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...

Nice work here :yep::up:

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...

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...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...

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...