LazarusBoard

U-Boot U-2 of the Imperiale Marine

Untergeneral Fabian Siegismund habitually pat the armrest of his command chair. The huge, metallic rotating chair with fine synthetic cushions on arm- and backrests dominated the brigde of the Type V U-Boot submarine with the boring name U-2. The Imperium of Leonism had only very recently re-introduced submarines to its fleet, accelerated by tactical deficiencies that became apparent during the War in the South Sea, where the enemy submarines caused trouble to the Imperiale Marine. The chair the U-Boot commander sat in was apparently identical to that of starship captains of the new Raumwaffe capital ships, the L/KRV and KRV class corvettes.

While the Raumwaffe recieved lots of attention, funding and glory, the new Unterseewaffe, as the submarine flotilla of the Marine had been designated, was almost unknown even within Imperial military circles. U-2 was the second of its class and one of only four U-Boote in active service. While several more were being built or planned, this was for all purposes a largely unproven ship type, which had never seen any actual combat yet.

What the Imperial engineers and designers lacked in practical experience, they made up with the Imperial technological advantage that had, by and large, made the Imperium the most advanced nation on Planet Lazarus, the high-tech-utopia of Aigania and the largely neutral countries of New Rogernomics and The New California Republic nonwithstanding.

So, of course, the Type 5 U-Boot class had from the start been equipped with the latest fusion-reactor as its power source. Capable of using sea water as fuel, the endurance of the reactor was unlimited. It powered an extremely efficient - and very silent - electrical drive system with four large diameter low RPM propellers. Using the latest advancements in Imperial material science, the sound-dampening and -absorbing exterior of the submarine was for all intents and purposes invisible to enemy sonar, except possibly active sonar from very short ranges and at least two sources.

U-2 was armed with long range electric torpedoes, several launch tubes for LRM long-range missiles that could engage targets out to 1200 km way and could be launched from depths of up to 200 m, five UBA supercavitating underwater guns for anti-submarine and anti-torpedo warfare. Furthermore, on its top deck four 20 MW "Lichtbringer" laser turrets were installed that could engage enemy capital ships, aircraft or coastal installations out to 50 km in a direct line of sight (they were largely limited by the curvature of the planet in engaging targets far away). A further 10 5 MW "Illuminator" point-defense lasers were able to engage smaller targets and defend the surfaced submarine against missile attacks.

For the mission at hand. Untergeneral Siegismund needed none of these awesome weapon. In fact, if he would fire a single shot, he would have at least partially failed his mission.
That was to insert a handful of Imperial and Cianlandian spies into the warring nation of Cossack Peoples. Several spies had already been airdropped into the country by the Raumwaffe, and now U-2 would visit several coastal areas and land even more of them. All of the Imperial spies were expatriates of the FRCP, who had grown fond of their new home in the Imperium and were willing to risk their lives by returning to their fractured homeland. Their Imperial handlers had also suggested that their contribution to furthering the intelligence data about the Cossack Civil War might help to end said war faster than it would on its own, thus saving precious Cossack lives - possibly of the friends and relatives of the expats - in the process.

The mission had seemed rather vague to some of them, and returning to the warring nation felt strange, but all of the expats had accepted this role voluntarily, hoping to make a difference.

The first drop zone for U-2 would be a small, rocky bay in the vicinity of Korf. Satellite imaging and Raumwaffe high-altitude craft had found evidence of heavy presence from both factions in the vicinity of the city of over 4 million, so this made it an ideal staging ground to gather intelligence on both factions and the non-involved civilian populations at the same time.

U-2 would zigzag through Cossack territorial waters, hoping to remain undetected by remnants of the Cossack Navy, then release the first batch of spies by night near the shores.