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U-Joe — Suicidal attack
Published: 2011-10-22 13:35:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 4802; Favourites: 97; Downloads: 119
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Description
Soviet hydroplane MBR-2 is attacking German destroyer Z-20 "Karl Galster" in Barents Sea. July, 1941.Related content
Comments: 26
I have only read about MBR-2s, this picture is as good as a film of an actual aircraft sortie!
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An awesome art! Question: it is based on a specific real event occurred?
I've some knowledge of naval warfare in Arctic, and I know well that the Z-20 was involved in sinking of a pair of small ships in two episodes in July 1941 (ships Passat and Meridian). However she missed to take part into a further sinking (ship Tuman) occurred the next month, when the Soviet attempted some counter-attack and managed to hit one of the attacking destroyers with an air raid (of SB-2): some sources stated it was Z-4, but it seems actually it was Z-16 Xd
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Thank you.
>> it is based on a specific real event occurred?
MBR-2s attacked German destroyers several times in July without any results. So the scene depicted here COULD HAVE BEEN occured. However in reality they dropped bombs from much higher altitude. I consciously reduced the altitude to make the picture a little more interesting.
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Oh thanks interesting! I've some interest/knowledge especially on the surface actions, but did not dig too much or memorized the best feats accomplished by Soviet aircrafts vs ships (apart remembering some of the most important ones, like the sinking of "Niobe" in Baltic etc...)
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>> I've some interest/knowledge especially on the surface actions
Hmm, it may be interesting for you to read the book "Ocean patrol" written by Valentin Pikul . It is about the warfare in Barents Sea, Finland and Norway in 1941-1944. However, I hesitate that any translation exists.
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Oh interesting, but sadly I can't read full russian books ^^
I've roamed a bit on forums like tsushima.su, making some questions&answers for little works I've done for a forum (soviet empire).
Another great source I've found and loved for submarines is town.ural.ru or deepstorm.ru
Just reading his page however he was one of the supportive for the old soviet claim of K-21vsTirpitz.
Honestly I've read of more modern russian authors that realistically deny it, and I've personally seen some english-translated german war diaries that have no mention at all of damages or attacks.
Btw, here some pages I worked and sometimes updated/corrected (possibly there are mistakes, but in last years, I've cleaned most of them)
Naval battles: www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
And here submarines:
www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/vie…
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>>claim of K-21vsTirpitz
Lunin found the Tirpitz and attacked him. Most likely he missed. However, this attack still counts as heroic deed between the personnel of the Russian Navy. My grandfather, the submarine radio operator in 1950-s, told about Lunin's attack with a fire in his eyes, heh.
>>here some pages I worked
Wow, you've done a great work gathering the information in one place. These pages may be useful. By the way, I remember some of those pictures of the Soviet ships which you added to the text. I didn't see most of them for the thousand years.
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Yep exactly I also wrote into an italian forum (actually I've to re-wrote all the pages! A slow progress but I am making them xD).
The attack of Lunin was extremely important for the moral result and the propaganda value, also there was a British publication that mentioned it at the time (I read it some time ago), and it's one of the cases when the political/propaganda outcome was greater than if the attack was really successful.
Nah, I am just the one who gathered the data and made lots of questions xD
The full credits goes to the ones who really worked on them, however I can say to have personally checked or found some details that were usually ignored by some of the most recent authors (also russian). Basically there is a cool english-translated database of German Navy online, a bit "generic" because from the high command, and because of this has been a bit ignored, however few details that did not surfaced in other war diaries emerged.
Among the "big events", there was surely the Battle of Convoy PQ-13, what could the only large surface warships battle with a Soviet destroyers scoring an hit on an enemy destroyer.
It's stuff of the few last years, that a GREAT british guy found the original war diaries of the British destroyer HMS Eclipse, and I've found a brief account from the German war diary.
Famous authors as Miroslav Morozov ignored such battle because of personal interest and lack of details, but all the data from Eclipse's diary and the German one, reinforce the fact that destroyers "Sokrushitelnyi" actually engaged the German Z-26 (and possibly scored a hit).
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>>Famous authors as Miroslav Morozov ignored such battle because of personal interest and lack of details
I suppose, Russian authors don't like to write about "Sokrushitelnyi" because of the dark fate of this destroyer. It was sunk because of storm, and officers left the doomed ship before the rest of the crew. Captain was executed by a firing squad.
However, there are some articles about "Sokrushitelnyi" and its participation in the Battle of Convoy PQ-13. Indeed she hit Z-26, however there are some thoughts that she attacked HMS Trinidad by mistake. Seems it is not true, because in this case British would start to write articles about evil Russians who shoot at allied ships.
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I think it's because M.M. on his own words enjoy more other fields (like submarines).
I've never perceived him as a particularly "pro-soviet" author and I've noticed plenty of criticism toward the Soviet naval conducts.
I've read a bit about that case, with faults given to the commander.
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Options that the target of Sokrushitelny was at real HMS Trinidad have a weak point: mostly the fact that HMS Trinidad has already been torpedoed by Z-24 and the ship should have been a bit too much northern position (British sources say self-damage inflicted by circling torpedo). Option that the mysterious ship was HMS Fury (that suddenly appeared in front of Sokrushitelnyi, HMS Eclipse and Gremyashchyi, opening fire) is also weak, because HMS Eclipse had the best visual of the three ship (being in the middle of the group) and witnessed both "mysterious-ship" and HMS Fury as different ships.
The doubts about the possible attack on the Trinidad where the base I've started working on. I am fairly certain that is surfaced from the same report of HMS Eclipse.
The commander at first believed that the mysterious ship attacked by Z-26 was HMS Trinidad.
Then he followed what he believed to be the cruiser, (he was not aware that the cruiser was damaged BEFORE the "mysterious ship" was attacked by Z-26) just to realize that the "mysterious ship" was the damaged Z-26.
The other details came directly from the German source herself: the war diary directly say that the Z-26 was chased by "two different destroyers". And that the first one was larger than the second one: this perfectly match with the differences of feature between the Soviet and British destroyers.
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It is actually funny what you said because if there is one confirmed thing of this event it's it was HMS Fury that appeared in front of Soviet (and British ) ships opening fire xD
But as I said above, I doubt it could have been the target of Sokrushitelny, because HMS Eclipse observed both the other British destroyer and the target of Sokr. as two distinct ships.
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>>I've never perceived him as a particularly "pro-soviet" author and I've noticed plenty of criticism toward the Soviet naval conducts.
Well, there were enough reasons for criticism. The most lively debates are about post-war Soviet naval conducts.
Hmm, according to your analysis "Sokrushitelnyi" engaged the Z-26 indeed. In this case that event was really unique for a Soviet Navy history.
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Oh yeah I know, but I can't lack to feel some kind of political ideas behind some criticism, and I think this should be avoied...
Morozov however seems an good author on this point and don't restrain to destroy myths from the axis forces, but for example there was an awesome book about riverine warfare during the civil war that was viscerally pro-White and anti-bolshevics (usually spenting lots of praise for each white action, usually blaming luck to defeat, never giving credits to the bolsheviks for victories while spenting time only for their mistakes).
It has been extremely fun how on some russian forums has been destroyed a number of myths for the Italian light forces in Ladoga Lake and Black Sea: a little satisfaction to me, especially because this kind of actions (MAS boats, CB midget submarine) are usually praised by fascist military forums.
I had read other views of that account of the loss of Z-26. Usually older soviet and early russian sources gave credit to the soviet destroyer to the action.
It is only in some recent works that it was kept a bit uncertain however these last evaluations did not checked these papers that got available online only in the last few years (especially the British document). Morozov himself accepted by account on his forum without further commenting because it is not most favourite element of study.
However you're right, it was surely the most thrilling destroyer vs destroyer encounter with a possible hit scored by Soviet.
Other destroyer vs destroyer battle occurred only in Black Sea (the first opening raid in Costanza) with the Romanian destroyers opening fire but Soviets did not noticed them.
Without checking the files, but joing on my memory I can remember however a clash between German torpedo boats (one of Elbing class) with a soviet guard-ship in 1944 in Baltic (that by western account could be called "torpedo boat" too) that was with no hit on both sides.
Other clashes involving Soviet major ships were only with minor enemy crafts or boats: sometimes were scored minor caliber hits causing damage on the enemy units, and only one time occurred a fully confirmed sinking of enemy target. Destroyer "Nezamoznik" sinking a small tug in Black Sea (additionally to a Finnish motorboat sunk by another soviet destroyer in Winter War).
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Suspiciously most of the modern Russian naval warfare authors are anti-Soviet. Seems it's the question of fashion. For example, Alexander Bolnykh (Александр Больных) writes extremely interesting books. When he tells about British, German or US Navy actions, everything is OK. But when he starts to tell about the Russians... If Russian officers and sailors of the past read it, they would whack him in the face, I think.
I checked my bookcase, and found one book written by Morozov which I still haven't read. It is about Soviet submarine chasers. I suppose, in this book he criticized both construction and tactics, heh.
I haven't read much about Italian light forces. I remember only one successful episode in Alexandria. It was described in the book about admiral Cunningham. It is written by infamous author Dmitry Likharev (Дмитрий Лихарев). His books about Fisher, Cunningham and Beatty are very interesting and worth to be translated.
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Hello again! Oh well... honestly I think that this is heavily influenced by the current russian political situation, where it is good to stress the anti-Nazi resistance only as seen under the view of a nationalist-patriotic russian way (while USSR was a coalition of nations and countries, not just "Russia").
Well then, speaking of the MO-4 submarine chasers class they surely had some basic default of design: they were designed with two 45mm guns as main weapons: powerful ones for a small sized boat, but not exactly best to aim and hit a target (while a lower caliber but higher rate of fire could result in heavier damages). Criticism on tactics I guess it could be around the fact that they were basically never used in mass for their intended role: however they made an useful action as transport-boats in Black Sea or recce patrols and mine-layers in Baltic and Arctic.
This of course resulted in little number of victories: most significant the sinking of U-250 (the only one achieved with sub.charces by MO-4 class). But also some other damaging of enemy subs. I recall a number of German targets damaged with the 45mm hits both in Baltic and Black Sea while in Arctic some enemy boats and ships were sunk by mines.
Additionally there was a small Finnish recce boat captured in Lagoda Lake and a single fishing boat sunk by shelling in Black Sea.
Oh... and in Far East also a group of MO captured a big Japanese merchant (I've signed the name), plus few other targets.
Italian navy had a big use of infiltration crafts, since the WWI (sinking 3 Austrian-Hungery battleships).
The attack in Alexandria was the most effective action done during WWII (BBs Valiant and Queen Elizabeth both struck).
On the Eastern Front the Italian Navy sent few "MAS" motor torpedo boat on Lagoda Lake: few skirmishes resulted in some claims by italian sources of sinking of small targets and a single "Bira-class" gunboat but all these proved false (no Bira-class was sunk by surface action).
Similar result were achieved in Black Sea: thewere were sent "MAS" boats but also the small midget submarine "CB" class.
Some claims of Soviet merchants sunk were false (and struck instead by Luftwaffe), while the main successes were sinking of 2 Soviet submarines (one by MAS; one by CB), (actually 4 subs were claimed, but the other two were false claim).
Few losses were suffered mostly by aircrafts, but one CB (the CB-5) was torpedoed and sunk by the lead-ship of DB-3 motor torpedo boats that launched torpedoes in harbour and sunk the midget-submarine (that was the only enemy submarine sunk by surface action by the Soviet Navy, in addition to the British submarine L-55 sunk during the Civil War by Bolshevik destroyers).
Few other interesting engagements include the failed attack against a Soviet destroyer (torpedo did not explode), and a messy attack against cruiser "Molotov" that was torpedoed and damaged, but it is likely it was by German torpedo bomber (attacked at the same time).
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мне кажется из за моря самолетик и кораблик теряются-но динамика радует :3
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Их, наверное, надо было потемнее для контраста сделать.
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Nice use of motion blur, love what you've done with the water!
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Germans seem blissfully unaware of the impending explosions
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All their AA-guns must blaze, but I've failed to draw the bullets.
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Karl Galster ship survived the WW2
the suicides are the pilots in the russian plane.
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I know... I'm just commenting on the lack of AA fire
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Or the lack of the guns even pointed in the direction of the eminent attack
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