Tell us what you are upto in your current campaign

[Weiss Pinguin]

Left my game running earlier to take care of something, and while I was away apparently a PBY stopped by. Now I'm up to 9 crewmen lost. At least I have 40k GRT to show for it.

[rudderless]

KAPITÄNLEUTNANT WILLI LAUE
Patrol 15
U-65, 2nd Flotilla
Left at: September 6, 1940, 06:32
From: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid CG11

2247: 8.9.40. Grid AN 76 Ship sunk! S.S. Agu (Large Merchant), 9714 tons
1627: 11.9.40. Grid AN 55 Ship sunk! S.S. Empire Corporal (Large Merchant), 10415 tons
1637: 11.9.40. Grid AN 55 Ship sunk! S.S. Quiberon (Large Merchant), 10416 tons
0506: 12.9.40. Grid AN 54 Ship sunk! HMS Opossum (Black Swan class), 1250 tons
0519: 12.9.40. Grid AN 54 Ship sunk! HMS Storm (S class), 767 tons
0540: 12.9.40. Grid AN 54 Ship sunk! Altair (Small Depot Ship), 6250 tons
0606: 12.9.40. Grid AN 54 Ship sunk! S.S. Neva (Coal Freighter), 3091 tons
U-boat damaged (H.I. 60.74%)

Well, that patrol certainly wasn't sooo boring.
On the surface charging batteries when we spotted the S.S. Agu. Got into good position, gave him a salvo of 3 for 2 hits, 1 dud. Didn't take him long to go down. Resumed course.
Contact report from Bdu on the 11th placed a convoy 30k east.
Found a position ahead of the convoy in about 65m depth. Position ok but range is about 4k+. Willi is not all that crash hot over 2000m. Only decent targets are the 2 LMs. Salvo of 2 from from about 3500, shift target second salvo. First target 2 hits (Boy, weren't we surprised), second target managed 1 hit right on the bow.
Getting chased by 1 escort when Herman's boys arrive. Bombs everywhere, escorts putting up an antiaircraft barrage and Willi dodging depth charges. Played this game on and off for years and never seen an air attack, now seen two. From an 8 ship convoy they were left with 3, two of those heavily damaged.
Then Willi had a brain explosion and decide to have a look in Blythe. To cut a long story short we were caught by the ASW trawler in 17m. He ended up on the bank, we ended up with the bow torpedo room destroyed, stern tubes destroyed and critical flooding at one stage. Could not lift off the bottom. Stopped the worst of the flooding and effected some engine repairs. Still stuck at 16ms, managed to creep along at 1 knot until out a bit , blew ballast and took off with all speed for home which was a hair raising trip in itself.

[timmy41]

april 1943! w00t!
900,000k tons too so far!
latest sortie http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=168623

[Exakt]

Originally Posted by KL-alfman

congrats for the new job!

but you can still play and write your stories, I assume?!

Yes I can and I will, but it will be less often than what I first did...

[gazpode_l]

Am unsure but I think my last posting was earlier this week (or end of last) where I had gone around the top of the Irish sea and had got lucky and encountered a lone merchant in seas that were calming down compared to the malestrom we'd encountered in the open atlantic. We had already obliterated a lone merchant with a succesfull magnetic torpedo shot, before I chose to resume my progress from monday night where I'd pottered around ireland for a little while chasing a lone merchant.

I had another chance to finally have another campaign session of SH3 last night and BOY did I find it frustrating. I was off the coast of holyhead, persuing a solitary, small merchant and I discovered that I was unable to lock either of my periscopes or my UZO onto the ship ( I could but only for a short time)

It was raining again and winds were 6mtrs per sec, with a slight sea-state. (Which could be why). After shooting a torpedo and missing I decided I would not continue to persue my contact in these pathetic conditions (In actual fact I'm getting tired of bad atlantic storms in oct 1940).

I decided to turn tail and run south towards my base and make a desicion on my next course as we pass longships.

Shortly after I turned in 40winks in my bunk and I had barely nodded off when I got awoken by the buzz of my radio man, reporting that he'd recieved a message saying that Bdu had visual intelligence of a good-sized convoy just some 20 clicks SSW of my position which were on a NNE'rly course. Holding a tea in one hand and pencil in the other, I did some rough, very quick calculations, using some of the methods i've read about on these forums in the "noob" section.

Before long I arrived at my planned intercept point and proceeded to sit silently and awaited the arrival of the convoy. This was a convoy every Kaleun dreams of - Un-escorted! Although they didn't have anything much larger than medium cargo's they were still worth having a "butchers" at.

So before long they were upon me and I began locking up and firing at the various targets. However, I noticed my persistant problem of the sight locking bug was still with me and therefore I began to work on a couple of manual solutions! I got lucky and counted three explosions topside. I obliterated one contact (reported as a med cargo in my log) and damaged one or two others.

However in my salvo I expended around half of my torpedoes and I'd prob say 85% of them were wastage because of the sight lock problems and also me forgetting I'd still got my TDC set to manual imput, so any direction I was looking to shoot in, my torps were simply running straight and true from the tubes with no turning and without anything crossing my bow to be shot at by the torpedoes. (i'd read somewhere else about another guy achieving amazing success with straight out of the tubes bow shots - anyone who can post me the link - wld be really appreciated)

Cursing my rotten luck I ordered ahead flank and turned away from the convoy to run away - I was very lucky this was unescorted.

After running for 1 game hr, I sat on the surface for another hour re-loading my tubes and bringing inside my external load-out, ready for another go at the convoy. I set ahead full and at daybreak I was beginning to catch upto the last of the trailing ships in the convoy.

I fired again and my shot scored a direct hit although I think my shot merely damaged the vessel rather than an outright kill.

I got into a firing solution again with another vessel and launched three torpedoes at him, one struck but failed to detonate (set running hight too high/shallow, combined with a poor vessel angle) and the other two simply whizzed by.

Feeling rather peeved I exited my patrol and shutdown my computer and went to bed.

I have thus far bagged only two kills for aprox 7,000 GRT and have wasted alot of torpedoes in far from ideal situations. I am definately showing a very green element to my skippering. I will spend a few days mulling over it in port and probably play the in-game training exercises before we put to sea again, hoping that the persistantly beautiful weather i always seemed to be blessed with in lorient upon departure, actually holds and follows me to the UK!!!

Written by Kaleun Gazpode
Patrol #1 (career2)
Sunk: 2 ships for Aprox 7,000 Grt.
Game date: Mid Oct 1940.

[Weiss Pinguin]

U-163 is finally in port again, safe and sound. Departed December 3rd, 1941, and returned January 14, 1942, with 3 wounded and 10 less crewmembers than when I left, all in exchange for 5 ships totalling 40,750 GRT. This is probably my worst patrol yet - I've never lost that many crew before, not without losing the submarine as well, anyways.

[KL-alfman]

heads up, Mr Penguin!

now you can pay-back in your next patrol.
maybe in pillaging the U.S. east-coast??!!

[pickinthebanjo]

U-571 heading out for first patrol out of La Spezia. I've always stuck to the Atlantic but this time I plan on trying the Med for a while then transfering to the Pacific

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by pickinthebanjo

U-571 heading out for first patrol out of La Spezia. I've always stuck to the Atlantic but this time I plan on trying the Med for a while then transfering to the Pacific

In SH3?

[KL-alfman]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

In SH3?

Monsun boats?
your beloved IXD2??

edit: not so sure now if Penang and Djakarta only belong to the Indian Ocean .....
sry, Jimbuna, if I messed up.

[unterseemann]

14 Apr 1942 - 2nd flotilla Lorient
U-125 ( Kptlt Dieter Haguenau) is back after a 43 days patrol.
Patrol zone: African west coast, canaries islands approachs
7 ships sank for 45.271 tons

3.3.1942: U125 left Lorient

6.3.1942: Unescorted british merchant sunk in BE95
SS Aldan (small merchant) 2376 tons

7.3.1942: Convoy reported in BE89. One or two minutes before attack, as uboot turned perpendicular to convoy detected by flank escort.
Dove to 45m then deployed decoys. Depth charges exploded behind us, presume escort engaged decoys so decided to come back to PD and prepare a four torpedoes salvo 'blind' shot.
4 torpedoes in the water, we dove again. 4 minutes later as uboot was at -90m, 2 impacts heard but seconds after depth charges exploded near the uboot: Damages and flooding in bow sections. Uboot began to sink by the bow: blow ballast, reverse course and repair team stopped it at -144m...

Dodged others depth charges and 2 hours later uboot safe. In the meantime the two impacts turned into two sinkings.
-Medium Merchant 5200 tons
-SS Empire sunbeam ( empire type freighter) 5746 tons

Surfaced the boat, damage to the hull ( 67% HI) but no vital equipment destroyed. BdU ordered not to attack the convoy once more but to continue patrol south where lone merchant shipping is more important (west of portugal to canaries islands).

21.3.1942: After 14 days without any contacts, southbound convoy detected between Dakar and cape verde islands in EK41. Although convoy well escorted we attacked it, sunk a large british tanker and escaped unharmed.
-MV Inverdargle 11.910 tons

10.4.1942: After 20 days without anything else but bad weather and neutral encounters, luck is back! 400 miles west of portugal coast in CG71 a small convoy is detected. A hunt class destroyer followed by:large merchant, empire freighter, medium merchant. Speed estimated to 9kn course 61.
First attack: a torpedo miss the escort, another one hit the large merchant 3 torpedoes wasted against the zigzagging ships... Eventually the large merchant sank
-SS Glenorchy 10.951 tons

11.4.1942: A second attack is made against the empire freighter and the medium merchant. 1 miss on the empire freighter and 1 hit on the medium merchant. Escort unable to find us. No sign of sinking but the merchant seemed to lose speed
5 hours later we found the straggler and sank it with gunfire.
-SS Golden Fleece 4404 tons CG48

11.4.1942: Hydrophon operator reported dolphins. Several crewmen went to hear them and discovered a ship nearby! One hour later contact was made with an american small merchant. Sank it with our last torpedo. Debris and crew revealed after that it was a granville type freighter and not a small merchant...
-MV Agra ( granville type freighter) 4707 tons

14.4.1942 U-125 is back to Lorient
7 ships sunk for 45.271 tons

Total tonnage sunk by U-125: 195.699 tons
Kptlt Konrad Tietz: 3 patrols (10 jul1941 to 31 jan 1942): 150.428 tons
Kptlt Dieter Haguenau: 1 patrol (3 mar 1942 to 14 apr 1942): 45.271 tons

[pickinthebanjo]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

In SH3?

yeah in SH3, I was surprized there was 10th flotilla and even more surprised when I got U-571 it just takes forever to travel there

[Weiss Pinguin]

February, 1942

U-163 is sailing to DB94, off the coast of Florida. I hear the fishing is good this time of year. Received a contact report to the south earlier, and after arriving at the intercept point I switched on my brand new radar set, and picked up the merchant fairly quickly. Unfortunately I botched the solution and ended up firing 4 torpedoes at a bulk freighter for <~ 3000 tons.

Oh well, moving on. Should be an interesting patrol.

[KL-alfman]

not the med Jimbuna was questioning but the Pacific.
I still don't know if Indonesia is more to the Indian or Pacific Ocean .....

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by KL-alfman

not the med was Jimbuna questioning but the Pacific.
I still don't know if Indonesia is more to the Indian or Pacific Ocean .....

Looks to be right smack between the two: