Submarine! Read Online Free PDF Page B

first requirement is to find a ship which will present no fire control problem whatsoever, thus disposing of that possible cause of failure. Their second requirement is for the torpedo—if it misses—to explode after passing beyond the target. The location of the explosion should furnish conclusive proof of its path. Taken together, these requirements spell out an anchored or moored ship in a harbor, where torpedoes fired from seaward will go off upon hitting the shore after passing the target. For a clincher, Warder has taken two types of torpedoes on this patrol—the Mark XIV, recently put in service, and the obsolete Mark X. Maybe, he thinks, a little comparative performance data might be useful.
    The blame for failure in this attack, if failure there is to be, will rest squarely where it belongs—where Warder has for months known it belongs—on the torpedo itself. Seawolf will fire each fish carefully and deliberately, and will record the performance of each. Rather a heroic test, this, and onewhich should have been performed by the Naval Torpedo Station in the calm and peaceful waters of Narragansett Bay years ago!
    At last Warder and his Seawolves sight what they seek: Sagami Maru , an 8,000-ton transport lying at anchor in Talomo Bay, a small harbor. Warder surveys the harbor, the anchorage, indication of current; he pores over the chart of the area and carefully selects and memorizes the “getaway” course. He has the torpedoes given one final check, then he quietly calls his crew to battle stations.
    With Fred Warder at the periscope and Bill Deragon, Executive Officer, backing him up, Seawolf creeps into position, running silent. Every bit of machinery not essential to firing torpedoes is secured.
    Closer and closer creeps the submarine, her periscope popping out of the water at irregular intervals, never for very long. Finally, Seawolf is in position. Range, 1,400 yards. Target speed, of course, is zero. Target course, not applicable. Current, zero, indicated by Sagami Maru’s anchor chain which is hanging straight up and down.
    Ever an enthusiastic and ingenious fellow, young Reserve Lieutenant Jim Mercer has rigged up a new gimmick to try out: a system of taking pictures through the periscope. If Seawolf can get a series of half-decent photographs there will be indisputable evidence to back up the arguments about torpedoes!
    â€œUp periscope!” Fred Warder snaps. “Bearing—mark! Range—mark! Down periscope!” The data are fed into the old-fashioned Torpedo Data Computer, located in the control room.
    â€œAngle on the bow, one one oh starboard!—Control, what is the generated gyro angle?”
    Don Syverson, torpedo officer, checks his TDC carefully before replying. “Gyro angle one degree left, Captain!”
    â€œWhat do you head, helmsman?” Warder’s next question is directed to the man at the wheel.
    â€œMark! Three oh six, sir!”
    â€œCome left one degree to three oh five, and steady!” SkipperWarder is determined to eliminate all possible points of error or argument. He will fire his torpedoes with zero gyro angles, at the optimum range. The “straight bow shot”—the simplest one in the book.
    â€œSteady on three oh five, sir!” The helmsman’s report coincides with one from Don Syverson that the gyros now indicate zero.
    Sweat standing out beneath his short stubble of beard, Warder turns to Bill Deragon. “Take a look—fast!”
    As Deragon squats before the rising periscope, Warder busies himself with last-minute preparations for firing. “Make ready bow tubes!” he orders. Theoretically the torpedo tube outer doors should have been opened and the tubes flooded long ago, but experience has shown that the longer a torpedo is in a flooded tube the less chance it will run properly.
    â€œSet depth eighteen feet!” With the target’s estimated draft of about twenty feet, and