Yes, at other times, submarines have fought each other. But only while one was surfaced. What was unique about the battle between Britain’s Venturer and Germany’s U-864 on February 9, 1945, was that both vessels were submerged at the time. At The National Interest, Sébastien Roblin explains why technology limited such combat at the time:
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
During World War II, submarines came to make greater use of hydrophones as well as active sonar; however, the latter models could only plot out a submarine’s location on a two-dimensional plane, not reveal its depth.
Furthermore, the torpedoes of the time were designed to float up to near the surface of the water to strike the keel of enemy ships. Although the “tin fish” could be reprogrammed to an extent, it was not standard to adjust for depth, and guessing the azimuth of an enemy submarine with the limited targeting information available posed an immense challenge.
U-864 was on a journey from Germany to Japan. The collapsing Germany hoped to deliver cutting edge technology to its ally, including jet fighter design schematics, two aeronautical engineers, V-2 missile parts, and 67 tons of liquid mercury.
The Royal Navy’s submarine Venturer caught up with the U-864 off the coast of Norway. At the end of the chase, Captain Launders made a desperate ploy to sink the Germans:
After three hours of pursuit, the Venturer was running short on battery and would soon have to surface itself. Launders decided he would simply have to attack U-864 while it remained submerged. He calculated a three-dimensional intercept for his torpedoes, estimating his adversary’s depth by the height of the snorkel mast protruding above the water. However, he knew the enemy submarine would quickly detect a torpedo launch, and planned his firing solution to account for evasive maneuvers.
At 12:12, Venturer ripple-fired all four of its loaded torpedoes in a spread, with 17.5 seconds between each launch. Then the British submarine dove to avoid counterattack.
The U-Boat immediately crash dove as well, then swerved evasively. After four minutes, it had managed to duck under three of the incoming torpedoes. But Launders had launched the second pair of torpedoes at lower depths. The fourth torpedo struck U-864, breaking it in two; the gruesome sound of popping rivets and cracking metal filled the Venturer’s hydrophones. The U-Boat fell 150 meters to the bottom of the ocean, taking with it all seventy-three onboard and sinking Operation Caesar along with it.
-via Glenn Reynolds | Image: HMS Venturer by Imperial War Museums
Source: neatorama