Herr Russ
12-22-06, 11:10 AM
Running Patched Vanilla..
Just finished my 24 hour patrol in some barren grid NW of Freetown in my IXC.. Since I had a ton of eels left (used one and sunk a C3 outside of Gibraltar), I decided to plot a course due west & visit my favorite Tanker grounds NW of Port of Spain.. It's late October 1942 and the seas were rough.. I kicked TC up to 256 and left the control room to get a cup of coffee.
Came back in and noticed my TC was down to 8 and there was a huge red square on my plot.. A fast convoy was headed my way.. I radioed in a contact report & churned my way NE in the rough seas to get into position. My top speed was only 13 kts and the convoy was doing 16. It was 1000 but so overcast and rough that I had to use my attack scope on the surface to see over the crests.. I counted 7 troop transports, 3 destroyers and a Fiji light cruiser.. Once in position, I set all my eels to magnetic & 10 meters and fully manned my torpedo rooms.. Although I wasn't in the best position, the forward screen passed by me while I was silent running at 25 meters. At PD, my conning tower kept breaking the surface so I had to run deeper.
I thought of my options.. If they were running slower or the weather wasn't so rough, I'd go for the escorts & then pick off the transports at my liesure, but as it was, I'd probably only have enough time to slow some down before the rest sped off. I would never catch up to them and it was too rough for my deck gun crew.
With the columns of transports approaching from port, I raised my scope at 25 meters, secured from silent running and and crept up to periscope depth. One destroyer was well to my starboard side with the Southern screen about 1000 meters behind me. I sighted in on the furthest transport that I had a hope of hitting and began firing my fish.. Once all 4 forward tubes were empty I spun the scope around and let loose with my 2 stern tubes.. I dropped back down to 20 meters and painfully watched the tubes slowly reload.. A few torpedo impacts later and I was back on hunt with 2 tubes reloaded at that point! I hit periscope depth and saw two transports listing and two others were hit but not slowing enough. With the escorts closing I took a quick look around. The Fiji light cruiser had gotten between me and the transports and appeared to be damaged (listing & 5 kts). I hit her with another eel from my stern tube and used my forward tubes to try for a second shot on the fleeing wounded transports who were starting to zig zag by then. With the destroyers breathing down my neck, I crash dived and headed in the direction of the nearest listing ship. I managed to lose the escorts by ducking under a sinking transport and went to silent running. After a few hundred depthcharges (it seemed), they gave up and rejoined the transports, now far to the East.. I surfaced to recharge my batteries and to load my external spares.. No ships were visible and according to my log, I got three out of the seven transports and the light cruiser.. I hope Uncle Karl is happy ;) Now it's back to the tankers!! :up:
Just finished my 24 hour patrol in some barren grid NW of Freetown in my IXC.. Since I had a ton of eels left (used one and sunk a C3 outside of Gibraltar), I decided to plot a course due west & visit my favorite Tanker grounds NW of Port of Spain.. It's late October 1942 and the seas were rough.. I kicked TC up to 256 and left the control room to get a cup of coffee.
Came back in and noticed my TC was down to 8 and there was a huge red square on my plot.. A fast convoy was headed my way.. I radioed in a contact report & churned my way NE in the rough seas to get into position. My top speed was only 13 kts and the convoy was doing 16. It was 1000 but so overcast and rough that I had to use my attack scope on the surface to see over the crests.. I counted 7 troop transports, 3 destroyers and a Fiji light cruiser.. Once in position, I set all my eels to magnetic & 10 meters and fully manned my torpedo rooms.. Although I wasn't in the best position, the forward screen passed by me while I was silent running at 25 meters. At PD, my conning tower kept breaking the surface so I had to run deeper.
I thought of my options.. If they were running slower or the weather wasn't so rough, I'd go for the escorts & then pick off the transports at my liesure, but as it was, I'd probably only have enough time to slow some down before the rest sped off. I would never catch up to them and it was too rough for my deck gun crew.
With the columns of transports approaching from port, I raised my scope at 25 meters, secured from silent running and and crept up to periscope depth. One destroyer was well to my starboard side with the Southern screen about 1000 meters behind me. I sighted in on the furthest transport that I had a hope of hitting and began firing my fish.. Once all 4 forward tubes were empty I spun the scope around and let loose with my 2 stern tubes.. I dropped back down to 20 meters and painfully watched the tubes slowly reload.. A few torpedo impacts later and I was back on hunt with 2 tubes reloaded at that point! I hit periscope depth and saw two transports listing and two others were hit but not slowing enough. With the escorts closing I took a quick look around. The Fiji light cruiser had gotten between me and the transports and appeared to be damaged (listing & 5 kts). I hit her with another eel from my stern tube and used my forward tubes to try for a second shot on the fleeing wounded transports who were starting to zig zag by then. With the destroyers breathing down my neck, I crash dived and headed in the direction of the nearest listing ship. I managed to lose the escorts by ducking under a sinking transport and went to silent running. After a few hundred depthcharges (it seemed), they gave up and rejoined the transports, now far to the East.. I surfaced to recharge my batteries and to load my external spares.. No ships were visible and according to my log, I got three out of the seven transports and the light cruiser.. I hope Uncle Karl is happy ;) Now it's back to the tankers!! :up: