AHC: More than one submarine sunk by another while both are submerged.

Puzzle

Donor
So a few months ago I came across the fact that only one submarine, U-846, has ever been deliberately sunk by another submarine, HMS Venturer, while both were underwater. The challenge is to have that occur more than once.

My first thought is better and earlier guided torpedos, but I'm not certain that WWII subs were ever really operating in the same waters submerged to start with. A more appropriate POD might be that WWII is somehow delayed, or that the Cold War goes hot.

Thoughts?
 

Coiler

There could be an opportunity in one of the Indo-Pakistan Wars-they both had, and used submarines.
 

Carl Schwamberger

There has been a lot of speculation the Soviet submarine sunk in the north Pacific was sunk by another. That goes along with the rumors the crew had gone rogue & either the US or the Soviet summariness had torpedoed it to prevent any further action by the crew. I'm unsure if anything emerged from the salvage efforts to support this.
 

Admiral Beez

Banned
sparky42 said:
Could the Argentinean subs bump into a RN SSN?
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Was a definite possibility. The Argie sub at St. Georgia could have met a RN nuke. That would not have gone well for the former.

Now, if the TR-1700 class had been delivered well armed pre-war and their crews trained to near Perisher levels, the engagement would have been somewhat closer to balanced.
 

Cryhavoc101

Puzzle said:
So a few months ago I came across the fact that only one submarine, U-846, has ever been deliberately sunk by another submarine, HMS Venturer, while both were underwater. The challenge is to have that occur more than once.

My first thought is better and earlier guided torpedos, but I'm not certain that WWII subs were ever really operating in the same waters submerged to start with. A more appropriate POD might be that WWII is somehow delayed, or that the Cold War goes hot.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I came up with an idea several years back that the British - who already had submarines with up to 10 forward firing tubes develop a dedicated ASW design (based on the U class) that uses multiple 18" Tubes utilising a 'shotgun' type attack to attempt to sink surfaced or submerged U-boats transiting between their base and areas of operation. Say 12 tubes with the individual torpedo's set to a certain depth.

I imagine that even if submerged a transiting U-Boat would be fairly close to the surface - i.e. 50 meters or so these torpedo's would be set to 'straddle' the expected operating depths of a given submarine as I expect that it would be difficult to determine a contacts depth during WW2 from another sub using passive sensors etc

These subs would not have to be large or have great endurance (as they are operating not that far from the UK) and the majority of the tubes could be 'External' in nature - i.e. one shot

Of course once the 18" FIDO is developed this shotgun approach could be exchanged for a single shot 'stalk' approach
 
Catsmate

Catsmate

Carl Schwamberger said:
There has been a lot of speculation the Soviet submarine sunk in the north Pacific was sunk by another. That goes along with the rumors the crew had gone rogue & either the US or the Soviet summariness had torpedoed it to prevent any further action by the crew. I'm unsure if anything emerged from the salvage efforts to support this.
Click to expand...
K-129 back in '68? There was speculation about a collision with a US submarine. Possibly USS Scorpion might have struck a Soviet boat near the Azores while surveilling that strange Soviet naval task group.
1968 was a bad year for submarines, four lost.
 

Puzzle

Donor
Coiler said:
There could be an opportunity in one of the Indo-Pakistan Wars-they both had, and used submarines.
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I was half thinking that during the Sino-Soviet border conflicts someone could get a little spooked and launch a torpedo.
 
gatordad699

gatordad699

How about a Cold War incident getting out of hand. Russian boat caught around an American boomer. American boat caught around a Russian boomer. American loses depth control and broaches while conducting "Oceanagraphic Research and the ability of the boat to stay deployed for long periods of time." Russian boat caught inside a carrier battle group. Incidents like those could be more likely during some events. October War in the Med, off of Vietnam during war, etc. Lots and lots of times the two sides had boats very close to each other.
 
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