U-Boot stories

[Von Hinten]

Originally Posted by Brag

Hi guys!

After being "busy" learning the new intrincacies of GWX, got around to posting a new installment of The Outsider and the mad patrol of the U-551 under the command of the mysterious Helmut Hagel.

Here is the link:
http://www.freewebs.com/kielman/u551.htm

Hope you'll enjoy it.

That's a wonderful site m8, very well done and a breeze to read. Keep up the good work.

[Brag]

Here is the link. I hope you'll enjoy it

http://www.freewebs.com/kielman/u551theoutsiderstory.htm

[timwatson]

Originally Posted by Brag

Hi guys!

After being "busy" learning the new intrincacies of GWX, got around to posting a new installment of The Outsider and the mad patrol of the U-551 under the command of the mysterious Helmut Hagel.

Here is the link:
http://www.freewebs.com/kielman/u551.htm

Hope you'll enjoy it.

While casting about in the hopes of finding a subsim kaleun to correspond with, I looked at this link. No direct relationship with SH3 GWX? But I noticed you are now into the GWX world, which has been great for me.

For example: "The Bismark Strikes Back" story (see below) was created out of that mod.

Could you do me the favor of a response?

oblt Rolfe Hass (alias Tim Watson)

[Coyote88]

28 May 1940

U-27 is patrolling off the coast of France during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Convoys of 5 warships are sailing west and northwest every few hours, far too dangerous to attack in shallow water (< 40 m.), but occasionally we hear a solo ship. So we hover in the vicinity, hoping to get a chance at one of these lone ships. On our last patrol, off Norway, we only sank one ship and we're determined to do better this time out.

We think we're safely out of the way of one of these little flotillas, when they suddenly turn and runs straight at us, with warships passing close by on both sides. One even comes within 300 m. without detecting us, but twenty minutes later a DD starts pinging us and makes a DC run. Damage to the tower, flooding, and we find ourselves mired on the sea floor and still under attack. We had to blow our tanks, despite the nearby enemy, to get some water under the keel and start moving again and, after 45 minutes of weaving and dodging, managed to shake the destroyer and get away at periscope depth. We sail out to sea, fix the periscopes, shrug off the destroyed radio antenna (meh, who wanted to talk to BdU, anyway?), and head back in - this time intending to be even more careful about how close we got to the traffic.

We're in a good position, listening to a solo ship approach from about 10km off, when the hydrophone operator suddenly reports a destroyer coming straight at us at high speed, from an entirely different direction. Up periscope - yes, there he is, but it's raining katze und huende and he's not visible until about 400 m. away; too close to attack with a torpedo, even if I had time to gather target data. So back to dodging and weaving - except before long, this guy has been joined by four of his ugliest buddies. I've never heard pinging like that! We manage to last half an hour, but eventually we're half flooded, sitting on the bottom with dead radio men, just waiting for the end. It comes soon enough.

Given the low visibility, maybe I should have taken my chances surfacing and running after the first pass, but I thought I would only have the one destroyer to deal with and I'd already pulled off an escape like that and figured I could again. Forty-nine dead crewmen, no tonnage sunk.

It seemed pretty mysterious that this DD was making beeline for my position when I was submerged at slow speed, but during the attack I noticed a gray sunken ship icpn about 3km away on the attack map; maybe they were responding to one of my colleagues and came across me by accident?

[ubootcomrade]

hello this is my first posting on subsim ,im a sh3 verteran (at 14 ) and my story is this...(sorry no screens )I was patrolling near leningrad cos i heard there was a ruskie battleship about, well i was near leningrad when i got jumped by a destroyer. I crashdived went to silent running, he dropped a few charges one went rather close and had a nasty effect on my hull, well i went to periscope depth to find the russian heading strait for me, i checked the destroyers draught and sent a torp right up the ruskies nose ,his bridge burst into flames and sank in a few minutes. Afterwards i headed to leningrad to find the 'talin' only to be caught on the surface and rammed by another destroyer . Well thats my story i hope it wasent as rubbish as i think it is

[bb-subs]

First posted in another post.

"Norway
What is the single Task Force up in Norway just sitting there?
I am on the way up should I take a run at them?
Grant"

This is what happened and how to get 4 easy warhip kills,
" got them!!!!
I dont know if you know the TF I am talking about but I started my career with Commander in Oct 39.
Right know this is patrol 7.
The TF I seen before but never got there as I had to reinstall the game, when setting up GWX1.2.

But I got them:rotfl: :rotfl:
If you approach from the east you will find the water just 11 to 13 m deep so the creep in. I found the task force to be a Sheffield at the tip the south end, then followed in line ahead by two troop transports, then just behind them two tribals with about 2000 m's seperating them.
Then there is another Troop Trans. but way back what didnt see was the third Tribal. I crept up to the center Tribals and picked the furthest first with a TII, then another TII about 15 secounds after the first.
Down they go.

Then the unseen Tribal comes from the north, all of the convoy is parked facing south and is stationary.
He cant find me as I am at 2 knots with 3 m's under me. Yuck what a place.

I got him though then went after the Sheffield and put two into her the Troop ships can wait till the cruiser is gone.

This is my best warship kill to date.

Grant"

Good Hunting

[TarJak]

Part one of a story about U56's 1st Atlantic patrol has been posted here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109569

Part two will be posted when I finish writing it.

[HM.Medico]

I've just started work on one called Modern Buccaneers. It starts off with one of my harbour raids which I am so fond of

Can you add it to the list?
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...086#post522086

[Sledgehammer427]

ok, im new here, and i have a screen, but not on this comp.
but, i was patrolling, in campaign mode on the vanilla SH3 but i was near scapa flow, its late 1941, the happy time. i wanted to see if i could nab a battleship. so, on my way in i came across a circling destroyer. musta been a glitch. but. i came in silent. in a type 9 to be exact. and, i watched my approach in the nav map. closely watching my stealth meter, i was at periscope depth, with the scope down. i decided to go to external. and bam! the destroyer found himself just meters from ramming my conning tower. i almost s*** myself.
long live 10th flotilla!

Sledgehammer427, jolly pirate of the atlantic

[ahaseurus2000]

My last patrol:
Left port on 15 Feb 1942. A couple of times in the Heavy Fog a destroyer popped out of nowhere, and at 1024x time I could barely react! Crash dive to 110 meters, run silent and slow, they quickly lost me and went away.
Anyway, off the SW coast of Ireland all these Sutherlands appeared out of nowhere and began straffing me, at least 10 at a time!! I got crew on both flak guns (double barrelled) and had a shootout for twenty minutes, three crew wounded including my flak petty officer in exchange for three planes shot down. Then more appeared with bombs... Crash Dive!
I should have saved game after that, cause I got depth-charged trying to outrun a tribal destroyer...

But that shootout was so cool

[CptCrunch]

It's Christmas day, the girlfriend has cooked a wonderful dinner, we doze, I wake up and check out sub sim - Oh joy! - the inestimable GWX team have left us all a wonderful cracker in the shape of GWX 3 ...

I rip out my old installation download and install the new mod and begin my career anew.

I decide to try a new flotilla - the 7/13th. It's 1st August 1939 and I take command of a shiny new Type VIIB. I'm given order to patrol a nearby grid - most of which is inside the natural lagoon formed by the coastline. Ah well there's no war on so I decide to shake down the crew - we set off hapily ... before long 2 steamers approach us - I order flank speed and battle stations - just for the show! - the 2 merchants sail boldly towards me and as I pass between them with 500m clearance either side I see they are sporting British flags. I taste the blood on my lips but I resist the temptation to send them to the bottom, just training the guns on them as we pass.

We sail on and I wonder what we can do - it's quite shallow in the lagoon. On the nav map I spot 3 groups of target ships - surely this is what we're meant to do with our shake down!. Once more to battle stations - we run attacks ,coming in hard, guns blazing, pumping fish into the fat metal hulls (all bearing British ensigns I notice) - as night falls 6 blazing hulks slide into the sea - we turn proudly homewards- my novice crew have performed superbly. But hang on we still need to complete 24 hours on patrol...

I decide to take us outside the lagoon and run along the coast awhile - we approach moored friendly ships by the entrance - everyone is stood down,relaxed and we wave as we are bout to pass between them. Suddenly all hell breaks loose we are under fire! we turn from the merchants but something behind us (a moored destroyer) pumps round after heavy round into us. We wither under the crossfire - men are dying - I order a crash dive - we slam into the bottom at 34m flank speed, reverse thrust, blow ballast - damage control re doing their manly best - but all too soon we are crushed and die ...

You see - stock SH3 decided we were renegades for firing on the targetships and we were sent to the bottom by our own side with the loss of 400 renown

[A Very Super Market]

Well, the war hadn't started yet. I imagine thats why Tommy is so mad at you. Also, you crash dived on the coastal shallows... your crew probably would've murdered you...

[CptCrunch]

A Very Super Market wrote
"Well, the war hadn't started yet. I imagine thats why Tommy is so mad at you. Also, you crash dived on the coastal shallows... your crew probably would've murdered you..."

The point was that these were our own "TARGET SHIPS" ie. for practicing firing on - clearly marked as such on the nav map. "Target ships" should be neutral and fireable upon whatever the war state - the Kriegsmarine (and everyone else )definately practiced on target ships before the outbreak of hostilities.

Had to crash or we would have instantly died on the surface - was our only chance - we lost that time.

[timbob]

U-99 has just returned from her second patrol in the atlantic, a very successful one as it turned out!

We were ordered to patrol grid square BE99, just off the coast of Spain. This was excellent news, as it was about one quarter of the distance we'd had to travel during the boat's first patrol down in square DT. It would mean we could patrol the square for our 24 hours, then turn north, into the more fruitful hunting grounds of the North Atlantic.

We ;eft St Nazaire in the early hours of the 7th of November 1940. Travelling at a relaxed speed, we made grid square BE99 without incident, and patrolled for a whole day, with no ship sightings or soundings. Our assigned mission over, we turned North West, and soon had a convoy sighting, U-99's first!

The convoy was on a SSE heading, and we intercepted at about 22:00 hours, at periscope death on the convoy's port side. I counted 20 ships, and many escorting frigates - one sweeping ahead of the convoy, one one either side, and at least one to the rear. This would be tricky!

Using no more than slow engine revolutions, we moved into position, less than 1000 metres off the 1st column. Miraculously, the Frigate nearest us didn't spot us, and we were free to fire all 4 torpedoes, at 4 different ships in the leading row. Just as the frigate to the side of the convoy passed astern, we fired a rear torpedo snap-shot as well, but missed.

No time to waste, U-99 changed course, to head under the convoy - away from the nearest 3 Black Swan Frigates, and went deep. We heard 2 torpedo impacts, only a 40% hit rate, not too good!

Depth charge after depth charge exploded around us, but all were wide of the mark. During the explosions, we heard the sounds of a cargo ship breaking up, we'd sunk her - U-99's second kill! Wondering what had happened to the second ship we'd hit, the crew waited out attack after attack. Nearly 2 hours later, the Frigates were further and further wide of the mark, and the depth charges fell astern. We waited a little more, until the propellor sounds had receded a little, then risked periscope depth.

The convoy was heading away from us now, and was nearly 10km ahead of us. U-99 broke the surface, revved the diesels flat out, and overtook the convoy - which had changed course following our first attack. As the night grew darker, we took sightings from the bridge as we went to confirm the convoy's new course. The crew reloaded the torpedoes into the tubes, and made ready for our second attack.

We moved into attack position, again just below periscope depth, justt off to the convoy's starboard beam. We'd face the oncoming ships to minimize our sound reflection, and turn just in time to shoot. This time though, the frigate defending our side of the convoy was more alert, and swung towards our position - we'd been spotted, before even getting a shot off! We started moving slowly deeper reaching 30 or 40 metres down, but soon the propellor sounds came closer, and 4 depth charges entered the water - FLANK SPEED!!!

Then I came to a snap decision, and decided to bring the boat back to periscope depth as the frigate passed over the top of us, and started heading astern - she would take a minute to turn around and prepare for another run, and we might be able to get a shot off....! Sure enough, the periscope broke the surface, I checked behind, and the frigate had only just started turning. As I swung it around, we were right in amongst the convoy, a large cargo ship, and an empire class freighter were nearly dead ahead, less than 1km away!

Taking no chances, we quickly fired all 4 torpedoes, 2 at each of the lumbering ships, and then, hearing the frigate closing once more, crash dived, and changed course sharply. As the explosions rocked the boat, the periscope was damaged, and the deck guns put out of commission, but the hull held - at least for now. We heard 1, 2, 3.....4 hits - all our torpedoes had hit! 4 more charges tore the ocean, and reminded us of the peril we'd put ourselves in by making that second attack as we descended, taking advantage of the disturbances to move quickly at full speed.

Again, the cat and mouse game begun, as 3 frigates begun the hunt. U-99 went silent, to 50 revolutions per minute, and way down to 200m depth, ignoring the Chief's warnings that the boat couldn't take the pressure. We heard both freighters break up on the surface, confirming our 2nd and 3rd kills - big ones this time, the tonnage was racking up! The hunters were better this time, the charges came closer and became louder. Once again using the noise to cover our noise, we went to top speed, and changed course abruptly again, again and again - but after another 2 or 3 hours, the depth charges once again fell astern, and the soundman reported the ships moving away - we had survived our audacious attack!

As morning broke, U-99 came back up to periscope depth, saw the convoy receding astern. Having nearly exhausted our torpedoes, and been lucky twice, U-99 turned for home.

Just then, the soundman picked up a lone merchant, on the same heading as the main convoy, but nearly 12km behind. The periscope confirmed it - the same merchant that we'd hit in our first attack, but not sunk. The ship was listing badly, and perhaps only making 2 knots, the convoy had left it behind!

We only had our stern tube loaded, and day was getting lighter, so we had to stay submerged, moving ahead of the limping ship, and across it's course, so as to present our rear to the target. We fired, from only 400m away, and the torpedo streaked across the water, bubbles streaming. The merchant's captain was powerless to react, and the torpedo struck home, sending her straight to the bottom - our 4th sinking, just as the sun was coming up.

Now we really did have to head home - we had only 2 torpedoes remaing in reserve. There was a chance the escorts might have heard, and turn around to come after us again, so U-99 made her escape on the surface, at maximum revolutions. After a few hours we slowed a little - the hunters had left us! We took advantage of the downtime to perform repairs on the periscope, sustained in the daring attack of the previous night.

Just as the crew was relaxing, and beginning to get some rest after a solid 36 hours on duty, the tired bridge lookouts spotted another merchant ship halfway across the Bay of Biscay, a healthy, lone, large 10,000 tonner, with no escort! Tubes reloaded, we made sure of the ship's course, submerged, and waited for her to draw closer.

Sure enough, at the calculated time, we popped the periscope through the water, and there she was, just about to move ahead of us. The chief took his measurements - there was a large margin of error this time - the huge ship was only 800m away, and we fired both remaing torpedoes. Both hit! And the ship slipped under the surface in less than 20 minutes.

The 2 day voyage back to St Nazaire passed without event, although the crew did reload the torpedoes out from the top deck and down into the tubes, just in case. We made port on the 14th of November - just over a week since we'd left, and 35,200 tonnes more to our credit!

######

Top marks to SH3, and especially the GWX team, it's been a long time since I've become so immersed in a game as to write a mini story about it!

[Lt.Fillipidis]

U-Boat 109 U-Boat Class:IXB

Oct.2 1944 13:48
Grid: BE38. Heading back to Lorient after a "sucessful" but shipless patrol.
The Sonarman was sent in the crew quarters to rest.
Suddenly the a sharp-eye watchman yells "Schiff gesichtet!"
It was a Black Swan Frigate.
"What the heck is a Frigate doing in the middle of the ocean..?
There must be a convoy around!" - I thought.

I decided to approach, emerged at first and then submerged.
"Un"fortunatelly, the Frigate spotted me from distance and turned to get me.
From my experience on previous patrols, i knew the ship aint gonna zig zag soon on its way to me, so i fired the first torpedo to it.

"Rohr eins, LOS!"
After a minute or so:
"Torpedo treffen!"
It was a direct hit that damaged the ship and by the time i was in range of its guns,
the bow was below waterline. It slowly went down.

Other escort ships came to the area. I submerged in the meantime.
For the next ship, it was a destroyer, i followed a similar tactic.
I was watching it with the attack periscope and before it even came close to start its circle around the shipwreck, i brought it down with one TIII Electric propulsion
torpedo. That blew the ship sky high!

For the 3th ship, if i recall right it was a Hunt III Destroyer, i decided not to fire a bow torpedo but go a bit further and fire a stern torpedo.
Since i wasnt sure on my aim i fired an acoustic homing torpedo.
It hit its target and it went down.

"Now" I said, "There must be a couple escorts left and then its me and the convoy!"
I emerged and sailed on, ahead flank.
A couple of gametime hours later, the watchman yelled:
"Schiff gesichtet!"
It was a Nelson Battleship!
"Task Force!" I thought.
I sailed on a parallel, with them, pattern for quite a bit, so i can make it ahead of them and intercept all possible ships there.

After a bit i found out that there were no more escorts and 3 battleships were sailing into line formation.
King George V Battleship, Revenge Battleship, Nelson Battleship.

I managed to get a bit ahead of the ships so i turned, heading to them and wait
for the right moment.
I had 1 Acoustic Homing and 3 Electric Propulsion torpedoes in, so i thought,
to get all three of them, to fire the homing torpedo to the King George V battleship
to destroy its engines, 2 TIII torpedoes to the Revenge Battleship and the last one of the bow tubes to the Nelson Battleship.

"Torpedo treffen!" The first torpedo hit its target and, as expected, it blew off its propellers.
"Torpedo treffen!" The second torpedo, as if by miracle, was enough to blow the Revenge Battleship sky high!
"Torpedo treffen!" The fourth torpedo hit the Nelson Battleship on its bow so minimal damage was done.
I turned the uboat around and decided to finish off the damaged King George V Battleship and then pursuit the last battleship remaining.
And so i did. King George V went down to meet his ancestors while the Nelson Battleship had moved quite a bit further.

Suddenly, aircraft came in the show to play their part.
I was concerned that they wont leave me alone soon and ill lose the ship
so i said ill take my chances.
By that time only 2 of the 4 tubes were loaded so i fired the torpedoes and commanded to crash dive.
All the crew was in the boat and only the top of the tower was out of the water when i recieved a devastating direct hit by a Spitfire, which blew off my AA guns
and completelly destroyed the conning tower!

I had flooding in 4 compartments. 2 of them were flooding fast!
The uboat was sinking!

170 Meters!
180 Meters!
190 Meters!
200 Meters!
210 Meters!

The engines were set to full speed and my boat was strugling to stop going down!
Slowly but steadily, it was going down...
But the meters stopped at 213.
The repair crew had done well. The boat was slowly going up!

170 Meters.
130 Meters.
80 Meters.

I managed to bring back the boat from hell and bring it to 15meters depth.
The attack periscope was destroyed so the uboat was actually blind underwater.
Since i had 2 more torpedoes on the bow, i decided to try and aim using the map and the hydrophone.

The Battleship was still zigzagging so i made a loop to the left, then to the right and i synchronized the uboat to the battleship for maximum accuracy.

"Rohr eins, LOS! Rohr zwei, LOS!"
I fired the remaining 2 torpedoes.
One of them hit its target, probably near the engines cause it slowed down.
"Now its my chance!" i thought and turned 180degrees the uboat.
Using again the hydrophone, i fired off 2 stern torpedoes.
"Torpedo treffen!" i heard it twice...
Thats its. The ship was going down.
After so many hours of pursuing, fighting and repairing, i managed to bring down the whole task force, including the escort ships.

When i made it back home, promotions and medals were waitting for the torpedo
and repair men!


PS There might be some inaccuracies in, cause this event occured
on my first campaign, a couple months ago.