Wanna hear from a guy that survived a gun duel with a Destroyer?
I was taking the convoy course of the Submarine School first off and without the European uniformed convoy system, it was very hard to predict how the ships will behave and manruver.
As the course began, I ordered a a course of 50 degrees starboard and went on the bridge when I saw an escort destroyer coming towards me full speed at 345 degrees to port. I crash dive and level at 221 ft. Then, I adjust my speed to 0.5 knots while silent running. By this time, I sounded general quartars. I just waited for the trash cans to drop but fortunately, the destroyer passed by without dropping any depth charges.
The convoy finally arrived on the scene and I kinda expect them to move left or right of me. They did the unexpected - they went over me. Without any good position to fire my tubes, I did a combat surface and used my deck gun on a tanker before the destroyers can come. Two of them were off my port side some 10,000 to 9,000 yards busy with depth charing the area and one is on the opposite side of the convoy about 10,000 yards off. Within seven rounds, the destroyer on the opposite was barreling down towards me. With the tanker burning a little, I redirected my crew's fire on the destroyer and scored excellent hits before I crash dived and dived to 207 ft. One trash can managed to damage slightly my decoy launcher and my triple A guns.
Then, with my rotten luck, all of my forward torpedoes miss the destoryer. But, my luck altered for the good. With tube No. #1 reloaded minutes later, I scored a hit on the tanker after manevered perfectly between the tanker and the destroyer (which was coming in range broadside with my stern tubes). Guess what! Scratch one destroyer. The tanker remained afloat and still moving.
While forgeting the other two destroyers, I surface and started to ravage the convoy with my dech gun.. I came nder fire but can't located the source of the incoming fire. I thought it was one of the merchants sporadically firing it's deck gun. I guess I played SH3 too much. Anyway, all of the sudden, my submarine pitched sharpy and violently to port and turned my head to starboard. To my surprise, there it is - a destroyer. I immediately ordered my crew to fire at point-blank range. The destroyer's gunner control was lousy. It did score one hit as I pulled away to port. The result was the destroyer went down burning and I continued to sink ships with my deck gun and with light casualities.
Well, it is my story.
JayW.
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