The Escape of SAS Manthatisi - Repost

[Jotun]

Here goes:


28th February 2004. HDW shipyard, Kiel, FRG.
“So, what exactly is a Manthatisi when it is at home?” The West German Korvettenkapitän said with a grin after entering the container barracks on the grounds of HDW shipbuilding which housed the crew of SAS Manthatisi during on-duty hours now that her completion was drawing ever closer.

Korvettenkapitän Stefan Ciliax had been the head “sponsor”, for lack of a better word, of the South African submarine crew during their preparation and training phase. All men had finished the complete West German Navy’s submarine training course in Eckernförde and assorted other courses according to the men’s specialties, including regular work in the submarine tactical simulator for the command and control section as well as at Thyssen Nordseewerke in Emden where the industry-owned class 209 submarine simulator was located. Every single one of the men had earned his West German submariner’s badge and the officers and chiefs had been paired with equivalent West German counterparts who had given the South Africans intense on–the-job training on 206A and 212A boats. To a man, the South Africans had been eager and very successful. Of course, the men had been hand-picked by their navy, but for them it was also a matter of professional, personal and national pride to represent their nation to the fullest of their potential.
The West Germans had been demanding but fair task masters, making – a matter of no small pride for them in turn – no difference between foreign and West German trainees. The submariners’ course was hard enough in the first place

Ciliax had been commanding officer of a 212A boat, U33, having taken her over in 2001 after a short stint as I WO – and plank owner - of U38 from 1998 to 2000. He had become a member of the training staff at Eckernförde’s AZU in 2004 (Ausbildungszentrum U-Boote, the Bundesmarine’s Submarine Training Centre). If all went well, a second submarine command lay in his future. For now, he was content to have a mostly nine-to-five job as he could see his two-year-old twins grow up with their daddy present instead of sneaking about the murky depths of the sea in a tube of amagnetic steel.

“At least we give our submarines names, man.” Lieutenant Commander Paul Mompati shot back. “A number for a name is as about as unimaginative as you can get.”

The German laughed, throwing his head back.

“You know us poor simple Germans, Paul. We can’t cope with anything more complex than a number. Appeals to our sense of order too.”
“So much for you not having any sense of humour.
“In any case she’s named after a great female warrior chief.”

The object of their conversation, the SAS Manthatisi, the first of the South African Navy’s new ‘Heroine’ class, or more mundanely the latest version of the type 209-1400, lay in a rack upside the dock, her propeller and the sail shrouded by scaffolding and canvas to shield these parts from prying eyes. She was not yet operational, the last stages of her construction still underway. Her sister, Charlotte Maxeke, was still under basic construction and would not be going anywhere for quite some time. So far, Manthatisi was promising to be a good boat as her construction had been almost completely free of the small mishaps and errors that normally plagued the construction of a new naval vessel. Of course, HDW shipbuilding had already built several dozen 209 boats, so many, in fact, that Tom Clancy had called it the Volkswagen of submarines.

„What do you say, Stefan, shall we sit down for a good cup of coffee in my office tin can? There should be some cake and cookies too. I’ll give you the run-down on our situation.“

„Deal. Lead the way.“

A few minutes later, both men sat in the makeshift CO’s office – he rated a whole twenty-foot office container - and relaxed over their coffee. „So, Paul, how are things with your boat? You know me, I like to hear from the people directly involved. Official reports are just back-up.“

„I am optimistic to get her seaworthy and operational by mid to end of May if all goes according to plan. The HDW guys are a good bunch. It will almost be a shame to leave for home. Your hospitality has been outstanding.“

„Dankie. It is always easy being a good host if the guests are class acts.“, Ciliax said, similing.
„So, let’s go over the paperwork and see where we stand...“


10th April 2005, 1145Z, HDW Shipbuilding
Stefan Ciliax knocked on Paul Mompati’s office door next to the nearly finished Manthatisi which was now alongside the dock in the water. The boat was nearly complete, with the final seaworthiness and operational capability trials scheduled from mid-May onwards.

„Yes“, came the muffled voice of the submarine’s CO through the door. Ciliax opened it and gave a cursory wave in the South African’s general direction. He closed the door behind him and sat down in the visitor’s chair in front of the CO’s desk. He opened his briefcase, took out a sheet of paper and slid it wordlessly across. „Read this“, he said without further ado. Mompati, who had just opened his mouth for a greeting, audibly snapped his mouth shut and frowned. The German was behaving…differently today. Differently in that he did not partake in a little small talk over a mug of coffee as had become their cherished routine before conducting business over the last year.
The Lieutenant Commander took the sheet of paper.

It was a sanitized intelligence report listing the worsening situation in Eastern Europe. According to the intel weenies, the Soviets were mobilizing their category A and B units in the DDR, CSSR, Poland and in the western USSR as well as the Baltic SSRs. The Baltic Fleet apparently was also rapidly increasing its readiness.
The conclusions the report drew were altogether concerning, frightening even.

Mompati looked up at Ciliax. „This is not good. Not good at all. What’s your government doing?“ „The MoD has cancelled all leave and is recalling all active-duty service members to Germany. NATO has brought this year’s REFORGER exercise forward, along with the planned big army exercise in summer. The Amis are throwing in a handful of additional tactical fighter wings, the Rooineks – he grinned at Paul – are pitching in too. We are recalling our naval exercise Task Force and whatever vessel is in overhaul is made mission-ready as quickly as possible…the works. Oh, and last but not least, the first of our subs have strapped on their mine dispensers and are standing out to sea. Heading east.“ He rubbed a hand across his hair. „It does not look good. The Greens are flipping, nothing new there, and I am almost looking forward to see what the Ossi propaganda is going to make of this. Sudel-Ede’s [1] successor is going to have a field day. Always fun to watch, that. All in all, SNAFU, and getting worse.“
„Stefan, thank you for the information. I will have to contact my embassy. And the MoD. I will call you later when I know more.“

12th April, 1000Z, HDW Shipbuilding
Lieutenant Commander Mompati had assembled his complete crew in a conference room provided to them by the HDW management. He had thought it prudent to give the men the latest news and at the same time kill off any nascent rumours that might rear their shifty little heads. After all, the men could – and did – read newspapers, watch TV and of course had internet access. Most of them had girlfriends, wives or families at home and those were just as apprehensive as their boyfriends and husbands, what with them right where the Cold War might get hot.
The crew had also seen and heard the mood change within the Federal German Navy. Normally a comparatively laid-back and informal service, the West Germans had become more, well, German as the political situation worsened hourly and the Bundeswehr had started to prepare more and more urgently for what everybody still hoped might blow over.
One berth onwards, U36 was tied to the pier. She had been committed to the dock at HDW for her regular overhaul and upgrade cycle at the beginning of April. Whatever equipment had been taken off for storage had unceremoniously been brought back on board and re-installed and the boat had been re-manned by her crew – yanked from leave or training assignments and was to leave for the adjacent Naval Arsenal for transfer of a full war-load of DM2A4 torpedoes and IDAS missiles.
She wasn’t the only unit to do that. Reportedly, there were other German Baltic-based naval units almost jostling for space at the “ammunition pier” in Jägersberg further up the eastern shore of the Kieler Förde.
The South Africans had adopted the especially informal attitude of the West German submarine force and all crew members had a non-alcoholic beverage of choice in front of them, waiting for their “boss” to give them the news.
“Men, I will not give you any nonsense about the situation. The Russians are foaming at the mouth. They will not budge, NATO cannot budge and little old us are sitting in the middle of it all. To use a cliché, the drums of war are beating ever louder and our submarine won’t go sub marine yet.” Momapti had to grin at the bad pun himself and most of the men had a chuckle.
“Seriously, though. What are our options? Our government – bless their lazy bureaucrat butts – have not yet given us any specific orders on what to do. The way I see it, there are exactly two things we can do. One, we pack up as soon as the situation is becoming too hot, drive to Hamburg and jump on a plane to Jo’burg.” He looked at his crew. Most were frowning and shaking their heads which heartened Momapti.
“Well, I can see this would not be your first choice. Thank you for that. I makes me proud. Two, we do whatever we can, as quickly as we can, with as much help as the Germans are able to give us, get our Lady seaworthy and get her out of harm’s way. Which will be an epic feat, make no mistake. We are talking about several weeks’ worth of work condensed into maybe one or two weeks.” Heads were bobbing up and down all around and there was a general murmur of assent. “I see no other way. It looks like war unless there is some kind of miracle.”
“Sir,” his First OOW piped up, “I guess the first option is right out. But for the second option to work, all hinges upon the Germans’ support. Is HDW on board with this? What about their navy?”
Good point, Jaan, That’s the exact two questions, I am going to get answers for today, one way or the other we will know where we stand in one or two days. Once we know what we’re about I will give the brass back home an UNODIR message. I think they will support our decision. Manthatisi was expensive enough, after all.”
The CO stood. “Gentlemen, let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The HDW staff have already intensified their efforts and changed to a full three eight hour shifts a day yesterday. We should do our part. Any more questions? Any other business? No? Okay. For the time being, this decision stays in this room. Anybody tell their sweetheart, I’ll send you home and have you transferred to the worst duty station I can think of. Dismissed.”

14th April, 0300Z, Eckernförde naval station
LtCdr Mompati stood in his small bathroom in the officers’ quarters of Eckernförde’s naval station. He had not slept well, let alone enough. The naval station had had a very busy night, with trucks driving through the station all the time and especially the adjacent home of the Kampfschwimmer being particularly busy and loud as the naval commandos were apparently busy loading what seemed like most of their inventory on trucks and into SUVs. They hadn’t been particularly quiet about it either. Mompati had almost been annoyed enough to go and ask what the hell they thought they were doing but had finally fallen asleep. Looking into the mirror above the bathroom sink and seeing his face with bags under the eyes almost the size and colour of a classical set of Samsonite suitcases he thought blearily, I don’t recognize you but I’ll shave you anyway. As if the stress with getting his boat seaworthy wasn’t enough. He would sleep when he was dead.
Suddenly, there was an insistent, loud knocking at his door. “Paul?” he heard the muffled voice of Stefan Ciliax. “Open up. It’s urgent.” Grumbling, Mompati padded to the door, half of his face still covered in shaving foam, and opened the door. “What?” he barked, more gruffly than he had intended. Stefan looked grim. Insistent. Businesslike. And he had a hard set to his jaw that Mompati had never seen before. “NATO is mobilizing. Completely. Intel suggests the motherhumping Russians are set on their course to war. We have a week, maybe a bit more. If we want to get your boat seaworthy – or rather diveworthy – we really will have to hustle.” Mompati looked at him, mouth agape. “Uhhhh…” he managed to say, taken aback by the German’s intensity. “HDW are backing the decision. It’s a point of professional pride for them to get the boat out of there in time. Same with the navy. We are to extend all possible help.”

20th April, 0131Z, HDW shipbuilding

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Lieutenant Commander Mompati had just woken up, thanks to the somehow eerie sound of air raid sirens. Why would the Germans mount a sirens test in the middle of the night? was his first coherent thought as he sat up on his Spartan cot. He had been asleep for all of seventy minutes and he was knackered. Trying to force a naval vessel into seaworthiness was as close to a twenty-four hour job as it got. Stefan Ciliax had actually forced him to call it an earlier night after Mompati had fallen asleep standing up while conferring with an HDW technician in front of the submarine.

Boom!
Wait. That was an explosion, over at the naval station.
Boom! Whoosh! Splash! Boom!
Mompati was jolted fully awake by what could only be detonations and maybe fighter planes dueling it out over his head. He walked quickly to the door of his office.
At the pier where SAS Manthatisi had been finally lowered into the water two days ago, some of his crew and a handful of civilian contractors ran around like a bunch of headless chickens.

Mompati shouted, “Quit the nonsense and make for the air raid shelter! We didn’t practice that for fun, you know.”

He bodily grabbed two sailors and shoved them in the direction of a hardened cellar under an administration building that had served as a air raid shelter as far back as World War Two. “Come on, everybody follow me. On the double!” As if to underline his words, something exploded at the cruise ship pier across the Förde, the shock wave rattling the men who now were running to shield themselves from the bedlam around them.

The crew of SAS Manthatisi and the HDW contractors on duty managed to reach the underground bunker without being blown up. Apparently, the Soviets were concentrating their fire on targets of primary military value. Or they were trying to keep the shipbuilding yard intact as future war booty.

The blast door was wrestled shut and emergency lights turned on around the shelter. Mompati sat on a bench, drenched in a cold sweat. So it has begun. I hope our boat survives this. He had to suppress a shiver as the enormity of the situation dawned on him. He had never been shot at before, never mind being on the receiving end of bombs and cruise missiles.

We will have to work even harder. There is no other possibility.

24th April, 0537Z, HDW/SAS Manthatisi
Paul Mompati had drawn another all-nighter, subsisting on cold cuts and lots of strong coffee. Things seemed to be looking up as the technicians and his Chief Engineer were confident that his boat would be able to sail before noon.

It was high time. For the last two days, the thunder of a running battle, of artillery firing and tank formations clashing had been audible to the southeast as the Warsaw Pact edged closer and closer to Kiel. Since about midnight, intermittent artillery fire had been striking the capital of Schleswig-Holstein with the central train station ablaze, along with too many houses in the city.

The overall situation in Schleswig-Holstein had turned from questionableto outright bad when the Hamburg Senate, in an attack of outright defeatism, had declared hamburg an Open City and thus imperiled LANDJUT’s position to the point where defence of Schleswig-Holstein south of the Kiel Canal had essentially become untenable. In the press, unmitigated hopes for a bomb to wipe out the Senate had been voiced by more than one pundit.

The senior HDW technician, leader of the volunteer detachment hthat had been helping with making Manthatisi seaworthy over the last fourteen days, came up to Mompati and said, “Sir, we have finally secured basic seaworthiness. There are still problems with the ballast tank pumps’ solenoid switches. She cannot dive yet. I assess this problem to be solvable at sea if you so decide. I mean, the air has become a bit too heavy with lead lately.” As if to underline the point, a bunch of unguided artillery rockets impacted around and on the train station half a kilometer away.
Mompati thought furiously. They were sitting ducks and they had been lucky not to have bought it by accident in the last four days. This was the hardest decision he had ever had to make. In that instant, Korvettenkapitän Ciliax ran up to him and announced, “The enemy have broken into Kiel. We have an hour, maximum, until they get here!”
“Okay, that does it. We sail as soon as we can. Stefan, call the evac for the techs. ALL HANDS, PREPARE FOR SAILING! CREW AND LIAISON STAFF, EMBARK!” The order was relayed by word. Mompati ran for his submarine, Ciliax and Jeworek on his heels. Ciliax spoke into a handheld radio, callingfor the evacuation of the technicians.

Within fifteen minutes, two RHIBs and a Finnish-made landing craft pulled up to the pier and took aboard almost three dozen HDW technicians. The crew present on the deck of SAS Manthatisi gave them a front to honour their help over the last days. All three boats accelerated to their top speed and raced for the Strande Bight where the technicians would be disembarked and brought northwards to safety.

SAS Manthatisi was ready to cast off less than 45 minutes after the decision had been made. Since there was no line handling personnel available any more, two crewmen did the honours and then jumped onto Manthatisi’s deck after they had thrown the last line to the sub. Under the careful advice of the lookout and two officers in the sail, she left the confines of the harbour. Behind them, the ever-present roar of battle intensified as the defenders of Kiel gave way to superior numbers and raced for the still intact bridges and ferry pints across the Kiel Canal to make their stand on the northern shore.

SAS Manthatisi had finally cleared the confines of the inner Kieler Förde. Both officers and the lookout had had first-rank seats for the destruction of the HDW shipbuilding offices and the demolition of the Holtenau road bridge which had had two 40 metre-long parts cut out of its two spans. Those had dropped into the Kiel Canal below and now served as an impromptu additional blockade for any vessels who might make it past the blocked locks in the future.

Presently, the lookout pointed to the eastern shore of the widening inlet and proclaimed, “Starboard, 2 Dez [1], Wasaw Pact vehicles on the shore.” Both officers turned their binoculars in the indicated direction.
“Looks like the advance guard of a motor rifle division. Recon vehicles, IFVs, some MBTs. Could be Ossis. Let us hope they don’t see us…” While the lookout reported the sighting into the sub’s CIC, there was a flash from the direction of the tanks, a whooshing sound and a waterspout fifty yards aft of the sub.
“Veroordel, Basti, you bliksems well jinxed it!” the Sout African Sub-Lieutenant exclaimed. In the arnoured formation, several vehicles now tuned their turrets in the direction of the submarine which was by now going all-out, almost twenty knots, to escape her dire situation.
Down in the belly of the sub, the communications petty officer called on the Guard channel. “All NATO units, all NATO units, this is submarine Manthatisi outbound Kieler Förde, north of Friedrichsort, we are under fire from Warpac land units. Position roughly in the middle of the road southwards from Laboe to Kiel. Request air support, over!”
Another 125mm shell sailed towards Manthatisi, again missing the sail by a dozen metres or so and most spectacularly impacting in the water off her port side. “CIC, bridge, suggest changing course 30 degrees to port. Also suggest diving, if at all F***ing possible!” The German Kapitänleutnant was decidedly losing his cool. He had not signed up to be plinked at by enemy tanks.

LtCdr Mompati acknowledged the slightly impatient report from the sail, switched to the internal transmission channel and called engineering. “Engineering, CO. What’s the status on the goddamned ballast pumps? The damned Russians are firing at us and I would REALLY prefer to wait this out under water. With a chance of coming up again. Expedite!”
The engineering department had been working like madmen for hours now to somehow reset, circumvent or brute-force the balky ballast tank solenoid switches. Seemingly half of the array was neatly arranged around the working party and the men were sweating like hogs. The senior shipbuilding rep shouted to the Chief Engineer, “We need at least two hours!” This was relayed to the Co by the ChEng. In the CIC, the Co rolled his eyes at the senior German advisor, quirked one eyebrow upwards at him and spoke into the intercom as deadpan as a piece of the Kalahari desert, “You have one hour, maxmimum.” As he spoke, the senior engineering chief seemed to have an epiphany. He turned to the ChEng, eyes shining with glee and showed two thumbs up at his boss.
The Lieutenant nodded, gave the thumbs-up right back and deadpanned back to the CIC, “Roger, Sir, We’ll have it done in twenty minutes! Seriously, Captain, the Senior Chief seems to have found the error. It is only a matter of piecing the equipment back together. Twenty minutes, tops.”

Mompati and Ciliax grinned at each other, relieved at the imminent solution of the problem and appreciating the brief moment of levity. Hopefully, they would still be alive in twenty minutes…
“Torpedo room, Captain, proceed to empty the torpedo tubes. It will give us a few more egress points if we get hit.”

On the shore, the commander of the lead T-72G told his gunner, “Gefreiter Sägebrecht, take your time aiming, this submarine isn’t going anywhere.” He fantasized painting a submarine silhouette on his turret face and of receiving a Blücher Medal for bagging an Imperialist submarine. Down in the turret, the gunner performed some minute corrections to the gun’s alignment. Now even the IFVs started to fire at the submarine but their shots fell short.
Just as the gunner deemed his corrections sufficient for ensuring a hit on the sub’s sail, he and the rest of the formation were rudely interrupted by a pair of RDAF F-16s who screamed in from the western shore of the Förde, performed a maneuver to align themselves with the road going through Laboe and dropped a full load of cluster bombs on the bunched-up vehicles. Except for the lead pair of BRDMs, the company vanished in a maelstrom of small explosions. The F-16s pulled up, changed the course to where they had come from and zoomed over Manthatisi, waggling their wings.

”What I did not know at the time and would not find out until conducting research for this book, a Bundesmarine FAC team had taken up residence on the western shore of the Förde and had relayed our call for help. They managed to divert a strike and thus saved our bacon. Indeed, someone, somewhere, deemed our survival and that of the corvette Freiburg so important that they managed to send in another flight of jets and a couple of attack helicopters who kept any further enemy armour away from us until we made it past Kiel Lighthouse.” – Mompati, Paul and Ciliax, Stefan, ‘The Warrior Queen and the Vikings – SAS Manthatisi and the Third World War’, Cape Town and Hamburg, 2020

SAS Manthatisi was still going at full surfaced speed, nearly shaking herself apart at the seams as her propulsion department pushed her past her normal limits in their haste to make it out of Kiel and enemy reach. The repair crew were nearly finished reassembling the ballast tank switches and a minute sense of relief had wormed its way into the hearts of her crew, guests and Captain. Soon they would be able to dive into the comparative safety of the Kiel Bight.

That was about to change as a few nautical miles to the east, a Sassnitz-class missile attack craft emerged from the morning mists hovering over the Baltic Sea. She was close to the shore, lost in the radar background clutter. The boat had yet to engage a naval target but she had more than once provided close-in NGFS with her 76mm main gun.
“Comrade Kommandant, this is radar, we have a small surface contact heading north-north-east with a speed of about twenty knots. Suggest immediate visual identification.”
With the political officer nodding his assent, the missile craft turned onto an intercept course training its main gun onto the contact and spooling up its SS-N-25 missiles. The Volksmarine vessel increased speed to 30 knots in order to close the distance. The lookouts were already training their binoculars in the direction they knew the radar contact to be. Although chances were pretty good that it would turn out to be a legitimate military target, not even the Political Officer was keen on opening fire on a bunch of fleeing civilians. “Bridge, port lookout. Port, ten degrees, surfaced submarine. Showing right bow, attitude 90 degrees.
The commanding officer looked at the Political Officer. “Lock target onto gun fire control channel. Prepare to fire.”

Onboard Manthatisi, the EW receiver in her mast indicated that the submarine was now painted by an enemy fire control radar. “Captain, EW. We have been locked on by a Crow Beak. Bearing 087. Suggest crash dive.” Almost simultaneously, the three men on the sail reported seeing the missile craft bearing down on them.
“S***! Engineering, how long to dive?”
In this very second, the solenoid switch indicators for the ballast tanks finally changed from red to green. “Ready to dive, now-now-now!” the Chief Engineer shouted through the submarine, not bothering to utilize the communications system.
The captain personally gave the signal to dive. “Emergency dive, emergency dive. Expedite! We have a missile craft on top of us!”
The three lookouts on the sail scrambled down the hatch into the submarine. The South African Sub-Lieutenant was the last one to pass the hatch. He slammed it shut and arrested the locking system. “Sail hatch shut and tight!” he announced loudly.

On the Sassnitz, her commanding officer, a Kapitänleutnant, saw that the submarine was still going in a straight line but the sail was now clear of people. “Damn, she is preparing to dive. Radar, Frage Entfernung?”
“Two and a half miles, decreasing rapidly.”
“Damn it, we are already inside minimum missile range. Go to guns.”
The CO drew in breath to give the order to fire. He was interrupted by the Political Officer. “I veto the order to fire. We will board the submarine and bring her to the Fatherland. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
Of all the…what the hell is wrong with him? The commanding officer was livid. Being second-guessed at every opportunity was straining even at the best of times. Right now it was beyond aggravating. This…weasel was going too far.
“Comrade Political Officer, this is an enemy vessel preparing to dive. I say we sink it!”
“We are inside its minimum torpedo range and the boat is close to defenceless otherwise. Hold fire! Hail them on VHF channel sixteen at once!”
“No, I will not do that. We are at war, in case you idiot hadn’t noticed. This has arse-all to do with Socialism. All you want is some gong around your neck. Now, leave the GODDAMN bridge before I kick you außenbords, you political SOCKPUPPET!”
“Comrade Kapitänleutnant, you are relieved of command. I declare myself the new commanding officer. Pre. Pare. To. BOARD!”
Both men stood screaming at each other, nose to nose and their faces dark red. The boatswain’s mate of the bridge watch took things into his own hands and brained the Political Officer with a single strike of a replacement machine gun barrel he had retrieved from a bridge wing. “Ruhe im Puff, verdammt! Nobody relieves the CO!” The Political Officer went down, bleeding from nose, ears and eyes. He was as dead as a doornail before he hit the ground.

FGS Freiburg had also managed to fight her way out of the Kieler Förde inlet. The ship was only lightly damaged and had even manged to kill a couple of Mi-24 and a handful of NVA light armoured vehicles. The overall situation was confused, which was an understatement. Freiburg’s CO sat in the CIC and contemplated his options. First things first, they would go to the Gelting Bight and try to sort things out there. He looked at the radar display in front of him. Wait. What was that?
“EW, Kommandant, Two contacts, bearing 034 and 045, converging. Query: Emissions? Bridge, CO. Two contacts bearing 034 and 045, distance three point five. VID ASAP.”
The EW team was on the ball. Thirty seconds later, they reported, “Easternmost contact Sassnitz class missile craft. No emissions from westernmost contact. Sassnitz is radiating her fire control radar.”
“Right. Bridge, any luck?”
“Sir, MSP 500 tells us it is an Ossi missile craft and a surfaced submarine. Not one of ours. Must be the new Sou’frican 209.”
“Acknowledged. CIC, designate Sassnitz enemy. Weapons free. Engage enemy with thirty rounds sustained fire from main gun and two RAMs in HAS mode. Optical fire control channel. Fire when ready.”
While the corvette was in range of her Polyphem and RBS-15 missiles, the size of the Sassnitz did not rate a missile bigger than a RAM and a few dozen 76mm shells in the CO’s opinion. The 76mm OTO Melara gun and the forward RAM launcher were slaved to the optical fire control channel provided by the MSP 500 platform which locked on to the enemy vessel.

On the Sassnitz, the CO was still trying to find his bearings after the somewhat abbreviated confrontation. "CO, lookout. Enemy sub is initiating dive. Indeed, the sail now stood at an angle and the silhouette of the boat grew smaller by the second. “Guns, fire at will!”
“Enemy corvette, port, 40 degrees, firing!”

FGS Freiburg’s 76mm gun spit out thirty rounds of rapid fire in fifteen seconds. While the OTO Melara 76mm was reviled in the Federal German navy as a short-ranged “potato launcher” patently unsuited to anti-surface warfare, it did its job admirably well in this situation. The RAM launcher added two missiles to the ordnance thrown at the Volksmarine vessel.

It was way too late for the Sassnitz’s crew to react. The CO turned to the Political Officer’s corpse and kicked it. “You arrogant ass. You killed us!” and then the small boat was riddled with artillery fire. The bridge was hit by four 76mm rounds which butchered the men present into handy pieces of fish food. Ablaze from stem to stern in seconds, the last RAM fired was what sealed the missile craft’s fate. It squarely hit the port SS-N-25 launcher, penetrating one of the container tubes. There was no detonation as the missile’s warhead had not been primed yet but the missile fuel ignited and burned though the container in seconds, setting the other three missiles ablaze too. The complete aft half of the attack craft – made if aluminum – was melted to slag and the vessel began to settle at the stern.
Of the 34 crew, four made it off the vessel. Thanks to the proximity to the shore, all of them were safe within 90 minutes of the sinking.


[1] Sudel-Ede (roughly: Besmirching Ede): Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, a West German who emigrated to the DDR in the late forties and who became chief anti-Western propagandist in DDR television. His TV show, “Der Schwarze Kanal”, used creatively edited original western (mostly West German) TV snippets and outright fabricated “facts” and interviews to paint a picture of West Germany as a capitalist hellhole. The show was often watched in both West and East for its inherent entertainment value. Sudel-Ede’s reputation across both Germanies was abominable. He died in @ – MUCH too late and not of something lingering and painful – in 2001, unrepentant to the end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Edua ... Schnitzler

 
Manthatisi leveled off her crash dive at thirty metres’ depth.
“Sonar,” the Co called, “Give me some news. What’s the situation?”
“Captain, somebody gave the Sassnitz what-for. I counted more than twenty detonations and now it sounds a lot like it going deep,” said the SAN NCO seated at the sonar console. His Bundesmarine counterpart nodded in assent.
The South African CPO held up his hand. “I have one more vessel in our port rear quadrant, maybe two nauticals back. Sounds like a corvette. I think that’s our savior right there. Must be the Freiburg. She was the only corvette left in the naval station.”
“When all of this is over, we owe somebody a LOT of beer! Anything else of note going on around us. Anything with immediate importance?” the CO said.
The sonar operators listened for a while. Finally, the sonar chief stated, “All’s clear as far as we can tell.”
Ciliax, who had sat back and kept quiet while Lieutenant commander Mompati had fought the boat, leaned forward out of the shadows and quietly spoke, “I suggest to secure from battle stations, then. We have a long and stressful trip ahead of us and we should rest the crew as much as possible. Cuts down on the noise level, too.”
“Good idea.” Mompati triggered the loudspeaker system and quietly spoke into it, as was the custom within the Silent Service the world over, “Secure from battle stations, poert watch steaming. Well done, everybody. That is all.”

”After the close call with the Sassnitz, we were only too happy to finally go deep, slow and silent, which is always preferable to presenting a slow target for some dumb tread-heads or fast attack craft to plink at. To this day, I do not know why the Ossi did not simply sink us.
As it was, my German advisor team, my officers and I decided to to limit our speed of advance to six to eight knots. In the confined and shallow waters of the Baltic, the less we would have to snorkel, the better. There were too many people with itchy trigger fingers about.
We were lucky in that our track would not bring us all too close to Zealand, where NATO and Pact were fighting it out. We at first went between Langeland and Lolland and then made towards the Great Belt like hedgehogs mating. C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y. By then, there were enemy paratrooper and marine boots on the ground and NATO was interdicting the air bridge over Zealand. To say that the situation was hairy was an understatement.” - Mompati, Paul and Ciliax, Stefan, ‘The Warrior Queen and the Vikings – SAS Manthatisi and the Third World War’, Cape Town and Hamburg, 2020

It was early afternoon and SAS Manthatisi was nealy through the passage between Langeland and Lolland. LtCdr Mompati had just called the crew to battle stations again. Sonar was detecting a confused mess of NATO and Warsaw pact fast missile craft battling to the north while above them, an air battel seemed to be raging, the far-off sounds off battle punctuated by an occasional splash or an explosion as fighters of both sides were shot down and crashed into the sea.
Stefan Ciliax looked at Paul Mompati and gave him a gentle nudge. “I recommend sending a PIM message to NATO. Too many trigger-happy people up there. I admit I’d feel better if we only had to worry about the freak chance of a plane falling on us or the Easterners going for us rather than NATO too. A blue on blue would certainly hurt in the morning…”
The South African knew Ciliax had a point. A short SATCOM burst would not hurt.
“I hear you, Stefan.” He got up and ambled to the communications closet where he had the petty officer compose a short message to COMNAVBALTAP, CINCNORTH and the West German, Danish, US, Brit and Norwegian navy HQs, INFO NATO HQ. You never knew whose MPA it might be buzzing around and living by the motto “kill’em all and let god sort ‘em out”.
That done, the boat performed a careful three-sixty search and, finding no immediate threats, went to periscope depth.

Captain Yuri Genrikhovich Gerasimov of the Soviet Air Force was in agony and freezing his butt off, to boot. He had flown cover for the increasingly jeopardized stream of transports into Zealand and had been bounced by a RNoAF F-16 as he had tried to convert on a B-1 initiating its bomb run over the Fakse Bight. He had punched out of his disintegrating Su-27 and in the process broken his right collarbone and left ankle. At this time of the year, the Baltic wasn’t cold enough to kill quickly, but merely to make life as miserable as possible for anybody who might be forced to take a dip. He huddled in his pathetic little dinghy and tried to have as little contact as possible with the cold water around him. Luckily, the waves were at a typically sedate 1 meters’ height.
Suddenly, he heard a soft gurgling noise close to his position. He looked around. Sure enough, something that could only be a periscope had broken the surface maybe five meters away. Ours or theirs? he wondered, gazing at the rotating optics which passed him by and then zipped right back at him. “Hi there,” Gerasimov grinned stupidly and waggled the fingers of his good hand at the periscope.
“What the…” Mompati had to grin. “We have what looks like a downed…Russkie, looks like on his flotation thingie. He is waving at us. Comms,” he half-shouted. “Status of message?”
“Still trying to get a fix on the sat, sir,” came the answer.
“Right. While the system does its tracking thing, amend the message to include a downed pilot at our position.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Message modified and…sent. Good return from the satellite, five by five.”
“Okay, then.” The captain turned towards the diving and driving controls. “Bring her to twenty metres, ahead five knots. I want to wait until it is fully dark outside. Navigator, find us a good spot to bottom her.”

Four hours later, SAS Manthatisi gently and silently lifted off the stretch of sandy seabed she had spent bottomed out on. The CO had elected to thin out the active watch during the time on the bottom and had almost violently been persuaded to “pull a battle eye”[X] by Stefan Ciliax who had volunteered to head the thinned-out watch, giving most of the crew some sorely-needed time off.
Before that, a short discussion by the officers and chiefs had produced a plan on how to proceed. Manthatisi would go under the Great Belt bridge between the first and second anchor block on its western half, thus avoiding the main channel and hopefully any mines laid by either Warsaw Pact or NATO. There would be barely enough water to hide the submarine, or indeed prevent it from grounding and there would be less than fifty metres between her and the easternmost anchor block but all men involved knew that this was indeed the bread and butter of submarine operations in waters as confined and shallow as the Baltic. West German U-Boat COs had made a habit out of hiding less than a cable away from the underwater works of oil platforms, after all.
There had been some doubts which had been quelled when the West German navigator had announced that he had been part of U35’s record-breaking three weeks’ uninterrupted dived cruise at the end of which the boat had emerged a scant thirty-five metres from its pre-plotted destination.

Presently, the sub crept along at three knots, barely enough to maintain sufficient steerage but at the same time minimizing the risk of creating any suction that might bring the screw or the keel in contact with the seabed. To say that the atmosphere on board was tense would have been a blatant understatement. The whole crew was at action stations with all crew members not directly involved in driving the submarine busy gnawing their fingernails down to the wrists. LtCdr Mompati was basically reduced to approving the course and speed suggestions of the navigators. Of course, he had supervised the plotting of this latest leg in their escape and he made a point of following the calculations, always ready to intervene.
Many apprehensive glances were directed at the depth gauge which showed that the amount of water under the keel was dwindling slowly but steadily. According to the electronic chart table, they had now reached the most shallow point beneath the bridge, less than thirty metres away from the anchor block and less than three metres’ worth of water under the keel. Not even the impact of another plane into the waters of the Great Belt a few hundred metres away was consciously registered by the crew. They had bigger fish to fry now.
Only one large rock. Or a car. Or a container. Just. One. More. Cable. Please. Mompati almost felt like a guitar string. Strung to the maximum and vibrating. He looked over to Stefan Ciliax who was markedly more relaxed and sipping from a sports drinking bottle. He even grinned back at his South African counterpart and lifted an eyebrow.
Why is he so relaxed? Mompati was irritated. Then it came to him. West German submariners did crazy stuff like this all the time. Of course he would be familiar with this situation. Stefan had also been involved in pre-plotting the action and his trust in the German-trained crew of South Africans and the West German liaison personnel was apparently absolute. Mompati felt himself relax. If Stefan was – comparatively – unconcerned, why should he fret?
The navigator began to quietly sing out the depth under the keel. “Three metres under keel. Four…six…seven…ten…we are through. Course suggestion as per profile, sir.”

There was a general sense of relief. “Make it so. Keep crew at battle stations for the moment, secure when we are two nauticals away from here.”

”Whenever I talk about our trip to Emden, I am invariably asked why we did not elect to stay closer to the Danish coast, surfaced, as it would have been quicker and presumably safer as the Danes could have given us protection. It sounds good. And that’s about it. First, the Danes were fighting a war of national survival. They had Ivan on their front porch and they could not and would not spare the assets to protect one unarmed submarine. Second, the Baltic fleet kept sending fast missile craft on what KKpt Ciliax kept calling Himmelfahrtskommandos northwards, and we were pretty certain that there were Russkie submarines around. No, we could do without sailing around with a bull’s eye painted on our boat. In short, there were NATO assets with itchy trigger fingers about in addition to the enemy. The thought of some jet jock with excess ordnance and more balls than ship recognition skills was a bit sobering.
As it was, we were shot at by friendlies more than once. It was understandable to a certain degree but we began to ask ourselves why we kept submitting PIMs. But to be fair, that’s the way things are in war and there is always somebody who did not get the word.”

“OOW, sonar,” came the call an hour later. SAS Manthatisi hugged the eastern confines of the Great Belt going northwards. The crew had once more separated into port and starboard watch. Starboard watch was sailing the boat. Apart from the cook who did not belong to either watch, the only crewman aside from the Chief Engineer and the Captain, everybody else was asleep in their bunks. The CO had persuaded himself to take forty winks too.
“OOW. What gives?”
“We have four contacts several nauticals in the port aft sector. Two shafts, doing at least forty knots, all of them. They are making an awful racket. Assess contacts to be Tarantuls.”
“OOW aye.” The South African lieutenant turned a switch on the communications console next to him. “Captain, OOW,” he spoke into the microphone.

LtCdr Mompati was awake in a second. He grabbed the microphone attached to the top of his bunk and spoke, “Captain.”
“Sir, reporting four enemy missile craft going northwards through the Belt at forty-plus knots, will be passing us two to three miles in our rear port quarter. No indication of submarines or ASW forces, enemy or friendly.”
“Captain aye.” Mompati replaced the microphone in its receptacle. He sat up, groaned quietly and twisted and turned his upper body, grimacing at the crackling and popping sounds in his back. After rubbing his hands across his face a few times, he decided to pay a visit to the sonar console. Sleeping two hours had done him good, although he was still knackered. On the way, he stopped to fill up a mug with industrial strength coffee from the coffee machine next to the kitchen cubicle where the cook was busy preparing a load of bobotie for the next meal which was…breakfast? It was easy to lose track of the time down here.
“Hello, Francis,” he addressed the senior sonar operator. “Tell me about those FACs.”
“Sir,” replied the petty officer, handing a spare headset to his CO. “As you can see on the display, they have nearly reached their CPA with us. I had to turn down the sound or we would be going deaf in about a minute, they are so loud. I bet we could hear them with a glass held to our hull.”
Mompati donned the headset. Sure enough, the din of the four missile corvettes was impressive. If only we had torpedoes he began to think but was brought up short by the unmistakable sound of an explosion. CO and sonar operator looked at each other, surprised. “Air attack?” Mompati mouthed at the petty officer. “I guess. It is hard to hear anything about the racket they are making but my bet is on an air attack. FACs are almost defenceless against that.”
Within the next minute, they were treated to another half dozen explosions as NATO airpower made scrap metal out of the Tarantuls.
“That’s that then,” Mompati murmured, clapping the sonarman on the back. “Keep me posted.”
“Aye, sir.”



[1] ein Gefechtsauge ziehen: German Navy colloquialism for a quick nap, even in peacetime.

[Jotun]

Next part, a bit shorter...



SAS Manthatisi had finally made it past the Great Belt, with what felt like a running commentary by the sonar operators about the activities around them.

Occasionally, shot-down planes still crashed into the waters. Two days ago, sonar had also detected an Akula attack boat slinking past them, headed towards the North Sea. The crew had cursed Earth, Sea and the gods for not having anything bigger than a pistol on board and the torpedo tubes stuffed with provisions. The weapons department had produced a perfect firing solution, but bags of potatoes and pallets of soda make for a bad ASW weapon.

Commander Mompati had decided to slowly go to periscope depth and send a “Flash“ mes-sage to NATO containing the position, course and speed of the Soviet submarine.
There was way too much going on along the main shipping lane through the Kattegat and Skagerrak. Mompati and Ciliax decided to pass the islands of Anholt and Laesø to the west, which would make for a quieter and safer journey.

After the boat had entered the Skagerrak, braving the (in)famous cross-seas and currents at the intersection of Kattegat and Skagerrak, crew and captain were very much looking forward to going deeper and finally making their way into the North Sea.

*

A few thousand feet above the Skagerrak, a West German P3C flew ASW search patterns. You never knew if the Russians would not send further submarines against the shipping in the North Sea. Just two days ago, the crew had bagged an Akula on its way to more open waters, before that they had sunk a Kilo in the process of mining the entrance to the Oslo Fjord, and they were looking forward to increasing their kill count. The navigator/comms operator looked at the displays. Three more hours to go on this mission, fuel state green.
“Pilot, nav. We have reached the end of our search leg. Change course to reciprocal in five, four, three, two, one, mark!“ The plane began to bank to port.
„Nav, pilot. New course, 135.” The pilot then triggered the common internal comms channel. “Keep your eyes and ears open, guys. Three more hours to go until Bingo fuel.“

*

“Sonar, OOW. Perform passive search. We’ll snorkel if all is clear. The batteries can use some more juice.“
“Sonar aye.“
The sonar operators used the complete array of sensors available to them. Apart from some far-off traffic that sounded like a small allied convoy, there was nothing in the vicinity that would pose a threat. Normally, this part of the world would be teeming with commercial traffic and the ‘white plague’ of civilian sailing vessels and motor boats at this time of the year but the war had put an end to that.

Finally, Manthatisi’s periscope broke the surface. The sea was agreeably calm for once and accordingly, the danger of creating periodical bouts of underpressure while snorkeling was minimal.

Of course, calm seas also meant a higher threat of detection. The OOD performed a quick 360-degree visual search with the periscope. All clear.

*

“Pilot, TACCO. We have a weak radar contact bearing 267, six nautical miles, speed four/five knots. Suggest investigating.”
“TACCO, Pilot. Understood. Changing course. Anything on visual?”
“Working on it!” came the voice of the petty officer operating the visual equipment. “There! Dead ahead, IR plume very close to the surface. Assess sub snorkel.”
“Alright. We have us a diesel sub. Designate PROBSUB. Comms, any info on friendlies in the area?”
The Navigator who was doubling as the communications operator, gave his screen and a few printouts a quick once-over and then replied, “None at all.”

“Okay then, TACCO, select depth charge, rig for twenty-five meters depth. We’ll break its back.” The tactical officer had his chief petty officer program one of the depth charges.
“Surface, give me a vector.”

*

On board SAS Manthatisi, the sonar operator turned white as a sheet. “I have transients of a NATO MPA, sounds like an Orion. They are going straight for us.”

The CO sat bolt upright in his command chair, bounded up and scrambled for the flags locker, from which he pulled two rolled pieces of multi-colored cloth. “Emergency surfacing procedure NOW NOW NOW!” he shouted, running for the laddter to the sail. He shouted to Ciliax, “Stefan, [/i]bei Fuß[/i]! I need your help, grab a VHF brick!” While this was going on, he heard the engineering department blow the ballast tanks, and SAS Manthatisi practically bounced to the surface. Mompati wrenched the hatch to the sail open, giving no heed to the cold mass of water that drenched him from head to toe. He clambered to the top of the sail, Ciliax on his heels.

The camera operator on the P3C reported, “Thar she blows! Submarine breaking surface, dead ahead. Doesn’t look like a Red sub…wait…BLUE ON BLUE! BREAK OFF BOMB RUN! CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!”

His shout could be heard throughout the entire passenger compartment of the Orion as well as through the on board tactical circuit. The pilot wrenched on the stick, pushed the throttle to the stops and turned the plane hard to port. “Oh shit,” he heard the tactical officer mutter “depth charge away…FUCK!”

On the sail of the submarine, Commander Mompati and Korvettenkapitän Ciliax unfurled the West German and South African naval flags and began waving them wildly while Ciliax trig-gered Channel 16 on the VHF “Brick”. They looked up and saw a cylindrical object detach itself from the MPA just a few seconds after it had broken off the attack run. “Daaaaaaaaaamn…,” Mompati muttered, following the depth charge hurtling downward with his eyes.
The depth charge hit the water about a hundred metres abaft of the submarine and a few sec-onds later, its water pressure fuse ignited the explosive charge.

Whap-WHAAAAAM! A white waterspout erupted and the shockwave shuddered throughout the submarine’s body.

“NATO MPA this is South African submarine Manthatisi. Cease fucking fire you idiots! We are friendlies! This was a bit too damn close for comfort!” Ciliax shouted into the handheld VHF radio, in English.

“Uhhhh…this is Federal German Navy MPA, Stefan, is that you?”
“Yes. Who’s speaking?”
“Jonas here. What are you doing down there?”
Ciliax breathed a sigh of relief. His classmate and roomie throughout the Basic Officer’s Train-ing Course at the Naval Academy at Mürwik. “Jonas, change channel to the last two digits of our room number at the Castle.” He proceeded to dial in the channel number.

“Okay. Jonas, Stefan here. I am a liaison officer on the Sou’frican sub that was in construction at HDW, we barely made it out and are on our way to Otto’s home town.[1] What’s with the loose trigger finger? We have been sending PIMs every six hours.[2] Don’t you read your sig-nals, over?”

“Jonas. Good question, I’ll ask the radioman. Sorry for the mess. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, just very awake. We really didn’t need that right now. Guess you guys owe us a keg of beer. I’ll ring you up when we have reached our destination.”

“Don’t count on it. We are temporarily based in Denmark, Nordholz was hit pretty hard on Day One. We’ll hash it out when this shitshow is over, okay?”

“Works for me, I’ll hold you to that. All the best to you. Kick some ass.”

“Will do, same to you. Out.”

While the submarine proceeded to go back to snorkeling depth, the pilot called up the radio department on his plane. “Comms, pilot. Justify yourself.”

In the back of the plane, the petty officer in charge of the communications equipment had al-ready gone through the stack of paper signals and the electronic stuff. There was an awful lot of both, given the situation. He had found the submarine’s PIM message and answered, “Pilot, comms. Manthatisi sent a PIM, alright. I just found it among a mess of useless ballast signals. Looks like a lot of guys aren’t yet in a war mindset. No excuses, though, I should have caught it anyway.”
“Comms, pilot. Don’t sweat it. We got off light. I’ll see to it that our report includes a strong suggestion to vet any signal before sending it. We cannot be the only ones who missed some-thing vital thanks to all the bullshit peace time stuff still being transmitted. Now let’s get back to it, we still have almost three hours of patrol time left.”

[1] Emden is the birth place of one of Germany’s most beloved comedians, Otto Waalkes, bet-ter known as just “Otto”.
[2] PIM = Position and Intended Movement

[Bernard Woolley]

Enjoying this again.

[Fusilier]

Excellent stuff! Thanks for continuing.

[Jotun]

Thanks, guys. I'll endeavour to bring this to a conclusion in the near future.

[James1978]

Good to see a new chapter of this!

So if I understood this correctly, the P-3 came in low level to drop the depth charge on top of the sub's position? Any reason they didn't drop a torpedo?

[Paul Nuttall]

Good to see a new chapter of this!

So if I understood this correctly, the P-3 came in low level to drop the depth charge on top of the sub's position? Any reason they didn't drop a torpedo?

Too shallow?

[Paul Nuttall]

They forgot to report the Akula again.......

[Jotun]

They forgot to report the Akula again.......

Not quite. The Akula the P-3 got two days ago was thanks to a report from NAVBALTAP based on a report by Manthatisi. My writing is a bit imprecise at that point. I wrote that part years ago

Will correct soonest. Now going to bed^^

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Excellent.

[Jotun]

Good to see a new chapter of this!

So if I understood this correctly, the P-3 came in low level to drop the depth charge on top of the sub's position? Any reason they didn't drop a torpedo?

IIRC, the Mk 46 and the MU90, which the P3-C carries here, can not attack targets above fifteen or so metres depth (25m in case of the MU90 although it can navigate in as little as 3m deep water), to avoid punching holes in friendly surface ships during ASW ops in case of a miss and a mistaken target acquisition by the torpedo.