The Navy Vol_22_Part2 1960 - Navy League of Australia

SUBMARINEVERSUSSUBMARINEBy "DORMOUSE"N the Navy to-day the overwhelmingweight of man-Ipower, ships and aircraft isconcentrated, directly or indirectly.in the auti-suhiiiarinerole. Some tiO frigates havebeen converted or built expresslyto cope with this aspectof defence, and the whole faceof the sea-going Navy haschanged over the past twodecades. The most logical, andpotentially the most lethal adversaryto the modern submarineis only now coming to thefore. This weapon! Anothersubmarine—the anti-submarinesubmarine. A brief historicalsurvey of the development ofthis facet of submarine warfarewill help to underline the point.The Submarine Branch isonly just over 50 years old.Ihiring this time most peoplehave thought of the submarineas an exclusively "anti-surfaceship" device. There docs notappear to have been any attemptto use it in the A/8 roleuntil 1917.At this crucial stage ofWorld War 1. the Germans beganunrestricted L*-Boat warfare,anil our own submarineswere stationed at focal pointsand in patrol areas where theycould expect to encounterenemy submarines. They sank14 L-Boats in the next IKmonths, and a grand total of 17during the war. These werenot, however. A/S submarineengagements in the modernsense. Detection and attackswere carried out on surfacedtargets and certainly requiredthe target submarine to bevisible.The final stages of the war,however, saw the production ofthe "K" class—the first purelyA/S submarines. These wereunique little craft, and 10 hadbeen built by 1919. so greatwas the urgency. They displaceda mere 500 tons, wereIH3 ft. long, anil had a complementof 2*2. Their surfacespeed was only nine knots, butonce submerged, their "K"class main motor and large batteriesgave them an incredible14 knots on their single propeller.Here were the perfect vesselsto combat the l'-Boats on surfacetransit. Their low silhouettegave them the first sightingat night, and by day theycould rely on their superiorspeed to reach an attackingposition. Moreover, they hadsix 18-inch bow tubes—a largesalvo for such a small boat.They had conic too late to haveany effect on the war. however,and after a brief periodof peace-time training theyvanished altogether, the lastbeing sold in 1924.Meanwhile, developments illasdics and experiments in newtypes of submarines to fulfilnew. and sometimes fantasticroles, displaced the scarcelyfledged concept of an A/S submarinefrom strategical thoughtin the inter-war years. Thesubmarine in general was consideredan unmasked bogey; asingle submarine on patrol was"Like a tethered goat — youget a devil of a butt if you gettoo close, but otherwise theyare harmless." (This from alecture at the Imperial DefenceCollege in 1935.) Similar lecturesof this period make nomention of all A/S side to submarineoperations, other thanan occasional allusion to thisas "another possible role."During the Second WorldWar surface ships were stillregarded as the proper targetsfor our submarines, and 300out of 782 U-liuat sinkingswere, therefore, achieved byH.N. surface escorts and cooperatingaircraft. It is notwidely realised that 39 Axissubmarines were credited totheir Allied counterparts. Fortheir part the German and Italiansubmariners accounted forseven Allied boats discountingRussian ones. The 35 Britishsinkings were carried out by abranch which at no stage exceededthree per cent, of theuniformed Navy.The Axis submarines weresunk on the surface bytorpedo, gunfire, or even byramming in all hut one significantcase. This single attackmarks the beginning of the presentconcept of a submarineA/S attack, for on 4th February.1945. Lieutenant .1. S.Launders in VKNTI REK sankl'8K4—BOTH submarines beingdived throughout.VBNTVRBR. on patrol to thenorth of Bergen, had receivedintelligence reports of an approachingU-Boat the previousday. Her asdics detected the"hydrophone effect" of a vesselunlike the customary fishingboats, but though the bearingwas carefully watched,nothing could be seen. Thenthe Officer of the Watchcaught a brief glimpse of amast or periscope. It seemedlikely that this was the submarine,but course, speeds, evenrange, were unknown. Suddenlythe Captain sighted twoperiscopes too close to ensurethe arming of his own torpedoes.He gave chase and,after an exciting pursuit, gain-14 THE NAVYed an attacking position, turnedand fired four torpedoes,the last of which sent thehomecoming submarine to thebottom. Contact had beenmaintained, and course andspeed estimated, during anaction of two hours' durationwith only the "hydrophoneeffect" bearings as a guide, forno further sighting was obtained.This brilliant action translatedinto practice the vaguelyformed theory of fixing thetarget by "bearings only."Much depended on the skill ofthe asdic operator, whose cooljudgment of the volume andbearing of the target's "hydrophoneeffect" won him in thisinstance a D.S.M.Submarines now entered anew phase in their development,Over the intervening 15years the fascinating techniqueof attacking a totally invisibletarget from a submerged submarinehas been practised andperfected in countless N.A.T.O.exercises. This new role hascoincided with the adoption ofthe snort and with longer rangeasdics; so that the modern submarine,with a vast submergedrange and enhanced listeningcapabilities, is, indeed, a foriiii d a I) 1 e anti - submarineweapon.The history of submarineoperations, as of any other(Continued on page 25)Sydney Harbour Bridge (stop ger-nashing yer teeth. Meibournltes! > as Hera by the submariners in H.M.Submarine "ANCHORITE." This picture was taken through the main periscope of the submarine.—Courtesy S.M.H.July, I960 |5