Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Riley
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Latest report
00:32
After an hour chasing the contact we seem to be falling behind,sound strength fading slightly,clear the target is faster than us,leaving us unsure of target type as we have not experienced any merchants faster than our U-Boats yet.
attack aborted,proceeding back to original course
06:30
dawn dive
dist sfd - 240km
ST - 08:30
08:30
surfaced
dist smd - 16km
16:00
BE55
finally left British air coverage zone (BACZ) (2000km radius) without incident.will radio base of our position just before upcoming dusk dive.will then shortly be entering Icelandic air coverage zone (IACZ) after a brief spell in the BE55 air gap
approx 4.5 days to reach current position,leaving us still on a good schedule to reach our patrol zone (PZ) in good time.
total air attacks - 6
total dist sfd - 1451km
total dist smd - 133km
end of report
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Tonight's events
12th Nov
After 3 days of pretty much the same as before,diving at dawn,dusk,working out how much distance we made surfaced etc we bumped into a small merchant in AL55 heading east,possibly from Halifax.The night was dark and very calm.We decided to give him a warm welcome on his peaceful little voyage.I swung the boat round north in order to put him just on the border of extreme visibility,about 3km.I then straddled him at 90 degrees,monitoring his position in the scope.After about 30mins he was confirmed at doing 92 degrees at 7kts.
We raced ahead of him for our first attack,which was set for a submerged attack at 500m.Approx 1 hour later he came into view,and I made all the neccessary preparations for the electric torpedo.Depth was set to 3m with an impact pistol.Fire angle set for 10 degrees to target.
05:00
fired 1,torpedo passed across his stern by about 0.5m.Was sure all settings were correct,leading me to conclude that my fire angle was wrong,and should have released the torp sooner.This was our first proper test with the electrics in the fore tubes,being so used to the faster steam torps.
Immediately swung north again and put about 2km between us.I then blew tanks at full speed and decided to engage the target in a broadside gun duel.Target managed to fire only 2 rounds in entire engagement which fell well short of us.
06:26
merchant finally sunk bow first
rds fired in engagement - 34 (unskilled gunners)
tonnage - 2.618 (a bloody waste of time in my opinion)
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Not the best start on our maiden voyage
Hope we can ammend our poor start with sinking a huge load of Russian supplies and vodka further north in our patrol zone.