[PapaSmurf]

I have never posted on this thread before. But since I really enjoy reading everyone's tales I thought it only fair that I contribute.

12-15-40, 9th patrol for Captain Gerhard Kupferschmidt in U-65, a well built IXB. After 3 weeks on patrol and not a torpedo fired yet the crew is getting restless and emergency diving drills and boat maintenance is all that keeps them from getting lazy. We have seen ships, but one was a hospital ship and 4 were American tankers. It's so hard to let the tankers go knowing they are supplying England but BDU is explicit..don't shoot. But if the Americans ever enter the war they will pay the price.

We are 250km northwest of Casablanca when the radio operator gets a report of a large enemy convoy just north of our position on a northeasterly heading. Franz Link-Stier, our navigator plots an intercept and announces we will make contact in 3 hours. When the crew hears this all the past monotony is forgotten as they each jump to action at their respective stations. In only mere minutes U-65 is racing towards the convoy with enough speed that the watch crew is forced to put on their full face caps to prevent frostbite in the wind. The spray is flying over the conning tower and freezing on everyone but as I look at one of the men who only has his cap over his forehead I see him smile as he hopes for contact. No one is feeling the cold. 3 hours later U-65 arrives at the intercept point and I order a dive to 20 meters to have a listen. When the hydrophone operator calls out multiple screws at long range I see the chief engineer pat the navigator on the back for doing his job so well. Now its a matter of listening and fine tuning our position for the attack. Finally at 10:57 I raise the observation scope and see smoke, lots of individual plumes of smoke. This is a big one. It also has 4 escorts, front, back left and right. This is going to be nerve wracking! Too far away to get an identification on the merchants yet but our position looks good so we go to all stop and rig the boat for silent running. Down scope and now we wait, listening to the nearest escorts. The lead escort doesn't seem like it's going to be a problem but the one on the convoys right flank could be trouble before this is all over. Finally it's time for another peek through the scope. Up scope just enough to clear the surface. Oh yes! Almost close enough now to start gathering attack information. The ship I will use to plot speed and AOB appears to be a whale factory ship but still too far away to be sure so I swing the scope to the front escort and see it's a Black Swan. Ugh! Swing the scope the other direction to look at the starboard escort. A Hunt class, not quite so bad. Down scope and wait and listen a few more minutes. Ok, raise the scope again. It's a good thing I didn't ID the ship as a whale factory because it's actually a large cargo. Check the escorts again to be sure they are still unaware. They are in their normal pattern so no problems. Lower the observation scope and raise the attack scope. Position the scope and start the stop watch. The radio report said 8 knots. Stop the stop watch. Since I use the OLC GUI mod for manual targeting I lower the rings and following the procedure I find the true speed is 7.5 knots. I enter the speed in the TDC and move on to determine range to target. Range is 2600 meters. Enter that into TDC. Now for the AOB. Just as I am adjusting the rings on the AOB finder on the scope the quiet is shattered by the sound of active sonar pinging through the submarine. "Herr Kaleun, we've been detected" shouts the hydrophone operator! I quickly scan the escorts and see that it is the starboard flank escort that found us and is picking up speed and turning towards us. I feel he is far enough away for me to finish calculating the AOB so I quickly lock onto the large cargo and get his AOB. CRASH DIVE!!!!! Lower the scope and immediately get the attack wheel out and use the bearing and AOB to plot the convoys course. This attack is foiled but if we survive we can use this information to set up for another attack later tonight hopefully. I give the command to make the depth 180 meters and the boat points down and at flank speed we plummet into the black water, all the while listening to the creaks and groans of the pressure hull and the incessant pinging of the onrushing destroyer. We reach 165 meters and I order all slow, a direction change and rig for silent running again and use our speed to take us down to 180 meters. By now the hydrophone is telling us that the Hunt class is almost on us and the Black Swan is racing over to assist in their attack. Our direction change seems to have worked because as the Hunt class goes over he drops 4 depth charges and they detonate behind us. Now the hydrophone operator reports that a 3rd escort is coming to join the attack against us! A few minutes later, after things have been quiet, pinging begins again, loud and fast. Suddenly throughout the submarine we can hear propellers racing over our heads and the sonar man is frantic as he calls out "Depth charges in the water"! FLANK SPEED AND DIRECTION CHANGE AND MAKE NEW DEPTH 200 METERS!!!!! Without warning explosions begin, 7 of them in quick succession, so close the boat is rocking almost uncontrollably. We hear noise from the aft of the boat and find out that sailor Jorg Bauer broke from the strain of the near misses and petty officer Hass had to forcibly subdue him to quiet him and prevent his panic from spreading. By now the boat has reached 200 meters depth and the depth charge attacks continued for almost 2 hours until the 3 escorts left to rejoin the convoy. In the 2 hours the attack lasted I counted 86 depth charges, none so close as the ones that rocked the boat early in the attack. When the sound of the escorts diminished enough we took the boat up to periscope depth and looked around. Safe to surface again. We will use the convoy track we were able to plot to do a flanking move and renew the attack at dusk tonight. This is a hair raising business we are in. I make a note to have sailor Bauer removed from the crew once the patrol is over but I have no bad feelings towards him because I was on the verge of panic myself. How I hid it I don't know.

I did all of this attack in real time with no time compression (yep, I sat there for over 2 hours evading DC's. It's good to be retired..LOL) and no external view and 100% realism and it sure was fun.