PATROL 16
After successful HIT and BOOM on the labship, Captain holds quick conference with Officers and decides to fire remaining 2 torpedoes to the warship in anchor.
Both torpedoes HIT and EXPLODE with devastating noise and rumble… the old watery warhorse is not likely to come out of anchor any time soon...
but the enemy does not just sit by quietly… hydrophone reports fast MOTOR TORPEDO BOAT approaching from direction of Hoxa Sound… UBOOT dives to 50 meters and Captain decides to circle around with evasive maneuvers and head out through Hoxa route, the way we came in…
well, not so fast, says the enemy… UBOOT gets tagged by several fast MTB which drop a single depth charges every now and then… in addition 2 Corvettes with proper depth charge racks enter Scapa Basin and start PING-searching UBOOT, cross-scanning from different directions and no doubt using their radios to synchronize observations…
in addition 1 Destroyer enters the Basin from direction of Hoxa Sound…
BLACK = MTBs, 1 and 2 = CORVETTES, RED1 = Destroyer
Captain orders torpedoes to be loaded, and 1 torpedo manages to find its way into forward tube until UBOOT is forced to start maneuvering and loading is aborted…
Captain considers the idea of trying to reach the deepest 150m center area and laying low at the bottom… but that is not going to happen, UBOOT is forced to maneuver itself toward Gansta shoreline, where Captain settles the boat at the bottom at about 35 meters of depth… shut down engines… minimize noise… and wait…
Enemy keeps PING-searching the basin but since UBOOT is stationary at bottom, they cannot get proper fix from movement. Enemy keeps dropping depth charges, quite a few around the deepest central area which would be logical place to hide… they also seem to get some idea about the shoreline because MTBs and Corvettes make couple of passes and drop depth charges close to the UBOOT location if not exactly on top… depth charges seem to have been set to explode around 50 meters of depth, which is logical considering the Basin environment. UBOOT at 35 meters is not exactly the most critical level …
but still few close shaves create results:
twice the blast shockwave hits against the outer hull, first HULL DEFORMING result brings maximum depth diving level to 130 meters, crew can hear the hull creaking and moaning as the metal bends under pressure but it holds… another similar HULL DEFORMING result brings the maximum diving depth to 65 meters, but still the hull holds… one blast knocks out the lights and electrical circuits in the Control Room - Watch Officer turns on emergency lighting adn Control Room bathes in red light...
one really close hit created lots of noise observations from deck outside: by the metallic noises it sounds like the 20mm AA-gun took a bad hit, propably not is any usable condition, might even be loose from its mounting… pressure from one explosion damages the hatch on #1 torpedo tube which remains unusable for now, but repairable.
Hull damage cannot be properly assessed until UBOOT can surface and crew can get outside the boat to check it out. Repairing the hull damage will require dry dock conditions at harbor. At least UBOOT is still operational. At the moment 1 torpedo in forward tubes, 1 torpedo in rear tube, 2 more in storage… all torpedoes are bubble torpedoes.
All together, enemy dropped around 100 depth charges, most of them around the central Basin area with no threat to UBOOT, approximately 25 bombs were dropped somewhere around the vicinity of UBOOT.
Apparently enemy did not get a verified fix on UBOOT location. After somewhat 2 hours the depth charging stops. Hydrophone still reports lots of propellor noises and vessel movements and PING-searches around the Basin area, even patrolling shoreline with fast boats… around midnight the traffic seems to quiet down… at few minute intervals you can hear several PINGS from multiple directions, now these PING-sources are not moving, they are stationary … most likely enemy has places sonar buyos into water around the Scapa Basin and the outgoing main routes, they will feed signal changes into central radio receiver somewhere in the area.
Around 0200 in the morning hours, hydrophone reports increased smaller vessel traffic FROM harbor area AND from few locations on the shoreline, TOWARD both Hoxa Sound and the Western route. Even a distant low rumble of larger aircraft taking off can be heard. By 0300 the Basin area is totally quiet - except for the multiple PINGS ringing out at steady intervals.
Captain has decided to keep UBOOT down at sea bottom for rest of the night and through the next day and into next night.
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