U64 IXB Patrol 7
Left Lorient on 12.OKT.41
Patrol Grid Was: BE86 (complete) Current Date: 23.NOV.41 Current Position: BE25 Been weaving the Freetown-England shipping lanes northward. Will commence a southwrd weave at the AM grid border, after moving one grid east. 2 merchants sunk for 4.359 GRT. Attack 1: 2 stern torpedoes expended on a Coastal Merchant. Daylight submerged attack in Heavy Fog. Course 055. Speed 6,5 Knots. Range 300 to 500 meters. 1 Torpedo fired at the bow, and 1 at the stern. 1 hit midships. I was 100% certain of his course, as we were on a collision course, per 000 on the hydrophone for a very extended time. Speed was my best guestimation, under the circumstances of having no visual contact until the final moment. Thus 2 torpedoes. Attack 2: 1 bow torpedo (G7A) on a Small Merchant. Daylight surface attack in medium fog at 1.000 meters range, Our speed was for 2 knots and turning to keep a bow on profile. Target Course 090. Speed 6 knots. Unarmed. (Wind was 8m/s). Torpedoes: 3 expended. 11 remaining. Fuel Reserves: 80%. It's interesting that the Type IXs, at this time, were doing rather local work somewhat close to England's Southern Approaches, while the Type VIIs were ranging far and wide across The North Atlantic. |
Patrol 1.
U-128, Type IX-C Left Lorient on 8. January 1942 Patrol Grid: DB99 and surrounding areas Current position: some miles north of the azores. Passed some small single merchants. Decided to let them go. Trying to reach the american shore as fast as possible. Weather is calm, wind 4, partly cloudy. |
U-536, 10. Flottille.
19 Juli 1943: 1730: Arrived at Las Palmas, Canary Islands. Deadline to complete emergency repairs and depart: 24 hrs. 1800: Attacked by PBY flying boat in clear violation of neutrality law! One Spanish armed trawler was sunk by bombs meant for us. Our boat has taken more damage, but we are departing at once. The Spanish authorities and German Consulate will lodge a formal protest. Alert to all boats: If the Allies know your whereabouts, entering a neutral port will not guarantee your safety! 21 Juli 1943: 1030: All major repairs completed except for the deck gun. En route to DJ14 to continue patrol. |
May 1941
Caught a beautiful convoy off the coast of Ireland. 4 Escort Destroyers but nowhere near me. Managed to get off 4 torpodeos at 4 different targets, 3 hits, 1 back breaker the other two die slowly, the whaling ship takes forever. Next thing I know I'm getting triple teamed by three of the DD's, there's a couple of hours before night fall so I just get deep, go silent and crawl away whilst taking a pounding. Finally 2 give up and set off after the convoy the third larger one remains sniffing around as he drifts away I creep up to the surface and fire off a stern shot which catches him right up the backside and he sinks. Full speed ahead and all that :) Before I know it it's the early hours of the morning and I see three LARGE tankers lit up like Christmas trees, in my excitement (such a novice) I fire off a shot, only to notice they are flying the French or Italian flag. However charging out of nowhere comes a British destroyer?????? I dive and spend the next 2 hours getting reamed. :) Finally I get home, shot to bits. Great mission but I really don't know what hapened at the end there, the tanker I sank came up as a green icon on the map? IS that friendly or neutral? And if it were either why would a british DD be escorting? Anyway long story short - the next three patrols have been spent hauling myself down to the Canaries in stinking weather seeing nothing but the odd spanish fishing vessel. Boring. |
Green = Neutral.
Upon attacking a neutral unit, you become an enemy of all units belonging to that neutral nation for 24 hours. |
BDU sent my VIIC to freetown.... again. Fuels out and I'm currently refueling from Corrientes supply ship. Met just one convoy heading to Great Britain from that sector. Sunk an Empire freighter with one torpedo. (3 others prematured because of the awful weather, honestly that was the worst weather I ever saw, huge storm with yellow fog huge waves and strong wind). Since I only had about 25% fuel left I decided to break off the attack and head for port, I'm not risking losing my boat and not like I could achieve anything in such weather.
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(It realy can be a dull area, except for the planes later in the war, which may be your only contacts.) |
9 June 1944
DEAD! Went to look at the fishy and then the fishy eat the whole ship in one bite. I asked my NA for the weather and he said it was raining hegdehogs :o. After that I got rammed by a destroyer:oops:. I was going to attack a merchant when I remembered we left the torpedeos and the bow torpedeo bay at home. 3 weeks out to sea my watch officer confessed that he was blind. I installed solar panels on my uboat to cut electrical bills. The radar warning on the end of the snorkel can also get free HBO :ping:. Thats about where I'm up too. |
September 1940 - 1st patrol - 7th Flotilla - U-81 Type VIIC
Sunk 2 Granville-type freighters for 9000 GRT. I am currently on my way to intercept a large convoy that is heading north-east to Britain. I am set up for a nice approach to their port side. I am supposed to get there early, and I hope that I can make a successful convoy attack this time. Wish me luck! |
BdU had me transfered from Lorient (2nd) to St. Nazaire (7th), wishing for me to patrol more southwest of Britain. As the 7th Flotilla primarily uses Type VII boats, I was forced to exchange my Type IXB (U-122) for a Type VIIC boat. I am now the proud captain of the U-403, and have begun my 17th patrol.
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Sep. 17 1939, Irish Sea, 2nd patrol for the U-53. First patrol was a 14 day peacetime shakedown cruise.
Left Wilhelmshaven 12 days ago for grid BF 19. Decided to risk the channel, being so early in the war. Got jumped by a French armed trawler just as we entered the channel, no waves, no wind, daytime and sunny. Didn't have ASW capabilities, so we just dove and ran. The watch crew got a stern talking to. Around the straight of dover we got jumped by a MTB. Again we dove and ran. Found a lone French merchant, but had orders not to attack French vessles. Almost out of the channel we spotted another MTB, this time before it spotted us. Dove and ran. Reached the assigned grid, found it empty. Spent the next 10 days dodging MTBs, chasing a convoy that got away because a damn ASW trawler kept me busy, and dodging some more MTBs. Hearing radio messages about the success the other boats were having, the crew was getting impatient. This culminated when we got word about the sinking of the Courages (sp?). At last, on the early morning of the 17th, 12 days after leaving port, we found a lone intermediate tanker, which we sank with guns at 600 meters. First shot set it on fire, but man that thing ate alot of 88mm rounds before it went down! We decided to take the long way home. With about 70-75% fuel still remaining, we could take our time and chase down anything we found, spending the last fuel hunting in the North Sea. Having just entered the Irish Sea, we get jumpet by yet another MTB. Later on the 17th., we encountered a british tugboat, which was sunk by gun fire. A couple of hours later, we encountered what we first thought was a lone Black Swan class frigate, but turned out to be the leading escort of a large convoy. Ended up in a poor position, but decided to attack anyway. Launched 6 torpedos in total, 3 hits, 1 dud, 1 premature detonation (by mere metres), and one miss. Two ships sunk, 1 coastal merchant, 1 small merchant. Unidentified large merchant vessel hit, but kept up with the convoy. Was prosecuted by two Black Swan frigates but managed to escape without damage, though we're now quite far behind the convoy. Might break pursuit and continue north. Funny though, there was a british S-Class submarine in the convoy. I wasn't in a good position to engage it sadly. Been about two years since I played this game. My old comps motherboard fried, and I just now got enough money to buy a decent gaming computer again. And using GWX for the first time. Damn it's good to be back! Regards, Kptl. Kaizer U-53, "The MTB magnet." |
Another career ends :lost:
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7...1014431949.png I was attacking a convoy east of BB91, trying to catch it one last time before it hit shallow water. Destroyers detected me before the attack even began, but I got greedy and tried to close in to fire a spread... the torpedoes missed, but those ashcans were spot on :dead: After 30 minutes of fighting leaks I finally lost depth contol and my engines, so I blew ballast until I was at about 25 meters to try to buy more time... I arrived just as another escort made a pass. Finally had to surface and 'surrender.' That was a bloody good patol too... but at least now I can put the Type IX to bed :smug: No more ocean crossings for me, no sir... |
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Blurgh I miss the IX already :lol: First patrol in a Type VII out of Kiel with the 7th/13th, I plug in the kiel canal route and the bloody loons manage to crash into the first lock :dead: I finally clear the locks and leave it playing to go for a run, only to come back and find they had crashed again and destroyed the boat this time. Restart, bash into the locks again, severe damage so I give up and RTB.
Thankfully I'm coming out of repairs in time to transfer to St. Nazaire. |
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On a Type IX there's enough room to keep Bernard stowed away :smug:
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October 10, 1940
Attacked a convoy heading north in the southeast corner of AM48, easily slipped past the green escorts, positioned myself to the front right of the convoy, and let it come to me. So far so good, even spotted a Dido-class in the middle stack, after maneuvering into my 'final approach.' Solutions set up on the Dido and the remaining two eels are aimed at a fast freighter farther ahead.... Finally, Los! Almost immediately a small freighter right in front of me goes up - so much for that fast freighter. But the two G7e's aimed at the Dido continue on... and pass underneath the cruiser harmlessly. I check the depths again, all is correct - of course both electrics would be duds. I quickly try to maneuver my tailpipe into position, and setup the aft tube (a steamer) for another keel shot. Before I send it off I check everything, but it's not until I've fired it off that I notice the pistol was set to impact. :damn: The torpedo passes underneath as harmlessly as the other two. Checking the other tubes, I realize all had been set to impact. (I think of my mods restricts the firing pistol to impact early war) Cue major headbanging as I dive to 120 meters and reload one tube for another go at the Dido, this time set to run at 2 meters. 12 very long minutes later I come up to periscope depth as quickly as possible, and fire off a snapshot at the cruiser, before I'm forced to dive again by the destroyer coming up my [aft]. Almost immediately after the torpedo hits (somewhere under the forward turret) she goes down, and I give the escorts the slip after about an hour of creeping. Now I'm running parallel to the convoy, reloading my tubes while I wait for sunrise. Should be a good day :arrgh!: |
Looks like October 10 of 1940 was a good day for both of us.
U-81, a VIIC, was in the north-east of sector BE when I received a contact report of a convoy heading west. Finally!! A convoy that is close enough that I will be able to make a good interception. We had been plagued by elusive convoys this entire patrol. I plot an intercept course and I arrive there early thinking that I will be set up for a nice port 90 degree shot at the convoy. They got there later than I expected and a little more north than I originally thought too. They were heading south-west. I race ahead to try to get close enough to the convoy so I can make a good shot. Its 2200 and I can't see a darn thing. I reach the convoy and I can see that there are some nice fat ones in there. I see a large tanker, large merchant, and two ore carriers. I would have liked to get the large tanker and merchant, but they were too far away for me to get an accurate range reading. I aim instead for the two ore carriers that are in the second to left-most row of the convoy. They are coming in not quite perpendicular, but they are bringing themselves closer to me, which is perfect, because there are escorts all over the place. I set up shots on the ore carriers with all my forward tubes. I set magnetic pistols on all of them, as I don't trust the impact pistols at this angle. The first lines up at 000 and I fire tubes 1 & 4, both electrics. I then line up tubes 2 & 3, steamers, and a fast setting so the second ore carrier won't have time to evade my eels. The first ore carrier gets hit by both and immediately stops. Yes! I had managed to hit her propeller, or at the very least destroy it. Only one of my last two torps connected with the second ship, the other must have been a dud. This one slows, as does the whole convoy while I begin to slink away to the north-east. The escorts had no idea where I was until I cleared the convoy, and even then, with three destroyers hunting me, they could not get me. They dropped what must have been 70-80 depth charges in the wrong place. None of them came near my boat. (That's a new thing I just started with this attack. Counting how many depth charges go off. I counted 44 this attack, but only after another 30-40 went off.) I snuck away after maybe an hour. I thought of going after the convoy again and nabbing that large tanker, but I decided not to. I know, I know, be more aggressive. I'm kicking myself for it now. I now have 12,000 GRT for just 9 days at sea. Things are looking up! |
December 1940
Returned home after a very successful patrol. Saw nothing until the return leg home, when we received a contact report on a lone ship heading our way. Plotted course, and went on my way when another report came in about another merchant, also heading my way but from the opposite direction, and closer. So we turned around and headed for an intercept, though the weather was quickly souring. We finally picked it up on the hydrophones, along with two warships in the area... after some maneuvering and more waiting it became apparent that at least one of the warships was an escort for the merchant, so I had to let her slide. So we turned back around to try to catch the first contact, but after reaching the projected intercept and not hearing a thing for a good long while I gave up, and surfaced the boat. The boat had barely popped up when the watch officer reported a merchant barely 2000 meters to port, happily steaming past us. I quickly turned into a firing position, and sent off two torpedoes - both missed well forward of the ship, but the next two struck home. She still kept going however, so I cut across her path for a stern shot while I dived to periscope depth (both of her ducks guns were firing at us point blank - amazingly, no one was injured), and reloaded two of the forward tubes. 3 torpedoes later the bloody thing finally went down, but was barely worth it at 13k GRT :nope: A few days later while patrolling and adjacent grid, a contact report came in on a convoy very close by, so I raced to get in front of it. We caught it at 4:30-ish in the morning, but coming at it face-on in choppy seas - no keel shots this time. I pulled a slow turn to try to get into better position, but I barely made it in time to line up my torpedoes - I sent one torpedo each at a pair of large merchants, and then lined up the last two on what I made out to be a tanker of some kind, then dived and creeped away. Almost immediately the tanker went down, and then the two merchants a little bit later. Meanwhile the escorts had no idea what had happened, and I was able to slip away cleanly. Got some more contact reports along the way home, but I was out of torpedoes and the seas were too poor for the deck gun. In the end I pulled together 47k GRT - A fleet tender, fast freighter, large merchant and a large cargo. Needless to say I highly recommend BF15/17 for anyone looking to catch some early war convoy action :arrgh!: |
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