Battle of the Third Reich

The commander of [Yugong River], Colonel Mantan, learned about the conflict on the border between France and Siam only half an hour before sailing. The Bangkok Command did not inform them of the fighting situation, and only gave them careful attention when returning.

At that time, this coastal defense ship was docked in Nakhon Si Thammarat, and the ship was carrying 70 officer interns from the Royal Naval Academy. As usual, [Yonggong River] was carrying out long-distance training missions. Will be involved in war.

Fearing that these officers were making trouble on the ship because of their blood, the captain did not inform the students of the war. As a result, in the military court after the war, this became the most unforgivable crime of Colonel Mantan.

[Yugong River] originally could stay in Nakhon Port, but because of fear that the sea area will be blocked by the French fleet, Colonel Mantan insisted on sailing according to the original plan. The sailing was very smooth at the beginning, except for the busy merchant ships on the sea, no French warships were encountered. The captain judged that the French Far East Fleet may not be ready to attack, because these distances are too far from the mainland, these European colonies are encountering In emergencies, they usually behave dullly.

After lunch, the deck under the scorching sun was scorching hot. Except for the duty officers and lookouts on the bridge, the off-duty sailors and students hid in the cabin, opened the portholes and the ventilation system to prepare for a nap, because You can reach the home port of Bangkok before dinner, and the atmosphere on the ship is very peaceful.

At about 1:30 in the afternoon, the lookout on the mast tower found an unknown ship in the southwest of the ship and was quickly approaching the ship. The sleepy first officer was shocked immediately, but he was one of the few informed officers and men on the ship. The first officer quickly notified the rest of the captain through the phone on the ship, asking if he wanted to pull the alarm to prepare fighting.

Captain Mantan showed a calmness in the naval officer's handling. He immediately rejected the first officer's suggestion to sound the alarm. Facts have proved that the captain's judgment is correct. This is indeed a false alarm. The unidentified warship was another naval training ship [Palu Wang] from Peking University. She also received a telegram from the Naval Command. This is accelerating the return flight towards Bangkok Port.

Although it was an old British r-class destroyer, its speed was far higher than that of the newly built coastal defense ship [Yugong River].

Because the speed of the opponent was too slow, the [Paluan King] rejected the request of [Ye Kung River] to form a team. The destroyer swept from the side of [Ye Kung River] at a speed of 25 knots, and soon He left the coastal defense ship far behind.

[Yugong River] can only continue to complete her last voyage alone at a cruising speed of nine knots.

At 2:15 in the afternoon, when the temperature was the highest in the day, the two watch hands on the top of the bridge were unobstructed, and their heads began to be dizzy. They could only rely on constant drinking of water to cool down.

"Look what is that? Dolphins?" Nailong, the sailor, wiped the sweat from his hand on his uniform and raised the heavy high-powered telescope again.

"What did you find?" Lonnie, the same sailor, asked with a kettle.

"There was a flash of white over there, and I can't see it now." Nalong pointed to the sea in the distance.

"Oh, maybe it's a dolphin, do you still need water?" Lonnie shook the kettle.

"Save a drink, there are still half an hour to change shifts." Nalong said to his companion with a smile.

"It's [Yonggong River] class coastal defense ship." In the command cabin of U106, Captain Wang handed the identification manual to Captain Robin.

"Fifteen degrees to the right rudder, two-thirds of the double car, heading to two or seventy." Robin glanced at the manual, and then gave the turn command.

"This is a new type of coastal defense ship equipped with four 120mm main guns and no anti-submarine armed forces." Igor marked the location and course of the [Yugong River] on the chart.

"We only have one chance, Wang, let your people take a good look." Robin said to the several navy captains guarding the corner of the command cabin.

"Yes, Captain." Captain Wang took the lead and agreed loudly.

[Yugong River] lost the last chance to escape. At this time, no one knew that it was under less than two kilometers of himself. A fierce steel shark was approaching quietly towards himself.

"Time is up." Robin looked at the nautical clock on the bulkhead and turned to climb the escalator leading to the enclosure of the command tower.

"Keep heading, Igor." The captain sat on his special seat in the enclosure and then opened the cover on the protective shell of the attack periscope.

"The periscope is in place, the captain." The first officer raised his head and reported loudly.

"Okay, let me see." Robin put on a combat hat and put his eyes on the periscope.

"She's there, pretty guy, facing us at a distance of 700, heading to zero sixty, and a speed of nine knots." Robin reported the target parameters, and the first officer entered the data into the torpedo computer.

It is a complicated mechanical device. By inputting the heading speed of the own boat and the target, the steering angle required after the torpedo is released can be automatically calculated. The most commonly used submarine was direct torpedoes at that time. When attacking a moving target, a lead angle was calculated. The torpedo computer greatly reduced the time spent on manual calculations, and there were no calculation errors. The valuable attack opportunities were wasted.

In real combat, the situation at sea changes rapidly, and the attack of the German submarine is not always successful. In order to improve the hit rate, the German submarine often launches multiple volleys and sets up a death fan with torpedo cloth. Short for various reasons.

But this time u106 has approached within one kilometer of the target. Torpedo attack at this distance is rarely possible to hit the sky.

This is also because this sea defense ship does not have any anti-submarine capability, even the basic listening device. Except for searching with the naked eye, it is impossible to find submarines that travel underwater. Meeting the opponent again is a battle veteran with rich combat experience. When she was targeted by U106, she had lost the chance to escape.

"The torpedo hatch is open." The deputy captain reported loudly.

This is the most critical moment, because the air squeezed out of the torpedo tube when it enters the water can easily expose the whereabouts of the submarine.

"Torpedo #1, launch. Torpedo #2, launched, Torpedo #3," Robin ordered decisively.

Following the command of the captain, a few dull sounds came from the bow of the submarine torpedo. If you were on the scene, you could still hear the sound of the torpedo rubbing against the rails in the tube.

The piston that locked the tail of the torpedo was pushed by the high-pressure gas, and the heavy torpedo coated with lubricating oil on the more than seven meters long shell was pushed out of the launch tube at a speed of 15 meters per second. The torpedo engine started immediately, pushing the torpedo toward the target. go ahead. The piston is retracted into the launch tube along the bottom rail of the tube, and the high-pressure gas in the launch tube is also recovered by the special pipeline to the submarine.

The entire launching process is completed within one second. In order to control the balance of the hull at the moment of launching, some sailors should enter the bow torpedo compartment at the time of launching to prevent the bow of the boat from suddenly losing due to the sudden loss of the weight of the torpedo. Up, this is a deadly situation on the battlefield.

After the forehead ballast water tank was filled with water, the extra sailors returned to their original positions, and the officers and men of the bow torpedo tank began the next round of filling.

"Put up the periscope! Fifteen degrees to the right rudder and dive to 25 meters." Although the other party did not have anti-submarine equipment on the data, the u106 still carried out evasive maneuvers according to regulations.

"Five seconds to reach the target." Igor holding the stopwatch in his hand, everyone in the command cabin held his breath.

The first officer's words did not fall, a dull roar came from the water outside the boat, and then there was another sound. After five or six seconds, a third explosion came, u106 There was a burst of cheers suddenly.

"Three hits, congratulations, captain." Igor shook his hand and saluted Robin with a playful military salute.

"It's a perfect attack, worthy of being the trump card of the German Navy, and it really opened our eyes." Captain Wang and other military officers also stepped forward to congratulate him.

"Fifteen degrees to the left rudder, one-third of the double car at full speed, floating up to the depth of the periscope." Robin smiled back at the first officer, then ordered loudly.

"Periscope depth, captain." The three-level value officer looked at the depth meter and reported.

"Raise the periscope."

"Yes, sir, raise the periscope." The silver main periscope quickly rose from the guide well, and Robin stepped forward to open the folding handle.

[Yugonghe] was attacked by three German electric torpedoes in a row, but the watchman didn’t find a faint torpedo track on the water until the moment the torpedo hit. It wasn’t until the two soldiers figured out what it was. The torpedo had hit the hull directly under the bridge.

The torpedo exploded into a five-meter square hull immediately. The shock wave destroyed all the cabins under the bridge. Colonel Mantan, who was resting in the captain's room, was seriously injured. The water column excited by the explosion exceeded the battleship's mast.

Before the huge water column descended, the second torpedo arrived. This torpedo just hit the power cabin. The ship’s bulkhead without armor protection was like aluminum foil in front of a 200-kilogram charge. The body was blasted with a large gap of seven meters long, and within a few seconds the sea water had passed the knees of the surviving officers and soldiers.

But the nightmare of [Yugong River] was not over by this time. When the surviving sailors in the power cabin struggled to save themselves, a third-party torpedo hit the stern and gave the poor coastal defense ship a final blow. This torpedo destroyed the hull structure of the stern of the coastal defense ship, and the entire stern broke completely from the hull of the ship in front of the No. 4 main gun.

A huge water column fell back to the sea, and this warship, which had only 1,300 tons, began to sink rapidly.

The personnel on the ship were almost unprepared when they were attacked. Most people were still in the sweet nap on the cabin hammock in the bow of the warship. When the hull quickly sank, the open vents and portholes accelerated. The speed of water inflow resulted in only a few lucky people among the more than 90 Siamese naval officers and soldiers in the bow to escape from the ship.

When Robin began to observe through the periscope, he found that the entire deck of the warship had sunk under the water, and only half of the bridge was still exposed.

After u106 waited in the water for a while and found that there was no danger, the captain ordered the submarine to float, and ordered the crew to go to the deck, preparing to rescue the Siamese naval officers and men who had fallen into the water.

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