GWX Question - What hit me?

[GJO]

So I am on my 5th war patrol with a Type VIIB, May 1940 - I had been sent to patrol an area off the East Coast of England in the vicinity of Newcastle but found no traffic so after 24 hours I headed North. Taking a sound check just above the Firth of Forth I detect a noisy warship and a merchant travelling NNE at about 10 Kts. After plotting an intercept, I surface my boat and head off at full speed for the first fight of this patrol. Close to my calculated intercept point my WO spots the targets which are identified as an ASW Trawler (armed) and a Whale Factory Ship - a juicy target of over 12,000 GRT!

Now I have encountered this pairing before in an earlier career and that experience encouraged me to attack the ASW Trawler first, on the surface, with gunfire! I closed to a range of 500 Metres at 112 degrees AOB with the sun setting behind the target and ordered "Fire at will" to the deck gun crew while I turned my boat to bring the flack gun to bear - then I manned the flack gun to try and take out the enemy gunners - the plan worked. Surprise was on my side and the enemy's main armament exploded while I was letting them have my second clip of ammo! The target sank soon after and my gun crew then turned their attention to the bigger target while I steered the boat on a parallel course. At a range of 350 Metres, I put a torpedo from my aft tube straight into the target's engine room - it slowed and stopped by which time it was already sinking thanks to some accurate short range shooting by the gun crew. Damage to my boat was light - some minor damaged to the tower which was soon repaired and hull integrity at 90% - this was probably from machine gun fire because ASW Trawler scored no hits or even near misses with his deck gun before I blew it up.

Now having sunk such a splendid prize, I really ought to have saved my game. unfortunately I did not!

Heading away from the scene of destruction, I submerged to 20 Metres to reload the aft torpedo tube and despite the onset of night, I remained submerged heading NNE at 2 Kts. After about half an hour of game time multiple messages start to appear on the screen indicating the we are taking serious damage, the radio room is destroyed and it's two occupants killed, the boat has heavy flooding in almost every compartment and despite setting the damage control team to work, the flooding soon becomes critical and the lights go out - we are all very dead.

Now in the short time that all this happened (less than 5 minute of game time) I took a quick look at the external camera (now the only unrealistic element that I retain) and noted what appeared to be torpedo damage amidships but I had detecting nothing on the hydrophones and no other warning of my impending doom.

Do the 'Tommies' have a secret weapon?

[Sailor Steve]

Yes. They are called "mines", and hitting one will give you serious torpedo-like damage. The game won't tell you what happened. You'll just be dead.

[Pisces]

Early 1940, East coast of England, all 's cool until submerged... no brainer: mines!

[flag4]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The game won't tell you what happened. You'll just be dead.

[maillemaker]

Steve

[VonApist]

Never. Dive. When. Closer. Than. 60km. From. The. Eastern. Coast. Of. England.

[GJO]

Brilliant game! I hadn't expected mines but I was in an area that, historically (in real life), was declared as a minefield by the Royal Navy. Are there German mines too - I seem to remember that in real life a German minefield was laid in the Heligoland Bight and the Royal Navy tried to close off Germany's North Sea ports and the Western end of the Kiel Canal with an extensively scattered minefield.

[Aras]

There are some vessels with keel depth around 10-11m (Modern Tanker, Large Merchant, Medium Cargo etc...) so If you stay at periscope depth (12-13 m), you will be fine and mines won't harm you.