Patrol 11, January 21, 1941, U-551.
Heading to grid square DH56, a new patrol area for me. Nothing eventful until the early morning for January 24. BdU reports a small convoy in my area, not 6 KM from me. It is pitch black and I decide to intercept. I change course due south on a path crossing the reported convoy and immediately the cry from the bridge comes: ship spotted!
I race to the bridge and see it's an L class escort. Behind it, heading north east coming towards me, I see a single large cargo. Well, that's a very small convoy, I notice myself thinking. And indeed, it hardly seems worthy of that name. What the heck, he's coming at me at an ideal angle for a torpedo attack under his keel. Since it is very dark, only a very narrow crescent of the new moon is out, I select my two steam torpedoes for a surface attack, set up the shot and at the moment the torpedoes leave the tube, I hear another ship spotted message. And this time, it's not my over-enthusiastic watch crew notifying me of the same ship for the 142nd time. It IS another ship. And another one after that!
As it turns out, it's a small convoy with one escort and three merchant vessels. Two large cargo and one coastal freighter. Being that I am over 2500 metres away, there is no time to set up another shot and hope it hits before the first shot hits the target and all hell will break lose. I decide to break off the attack and return when everything has gone quiet again.
I speed away on a course due west, counting the seconds until my first torpedoes will strike. Suddenly, *boom* and 10 seconds later, another *boom*. The large cargo in the lead is struck and both torpedoes detonate underneath the ship. Search lights come on, flares are fired and for a second things look bad for me. I guess I am too far away though because nobody comes close to spotting me. The large cargo is on fire, the other ships begin their zig-zag pattern and the escort makes a broad sweep in the area where they think I should be. I am by that time more than 1500 metres away from my firing position. About 12 minutes after being struck, the large cargo sinks beneath the waves.
I make a large semi-circle, keeping the rest of the convoy just at the edge of visual range. After a while I notice that the zig-zagging stops and the convoy has returned to its original course. I am reloaded and have managed to gain enough on the convoy to obtain a good firing position. There's still about an 1,5 hours of darkness left, so I go for a second surface attack, planning to hit the coastal freighter and the second large cargo in one fell swoop, with one and two torpedoes respectively.
This time around though, I am less lucky, it seems. I probably got too close to the escort vessel, because suddenly he shoots up a flare. Incredibly he doesn't seem to see me on the surface, barely 2000 metres from his position. I don't take my chances though and submerge to PD. Looking through the attack periscope, I see that luck has not left me, though. Both merchant ships are still on course and not zig-zagging. The furthest is just under 3000 metres away. I decide to take the shots I planned anyway.
Three torpedoes leave the tubes, all three set for running under the keel. All three detonate with less than 40 seconds between the first and the last. The coastal freighter immediately begins to list and sinks in less than 5 minutes. The large cargo is listing by the bow and comes to a full stop, but she does not seem to be sinking. The escort is getting too close for comfort now and I dive to safety. Running silent at 150 metres, he does not detect me. No depth charges are dropped. After about 45 minutes he breaks off the search and heads off towards the north east, the original course of the convoy. That poor captain has some explaining to do when he gets home!
Meanwhile, the second large cargo has been sitting on the surface without sinking. I decide to surface and finish her off with the deck gun. The only traffic in the area is the rapidly departing escort and that's already a long way off. I had noticed through the periscope that the large cargo had a gun mounted at the stern, but she was listing so badly at the bow that I did not believe she could use it at targets really close by. I surfaced 300 metres off her stern and immediately manned the deck gun. It took some 35 shells to finish her off, and all the time she fired back, but fortunately, none of her shots got close. Some landed far away, others a bit closer, but none were really close. I guess I was right about her gun not being able to fire at such an angle.
With the last merchant vessel clearly sinking, I turned back to my original course only to spot the escort racing towards me. He's maybe some 5000 metres away but I don't bother to hang out and find out the details. I guess he was obscured from my view by the large cargo. I crash dive and manage to evade the escort after 10 minutes. He gives up and leaves in the direction he came.
I stay submerged to reload and rest my crew.
Guess what: scant 1,5 days later (game time), a similar convoy is reported very close to me. I intercept this convoy too and this time there's a single escort, a large cargo, a coastal freighter and an Empire type. This time the large cargo and the Empire get sent to the bottom. If this keeps up, I'll be out of torpedoes before I reach my patrol area...
Do you think the game knows it's my birthday and this has been its gift to me?