Woof1701
05-26-07, 05:59 AM
Hi there,
Yesterday evening I encountered my first GWX wolfpack. I use Sergbuto's Wolfpack Mod though and renamed the wolfpack boats in the campaign (as was suggested to me). However I've been prowling the seas for several weeks now real time, and still didn't come across anything remotely resembling a friendly boat outside the harbor areas. Today though I was surprised when I approached a large convoy off Freetown in my Typ IXC in mid 1941. I was running parallel to the convoy in what I thought was a safe distance during the day. I could clearly make out the smoke culumns of the ships (16 km Mod) and was biding my time till dusk. Suddenly when I looked thorugh the binoculars I saw a muzzle flash and thought to myself "Damn they've seen me." I was just about to order flank speed and a course change away from the convoy when I saw another muzzle flash, and another and several more in rapid succession. Someone was hammering away with everything they had, but no bullets came near me and my crew was utterly relaxed. No one was crying "Wir werden angegriffen, Herr Kaleun." So I became suspicious and started scanning the horizon again and was very much surprised to find a ship lagging behind the convoy with lots of smoke rising into the air. Have the Tommies gone loco now shooting up their own ships, or did they maybe come by a German merchant by chance? I decided to find out, pressed the free view cam and slewed towards the convoy. I know it's cheating, but I was just too curious. When I "arrived" I saw that a Corvette was shooting all of it's guns towards the same point. It was listing heavily and making only a few knots. The huge amount of smoke was coming from a British T2 tanker crawling a few kilometers behind. A second escort was also burning and at a standstill and two surrounding merchants showed signs of battle. Something was beginning to dawn on me. Now I concentrated my view on the point in the water the corvette was shooting at and saw a periscope in the water and a Typ VII hanging below the waterline at the scope. Not wise of the guy to attack during the day I thought, but at least he'll be a good diversion and will keep the escorts busy. Strangely enought the escort made no attempt to depth charge the other uboat.
Having seen enough I kept my course, put the pedal to the medal and raced ahead of the convoy at 20 knots and put myself right into their path. Blissfully unaware of my presence the convoy continued on it's way and I was even able to check for the best targets. I singled out a whaling ship and a T3 tanker, which were approaching my fore tubes. With the aft tubes I could have attacked a tramp steamer, but didn't think it worth the eels. Especially since I spotted some large merchants, an Empire class and a C2 freigher. To cut a long story short I was lined up almost perfectly at 90° with only a few hundred meters distance: 4 torpedoes. 4 hits. Two large ships cancelled from the convoy and no escort in sight. Well, there was the one still trying to pump lead into the other ubaot, but it didn't try to discourage me from attacking again. That's too easy. Being the suspiscous kind I checked again whether there were other escorts around, but I couldn't find any, and my sonar man didn't either. Nevertheless I kept the scope down anytime I moved and fell in line with the convoy relying on my sonar man to alert me on any course change. But the convoy was a little faster than me at highest speed submerged, and at that speed I would drain my batteries till evening. And all the juicy targets were ahead of me an out of reach. So I decided to break out of the convoy and run ahead and make a night surface attack. We'll see how that plays out. :arrgh!:
*EDIT*
The reason why I left the convoy alone during the day and didn't surface was, that several large merchants were well armed, and I couldn't use my deck gun. The DD was also lagging behind but still in range and I didn't want to force my luck.
Played out pretty well actually. Got three more large targets that night and made my way to Las Palmas to get new eels. :)
Yesterday evening I encountered my first GWX wolfpack. I use Sergbuto's Wolfpack Mod though and renamed the wolfpack boats in the campaign (as was suggested to me). However I've been prowling the seas for several weeks now real time, and still didn't come across anything remotely resembling a friendly boat outside the harbor areas. Today though I was surprised when I approached a large convoy off Freetown in my Typ IXC in mid 1941. I was running parallel to the convoy in what I thought was a safe distance during the day. I could clearly make out the smoke culumns of the ships (16 km Mod) and was biding my time till dusk. Suddenly when I looked thorugh the binoculars I saw a muzzle flash and thought to myself "Damn they've seen me." I was just about to order flank speed and a course change away from the convoy when I saw another muzzle flash, and another and several more in rapid succession. Someone was hammering away with everything they had, but no bullets came near me and my crew was utterly relaxed. No one was crying "Wir werden angegriffen, Herr Kaleun." So I became suspicious and started scanning the horizon again and was very much surprised to find a ship lagging behind the convoy with lots of smoke rising into the air. Have the Tommies gone loco now shooting up their own ships, or did they maybe come by a German merchant by chance? I decided to find out, pressed the free view cam and slewed towards the convoy. I know it's cheating, but I was just too curious. When I "arrived" I saw that a Corvette was shooting all of it's guns towards the same point. It was listing heavily and making only a few knots. The huge amount of smoke was coming from a British T2 tanker crawling a few kilometers behind. A second escort was also burning and at a standstill and two surrounding merchants showed signs of battle. Something was beginning to dawn on me. Now I concentrated my view on the point in the water the corvette was shooting at and saw a periscope in the water and a Typ VII hanging below the waterline at the scope. Not wise of the guy to attack during the day I thought, but at least he'll be a good diversion and will keep the escorts busy. Strangely enought the escort made no attempt to depth charge the other uboat.
Having seen enough I kept my course, put the pedal to the medal and raced ahead of the convoy at 20 knots and put myself right into their path. Blissfully unaware of my presence the convoy continued on it's way and I was even able to check for the best targets. I singled out a whaling ship and a T3 tanker, which were approaching my fore tubes. With the aft tubes I could have attacked a tramp steamer, but didn't think it worth the eels. Especially since I spotted some large merchants, an Empire class and a C2 freigher. To cut a long story short I was lined up almost perfectly at 90° with only a few hundred meters distance: 4 torpedoes. 4 hits. Two large ships cancelled from the convoy and no escort in sight. Well, there was the one still trying to pump lead into the other ubaot, but it didn't try to discourage me from attacking again. That's too easy. Being the suspiscous kind I checked again whether there were other escorts around, but I couldn't find any, and my sonar man didn't either. Nevertheless I kept the scope down anytime I moved and fell in line with the convoy relying on my sonar man to alert me on any course change. But the convoy was a little faster than me at highest speed submerged, and at that speed I would drain my batteries till evening. And all the juicy targets were ahead of me an out of reach. So I decided to break out of the convoy and run ahead and make a night surface attack. We'll see how that plays out. :arrgh!:
*EDIT*
The reason why I left the convoy alone during the day and didn't surface was, that several large merchants were well armed, and I couldn't use my deck gun. The DD was also lagging behind but still in range and I didn't want to force my luck.
Played out pretty well actually. Got three more large targets that night and made my way to Las Palmas to get new eels. :)