice, and keep the top of the boat ice-free. Of course, compared to surface ships, our problems were not as great - we could dive if things got bad, they usually couldn’t.
http://i.imgur.com/R7HqIG5.jpg
In those winter months, the ice proved to be a far greater danger than the Germans had been. On January 13th, as we arrived in our patrol area, PQ-7 made it to Murmansk successfully, but PQ-7A which splintered off from it to go to Arkhangelsk, reported that one of their ships had to be abandoned because of ice damage, and was later finished off by German airplanes or U-boats. One of the escorting guard trawlers also disappeared, and the last thing heard from them was also that they were damaged by ice.
http://i.imgur.com/6xaYz07.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/vma3jcD.jpg
Q: What was your role in escorting the convoys? Did you encounter any enemies threatening them?
We were a distant guard against attacks by German ships and submarines. At that point in the war, we were still getting a sense for the German pattern of operations, and the Germans for ours. They weren’t terribly effective against the convoys yet, but gave us a few scares. Aside from the submarines, they also had a squadron of destroyers based at Kirkenes - same ones that sank the Tuman in August. On January 15th, we got a report that these had likely sortied against QP-5, the westbound convoy that had just left Murmansk, and were ordered to move north to provide closer support and scouting for the convoy.
http://i.imgur.com/IPh1JuN.jpg
In the dark of the polar night, we spotted neither the convoy nor any enemies, but the German destroyers were also apparently seen returning home empty-handed, so we broke off and returned to patrol area No.5 the next day. We remained there for quite a while after that. With night-time temperatures dropping to as low as -37, we were busy staying warm - and with M-175 still not heard from, we didn’t have much in the way of knowing what was going on in our sector south of 71N latitude, the southern boundary of our main patrol area.
http://i.imgur.com/Zvb6zwe.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ikCkSEp.jpg
Q: What was that sole encounter with the enemy that you mentioned before?
Well, after the M-175 hadn’t been heard from for 2 weeks, on January 23rd, we were given permission to shift patrol south of the 71st parallel. Two days later, while in sight of shore near Pers-fjord, we sighted ships in the dark.
http://i.imgur.com/mKwPizh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lwHQKfY.jpg
It was hard to discern what we were up against at first because of the dark - I initially assumed it to be an escorted merchant; then a pair of destroyers; then we finally settled on a pair of small armed patrol ships, moving eastwards towards Varde at 10 knots or so. It was hard to keep contact with them in the dark, and they’d often blend into the coast. After about an hour and a half, we got ahead of them and submerged, positioning ourselves so that we’d be attacking from the direction of the shore, which was 3-5km away. I prepared to engage them with the stern tubes.
http://i.imgur.com/GAAZPyF.jpg
We missed an opportunity to fire at the first ship as it passed, and decided to aim for the 2nd one behind him - but just as I ordered “tovs’!” [“prepare to fire!”], he began turning away. At first I’d thought they had seen us, but the two ships simply both turned north and continued as though it was nothing. As it turned out, they were simply patrolling a box-shaped area off the coast, and we were unlucky to be in position where they made one of their regular turns. I curse, but stuck to my mission and decided to try again.
http://i.imgur.com/c8sjxOh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dLsRPqG.jpg
As the ships kept turning regularly, it took two hours of maneuvering carefully on the surface to get ourselves another shot. At 6:58 that morning, I finally followed the “tovs’!” [ready to fire] with “pli!” [fire], releasing the torpedo from apparatus [tube] 7, followed by 8 a few seconds later. The first hit the forward part of the ship, the latter missed - but this was enough to wreck them. Rather quickly, the armed trawler began going down by the bow, disappearing from the surface in minutes.
http://i.imgur.com/wf30D6R.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1pjisZV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/D4soPfM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MKnEZlP.jpg
I continued my course away from the wreck to avoid being spotted by his companion, who’d began turning around - but when I raised the scope for an observation 10 minutes later, I saw that the 2nd ship had stopped dead in water next to the wreck site, and was picking up survivors rather than looking for the submarine that put them in this predicament. I don’t know what they were thinking, and certainly any swimming survivors would not last long in this cold water - but, I was not about to miss a chance at another sinking. I ordered hard rudder and prepared for forward tubes for firing…
http://i.imgur.com/z66YPRu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/10FApmc.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/OKSROWC.jpg
Q: You weren’t bothered by the thought of sinking a ship rescuing survivors?
War is war - and in submarine warfare, this was a very standard play. One of the Germans’ most famous submarine successes of the first world war was their commander Weddigen’s attack in 1914 that sank three British cruisers, which also stopped to help survivors when one of their ships was hit. And compared to what we’d heard the Germans were doing in this war, sinking an armed Kriegsmarine patrol vessel was a pretty mild action indeed.
http://i.imgur.com/SNYB5wA.jpg
I opened up with a single torpedo from tube 5, set to run at fast speed, at 7:20. It ran straight and true, and the German ship exploded as planned. They had lifeboats in the water for rescue already and abandoned the burning ship quickly. Concerned that we’d already raised enough ruckus and confusion, and were in sight of the enemy coast anyway, I kept the boat submerged until we got out of visual range of the sinking, and then headed back out to open sea north of the 71st parallel, reporting our success to base.
http://i.imgur.com/IF5O2V2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JoeAEPe.jpg
Q: Did fleet command have orders for you?
Not at the time. We kept up a diligent patrol of our sector for the next week, spotting nothing besides drifting ice. Then on February 1st, convoy PQ-9/10 was reported to have left Iceland - it was originally supposed to be two different convoys, but because of delays caused by weather, only one ship from PQ-10 actually made it to the marshalling point in Iceland when they were supposed to, so it was decided to put it into the same convoy as the PQ-9 ships rather than having it sit around and wait for other ships to come, which could take weeks.
http://i.imgur.com/8VCPgzM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uG28XFy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LOLE0hI.jpg
There were reports of German submarines scouting off Nordkapp, and we were given permission to go and conduct a search ahead of the convoy’s arrival to try and scatter them a bit. So, we took off to the new area. Of course, as luck would have it, that same evening a German convoy was reported off Varde. By now it was too far behind for us to intercept, so we simply continued heading to our new patrol area.
http://i.imgur.com/9dJwCRi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/H23Jkyq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vv48KX0.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/z24mA3X.jpg
Q: Were you able to find any German U-boats?
The Germans were pretty elusive. When we got to our new patrol area, radio direction finding intercepts suggested that a German patrol line was now closer to Bear Island than Nordkapp, so we soon moved our patrol again, even further to the northwest. Here, we continued our scouting until February 8th, reaching as far north as the 74th parallel. We were probably the most Northern unit operating in this war for a while.
http://i.imgur.com/Domim0F.jpg
Further south, the war continued as usual. On the radio, we heard that as many as 100 thousand Germans were surrounded at Demyansk. A new patrol area for Gadzhiev’s “Katyushas” on cruiser submarine operations, called No.2B, was created - it was a lot like the old No.2, but even bigger. As for us, we saw nothing except ice and ocean. Staying warm was the main concern.
http://i.imgur.com/1o83CO9.jpg
Q: Did you head home after this?
Yes, after more than a month at sea, we arrived back at the Polyarnyi inlet on February 13th. We didn’t see anything on our way home, save for a passing airplane - although head of watch Kislayev insisted that it was a friendly scout.
http://i.imgur.com/XfOonRP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GFcp4n4.jpg
We arrived back at harbour uneventfully, firing two blank shots from the main gun, for the two patrol ships that we sank. At base, I received the Order of the Red Star, my first award that had been delayed by Khokhryakov’s report, but after Tikhonov reported to division, that was cleared. I also signed orders for awards to be issued to two key crew members - our head of B.Ch.-5 [chief engineer] Matskyavechus, and shturman [navigator] Savin. It is largely to their credit that on this long, grueling patrol we stayed on course and were able to navigate through all the ice and cold with no damage and no major incidents.
http://i.imgur.com/1Rjpvo5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JmvTJ7a.jpg
Of course, that’s not to say the patrol was easy - and it certainly took a toll on the boat and crew. The boat was put into maintenance, and remained at Polyarnyi for more than a month afterwards. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the crew were transferred out, for one reason or another. So there were a few new faces by the time we sailed - 12 of them, to be sure.
http://i.imgur.com/3wLXSVl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/U80mDTS.jpg
One of them was the new politruk, Isayev, a relatively new and inexperienced commissar - a bit awed to be assigned to a boat with such a well-known combat record, really. This worked just fine for me as after Khokhyryakov, I needed someone more pliable. The divisional commissar Tikhonov, having completed the previous patrol with us, agreed. I was confident in my ability to handle the D-2 and her crew now, and waited for an opportunity to prove our abilities in the toughest conditions possible. We got that opportunity, in our next patrol at the end of March…
http://i.imgur.com/qhKp0Xy.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/14lKFxD.jpg
Q: What were things like at Polyarnyi in the meantime?
Things were at a relative lull, there and throughout the front. The winter weather had really minimized combat, and German raids on Polyarnyi and Murmansk were infrequent until later in March. However rather than bombing our subs, the Luftwaffe had got into the habit of bombing the British merchants and warships to try and convince them they shouldn’t sail to our waters. It wasn’t terribly effective, but our fighter pilots (as well as British ones who’d been based here to help out) had more and more work on their hands as the polar winter receded and the sun showed up more and more often.
http://i.imgur.com/LmAnpq8.jpg
At the front, after what seemed like a grand success pushing the Germans back from Moscow, operations had also largely ground to a halt. Of course, we had only a remote idea of the true scale of the war going on to our south. Here in the Northern Fleet, the war seemed intense, personal, on a scale that made everyone important. We knew a lot of the key people in our war effort not just by name, but personally. Whether it’s submarine heroes like Gadzhiev or air heroes like Safonov - I met most of them at one point or another. And they weren’t heroes of books and newspapers to us, either - they were just really good people we served with.
http://i.imgur.com/DdZes0f.jpg
Q: What about the British? How did you get on with them?
Well, the British were people to us too! As I mentioned before, they’d kept their distance a little and they’d kept a distance from us a bit. It was a bit coaxing them out of their ships at first - both their military officers and merchant seamen preferred living aboard their ships, and regarded the Kola peninsula as some sort of alien world, especially in winter. Eventually the Germans “helped” get them ashore, when they focused their bombing on British ships in harbour. Idle crews then promptly decided that there’s better bomb shelters on shore.
http://i.imgur.com/T28T1A3.jpg
There was one change from the start of 1942 - after a few visits, like the very first one by Trident in August 1941, it was decided to station 2-3 submarines on regular rotation here in Kola Bay. We didn’t see much of them as they only came for a few days at a time to resupply, but along with them also came torpedoes, support crews, spare parts. We studied what we could learn from these with interest. We also shared patrol areas with them - they were mainly interested in keeping German warships bottled up in the fjords, and were also experts at hunting submarines.
http://i.imgur.com/WxmMRfV.jpg
I remember one time in early 1942, I sat down to drink with a few British submarine officers. One of them had served on the submarine “Salmon” in 1939, when it sank a German U-boat off Norway; another - on the “Graph”, which was actually a captured German U-boat. I got a lot of very useful advice on dealing with the enemy submarines from them, which proved invaluable on our next patrol…
http://i.imgur.com/wHdGJL3.jpg
To be continued...
Back with a little more history!
http://i.imgur.com/n1YKPKc.jpg
(ships in Kola Bay)
Q: What were the orders for your next patrol?
Well, by now the Allied convoy traffic was a well-organized operation, and we had a better understanding of how to better protect it. The Germans were also getting a better idea for how to attack the convoys, and so protecting them is what we would have to do. Intelligence showed that the Germans were deploying their submarines in lines to search for our convoys - the main one typically stretched from the Norwegian coast toward Bear Island. It was the narrowest point of the convoys’ journey, especially this time of year when the polar ice was at its furthest extent. So it was this gap where we’d also began deploying our submarines to intercept and scare off the enemy’s.
http://i.imgur.com/EtcglpB.jpg
(the winter route of the convoys, with the ice at furthest extent)
In issuing our orders, Vinogradov - the submarine brigade commander - explained that convoy PQ-13 had left Scotland on the 10th of March and was expected to pass through that main gap about two weeks later. It was them, and the follow-on PQ-14 as well as the outbound convoys QP-9 and QP-10 that we would be covering. We would be doing our best to coordinate our submarines, aircraft, and surface escorts to provide maximum safety for the convoy. To this end, the D-2 was being assigned a staff officer from fleet HQ who would be aboard to coordinate operations - Captain 2nd Rank Yegorov, Pavel Ilyich, himself a former submarine commander and, as it happened, our future division commander as well. This way, we would have more operational decisiveness - after all, now we had an officer on board who was a full 3 ranks above me!
http://i.imgur.com/6nRcCpc.jpg
(Vinogradov, commander of the Northern Fleet Submarine Brigade)
Q: What was it like having a senior officer on board? What was Yegorov like?
Well, as an officer, Yegorov was an excellent submariner and totally understood our operations. We never stepped on each other’s toes, and he left tactical command firmly in my hands while doing his best to advise me. In operational decisions, he was quick and decisive, and expected me to likewise trust his judgment entirely. Not like I had a choice of course! But we had a very good working relationship on the boat.
http://i.imgur.com/pXzd4po.jpg
As a man, I can’t say I got to know him much at all - he did not let on much, and kept to his own thoughts. I can say that he made an impression of a troubled man, a tortured soul. He used to be the commander of the M-175, our first loss in February under captain Melkadze who succeeded Yegorov, and I think that weighed on him - but more than that, rumours were that he had trouble with the “organs” [secret police], though I didn’t ask. Yegorov had a brilliant career as a naval officer, and as I said, would become our own division commander in a few months’ time. But not long after the war ended, he committed suicide. Make of that what you will.
And we were not the only boat to go to sea with a senior officer on board - our present division commander Kolyshkin had gone to sea with the Sch-421 just a few days earlier, also to provide cover for the PQ-13’s passage. The Sch-421 was a well-regarded boat in the fleet - it was on its first patrol under its new commander Vidyaev, who was the starpom [first officer] of the boat on its preceding few patrols under Lunin, a very famous commander. I personally didn’t like Lunin that much, I thought he was a bit of a braggart, but he was certainly a good submariner. He’d got promoted and was now commanding one of our large Katyusha’s boats, leaving his old Sch-421 in capable hands. Its’ first (and only) patrol under Vidyaev and division commander Kolyshkin would be an interesting one… but more on that later!
http://i.imgur.com/FnMFCb0.jpg
(commander Vidyaev, aboard the Sch-421)
Q: Where were you deployed for the patrol?
We were sent to position No.11a, a provisional patrol box 200 nautical miles due north of Nordkapp. Sch-402 was already in nearby position No.10a, while Sch-421 was in position No.3. So we had a good measure of support and a good position from which to respond to any calls for help from the convoy when it passed. Our main task was to intercept German units, especially submarines, as they came out of the Fjords towards the convoy, which would be passing along the edge of ice to our north.
http://i.imgur.com/igzApLG.jpg
We left on March 21st, the day of the spring equinox - so from then on, the days would be longer than nights, making German aircraft more and more of a threat by the day. They already were - over the preceding week, the air raids on Murmansk were intense and ferocious, and although here at Polyarnyi we’d largely escaped damage, the civil docks further in Kola bay weren’t so lucky. They were flattened by bombing, along with much of the rest of the city - which forced the convoys to be sent mainly to Arkhangelsk, out of range of the German bombers. The British even sent 3 crane ships with PQ-13 to help better equip Arkhangelsk for unloading these convoys.
http://i.imgur.com/1DkA4Cz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/t47a0fK.jpg
(Murmansk under attack by German bombers)
As for us, we’d waited until dark, to avoid being attacked by those German planes on our way out, and left base at about 22:00 on the 21st of March...
http://i.imgur.com/xEAGBhA.jpg
To be continued...
http://i.imgur.com/uhA97qG.jpg
Q: How would you describe your next patrol?
Busy and eventful! For what was a pretty slow patrol the previous time, we had no lack of activity on this one. Well, most of the time we were not in contact with anything, but when events unfolded, they certainly happened quickly and intensely.
http://i.imgur.com/vx47p6z.jpg
By early morning on March 22nd, 1942, we left Kola Bay behind and were heading out to see, careful to avoid known positions of German minefields outside of our harbour. By 5 in the morning, it got bright enough for us to start worrying about air attack; I ordered the main tanks partially flooded just in case, so we’d have a quick way to dive if something showed up.
http://i.imgur.com/6KTpdBZ.jpg
Soon the sun was up. To complicate things, we got a report from fleet on the radio that not only were there minefields, but a German submarine was spotted by our air scouts not far outside the Kola Bay exits that morning. We proceeded cautiously, zig-zagging to avoid any trouble. I had no plans to dive unless we had to - we were already going slowly enough as it is - so I ordered our battle flag to be raised on the rubka [conning tower] to help friendly planes avoid mistaking us for that German sub.
http://i.imgur.com/Qweqd8q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/nzVljjn.jpg
Mercifully, that day was quiet for us. By 7:30 in the evening it was dark again; I ordered the tanks blown, and we sped up - we had a position to be in to support the convoy, and we had to be there no later than the 26th.
http://i.imgur.com/GXDZ1cn.jpg
Q: Did you make it to your position in time?
We did, but not without a few adventures along the way. The first was an encounter with another Norwegian boat the next morning, on the 23rd of March. They surrendered without questions; we gave them time to evacuate; they scuttled their boat and we gave them directions to Varde, about 35-40km away to the south. I was a bit worried about them, admittedly, as there was drifting ice in the area and it was quite cold - but I didn’t need any more incidents with the Norwegians, especially with a senior officer from Fleet HQ on board.
http://i.imgur.com/lSAFXy8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vkYUpVq.jpg
Next, soon after the sun came up, we had a Junkers 87 drop in on us and try to attack - he dropped bombs as we were diving, but mercifully missed. We stayed under for 5 hours before surfacing. Then we’d spotted some masts along the coast to the south, roughly in the area where we sank the two patrol ships on our previous patrol. We tried to approach, but weren’t able to get into a good position - and daytime wasn’t helping. I broke off the attack after trying to approach them for an hour, with our senior officer Yegorov’s approval.
http://i.imgur.com/uTbZd85.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kmR73sa.jpg
The next day we got news on the radio that our forces in the Barents sea had managed to sink a German submarine - nicely done! But there were others, and we were already getting signal intercepts on the German frequency, suggesting that they were gathering to intercept convoy PQ-13, which we were to protect. For the moment, it did not seem that the convoy was having any trouble though, but the weather was getting worse. By the time we’d made it to our patrol area on the 26th March 1942, it turned into a full-blown storm...
http://i.imgur.com/iAxvoU8.jpg
To be continued...
Torplexed
05-16-15, 04:31 AM
As before, I'm finding this AAR a fascinating read, and a great source of detailed research. So far, real good.:up:
Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt
05-17-15, 02:55 PM
Sorry for the question CCIP, where can I download the Patch 1.03 of this mod?
:)
Sorry for the question CCIP, where can I download the Patch 1.03 of this mod?
:)
You can download the latest patch 1.4 for this mod from here...
http://www.mediafire.com/?pxu5ilb4v58l4c1
Cheers, glad you got the link! And thank you folks as always :D
Sorry I've been a bit slow (I'd got distracted with building a new computer, then work), but all is good and there's lots more reports coming up :salute:
Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt
05-19-15, 03:54 PM
thanks, but I have problems with the mod I don't have the enviromental effects and I can't go near all harbours;
if I do that, the game crashed.
Perhaps I haven't all parts of the mod. I have:
Addon Soviet Waterway (v_099)
Addon Soviet Waterway (v_102)
Addon Soviet Waterway (Patch 103)
Addon Soviet Waterway_Patch_104
Can you help me?:D
sorry for my bad english.:oops:
Hmm, where did you download it from, and did you use a completely new install of SH4 for it?
My download seems to have been different - I just have a full 1.02 version, plus a 1.03 patch.
Kapitain Oliver Leinkraunt
05-20-15, 09:43 AM
I downloaded the files from www.redrodgers.com and I didn't use a completly new install of SH4. I can't read the instructions because they're in cyrillic.
Have you got an english version of the instructions? And, please, can you post the site where you downloaded the mod?
Sorry for my bad english.
fitzcarraldo
05-23-15, 07:35 PM
Very nice and so good!
It seems this mod deserves a test.
BTW, what environment do you use in the mod?
Many thanks and best regards.
http://i.imgur.com/3dbqrzS.jpg
Q: Were airplanes a big problem for you?
Certainly, and not just for us. That same evening, we had a briefing from Fleet on the radio, announcing a battle near Murmansk, where a few of our minelayers got attacked by 18 German planes and shot down two. The real problem, of course, was the conditions - as I said, in the Arctic there was not a moment during this patrol where the sun was below the horizon. When the skies were clear during the day, they could spot us from further away, but at least we had more warning of their approach. But when you had some cloud in the sky and the sun got lower, that’s when the real problems started. They would hide behind the clouds and come out of the sun. But more on that later.
http://i.imgur.com/duHPVnR.jpg
On July 3rd, we decided to try our luck and head into Soroysund. It was that morning that we finally heard comrade I.V. Stalin on the radio, after the morning news. He was speaking in his new role as chairman of the State Committee for Defense, and called “all the peoples of the Soviet Union, our glorious Red Army and the Armed Fleet, our pilot-falcons to a selfless, patriotic liberation war against the fascist enslavers, to victory.” I could tell that our politruk Khokhryakov was waiting for the speech all along, but so were the rest of us! Now the party, the people, and the military stood together. Looking back, it was strange that Stalin did not make an announcement for so long, but from here on he was a regular feature in the war, much to our relief.
http://i.imgur.com/oisepik.jpg
Our way into the straits was uneventful. Other than the one patrol ship showing up sometimes, we didn’t see much, and weather started getting worse. We finally managed to pick up a hydroacoustic contact moving along the south side of the strait, what sounded like a two-ship convoy just like the one we attacked before - small ship forward, larger slow ship behind it. But by the time we could start closing, a storm blew in, with heavy rain and zero visibility. In a situation like this, groping around in confined waters with minefields nearby is a bad proposition. So we gave up and headed out the way we came.
http://i.imgur.com/5zgsr8z.jpg
Q: Was the storm a big problem for you?
Oh, compared to the storms that we get in the winter, it was nothing. But it did rock us around a fair bit for the next day, and forced us to break off away from shore, to avoid running into any rocks or mines in the fog. And we also had to dive for hydroacoustic checks every half hour, which in itself was a very exhausting routine, because diving the boat involved a lot of crew and a complex procedure. However I also did not want to stay underwater for any length of time, because I did not want to come out of the storm with our batteries drained. As it turned out, it was the right choice.
http://i.imgur.com/DFKXh7P.jpg
Q: Why so? Airplanes?
Yes, airplanes indeed! The storm started lifting by evening on July 4th. I remember that they again interrupted us right in the middle of listening to the nightly news at 9 o’clock. At 21:07, two fighters came out of the clouds. We didn’t manage to submerge in time, but their bombs were well off mark. From then on, we were harassed relentlessly as long as the weather was flyable. Although we were now a bit off the coast, a Vorpostenboot - maybe that same one as before - also arrived in the area and started appearing intermittently.
http://i.imgur.com/fhQuRrZ.jpg
Eventually, we were forced to give up on that area, and moved up the Norwegian coast towards Hammerfest. But there too, there was no rest. It was usually single planes showing up, but next evening there were again two Messerschmitts - and this time, they seemed to coordinate their attack, first the lead plane attacking, then his wingman on the 2nd pass. They missed again, however. We tried to head to shallow waters off Rovlsoya island so we could rest on the bottom for a bit instead of draining our batteries diving from planes all the time, but when we got there, we saw two small boats going back and forth. While I suspect they were just fishing trawlers, my instinct told me not to get near in case they were laying a minefield. So, we got out.
http://i.imgur.com/LGukxLb.jpg
To be continued...
What mod is That ???
Randomizer
04-01-20, 04:52 PM
Variously known as Battle for the Baltic or Soviet Waterways it is an awesome supermod.
Additional details are here but no idea if the download links are still active:
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159888&highlight=Baltic
Commanding a Soviet boat is not for everyone and those who are not happy unless they can sink a billion or so tons should probably not bother. I am running v1.11 with an English language add-on that helps but is not truly necessary once you learn your way around the new interface. It is unique to SH4, at least in my experience and going from a US Fleet Boat or a U-Boat career to a Red Banner Fleet career can lead to errors of omission or commission due to the interface changes.
A Baltic Fleet career is a problem, the sea is shallow and full of mines while the Luftwaffe can make your life short but exciting. A ShSch class boat takes almost 3-minutes to dive to 20-metres and while it can reach 30-metres in 2-minutes by crash-diving, this often results in slamming into the sea floor and the resulting damage can be worse than that inflicted on the surface.
In the Arctic with the Northern Fleet you have too much daylight in the summer and almost none in the winter. Most targets are off Norway, which is heavily mined and patrolled. Have not attempted a Black Sea career as yet.
Some things don't work well, at least with my installation. Single missions are problematic and the Museum caused CTD but since these are seldom of interest, missing them is no big deal. That said it has proved stable in the career mode and appears to have no more saved game issues than one has come to expect from the mainstream SH4 supermods.
There is a beautifully illustrated manual like that that ships with SH3-GWX but it is unfortunately in Cyrillic. However, after browsing the available boats you soon learn to recognise the script for the submarine classes and flotillas in the three Fleets. This is an asset when setting up a new career.
Soviet Waterways (Battle for the Baltic) has become my favourite SH4 supermod when looking for a different SH experience. That said, for someone with no knowledge of Russian it can take a fair bit of effort and frustration and dying prematurely is not uncommon.
-C
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