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

[Niume]

What happened to it?

[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