Surcouf-type submarine

Warning Deadly Shores spoilers.

In Deadly Shores the "Surcouf or one of her class," was identified by Matthew Reddy shortly after USS Walker sank her. Information on the real Surcouf here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Surcouf. She had an emblem on her conning tower that Matthew Reddy described as a blue cross with rockers in a red octagon on a white field. This is the emblem of the Parti Populaire Français (French Popular Party) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Popular_Party. Courtney Bradford identified the emblem on Surcouf as belonging to French Nazis.

Author Taylor Anderson gives his reason for made up ships thus on his Discussion Blog http://www.taylorandersonauthor.com/blog/discussions/ On January 06, 2015 he wrote :

"... I would personally prefer to “add” a destroyer to the list of those involved for the same reason that I have always used ships with no wartime record: Any ship actually there would have had an actual CREW of real people, and I would–personally–feel uncomfortable with shanghaiing their lives, so to speak.  I’ve come close a time or two, in a manner of speaking, with Santa Catalina (Blackhawk) and Amerika, both of which DID have “post divergence” records, but the way I used them, they are NOT the same ship.  I may even IMPLY that some . . . mysterious ship could be a well-known one, leaving it to the imagination of the reader to decide, but that’s as far as I’ll go.  Even Surcouf is an analog.  They CALL it Surcouf, because that’s what she looked like, but . . . wherever she came from, either that was not her name, or she was one of the other planned vessels of the same design.  This is a rule I’ve always tried to keep, and I mean to continue doing so in this series. Maybe it’s because I grew up with so many veterans of WW2 and the inter-war years. I have known too many of them to change their service records.

Surcouf's periscope was seen near Madras by Gunnery Sargent Arnold Horn and, was chased by Walker before reaching Diego Garcia. After leaving Diego Garcia, on July 21, 1944, a submarine fired four torpedoes at the fleet and two at USS Walker then engaged in hunting the sub. USS Walker DD-163 and USRS Salissa 'Big Sal' CV-1 managed to thread the torpedoes aimed at them. Unfortunately one of the torpedoes aimed at 'Big Sal' hit USS Naga causing a catastrophic explosion she sank with all Hands. The two torpedoes aimed at USS Respite Island, the self-propelled dry dock SPD-1, struck causing loss of life and material, Respite Island later sank. USS Walker prosecuted the submarine with depth charges causing it to surface and sank it with naval gunfire when she tried to bring her big cruiser guns on Walker. There were no survivors from Surcouf.

Characterisctis
Designed as "corsair submarine" - i.e. long-range submercible raider - the Surcouf-type was a huge submarine, the largest in the world up until the 1940s. She was supposed to serve as primary surface raider, that submerged only to avoid detection, and could use the heavy artillery with effective fire control to destroy the cargo ship and even small escort warships. Surcouf was very well armed with: She was supposed to use her 8-inch guns as a stand-off weapon, to attack the enemy armed escort ships from the safe distance. Her fire control system was capable of engaging targets at a distance of 16 km (8,8 nm); to allow effective fire on long distances, the "Surcouf"-type was provided with small spotting floatplane, which was stored in the pressurized hangar inside the sail. Using the floatplane to provide fire control, the main gunst could be used on the distances up to 39 km (21 nm)
 * 2 × 203 mm (8 in) guns (1 × 2)
 * 2 × 37 mm (1.46 in) anti-aircraft guns (2 × 1)
 * 4 × 13.2 mm (0.52 in) anti-aircraft machine guns (2 × 2)
 * 6 × 550 mm (22 in) torpedo tubes (2 external) (14 torpedoes)
 * 4 × 400 mm (16 in) rotating torpedo tubes (4 external) (8 torpedoes)
 * 1 x Besson MB.411 floatplane in pressurised hangar.

Her torpedo armament consisted of six 22-inch "heavy" torpedo tubes inside the hull, and four 16-inch "light" torpedo tubes in rotation mount on the stern. The 16-inch torpedoes were supposed to be used only on surface.

The unnamed Surcouf type submarine in Deadly Shores also has a unspecified deck gun on the stern.