Wow, I had one crazy 8th patrol. The Germans really did good when they built the Type VII.
So, our patrol grid was AM53, which is literally Great Britain's back yard. So I said "The hell with that" and went north to Scapa Flow, as SH3 Gen said that there were some nice fat warships and a tanker there. As we headed north the weather got progressively worse, with rain, heavy wind, and overcast clouds. As U-81 entered the harbor from the east, we had a little trouble with the subnet, but we were able to make it through. After we passed the net, the rain stopped. The weather was still really foul, so I decided to carry on. I went to the far end of the harbor and saw a modern tanker and a Fiji class cruiser. I lined up four electric eels and fired away. Both sank quickly. That quickly drew the attention of a V&W class destroyer. I went into the docks and the destroyer followed me. The Royal Navy must be lacking in its ship navigation training, because this guy got stuck against the dock and couldn't reverse for the life of him. I retreated and started heading towards the first Fiji that I saw in the east of the harbor and put a steamer into it. This attracted the attention of another V&W which came running. I sent an electric torp out of my rear tube set for magnetic detonation. It blew under the destroyers stern and it sank in seconds. So far I now have three ships to my credit, and I'm working on a fourth. I send a second steamer into the Fiji, which is starting to list now, and yet ANOTHER V&W comes to find me. I make for the shore to see if I can throw him off, or maybe he'll get stuck like his buddy back at the docks. No such luck. I already have my conning tower damaged after one of the other destroyers ran over me and DC'ed me, but so far, I'm lucky. I manage to get another steamer off at the Fiji, which finally sinks, brining my total to four ships. The last destroyer makes a run at me and DC's me. All hell breaks loose. Both my periscopes were destroyed, along with my starboard propeller and hydrophone, and both men in the radio room are killed. So now I have no eyes, no ears, and my speed is almost cut in half. :nope: I don't know how I'm going to get out of this one, as I play DID. I continue to repair my crippled sub and manage to somehow limp towards the net and the barrier of ships in the east. I take some fire from the shore batteries, who can now see me clearly, even though its three or four in the morning. I manage to creep out of there and head for Wilhelmshaven. I arrive and dock there, as I do not feel like traveling all the way back to St. Nazaire. My hull integrity was 22.24%. :o I could hardly believe it. Final results were over 31,000 tons of oil and warships sent to the bottom. I received a Knights Cross :yeah: and 1,100 renown. U-81 was heavily damaged, and will probably be in Willi for a while. Two of my crew died, which made the patrol bittersweet. I love my Type VII. That is one amazing boat. All in all a very successful patrol. It was a nail-biter and went from fun to nerve-wracking in seconds. I enjoyed it, but I highly, highly doubt that I will try to repeat that stunt again. |
Finally made contact with a large lightly escorted convoy. Lots of juicy targets for my eels. But i stuffed up my first approach and was detected by a DD. Quick dive down to 210m and silent running shook him off once the convoy came in closer he lost me in the noise. Came back up to periscope depth after about 2 hours down low and got a read on the course. First approach was a bit of "Balls to the wall" without an accurate course or speed.
Now I'm running paralell out of visual, motoring ahead for another attack. |
New career
U-109 IXB is at 155m of depth sailing through the Giblartar Strait at a speed of 2Kts.
The date is 28 DEC 1940 |
Finally...first confirmed kill of the war. Northeast of Scapa Flow. Just a medium cargo, but it's a start. After a few hours of getting into position I managed to put on right under it's engines. I've discovered that I'm much better if I just avoid manual targeting altogether and simply park myself at 90 degrees even if it does mean a little more of a chase. :) less math is good.
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...confirmed2.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q.../confirmed.jpg And this is a blessed minor lull in what I've been dealing with for the last few days at sea. I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from the 15m/s bug, but I don't want to restart my patrol to fix it, so I'll deal with it until I'm at least at my patrol area. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...cs/weather.jpg |
I've just restarted GWX3.0 Gold on my new home-built system. I left Wilhelmshaven on August 1st, sailed through the Channel and patrolled my grid for 24 hours. It's now August 12th and I've arrived in the Western Approaches where I'm going to Frig Around at 4 knots or so til the war starts. I play at 95% realism, with only the stabilized periscope view enabled. I'm looking forward to the hunt.
Is there any way to mod out the 5% realism hit for the stabilized periscope view? It seems a little cheesy as I believe U-boats had a pivot system in the periscope prisms to compensate for the sea's motion. |
Took minor damage, collision leaving Lorient. Other sub was not so lucky.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/a.../ShipMenu1.jpg Down to 37 10.5cm FlaK rounds, 382 3.7cm FlaK AP (full AA), 1820 2cm FlaK AP and 19 TIII torpedoes. |
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Currently on my 2nd patrol in U-8 (type II/A), heading up the coast of England having already sunk a Granville type Cargo ship. 3 torpedoes left, looking for more tonnage before heading back to Wilhelmshaven.
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March 1940. After a 10 day trip from Willemshaven to Morroco, with a refuel at Corrientes, the U-53 is headed back to Willemshaven via the Strait of Dover.
2 torpedo's left in the rear tube and hold, and 20 shells for the deckgun. Managed to sink about 40.000T since we left Willemshaven..most kills with the deckgun. Next stop will be a quick check at dover, hopefully we can feast on something with the last 2 torpedo's. Time: 11:23 ETA: 5 hours Sky: Clear, light clouds Wind: Calm Waves: Flat Morale:High. |
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U-53, Type VII B, 10 SEPT 39, 1st Patrol
We are near the Northwestern coast of Scotland, heading Southeast. So far, we've sunk two enemy British freighters, and sighted two neutral Norweigan freighters. Since the sinkings, I've noticed a marked increase in the stamina of the crew on watch stations. Difficult to identify ship's flags at night in heavy seas. |
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The approach was slow. Once we reached and tried going over the subnets, a docked CA fired at us, luckily we where too close for it to fire it's main guns at us. Slight damage to the bridge. Backed up a few hundred feet and fired the 2 eels at a Large Troop Transport. It listed but didn't sink. Quietly we snuck away..back to Willemshaven for a reload. |
The U-190 (Type IXC/40) had an average patrol to the Carribean Sea. We attacked the port at Curaqao during the night, and proceeded to our secondary objective of Santo Domingo. Intelligence had it that a certain merchant vessel had been carrying specialized machine parts for allied bombers, and for whatever reason she was stopping at the harbor of Santo Domingo before making her way towards England. After IDing the vessel, we waited until a nearby destroyer headed out on a patrol, and using the dim moonlight conditions, we sunk the Large Merchant, and made our way home.
Disappointment. While we did sink many vessels along our last patrol, intel has learned that the Large Merchant we sunk in Santo Domingo was only carrying coffee, not machine parts. Update: A few members of my crew and myself are about to be transferred to the 11th Flotilla in Bergen. Only once we arrive will we be informed as to the nature our new orders. The U-190 is to be turned over to a new captain, and six of us will be traveling via FW-200 transport to our new home. I have been given command of a revolutionary new submarine, the U-2502, a Type XXI submarine. We trained on the new vessel for a few days before heading out on our latest patrol. April 3rd, 1944. Seconds after exiting our sub pen at Bergen, the radar detector picked something up, the base sirens began blaring, and a squadron of B-24s was seen coming in from the south. I ordered flank speed, and we had just gotten underwater as a dozen bombs dropped all around us, missing by mere meters. Fortunately, no damage was sustained to our boat, and the base defenses and nearby destroyer were remarkably alert. As the bombers fled to the northwest, I could see that two were on fire, and other ships in the fjord were beginning to fire upon them. All told, one tugboat and a floating platform were destroyed in the attack. Thus our latest mission began. P.S. - The GWX team rocks! That boat launch was simply thrilling! |
Okay so after blowing my first approach the second was made at 10:30pm that night. Slipped inside the screen and fired my first shots. I had 5 columns, about 800m between them. Shot 1 went for a large cargo, electric so they wouldn't see the wake. Shot 2 into the coastal freighter next column in, shot 3 was another electric into a Grainville leading the next column in, and shot 4 into a coastal on the column that would pass about 1000m off my bow, then I dove like stink to get low and slow enough that the DD's wouldn't know where I was.
4 hits, 2 sinkings from the initial attack. The coastal on column 3 from my boat went down quickly after my eel caught her napping. The Grainville also settled relatively flat and sunk. The closest Coastal got away with minor damage and the Large was hit hard enough to drop out of the convoy at 1 knot. The DD's pounded the heck out of me but I was confident in my boat so I was cruising along at 200m, snaking my way along the convoys line of travel. But I couldn't maintain depth control without a speed higher than 2 knots so I sunk fairly slowly at first but I had to give the engines some juice to keep at a decent depth, enabling the DD's to track me easily. I managed to shake them off after a good hours pounding. Counted around 100 charges going off during the hunt. Most to the rear of my boat. After the DD's left me alone I slowly slunk back up to 150m to reload my torpedos and then proceeded to periscope depth. The convoy was still zig zagging but headed away. I noted the large cargo had dropped out of the formation so after taking another plot of the convoys course I headed on an intercept with the large cargo and put another eel into her, from the surface 800m away. I contemplated using the deck gun but with the escorts so close I couldn't take the risk. The second eel sent her under and I vacated the area east at flank diving to periscope depth when my watch crew spotted a Flower corvette coming to inspect the distress call. Continued east. Its currently around 14:00/2:00pm and I'm headed back in to try and nab another round of targets. This time I've got my eye on an Empire and another large cargo. Sea's are dead calm which isn't ideal for evasion but I got away twice now. And I've hit convoys much more heavily guarded than this. U-303 continues the hunt. |
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