Albrecht Von Hesse
01-04-07, 12:34 PM
Ok, still on my forth patrol (Jan '41) cruising around BE13 -15 area, almost 9 days of nothing after a very delightful start of the patrol. I get a contact update, and my brows rise, as it's tagged as a large convoy but comes up as a big circle rather than a square. Shrugging, I plot out an intercept and off U-77 goes at flank speed.
Several hours later I get another update. This time the convoy is tagged with a square, with a smaller, singleton medium merchant also identified on a rendezvous course . . . and a VIIC also on an intercept course from behind!
I finally get within visual range of the convoy, and spot two Black swans escorting it. Both are damaged and on fire, one a lot worse than the other. And way off in the distance is barrelling an apparantly healthy one towards the convoy. Evidentally it's responding to a distress call.
I delayed too long submerging, which became obvious when the healthy one started pinging me 15 minutes later. After a long, dogged cat-and-mouse game, during which I knew that juicy convoy was escaping, I finally decided to do something risky (and after the fact I decided that's not something I'll ever do again, unless I've no choice).
The undamaged, newly-arrived black swan was continually circling widdershins, so when it started on an attack run I turned on the same bearing, went to flank and to periscope depth. I'd already pre-setup a steamer for the right depth, speed and magnetic setting, and as soon as I hit periscope depth I popped the scope up, sighted the butt end of the frigate having just passed over me, took bearing, AoB and range, and fired.
Down scope, counted the seconds, then cheered at the explosion. Finally! Now back to the convoy!
I could hear the pathetic pings of the ship, weakly chirping as it shipped water and started foundering. But then they started getting louder, more vicious. What the heck?
Popping up the scope, my blood turned to ice . . . as a second, undamaged black swan was bearing down on me at full speed! I've no idea where it came from, and I had seconds to decide. I'd already had a second steamer preset for a black swan, so I opened the door, locked the scope onto it, collected the information I needed.
By now it was less than 600 meters away, the bone in its teeth filling my scope at 10X. I fired, then crash-dived and made a hard port turn at 60 degrees.
That one hit, as well, and off I went after the convoy, out of torpedoes but having about 30 HE rounds left for the deck gun.
Except that last, heavily-damaged escort simply would not leave me be! It's max speed was 7 knots, and its companion even worse: 2 knots. And between the two they hounded me for over two hours! They either have dropped all their ashcans against the never-actually-spotted U-boat, or were so damaged they couldn't use them, but that's not stopping them from searching for me.
When I finally saved last night before heading off to my rack, they were still looking for me, decks ablaze and smoke shrouding the horizon from them, but they ain't giving up it seems!
Several hours later I get another update. This time the convoy is tagged with a square, with a smaller, singleton medium merchant also identified on a rendezvous course . . . and a VIIC also on an intercept course from behind!
I finally get within visual range of the convoy, and spot two Black swans escorting it. Both are damaged and on fire, one a lot worse than the other. And way off in the distance is barrelling an apparantly healthy one towards the convoy. Evidentally it's responding to a distress call.
I delayed too long submerging, which became obvious when the healthy one started pinging me 15 minutes later. After a long, dogged cat-and-mouse game, during which I knew that juicy convoy was escaping, I finally decided to do something risky (and after the fact I decided that's not something I'll ever do again, unless I've no choice).
The undamaged, newly-arrived black swan was continually circling widdershins, so when it started on an attack run I turned on the same bearing, went to flank and to periscope depth. I'd already pre-setup a steamer for the right depth, speed and magnetic setting, and as soon as I hit periscope depth I popped the scope up, sighted the butt end of the frigate having just passed over me, took bearing, AoB and range, and fired.
Down scope, counted the seconds, then cheered at the explosion. Finally! Now back to the convoy!
I could hear the pathetic pings of the ship, weakly chirping as it shipped water and started foundering. But then they started getting louder, more vicious. What the heck?
Popping up the scope, my blood turned to ice . . . as a second, undamaged black swan was bearing down on me at full speed! I've no idea where it came from, and I had seconds to decide. I'd already had a second steamer preset for a black swan, so I opened the door, locked the scope onto it, collected the information I needed.
By now it was less than 600 meters away, the bone in its teeth filling my scope at 10X. I fired, then crash-dived and made a hard port turn at 60 degrees.
That one hit, as well, and off I went after the convoy, out of torpedoes but having about 30 HE rounds left for the deck gun.
Except that last, heavily-damaged escort simply would not leave me be! It's max speed was 7 knots, and its companion even worse: 2 knots. And between the two they hounded me for over two hours! They either have dropped all their ashcans against the never-actually-spotted U-boat, or were so damaged they couldn't use them, but that's not stopping them from searching for me.
When I finally saved last night before heading off to my rack, they were still looking for me, decks ablaze and smoke shrouding the horizon from them, but they ain't giving up it seems!