Perseus
04-04-07, 11:06 AM
August, 1940, GWX 1.03. On patrol, heading west, Norwegian coast on our 180, and I get Bdu radio message informing me of an enemy convoy. Switch to map and see the convoy - but instead of a rectangle, I see a circle, slowly moving south.
Head down to 30 meters, full speed and manage to get in a good position just in time. As it is the first time ever that I meet such a convoy - one displayed in a circle - I take an F12 peek and am surprised to hear Stuka's(?) with their distinctive howls. I witness two of the four DDs shooting into the air, but see no planes. Then, front turret of a Black Swan explodes and within moments the DD disappears below the sea.
Helmut at the sonar is going mad, keeps shouting 'merchant!' or 'warship!'. I decide to wait until the merchants come closer and in the meantime follow the air attack on the convoy through the external view. After a while the howling sounds suddenly stop and the C&D class DD quite quickly resumes its screening of the convoy.
Then, just as I want to F6 to the TDC to gear up for my first kill (a large cargo being my target) I suddenly see the bow of a small tanker explode at the other end of the convoy, way in the back. I scurry over in the external view just in time to see the bow disappear below the waves.
Then, another explosion to my right - and pan the camera just in time to see a Black Swan exploding. "Another U-boot must be prowling," I think and hit the F6 - or at least, I think I did because I must have accidentally hit F5, bringing me to the navigation map. Just when I want to hit F6 something catches my eye on the map - not one, not two but three sub symbols to my north-east, on the other side of the convoy :huh:
"Oh, cool," I merrily think and decide to join my kameraden and line up my eels for my kills. Periscope, identify, solution, *swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh*, spread angles. The Jungmans goes *tick-tock-tick-tock*. One eel misses but the other three hit; two hit the large cargo I had targeted, the third strikes a small merchant. "She's going down!" and "She's going down!" soon follow, and the crew in the torpedo room is chanting while they start loading the second eel.
I switch to external view to enjoy some sinking scenes and notice that the DD that had gone back to screening the convoy is now burning, and that at the other end of the convoy! "Jesus, my colleagues must be having a field day" and then notice a small shadow in front of the burning DD. So I zoom in and it's a VIIC, lying still on the service. I can tell she's heavily damaged. No crew on the conning tower, nothing - just the damaged U-boot wobbling in the waves. :dead:
Then I see another small gray dot, farther away, and zoom in. Another VIIC, also wobbling on the surface. Same thing - heavily damaged I can tell, with no crew in the conning tower. I switch to navigation map, and identify the two subs I saw on it. But there's the third sub symbol, to the left of the second, and so pop back to external view and go on a search. And sure enough, there's the third sub, yet another VIIC wobbling on the surface, heavy damage but no one in the conning tower.
I manage to torp one medium-size tanker and damage a merchant, but then leave the area FAST as a furious Black Swan comes storming in, pinging away like mad.
All very exciting of course and I love the fact that at least GWX has the Wolfpack thing going, but I did find it very odd to see the 3 VIICs just wobbling there on the surface. Does this mean they all three surrendered? Is that even possible?
I know I've had a couple of instances where I had no other choice but to surface (including one stint which saw 3 DDs having a field day right on top of me and me recording 12 deaths and just about everything but the ballast tanks damaged) but each time I came onto the surface, I got blased to pieces.
So what's the deal?
Head down to 30 meters, full speed and manage to get in a good position just in time. As it is the first time ever that I meet such a convoy - one displayed in a circle - I take an F12 peek and am surprised to hear Stuka's(?) with their distinctive howls. I witness two of the four DDs shooting into the air, but see no planes. Then, front turret of a Black Swan explodes and within moments the DD disappears below the sea.
Helmut at the sonar is going mad, keeps shouting 'merchant!' or 'warship!'. I decide to wait until the merchants come closer and in the meantime follow the air attack on the convoy through the external view. After a while the howling sounds suddenly stop and the C&D class DD quite quickly resumes its screening of the convoy.
Then, just as I want to F6 to the TDC to gear up for my first kill (a large cargo being my target) I suddenly see the bow of a small tanker explode at the other end of the convoy, way in the back. I scurry over in the external view just in time to see the bow disappear below the waves.
Then, another explosion to my right - and pan the camera just in time to see a Black Swan exploding. "Another U-boot must be prowling," I think and hit the F6 - or at least, I think I did because I must have accidentally hit F5, bringing me to the navigation map. Just when I want to hit F6 something catches my eye on the map - not one, not two but three sub symbols to my north-east, on the other side of the convoy :huh:
"Oh, cool," I merrily think and decide to join my kameraden and line up my eels for my kills. Periscope, identify, solution, *swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh*, spread angles. The Jungmans goes *tick-tock-tick-tock*. One eel misses but the other three hit; two hit the large cargo I had targeted, the third strikes a small merchant. "She's going down!" and "She's going down!" soon follow, and the crew in the torpedo room is chanting while they start loading the second eel.
I switch to external view to enjoy some sinking scenes and notice that the DD that had gone back to screening the convoy is now burning, and that at the other end of the convoy! "Jesus, my colleagues must be having a field day" and then notice a small shadow in front of the burning DD. So I zoom in and it's a VIIC, lying still on the service. I can tell she's heavily damaged. No crew on the conning tower, nothing - just the damaged U-boot wobbling in the waves. :dead:
Then I see another small gray dot, farther away, and zoom in. Another VIIC, also wobbling on the surface. Same thing - heavily damaged I can tell, with no crew in the conning tower. I switch to navigation map, and identify the two subs I saw on it. But there's the third sub symbol, to the left of the second, and so pop back to external view and go on a search. And sure enough, there's the third sub, yet another VIIC wobbling on the surface, heavy damage but no one in the conning tower.
I manage to torp one medium-size tanker and damage a merchant, but then leave the area FAST as a furious Black Swan comes storming in, pinging away like mad.
All very exciting of course and I love the fact that at least GWX has the Wolfpack thing going, but I did find it very odd to see the 3 VIICs just wobbling there on the surface. Does this mean they all three surrendered? Is that even possible?
I know I've had a couple of instances where I had no other choice but to surface (including one stint which saw 3 DDs having a field day right on top of me and me recording 12 deaths and just about everything but the ballast tanks damaged) but each time I came onto the surface, I got blased to pieces.
So what's the deal?