The Black Swan

[IrischKapitan]

My type IID is still operaiting from Keil, and I was assigned a grid (BF15 i think). After a hectic crossing of the channel (a present from the RAF), I finally made it unschathed to St Georges Channel...

After a fruitless days of searching for contacts, the weather turned for the worst (fog, rain and hurricane winds, you name it, it was there.), My little IID was swamped by heavy swells. Suddenly my WO screams WERE UNDER ATTACK!!!! Two Black Swans were closing fast from 300 and 45 at about 700m, Luckly the rough seas threw off their aiming. Diving as quick as I could, but not quick enough at 45m a series of rough DC raked my little hull. Heavy flooding in my engine room, eleccy room, stern quarters. My port diesil was destroyed, bow electric mortor heavily damaged, radio destroyed, both scopes heavily damaged and all tubes heavily damaged. Before I knew it I was at 100m and my boat was sinking stern first. I was losing 3m every 10 seconds, and time was running out.

At 145 m I stopped the flooding, I had apparently ran into a HUGE convoy , and I couldnt attack it :damn::damn:. With the convoy passing straight over me, i had a few minutes peace......

The swans failed to pick me up nor any of the other escorts.. PHWEW.......
I limped back to Brest the next morning making 3knts on one deisil .

I can now appreciate the deadlyness of those swans :yep::yep:

[GoldenRivet]

a determined breed those black swans are.

If given a chance i try to sink one traveling alone. One less for the enemy cause.

[Redshirt]

Had a similar experience in heavy fog south of Spain was trying to hunt down what I thought was a single merchant/cargo I had glimpsed through the murk. So I was plowing along on the surface when out of the fog tracers start wizzing past and some rather large pointy shells :o

ALARM - crash dive, just as im sinking under the waves I spot my attacks through th fog two rather pissed destroyers. The next 45 minutes was a crazy frenzy of dodge weave, depth changing and plugging the leaks those damn pointy shells had made in my boat during the crash dive.

Interesting and rather sobering experience, im guessing the solo ship I thought I had spotted was actually one from the tail end of a convoy :doh:

Note to self - use hydrophones more often and heavy fog = bad mmm k

[bigboywooly]

Stalking a convoy many moons ago in GW 1.1 1940 off the Spanish coast
Lost visual contact in the fog so dived to find the heading then surfaced to race ahead

Must have buggered up my working out as ran straight into the middle of the convoy
Unfortunately for me had a BB in the middle

Boom Boom
Crash dive

Serious flooding
No scopes left\Hydraphone gone and no guns
Basically topside was gone
Watch crew dead and only one engine

Escorts never found me though as weather was cr@p
Black Swans missed out that day

Took me over a month to get to Vigo and wait for the tanker
No way going back through the channel on one engine with no eyes or ears

[Hadrys]

At 145 m I stopped the flooding, I had apparently ran into a HUGE convoy , and I couldnt attack it :damn::damn:. With the convoy passing straight over me, i had a few minutes peace......

Get yourself longer repair time mod, you want stop flooding in few secs. Avg time to stop flooding in a single compartment is about 15 min up to more than an hour.... :arrgh!:

[mowgli99]

Man..... Black swans. The scourge of the sea. I have been encountering them more often nowadays. There easy to sink with 1 mag torp though. On one patrol there was a crippled convoy with about five swans. 2 were smoking and stayed at their position the others came and i sunk them on approach. After that....mega tonnnage:rock: .