SSGN's New Chance

Conn, sonar, new contact

Minor edit on August 7th 2023 to correct some errors. Enjoy.

"Conn, sonar, new contact bearing 305, designated Sierra 1." I was suddenly awakened by these words. They felt awfully familiar. It was too real to be true. I opened my eyes and found myself in a room. A rather luxurious one, if you ask me. I blinked twice and then I saw something I thought was impossible:

[Insert Cold Waters HUD with Oscar]

"Damn. And I thought I was dead. Time to get down to business. Rig ship for ultra-quiet, deploy towed array." After my command and initial pondering, I felt the sub slow down as it approached the target speed of 5 knots.

The solution to the target was slowly building up, but not enough to make out either the signature or the range to the target. I was currently heading west. "Left course 210." I ordered to bring the towed array perpendicular to the target. "Come left to 210, helm aye," the voice in my head replied.

After about a minute, the target course was reached: "Conn, helm, steady course." My solution to the target was at 80% and soon it was at 95%. The target was about 10km away and heading north-east, now at bearing 307. The contact was moving at about 17 knots. To check if there were any other ships to identify, I decided to come up to periscope depth. For my submarine it was 15 metres. "Make depth 15, dive aye."

As I rose from my original 122 metres, I opened my recognition manual. Remembering my painful death at the hands of the US attack submarine Los Angeles, I was surprised to see a large number of WW2 era ships and what appeared to be ships from a more familiar universe. "Are those Siren ships?" I didn't give it much thought as I was going through the sound profiles to identify the supposed "Sierra 1".

After what felt like an eternity, I found a match on the contact. "An Oppressor-class cruiser, interesting. Possibly a recon unit. 4 turrets of 155mm guns, unguided torps, 30 knots top speed. Pretty standard, if you ask me." This was followed by a message from the sonar operator: "Conn, sonar Sierra 1 is classified as escort."

By this time my submarine had reached periscope depth, so I raised all my masts. "Up scope. Raise ESM mast. Raise the radar mast. When all 3 masts were above water, I took one look through the periscope and confirmed a single contact on the horizon. Nothing else. "Seems to be on patrol indeed. I then ordered all masts down and a dive to 100 metres.

Now the attack plan: 2 650 mm tubes with 65-76, 4 533 mm tubes with 2 USET-80 and 2 TEST-71M torpedoes. As I do not remember WW2 ships having noisemakers, I decided that 1 USET-80 in passive anti-ship mode would be sufficient.

"Tube 4, USET-80, passive, straight, anti-ship, 310 for 8 km." The torpedo room replied: " Shoot tube 4, aye sir." About 8 minutes later, after a torpedo had been activated, I heard a delayed detonation and a message from the sonar operator: "Conn, sonar, lost contact, Sierra 1, last bearing 320, contact breaking up."

As the ship sank, I walked around it, admiring its technology. Torpedo room, sonar, masts, all the electronics, reactor, engine room. Basically, I admired the whole ship. Although I was alone, I felt like I was the entire crew at once. I thought, "Maybe I have become a ship boy after all."

4 minutes later I ordered to go back to 15 metres and raise all the masts. Although there were no ship contacts nearby, I noticed several ESM contacts from the relative east. I decided to zoom out and look at the tactical map. It was then that I realised something crucial: I am awfully close to a Japanese naval base. Or was I?

Given my supposed encounter with a Siren ship, it became increasingly clear to me that I might as well be in an Azur Lane universe. "So the Japs are Sakura Empire, the US is Eagle Union, the UK is Royal Navy, Germany is Iron Blood and Russia is Northern Parliament. Interesting..." were my thoughts after I accidentally discovered a book called Guide to the World of Azur Lane.