… the fight was inevitable. At 7:28 pm, the signalmen lowered the Dutch flag and a black swastika flew up on the gafel. At the same moment, the camouflaged cannons of the Cormoran opened fire on the enemy. The mortally wounded "Sydney" managed to put only eight rounds into the bandit and, engulfed in flames from bow to stern, melted on the horizon.
After the battle, the Nazis boasted for a long time how their civilian ship had dealt with a warship in a matter of minutes. But the plot of this tale is more prosaic. The Cormoran was a veritable floating stronghold, with a trained crew and an insane amount of weapons on board. Such a corsair was in no way inferior in firepower and most of the characteristics of warships. Otherwise, how could he have sunk the Australian cruiser?
The main caliber of the merchant ship was six 150 mm 15 cm SK L / 45 naval cannons, which, like the rest of the raiders, were carefully hidden behind metal sheets of deliberately high bulwarks.
For comparison: any destroyer of that era carried four or five universal guns of a much smaller caliber (114 … 130 mm). So which one is the battleship?
Little is known about the fire control system. There is information that the standard for all raiders was the presence of a 3-meter rangefinder in the superstructure. "Kormoran", in addition to it, had two more artillery rangefinders with a base of 1.25 meters.
Even taking into account not the most effective location of a part of artillery in casemates, in which no more than 4 guns could be fired on one side, the firepower of the Cormoran was sufficient to fight “face to face” with any light cruiser built in the 1930s … (where the concept of "lightness" was determined not by the size of the ship, but by the limitation of the main caliber to six inches).
It is worth noting that in the event of a battle, the allied cruisers would have to be the first to approach, while the raider would also be outside the firing zone of some of the main battery towers. And artificial restrictions in the construction of cruisers of the 30s. led to the fact that their armor did not hold six-inch shells at all. They were just as "cardboard" as the "peaceful" dry cargo ship. It took many hours to accurately identify it, while the raider was ready at any moment to open fire on the enemy.
Deadly "stranger"!
In the bow, open to all winds, there was a disguised universal installation of 75 mm caliber.
Anti-aircraft machine guns were placed everywhere nearby. Nothing unusual. Anti-aircraft armament of a typical cruiser or destroyer of the initial WWII period. Five 20 mm "Flak 30" with a rate of fire of 450 rds / min., Supported by two 37-mm rapid-fire anti-tank PaK36 (by coincidence, installed instead of 37-mm automatic anti-aircraft guns). Due to breakdowns, the originally planned radar also had to be left on the shore.
The layout of weapons on the "Cormoran"
While the volleys of artillery guns were thundering, a new portion of death rushed to the target, pushing the thickness of sea water with a slippery body. Six torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber (two twin-tube on the upper deck and two underwater ones in the rear of the raider) with 24 torpedo ammunition.
That's not all. The Cormoran's arsenal also included 360 EMC-type anchor mines and 30 TMB magnetic mines.
Two seaplanes "Arado-196" for reconnaissance in the ocean and a high-speed boat of the LS-3 "Meteorite" type for carrying out torpedo attacks and covertly laying minefields at the entrance to enemy ports.
The crew - 397 desperate thugs (10 times more than on an ordinary dry cargo ship!) And Commander Dietmers, whose motto was "There are no desperate situations - there are people who solve them."
Here is such a funny "huckster"
Death merchants
“The battle showed how skillfully enemy ships change their appearance and what a dilemma the cruiser captain must face when trying to expose him. The danger that a cruiser is exposed to when approaching such a ship too close and from a direction convenient for gun and torpedo firing is obvious - the raider always has the tactical advantage of surprise, "recalled Captain Roskill, the commander of the Cornwall cruiser, who, with great luck, managed to figure out and destroy a similar raider "Penguin". At the same time, the cruiser at some point itself was in the balance of death: one of the six-inch shells of the "Penguin" interrupted his steering.
From the testimony of Soviet officers aboard the Komet raider:
“The German steamer“Komet”- a crew of 200 people (actually - 270), the pipe is altered, the sides are double, the command bridge is armored. Has a well-equipped radio station, around the clock, without taking off the headphones, sit 6 radio operators. The seventh man from the radio operators does not listen himself, he has the rank of an officer. The transmitter power provides direct radio communication with Berlin."
In August 1940, the Comet raider (the operational code of the Kriegsmarine is HKS-7, according to British intelligence reports "Raider B") was secretly escorted directly into the rear of the Anglo-Saxons by the Northern Sea Route. On the way, the corsair was successfully disguised as the Soviet "Semyon Dezhnev", and after breaking through into the Pacific Ocean, for some time pretended to be the Japanese "Maniyo-Maru".
“… We continuously photographed the shores, photographed all the objects that we met on our way. They photographed the islands they passed by, near which they stood, photographed Cape Chelyuskin, photographed the icebreakers under which they walked. At the slightest opportunity, depth measurements were made; they landed and photographed, photographed, photographed … the raider's radio service practiced intercepting and processing radio communications between ships and icebreakers EON."
It is no coincidence that during that campaign, the commander of the raider, Captain Tsuz See Eissen, was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral. The data obtained on the navigation conditions on the Northern Sea Route were later used by the crews of German submarines during the breakthrough of the Scharnhorst into the Kara Sea (Operation Horse Run, 1943).
Disguised guns, fake sides and cargo arrows. Banners of all states of the world. Boats and aviation.
That Australian cruiser was doomed from the start. Even if his commander turned out to be a little more experienced and more careful, even if he did not approach a mile to the inspected ship, the outcome of the battle would still look unambiguous. Perhaps, only the sequence of death would have changed - the first to sink was “Cormoran” with the entire crew, which still managed to inflict mortal wounds on “Sydney”.
The aforementioned cruiser "Cornwall" had at least a caliber of 203 mm, was larger and stronger than the "Australian". The unfortunate HMAS Sydney (9 thousand tons, 8 x 152 mm) was left without any chance of survival at all when meeting with a peaceful German "huckster".
The lag in speed from cruisers and destroyers was compensated for by a colossal cruising range, unattainable for warships, with their powerful and "voracious" power plants. Thanks to an economical diesel-electric installation, the Cormoran was able to circumnavigate the globe. Moreover, 18 knots is not so little, taking into account the fact that warships rarely developed in practice above 20 … 25 knots. At full speed, fuel consumption increases sharply and the resource is quickly “killed”.
… "Cormoran", "Thor", the legendary "Atlantis", which became the most effective surface ship of the Kriegsmarine (in 622 days of raiding, it sunk 22 ships, with a total tonnage of 144,000 gross register tons). And he died stupidly - the patrol plane of the cruiser "Devonshire" appeared over it at the moment the raider was refueling a German submarine. At the same moment, all the cards were revealed to the British. The heavy cruiser immediately destroyed the “peaceful merchant”, tearing the Atlantis to pieces with its eight-inch guns. Alas, such a success happened only once. The aforementioned "Thor" and "Komet" have done trouble and, having escaped any retaliation, safely returned to Germany.
They knew everything. A hand of mutual assistance 10,000 miles from home shores - "Cormoran" supplies the submarine
Extremely formidable and versatile units. "Ghosts of the Oceans". Eternal lone wanderers who killed anyone who met on their way.
They are capable of changing their appearance beyond recognition and fighting in any of the climatic zones. From sleds and skis to tropical uniforms and trinkets for the Pacific Islanders. With powerful weapons, communications, everything necessary for active hostilities, conducting insidious "radio games" and covert reconnaissance.
Both the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans absorbed the reflections of the panicky radio signal "QQQ", which was hastily knocked out by the hand of the radio operator in the radio room, carried by the raider's fire. They have absorbed it in flesh and blood, the dead hulls of hundreds of ships that have become victims of unknown ships. Coming from nowhere and leaving nowhere.
