As the Americans expected, the German destroyer "Willy-Frazier" was equipped with passive sonar used to search for active sounders, and a submarine as large as the "Blue Cod" would be difficult to detect as long as it remained quiet, even if it was only a hundred yards away, unless the German crew found the dangerous attacker by other means. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

On the battle bridge of the German destroyer, a rugged-looking lieutenant officer reported to the captain, Major Kaisen: "Nothing has been found, sir, could it be a technical miscalculation on the part of the flagship?" ”

The German naval lieutenant in front of him had a full atrium, good facial features, and looked very aristocratic. He said calmly: "During the war, in the warring seas, anything can happen, we must not paralyze ourselves, we have to prepare for the worst in everything." ”

"Understood, sir!" The lieutenant replied convincingly, "So what do we do next?" ”

The major seemed to have already thought of a countermeasure, and without thinking, he ordered: "Drop depth charges in the area designated by the flagship." ”

The lieutenant officer had concerns about this law, and he questioned: "But...... Sir, if there were no enemies here, wouldn't the sound of depth charges explode attract enemies from afar? ”

The Major said confidently: "Where the explosion of depth charges can be heard, the convoy must have been discovered by visual inspection or radio detection, so the assumption that throwing depth charges will attract the enemy is not valid." Instead, it makes enemies feel like they've been spotted and makes proactive evasive moves so we can track down their exact location. If there really is no enemy here, the sound of the explosion will keep our crew awake and vigilant. ”

"Okay, just do as you say, how about four or six first?" The lieutenant proposed.

The Major thought for a moment: "At first, I threw six in a row, and then one every minute. ”

The lieutenant's style doesn't seem to be good enough to act on his own, but it's reassuring to be an executor. After a while, a dull roar began to sound on the surface of the sea, sounding like rolling thunder from the sky, or the legendary god of the sea beating its huge war drums.

The MC-IIB short-wave pulse radar painstakingly developed by the Irish is comparable to the top equipment of the same type in the United States and Germany, and it can detect submarines in a floating state at a distance of six kilometers, submarine control towers about three kilometers away, and metal objects the size of submarine periscopes about one kilometer, and its accuracy is close to the performance requirements of fire control radars. Thanks to the accurate guidance of the "Ruger", the position where the escort destroyer "Willy-Frazier" dropped depth charges was only more than 200 meters away from the suspended "Blue Cod"!

The modernized 1922 class destroyer can carry up to 36 barrel depth charges and 240 hedgehog-type depth charges. In just a few minutes, the "Willy-Frazier" dropped 10 barrel-shaped deep bombs in one go, and the change in the pace of attack put the US officers and men of the "Blue Cod" under unprecedented psychological pressure, because according to normal thinking, their submarine must have been discovered by enemy ships.

The commander of the German destroyer was cunning, and the captain of the "Cod" was bold and careful. When all the crew members were so nervous that they were sweating, he forced his composure, trying to deduce the actual situation outside from the change in his voice. The impact of the explosions of those deep bombs made the people in the submarine panic, but they never caused substantial damage to the submarine, which means that they exploded at a safe distance. Major Anderson decided to take a bold leap, and he motioned for everyone to stay in place and not make any noise.

After surviving the first few minutes, the frequency of the explosion plummeted, and the tightness on the head subsided.

The correct judgment greatly boosted Major Anderson's confidence, and after about twenty minutes, the high-speed propellers of the enemy destroyers were gradually weakening, and the slow-speed propellers of ordinary ships were gradually moving away, in which case he decided to seize the opportunity to make another attack.

"Blue Cod" quietly raised its periscope. The night sky was covered with cumulus clouds, and the sea was faintly visible with a starry glimmer, and the enemy fleet seemed much farther away than it had been in the previous torpedo attack. A few minutes later, the American crews completed the previously interrupted torpedo loading, all of which were set at a low speed of 30 knots, so that their theoretical range could reach more than a dozen kilometers.

The commander of the weapon calculated two torpedo firing schemes according to the table of firing angle parameters, and Major Anderson chose the one with a small dispersion angle -- the four torpedoes would be fired at a fan of 4 degrees, and after sailing five or six kilometers, they would pass through the position of the enemy convoy at an interval of about 100 meters, and the probability that all of them would deviate from the target was about 80 percent, that is, the "Cod" had a 20 percent chance of hitting at least one enemy ship.

As soon as the torpedo was fired, Major Anderson immediately ordered the submarine periscope to be put away. In the tense and expected waiting, time passed slowly, and after more than six minutes, the sonar soldiers on the boat excitedly whispered: "There is an explosion in the distance!" It should be our torpedoes! ”

The crew heard the sound of a non-existent roar, and the sonar man's judgment was undoubtedly the most authoritative. After he spoke, many of the sweaty crew members couldn't help but jump for joy.

In order to be able to determine the outcome of the battle, Major Anderson ordered the periscope to be hoisted and the crew to prepare for an emergency dive in case of a retaliatory attack by the enemy destroyers. In fact, at this time, the Irish heavy cruiser "Ruger" was eight kilometers away from the "Blue Cod", and even if the American submarine once again exposed the conning tower, it would be difficult for the radar of the Irish battleship to accurately capture its reflected waves.

In the periscope view, a large open flame was lit on the dark sea, and under the light of the fire, a thick and thick column of smoke like a volcanic eruption could be seen. The scene reminded Major Anderson of his early days when he witnessed a fire at a chemical plant, where a large amount of flammable material had been ignited.

Major Anderson was overjoyed: "Guys, we seem to have killed one of the German tankers, it is now like a lighthouse built on a mountain cliff, and ships dozens of kilometers away can see it. ”

With that, the major gave up the periscope to the weapon commander, and the weapon commander gave it to the first mate, but the first mate did not give up the viewing position to the fourth man, because in the course of the lookout he saw an enemy warship approaching this way in a menacing manner.

Before the explosion of the tanker on our own tanker, the German destroyer was in the nearby waters, and because some of the crew found a torpedo track on the sea, the destroyer commander immediately calculated the general direction of the attacker according to the direction of the torpedo track, and found that he was likely to have staggered past the enemy submarine earlier.

This time, Major Anderson did not dare to be careless, he commanded the "Blue Cod" to dive into deep water, activated the motors, adjusted the course, and drove the submarine to the north for a certain distance, and then turned off all power plants and returned to the latent state.

Having missed the target once, Major Kayson, the commander of the USS Willy Frazier, will not give up easily this time. The enraged German Hound used sonar to lock on to the U.S. submarine's tracks, then circled around its head, dropping more than 20 barrel bombs and more than 100 hedgehog bombs one after another, stirring up the entire sea area into foam.

The Pollock has a surface displacement similar to that of its opponents, and its armament consists of six 533-mm torpedo tubes, one 102-mm deck gun, and four 7-s. Composed of 62 mm machine guns, it is usually equipped with 20 torpedoes and 100 shells when performing combat missions, and the ammunition is very sufficient, but at this time it can only be passively beaten, and it may even be sunk by a depth charge weighing tens of kilograms at any time.

Taking advantage of the fact that the opponent was powerless in the water and could not call for help, the German destroyers recklessly attacked, and there was a great posture that they would not give up without running out of anti-submarine ammunition. This attack lasted more than half an hour, and regardless of the outcome of the battle, it was impossible for American submarines to pose any threat to the "Frederick-Caesar" group during this period. Under the cover of the escort ships, the Allied ships that turned into frightened birds gradually sailed away from this dangerous sea area, and the German minesweepers ordered to rescue the survivors of the tankers also basically completed the rescue work.

Was it the enemy's cruiser that killed?

The Irish heavy cruiser "Ruger" was equipped with a special radar room, and at this time, a number of technical officers and chief radar operators gathered in the small radar room, and the officers on the bridge were anxiously waiting for news from the radar room. The annular ripples swept over the radar screen again and again, reflecting the light points representing ships on the sea surface, but except for all the members of the "Frederick Caesar" group, there were no foreign objects on the sea surface of 50 kilometers centered on the "Ruger", and even if the influence of weather and sea conditions on the effective detection range of the radar was taken into account, at least it could be guaranteed that there would be no enemy surface ships within 40 kilometers. So, where exactly did the shells come from?

Despite the enemy's engagement, the "Willy-Frazier" continued to maintain radio silence, and its real-time communication with the "Ruger" could only be transmitted by a slow light signal: our ship was threatened by enemy artillery fire, observed that the fire was in a north-western direction, the distance was uncertain, and requested guidance.

Every two minutes or so, there would be a flickering flame on the sea in the distance, although faint, but it was real, which made the technical officers on the Irish heavy cruiser wonder: how could it be possible to miss the enemy warship that was firing in the detection range when the radar was operating normally, could it be that the enemy had a new technology to evade radar detection?

Fortunately, there are officers on board who have studied the active ships of various countries deeply, and put forward a reasonable speculation about the current strange situation: these mysterious shells are likely to come from enemy submarines equipped with large-caliber deck guns!

In 1914, the British Navy decided to start construction of two super-heavy artillery submarines (M1/M2) equipped with 305 mm naval guns, and this amazing plan was aborted due to the defeat of the war. After the end of the war, the British government tried every means to reorganize the fleet, and the construction of submarines with low cost, high combat effectiveness and suitable for defensive strategy was once given priority, and heavy artillery submarines suitable for sea breaking engagements and coastal assault warfare came into being. By the summer of 1933, the British Navy had three classes of heavy artillery submarines in service, armed with 6-inch, 8-inch, and 9-inch submarines. Deck guns of 4-inch caliber. Out of their own strategic needs, the United States, Germany, and the Italian navies have also invested a certain amount of energy in the field of heavy artillery submarines, and most of the guns carried by these submarines are 6-8 inch caliber, but the way of carrying them is not the same, and there is also a large gap in actual combat performance.

(End of chapter)