Dream Convoy

[Keelbuster]

Oh God, thank thee for thy blessing. Last night I was driving U-183 (IXC/40) around my patrol grid in the Carribean. I don't have the grid here, but it was that narrows between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. I get multiple contacts, moving erratically. A mish-mash of warships and merchants. I get excited, and I start getting my intercept on. The convoy changes course once, which threw me off. I ended up flanking and overtaking it, and in the meantime I got a look at a LOT of smoke stacks. There were three warships visible on the West side of the convoy, which seemed like a lot. There turned out to be seven or so in total.

Ok - gotta hurry this up because my supervisor is patrolling here...

I intercept them within sight of the island called Isla Mona (thanks google maps) and I make my approach. I peg them at 10kts (turned out to be closer to 9). Here was the basic makeup of the convoy:

3 columns of 8 or so. It was a _long_ convoy. I had time to reload the fore tubes and attack the rear as it passed by!

6 x Large Tanker
3 x Modern Medium Tanker
2 or 3 x Small Tanker
1 x Escort Carrier
Assorted Cargos
A couple Large Merchants
At the caboose, on it's own, with what seemed to be it's own Frigate guard, was a ship called 'Replenishment' which i identified as a Cyclops-Collier. I had never seen one before, adn hence _had_ to sink her.

In total I got 3 x Large tankers and the Cyclops. It was a haul. I got rammed by a merchant and my conning tower was ravaged (attack peri destroyed, flaks gone). I didn't have enough fuel to flank again and had to head home. Anyway, I'll try to post a pic or two when I get home.

FEEL THE DRUMBEAT.

[TomcatMVD]

:up: Way to go!
Will let you know if I pick up a conning tower around the caribean!:arrgh!: Just check out Lost & Found section at Brest:up:

[FIREWALL]

Sweet Patrol Keelbuster :up:

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Recently I keep getting convoys of small merchants and coastal freighters. :p I'll heva to move from my area, I see, to some new hunting grounds!

[Gezur(Arbeit)]

Well i dont think u sunk the cyclops ^^ its a ghost ship.

[Kaptain Hans Wolf]

juicy convoy. on my old carrer sailing around the atlantic convoy intercepts were few, witch suprised me as on my carrer before that it was a convoy hot spot. oh well, ill just blame bdu! the carribean sounds like a good place to hunt, i may transfer to the long range boats and pop over there when i reach that time in my career.

[Captain Nemo]

Well i dont think u sunk the cyclops ^^ its a ghost ship.

I seem to recall it was one of those Bermuda Triangle mysteries, disappeared without trace.

Nemo

[Gezur(Arbeit)]

Right it sunk without a trace, where and why (exactly) a Diver made a Photo of a bridge, that looked very much like bridge of the cyclops, but other crews searching where the diver made the picture didnt find it.

[Keelbuster]

Cyclops - i think that's what it was called - Collier-type Cyclops - in the rec manual - seems new since GWX 2.0. It's about 10k, a long ship, with 7 pairs of masts. It's salient that way. Still, the T3s were the big payoff. If I had encoutered this brute convoy further out to sea/earlier in the patrol, I would have loved to hound it all the way and systematically reduce it to nothing in three or four assaults. A convoy of that size, you'd have to think that it's complete destruction would have a noticeable impact on the course of the war.

The gap I described between dominican and puerto rico is ripe with lone tankers too - i caught two or three single T2s or T3s, moving fast. Deck-gun bait. Bigtime.

[Gezur(Arbeit)]

Sure, there are 2 types, the cyclops, and the cyclops class (this is what its called?), the cyclops (the special ship) is not sinkable, torps will pass through it and shells will not impact.

[Keelbuster]

Sure, there are 2 types, the cyclops, and the cyclops class (this is what its called?), the cyclops (the special ship) is not sinkable, torps will pass through it and shells will not impact.

Interesting...this was the smaller of the two - Coller-class Cyclops, or whatever. Too bad about the Cyclops - it's a heavy one - i'd hate to fire 4 torps at her and get nothing. Then, I'd probably try to deck gun her. Maybe that would work?

[Gezur(Arbeit)]

I didnt try it yet, but how about putting this ship into a mission with the editor and to try it ;)

[flag4]

gotta see those pics !!

:up:

[bigboywooly]

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/ScreenHunter_259.jpg

:hmm:

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/bigboywooly/ScreenHunter_279.jpg

[Gezur(Arbeit)]

WOW!!! :huh::huh::huh:

THIS looks just awesome! great! man it really looks like a ghost ship :arrgh!:

[TomcatMVD]

WTF?!:doh:

[Brag]

Good action, Keelbuster :up:

[Keelbuster]

Ok boys, I didn't get any decent pics of the convoy...it was just too intense. I only have one periscope shot of my approach - just smokestacks, but if you squint you can get a sense of it:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1637/40554010oh6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

However, the bad news is that U-183 met her demise on her very next patrol (Patrol 7, sept '43). For some wacked-out reason o'le Donitz sent her to AM88, a grid that should have been patrolled by a Type VII. Anyway, here are some shots from her ambitious career:

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4828/83339747bx1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/3774/14920400iy0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)



http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/8986/13894419ks3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4804/45550679lq3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8340/95747041bl6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)




Sneaking into Key West!!!

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/7699/38434863xs8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8154/46653822cj9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Death Bomb:

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/545/10fw7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/2707/11me4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/7528/12mu7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1550/13ff4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


G'night boys.

[TomcatMVD]

Love the one breaking the surface:rock:
A shame we´re not counting with U-183 anymore!
Good career Herr Kaleun!

[Jimbuna]

Well i dont think u sunk the cyclops ^^ its a ghost ship.

I seem to recall it was one of those Bermuda Triangle mysteries, disappeared without trace.

Nemo

http://www.numa.net/expeditions/cyclops.html

http://www.byerly.org/bt2.htm

[Grayson02sept1980]

nice pic!

:up:

like it and

SMOKIN! :rock:

[AG124]

The Cyclops class collier in GWX should be considered separate from the Cyclops ghost ship; The Cyclops did indeed disappear without a trace during WWI, but two of her sisters (Proteus and Nereus) survived to be sold to Canada during WWII (ironically, both of them disappeared with a trace as well - most sources state that they were 'probably U-boat victims' but it seems most likely that their dilapidated hulls broke apart during rough weather).

The Cyclopsclass collier in GWX also represents generic colliers with the general aft and bow superstructures and midships cranes (there were a number of colliers with this general design, although most were smaller than the Proteus and Nereus) - you'll notice that I built the ship with a more generic winged bridge than the solid bridge on stilts that actual ships of the class had. Also, you'll notice that the Cyclops ghost ship has different cranes than the Cyclops-class, and double funnels (as built by Privateer - the creator of the amazingly well-done ghost ship in GWX) - this was an internal variation amongst different ships in the class (some such as the Cyclops, had double funnels and connected cranes, and others such as the Proteus and Nereus, had a single funnel and separated cranes- this might have been a 1920s refit, but I'm not sure).

Also, there were four other members of the class- USS Jupiter (converted to USS Langley CV 1 and sunk by Japanese A/C 1942, USS Orion (grounded, raised and scrapped mid 1930s), and USS Neptune and Jason (scrapped mid-late 1930s).

BTW - Glad to see that some people are finding this particularly rare and inviting target and making appropriate use of her.:hmm: