U-93 Patrol #3 Completion
W Suhr, Skipper of U-93 has just returned to Kiel after a succesful patrol, finishing may 11th 1941.
My crew are now scheduled off for a month whilst U-93 is repaired and re-fitted after our hull integrity was found to be 65%.........Seems we too alot more of a battering that I thought! :o This was a landmark patrol for me as I sunk four ships for a PERSONAL RECORD HAUL of 22000 tons. :yeah::yeah::yeah: Found myself a really nice sized convoy to have a pop at near rockall and despite expending eleven eels on them I managed those four sinkings. Pretty uneventful trip back, until we hit the skaggerack channel - decided to do a detour to look in at kristiansand. Its now a german base and had many number of DD patrols and a few merchants dotted around nearby. About turn I ordered after taking some photos we headed back out again and bout 10nm off shore we ended up on a collision course with one of our destroyers. :o Clearly tho it's skipper was alive to the situation and went from crossing my bow with his starboard side visible (any good skipper will know that Im "Stand-on Vessel") to manuvering around in front of me and going down my starboard side. met alot more traffic on langelands belt and took my u-boat most of the way in until I could see the lights of the U-Boat pens with the naked eye.. For most of the other key events, feel free to look at some of my previous postings. Well U-93 will rest for a few R/L days and then it's back out again for some more action, this time from our newly assigned flotilla base, "Brest" BRING IT ON! |
20 December 1939:
Just after arriving in patrol grin AM13, sank C2 cargo ship with two torpedoes. 22 December 1939: U-46 sights C-class DD steaming at medium speed, so on lark decides to fire stern tube just for the hell of it. Torpedo strikes target and sets off depth-charges, blowing target apart and sinking her in seconds for our first warship kill of the war. 23 December 1939: U-46 headed toward main merchant exit for UK. Intercepted UNESCORTED large convoy and sank T2 tanker, T3 tanker, and C2 cargo for very nice bag. Would have surfaced and fought another C2 cargo with deck gun, but aircraft approach forced us to break off attack and depart area. This attack depleted our torpedo stores. 28 December 1939: Returned to base for 36,800 tons sunk; awarded Iron Cross 2nd Class and German Cross in Gold. - OLzS Albert Weber, Commanding Officer, U-46 |
9/11/39- Left Port
9/12/39- Outside of Scapa Flow Once inside Scapa Flow, i take out an ASW Trawler, a C&D Destroyer, a Troop Transport, and a small Merchant...its dusk and the enemy is in confusion, their closest destroyers were about 5km away at the entrances to the port, they had no idea what to do.... 9/13/39- At midnight i surface and replenish my oxygen supply, then at dawn i raise my periscope to find another target, because due to heavy cloud cover the night was particularly dark and i couldnt see anything...the lookouts on a small tanker spot my periscope, and this time a destroyer picks up on the action and begins to head my way...i put in a solution for the tanker and fire...nothing, the i hear an explosion sooner than i had expected...a premature detonation...by now the destroyer is almost on top of me..i submerge and head out of the port, but he's already pinging me...he makes two depth charge runs before i can get underneath my previous target..im now bottomed out making repairs...maybe i can line up a torpedo shot on the circling destroyer... |
Right, so I'm in 1942. Kaptain of a nice IX-B, and I just transferred from the 2nd to the 1st flotilla. (I got kinda fed up with the Lorient harbor, so now I operate from Brest)
And I"m patrolling the sea between Brest and the south coast of Ireland when all of a sudden my hydrophones reveal a large convoy. As more and more red lines come up on screen I'm thinking 'Damn, they are really beginning to take this whole escorting-thing seriously'. My last patrols I encountered more and more destroyers escorting those juicy merchants. But after a while, so many warships pop up on the hydrophone, I decide to intercept. I plot their course, and since they are practically coming straight towards me, all I have to do is dive a little deeper and go full stop and lie in wait, hoping to avoid the 'random ping'. :damn: At least luck is on my side, because the weather is terrible; heavy rain, 15 mph winds and heavy fog. The first ship I get to see is a battleship, than another one. Never seen two battleships in one convoy, so I'm already really excited. But then out of the fog comes an Illustrous class carrier. .. and another one. ...and another one. :o I almost think this is some kind of bug. I really didn't know convoys that size existed. Anyway, I keep silent, and as the Carriers pass me by I shoot everything I got. I got manual targeting, but in this weather I ask my WO for the calculations, as the waves keep rolling over the periscope, and I do not want to miss out on this chance.So I fire three eels at the first one, one at the second. I get all my best men to man the torpedo's, so they'll reload as quickly as possible. I'm not bothered to activate silent mode, because by now, I'm in 'all or nothing' mode. Just in time I put all my eels on 'impact'; don't want them to go underneeth the targets. And I count my blessings as ALL torpedos manage to impact. My luck didn't even run out by then, because my men reload tube one just in time to try another shot at the second carrier. By now I'm basically trying to hit it at the stern, at 1700 meters with one impact torpedo. And amazingly even this one manages to find it's target. Two Illustrous class carriers down! I shoot my two aft torpedo's at an unlucky large merchant that just passed my stern, destroyed it and got the hell out of there. However, in my hurry to get home to Brest to receive my shiny medals, I put my engines on too early and get chased by two destroyers. After a long game of cat and mouse, I manage to shake them off, thanks to the storm that is still raging. Some little damge (hull 89%), but I manage to get home. This must have been my greatest SH3 experience so far! Oh yeah; look at this beautiful picture. Too bad one got away though :O: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9...illustrous.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...llustrous.jpg/ |
@Bakkels
Congrats on your lucky find with the carriers. I too think you got really lucky, BUT congrats on placing all your shots perfectly. :salute: I've put four into a nelson class before and simply seemed to swat them away like they were flies and carried on going as if nothing had ever happened! :damn: If you are where I think you are, then I suspect your find was an area between SE ireland and "longships light" (aka lands end) http://www.uboat.net/maps/irish_sea.htm roughly where the second southern most yellow icon is? I've always liked the irish sea for big convoys, and that was where the Nelson ran me over in a previous career. :dead: BTW you said 15mph winds? the game actually rates the wind in "Meters per second" or "m/s" which at 15, is equivilent to aproximately 29-35knots of wind/BF6-7 or around 25-30mph, which is why the sea was as heavy as it was...:timeout: |
Thanks, but it was more than luck than skill involved here. First I was lucky to even stumble upon the convoy, then I got really lucky that all my torpedo's hit. Actually, it is not the patrol I'm most proud of, but it was the most exciting.
The area I found the convoy was more south than the area you are talking about. It was directly to the west of that long pointy stretch of land to the left of Plymouth. There are three tiny islands there, and it was some 20km to the west of those islands. I do know that I'm returning to that area again, and maybe check out the area north of it you were talking about. But first I'm gonna harass the American shoreline for a bit! :arrgh!: And yeah I knew I messed up my description of the wind, but I was so excited to tell my story that I couldn't be bothered to check it ;) |
August 1940, U-51, Type VIIB.
Submerged, in a corner of Scapa Flow. HMS Hood and HMS Kenya in my sights. 4 torpedoes left. Currently in a massive dilemma on how many torpedoes to use on the Hood, and have still have enough to sink Kenya. So far, 3 other single merchants sunk for about 15000 tons. |
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@ Bakkels: thanks for the tip about the carriers, and heartiest congrats on bagging yours! I've played an ENTIRE career on SH3, and haven't even sighted a CL, much less a CV! (Wait, take that back...does a CVE count as a major warship? Didn't get her, though...:cry:)
Anyway, what was the score medal-wise for your two carriers? -Matt |
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U-93 returns to sea
Well we've left Kiel for the final time...few tears, few missing lovers etc, hell i'll miss my old office! (NOT!) and most importantly, we'll all miss Germany! We've been re-assigned to Brest, in NW france, KM grid AM28.
15/6/1941: Left Kiel @ 09:00hrs, with no patrol grid alloted, although upon leaving we were told to bring every possession with us. 12:00: News filtered through that the whole flotilla is being moved to brest! Luckily this only affected wto of my crew, amongst them my weps officer who currently has a girlfriend, and my young sonar-boy. Both my crew's partner's will apparently be there to meet us in brest! That's quite a trip over from germany! 17/6/41: Took descision @ 06:00hrs to run through english channel later that evening. 18/6/41: Reached corner of dover/calais at mdnt. Only hassle thus far was O.O.W (officer of watch) spotted three patrol boats heading towards us. We submerged to periscope depth and kept going. No further threat encountered. 18/6/41: @ 06:00hrs Reached a position best described as 40km north of cherbourg - successful completion of the channel, crew in excellent mood. Allowed myself a few sips of chardonnay! 19/6/41: @ 06:00hrs Have reached grim AM28, the same grid as our destinaton harbour, Brest. Have sent a message to BDu asking if we are allowed to go off for a seeing that we've arrived in the area, have a full load of torpedoes and roughly 80% of a tank of diesel left! 19/6/41: @ 09:45hr Recieved a response from BDu who are now obviously up & about!! have recieved orders to continue into suspected areas of enemy shipping and to hunt as situation allows, now it's Game-on! |
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We are at about the dates, and my IXB is also seeing many failures in reovertaking convoys. Be careful out there. |
U64 IXB. Best, and last, patrol.
Patrol 11 (Grid EE74). 16.dec.42 til 13.mar.43.
We operated at the gateway to Carribean Sea, in very close proximity to the naval base at Port Of Spain. Enemy naval activity in the area was very high. During this patrol U64 managed to sink 4 tankers for 37.652 GRT. After completing 11 war patrols between 24.mar.40 and 13.mar.43, U64 will be retired to a school boat status. 32 merchants were sunk for 200.366 GRT. The upcoming grid assignment has forced me to retire my beautiful IXB's carreer. The next boat's carreer will continue the current campaign. Stay tuned. Things may get very interesting. |
4 Column convoy, lots of 6000+ merchants, including 2 or 3 12,000 ton tankers. 7 dud torpedoes.
SEVEN!! I got a tanker tough, and have 3 left to deal with some more tonight |
U-93 reported in just north of brest the last we heard - here is the latest! :salute:
20/6/41: 15:00 am now in grid BF something or other, the next grid south of am97. Recieved a radio report of a large convoy. Proceeded to check details and find we are in range for an intercept. Began to run on intercept course 20/6/41: 1900 No sign of convoy where they should be, except a distant merchant signature to our west - we've obviously missed them and they were clearly running more than 8knts as the radio report - or I got my sums wrong! 20/6/41: 2000 with hope of chasing that particular convoy dashed, proceeded to continue running surfaced into main part of irish sea. 20/6/41: 22:00 Obtained contact with slow moving vessel when @ periscope depth having a listen. Steered towrds contact and proceeded at best speed remaining at perscope depth. 22:30 vessel sighted. It's a "HUNT II" class destroyer!!! Curious as to why a destroyer would still be out here with the convoy long gone, I think it's been off hunting other u-boats! 22:35 Worked out that with his motions, a viable shots exists! waited till vessel at 600m and fired 22:36 A DIRECT HIT! man I have alot of guts doing this but it has just paid off bigstyle 22:41 vessel breakup sounds heard, she's a goner! |
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