If your source is accurate, to an equivalent date of February 1941 only 2 US vessels have been sunk
one by a mine in the Pacific and one by torpedo from a U boat in the South Atlantic
Total deaths - 3
- Status
If your source is accurate, to an equivalent date of February 1941 only 2 US vessels have been sunk
one by a mine in the Pacific and one by torpedo from a U boat in the South Atlantic
Total deaths - 3
Even in OTL (meaning from my days in uniform, waaay back before the Soviets imploded) "biological" contacts were hard to sort out, even for really good operators. Back then there were certain areas where, if you got a live sonar contact, you sent a "Z" message (FLASH, or the highest priority, I only saw a few of them in over two decades, and it was always a cause for serious pucker factor when you saw one, as it meant bad, bad juju) and took action. In this case, it meant immediate prosecution of the sonar contact, with live ASW torps. I don't recall what species it was, or even if we knew, but that whale almost ate a MK46. If it hadn't started singing, we'd have fired.
Not relevant but also the name of a frigate sunk in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising during the third Battle of the Atlantic sometime in the 80's. A good read I highly recommend.
The frigate sunk was Pharris; the CO survived, and took over Reuben James when its' skipper was hospitalised.
Edit: no don't think she was sunk, they got her home.
Last edited:
Yup, she got her bow blown off, then headed back stateside stern first.
They made no effort to rescue Konteradmiral a.D. Topp from Germany. He might have been at risk from the Russians.
Story 0492
February 22, 1941 Border between Soviet Occupied Poland and German Occupied Poland
The German manager looked down. His Soviet counterpart had come over the border earlier that morning. Officially it was to discuss the plans to tranship oil from the Baku fields to German standard gauge rail cars. That was always a tricky proposition as the cargo was heavy, valuable, and flammable so leakage of both physical and criminal types were always a worry. But more prosaically, it was to have a few cups of tea with a man who had not become a friend but a trusted colleague who knew his business.
Four westbound trains were due to transfer gauges today. One was an oil train, another was a coal train, while the two remaining trains carried food and intermediate processed goods. Heading east were two trains. The first was mostly carrying industrial chemicals and the other had machine tools, passengers including several dozen political prisoners the chekists wanted, and consumer goods. Nothing too unusual at this border crossing.
Tomorrow, the border guard commanders would have their weekly meeting to coordinate anti-smuggling patrols. This was a quiet post outside of the range of British bombers. His biggest worry was making sure that the tea was properly made this time.
Driftless
Donor
I wonder what this is supposed to foreshadow
I dunno.... One of this thread's great appeals, is Fester's depiction of everyday events in individuals lives and weaving those routines into the grander scheme and flow of time.
Exactly --- this is just day to day border interactions. I'll have another vignette in a couple of timeline weeks that shows how Germany is getting around the British blockade to some degree. It is also indicative of the troubles the Germans had in OTL Barbarossa as their logistics goes tits up on the gauge change until their rail battalions could do the conversions.
Additionally, the border manager need to make sure that his counterpart got the memo on the coversheet for the TPS report and to see if he had a case of the Mondays.
Story 0493
February 23, 1941 Near Cape Bon, French Tunisia
Every second was an eternity. The engine was already fluttering from a single hit from the lead destroyer’s accurate anti-aircraft fire. Five companions were low and slow on the deck as they were boring in on the convoy.
“Steady, steady” The twin stack merchant ship was trying to curve away from her attackers. The Swordfish pressed on. The rear gunner screamed as a machine gun bullet shattered his right arm. As the stacks of the ship filled the horizon of the wobbling light bomber, the desperate fire of the convoy’s defenders seemed to increased. Six hundred yards from the merchant ship, the torpedo fell into the water. It dove deep and then came back to only run six feet below the surface. Two other torpedoes were also boring in on the merchant ship carrying artillery ammunition for the 5th Light Division and aviation fuel for the two squadrons of single engine fighters that the Luftwaffe had deployed to Tripoli.
The torpedo dropped by the Swordfish which tumbled into the sea missed wide. One man, the radio operator escaped and would later be picked up by a Tunisian fishing boat that also rescued half a dozen Italian sailors. The survivors would be repatriated to their respective nations in due time.
The other two torpedoes hit square and true. The ship shuddered, it stopped, and then within minutes, it broke in half. The forward half was on fire from hundreds of leaking oil drums. Several hundred yards away, a companion was turtling after taking a single torpedo.
A single torpedo boat circled the water for half an hour to rescue survivors but as soon as she saw Tunisian fishing boats approach, she accelerated to reinforce the five remaining escorts covering the seven small merchant ships that were inbound to Tripoli.
Last edited:
Story 0494
February 23, 1941 1143 southeast of Crete
Every man in the cramped control room waited. They waited for success. They waited for failure. They waited for the eventual counterattack. They waited with the expectation of a man seeing his wife enter their marriage bed for the first time.
Four torpedoes were streaking forward covering a twelve degree spread. The angle was wide to increase the chance of a single hit. One hundred and thirty seven seconds of waiting ended with a single explosion. Seconds later, another explosion was heard. The men in the control room smiled at their success as they focused on their escape.
One hundred feet above Leonardo da Vinci and twenty two hundred yards away, HMS Malaya wallowed. She had been stunned by the detonation of a single torpedo forward of A turret and just as the captain started to process the damage, he was thrown across the bridge by the second torpedo exploding near the engineering space. Malaya skewed as water rushed into her hull and the shafts rattled around with shock damage. Within minutes, she had an eight degree list and two thousand tons of water in her. Within an hour, the list had reached sixteen degrees but the water inflows had stopped. Achilles had edged up to her damaged side to send pumps and damage control parties aboard to assist.
By nightfall, the Mediterranean Fleet had circled around their crippled compatriot and steamed back to Alexandria at six knots.
Last edited:
Torpedo from a Blenheim - really!? It's normal max. bomb-load was a 1,000lb, OTOH the Beaufort's was 1,500lb, and could manage the 1,605 lb torpedo - how did the Blenheim manage it? Don't see any reason why the attack could not be done by a Beaufort - unless I've missed something?
Didn't know Blenheims were used as torpedo carriers. IOTL Beauforts didn't operate in the ME theatre until '42; not sure what other twin-engined stuff was available then.
Presumably you mean a firing solution achieved by sonar alone? The post doesn't really state that - the boat could have dived after a launch from periscope depth.
EDIT - Sorry I think a grabbed a picture of a Beaufort by mistake looking for a Blenheim with a torpedo.
Last edited:
- Status