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

[CCIP]

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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.





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.





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.



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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.





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.









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.







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.



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.



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.


To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.





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.





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.






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!



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.





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…





To be continued...

[CCIP]

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!



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.







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.



To be continued

[CCIP]

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.



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.





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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.





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.





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.







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.





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.











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.





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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.



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.



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.



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!



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.



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.



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.






To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.



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.



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.







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.





To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.




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!



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.



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.



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.



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.





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.



To be continued...

[CCIP]

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.



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.





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.







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.





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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.





To be continued...

[Abir]

Originally Posted by CCIP

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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



To be continued...

What mod is That ???

[Randomizer]

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/sho...ghlight=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