PLAN
The east coast of the rugged Izu Peninsula is very steep, so I intend to head east between Niijima and Kozushima island, reach the coast of the peninsula, and turn north along the coast in the deep water there. Hopefully that will get me into the bay. I will then hunt across the bay from west to east. I’m contemplating a blind salvo of missiles to maybe clear out some lesser patrol craft, but that’s a complete gamble, so I’ll probably not do that except in emergency cases.
ACTION
At first there are a number of active sonobuoy contacts, but they seem to be too far away to detect us.
Around 11:30 we start picking up merchant traffic going in and out of the bay, and then occasional fishermen. These aren’t the merchants we’re looking for, so we continue.
First hostile contact comes with a coast-guard cutter at 15:30, but it has no sonar, so is no threat, and we pass it by.
Moving up the coast we find numerous fishermen, and then at 18:30, our operators hear a low-frequency sonar of some sort in the ‘first’ mouth of the bay, only 10 miles away. That’s alarming! A detection at that range is probable.
The captain orders an immediate rise to firing depth for a pair of Clubs, and as we clear the layer, we hear a second sonar adjacent to the first. Four missiles are fired, and we descend back into the layer, hearing explosions and breakup noises as we descend, and hurry away into the shallows between the little island of Hatsushima and the mainland. After a few miles we slow down and creep again, hearts in our throats.
As evening goes on we reach the inner end of the bay and start traversing west, but find nothing. We can hear fishermen from one side of the bay to the other, but nothing else. Is the convoy outside the bay? Puzzled, we turn cautiously southwards towards the area where we engaged the warships. Maybe they are closer to there?
Then, at 23:48, as we are creeping in the layer, there is a violent explosion without any warning, and our brave sub and noble sailors are destroyed.
AFTERMATH
Spies in the Japanese ministry of defence late reveal that the Barry had hear our creeping sub 7.5 miles away, and promptly dropped an ASROC on it. We had sunk two Asagiri destroyers earlier on, but the convoy was completely unharmed.
This is a tough one. The stationary Barry can hear a 5 knot creeper in the layer at 7.5 miles, and even a 2 knot creeper at 6.3 miles, before your sub can detect it in return. Surprisingly, the best tactic is a night-time periscope attack. Testing shows that if I had stuck up the scope shortly before they heard me I would have seen the convoy, and been able to engage. Unfortunately, I was afraid that I would be immediately detected by airborne radar in such close quarters, so I didn’t use the scope.
Fun all the same!
