I have just got into position for a head on convoy attack. I am going to try and slip into the convoy and hit a few ships right out of the gate. This will be my first contact of the patrol so I have plenty of ammo. The weather is perfect for an attack: stormy, fog and a off and on rain. I will report just how good this tactic is, or at least how well I can exacute it. I am confidant of sucsess, I even started drinking my victory beer befor the attack has started :O:
Christ this attack aproch is nerve wracking. One thing to keep in mind if you try this in stormy weather make sure you are deep enuf that your mast won't poke up out of the water when the waves are rolling by you. It gave me away but I don't think the escort that tried to hit me knows where I am, the four depth charges he fired were way off of my position. Continuing with attack! With a little help from my weapons officer I was able to make a more or less sucsesfull attack. 4 targets hit and killed though I did recive serious damage in retaliation from the escorts as I was leaving. The convoy was breaking up and targets were hard to come by so I decided to not push my luck any further than I already had. Having only five torpidos and needing six to do the damage that I had done I had already broke silent runing to reload and survived the endever. On my way out I forgot to re impliment silent runing and an escort picked me up on their ASDIC. deciding to go with speed and manuverability rather than stealth I kicked my electrics up to flank and began to zig and zag like there was no tomarow. The persuing vesle hapend to be a Hunt 3 class distroyer and lucky for me it is a small ship and didn't have many depth charges. Six attack runs down and I am unharmed, then the sevinth comes in and I must have ziged when I should have zaged, or vice versa, and took two direct hits. One blasted my engens, both sets, and the other stuck me on the nose and trashed my forward torpido tubes. With that final attack it seems the distroyer was all out of ammo and spun around me afew more times then left. Once I was sure he was gone I blew balast and made an emergancy surface manuver; that didn't work so well with out engens though. I managed to get the flooding under control just about the same time I ran out of compressed air to blow balast which was keeping me on the surface or close to it. The tactic worked well when I didn't do some thing to screw things up. |
24MAY44
Midnight, twilight due to latitude. Medium seas, clear skies. U-990 running submerged in AF44. Sound picked up a cluster of high-speed contacts approaching from the northeast; put on a normal approach course, heading southeast at four knots for an easy intercept that put the boat about 1,500 meters off their track. Contact turned into a task force comprised of a BB and a CL with a dozen escorts making a good twenty knots. AOB 20-starboard, 5000 meters: fired a full salvo from both ends for two hits. A D class destroyer absorbed a Falke and went down with her boilers brewing; was unclear what the other fish hit, but whatever it was, it was dead in the water soon after. An hour's evasion. U-990 reloaded and came up for a look through the Number One periscope. A Brooklyn class light cruiser laying dead in the water, stern heavy and listing slightly to starboard; still about 5,000 meters, 20-starboard. Maneuvered for position abeam her: three-shot coupe de grace. |
U-83, March 1940, 4th Patrol: assigned grid AN-31, zipped around north sea, sank a coastal vessel and a coastal freighter off Norway, then made for England when the patrol was done. Sank a coastal vessel that turned out to be neutral off Aberdeen. Radio report of a large convoy. Attacked it twice, all eels missed on both attacks, and each attack resulted in an hour or two of depth charge dodging. No damage sustained, headed back to Wilhelmshaven, sinking a pair of cargo ships on the way. Total tonnage: 19,000+ ... and all of it done with the deck gun.
5th Patrol, March 1940: bad weather, stormy seas, TONS of ship activity – looks like Norway is hotly contested. So far, have patrolled the assigned grid at Shetland Islands and started making for Norwegian coast. Only one ship sighted so far, and it was a Type VIIB U-Boat. |
This is the BBC on this twenty-fifth day of October 1944.
Western Approaches Command announces the destruction of a U-Boat near the approaches to Belfast. The boat, believed to be U-1099 had just attacked a convoy damaging a freighter and an escort. After a hunt lasting over two hours the U-Boat was finally blown to the surface with depth charges and then sunk by gunfire. There were no survivors. The damaged ships made port safely with only minor casualties. In other news the Ministry of Supply has announced an increase in the cat ration to three per week and continues to urge all Briton's to eat less and save shipping. Remember that cat is the other white meat... |
My condolences to the families of U-1099. Of course I'm still in 1939 so I can't comfort the widows, but that's the luxury of having it only be a game.
Better luck in your next career. Nice wording, by the way, especially the 'cat' note. |
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And you've got years to practice your "I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do" face. I'm just sayin'. |
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The loss of U-1099 was a perfect example of ignoring lessons learned because I have developed a late-war convoy attack technique that has proved reasonably successful but also quite survivable. Instead of using it I tried a conventional submerged approach and attack and got killed for it. Just before the end I hit a V&W Class destroyer with a Falke acoustic homer from Tube 5, I think she might of sank if I hadn't done so first and of course SH give no credit for damage. I think next career will be a Type IX to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the fall of 1944. Good Hunting |
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Of course that may be true anyway, and they may go down in this very boat, but the foreknowlege? It makes my poor old head spin. |
Currently in AM61 at 82 meters, with a knocked out hydrophone (and other equipment, oh, and long repair times), doding the depth charges of an A/B-class destroyer with the help of the observation periscope. Trying to navigate to a somewhat deeper spot 3 klicks away.
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He's still using ASDIC all around, but no contact since a while.
(Anyway I was on my way back home, when I was nearly rammed by him in the verrdammt mist. Then came the deck gun rounds, and a crash dive. It was great luck that he didn't ram me.) |
Surfaced (thought it safe) to make repairs, only to run into another escort 1 minute later. Crash dive again! Now there are three of them, with Hedgehod launchers and whatnot.
And guess what? http://gabucino.be/picz/sh3/100108am61mf.jpg Turns out I'm also in a minefield. |
:o:o:o:o!! Better surface your boat and surrender kapitan... AM61 risky business though
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You could always sink down to the botom, come to a dead stop, go silent and hope they leave you alone; it has worked for me in the past.
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Should the observation periscope work at 120m depth, btw? Quote:
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great log-entry, don1reed!
is it available in-game or do you write your logs separately? |
Greetings, KL alfman. All hand-written, I'm afraid. Product of a lot of x1 patrols. Shame we can't type a log while in-game.
cheers, |
yes, it's a pity.
just a small step but a huge improvement ...... |
U-49, 4th January 1940
After 9 days at sea and not a single contact except for a single friendly on previously fertile hunting grounds, boredom was setting in. Patrolled grid AN11, twice attempting to intercept task forces reported by BdU to the northwest of my position and twice returning empty-handed. Returned to AN11, patrolled for another 24 hours when the hydrophone operator reported a warship at long range and closing. As we drew nearer it became clear that this was another task force, and what was sitting pretty in the middle, none other than HMS Hood. Closed on the surface to 2500m off her port bow under cover of darkness, launched a salvo of three torpedoes before retreating in the opposite direction at 15kt. Two hits at 0330h, crash-dived and ran silent at 2kt. Depth-charged and pinged for two hours while the crippled Hood limped away. Surfaced at 0545 after the destroyers gave us up for dead, spotted a column of smoke on the western horizon. Intercepted at flank speed to discover the Hood alone and listing badly to port, a fire blazing just behind Gun B and making barely 2 knots. Closed to 1600m at periscope depth and launched another torpedo, striking just aft of the engine room on the starboard side. Laying dead in the water, the Hood began to get stern-heavy, both gun positions awash. Eventually sank 20 minutes later at 0611h, sliding in stern-first and rolling over to port. At least the crew had plenty of time to abandon ship. |
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