Desperate Measures

[Keelbuster]

So I take on this nice little convoy in the Gibraltar approach, October 1943. Radio says 5kts so I smile and flank it. After a hydrophone check I surface and get surprised by a patrolling Catalina. I duke it out and manage to bring her down by manning the quad-AA gun myself. It feels good. I get in position and watch them approach. It's glassy-still, and about 10pm. Just one lead escort - turns out to be a Buckleys. Behind it is a medium cargo, a medium tanker, and a small tanker. Easy money. I let the Buckley pass then think - darn - I probably should have just sunk it and then had my way with the merchants but it was too late - he was passed and was snaking. I line up and hit all three ships, with the two tankers breaking up immediately. The medium cargo burns but keeps going. I get deep and go across the convoy - but too loud. The Buckleys finds me - pinging me from what must have been like 2km away. And boy is he pissed. He drops sets of 10 charges at a time, sometimes twice per run (like one run, then turn slightly, and fire take a second run before turning around - I'd never experienced this!). I do the usual evasive thing but he scores a hit and messes up the stern some. I have to run and fix things while he lines up for another good run. Bam - again - flooding amidships and more damage to fix.

This goes on for a while more. I usually don't use decoys for a single pursuer, but he seems so determined and skilled that I start letting them go. They do nothing for me - I can't shake him; he immediately picks me up on active sonar again after each DC run, and he seems to ignore the decoys compeletly. He lands a major hit - all devices on the watch tower are DESTROYED. Basically, the patrol is over. The career might be too. I start to get panicked and send decoys out in bulk, flanking as best I can while trying to keep him astern of me. At one point he goes after a decoy and I run like hell. I get a few minutes peace, thinking I've escaped, and then PING - back again on active. I just can't shake him. More DCs - seemingly an unlimited supply. Then I run out of decoys.

This has gone on for an hour and a half. I can't lose him. I risk my brittle hull and go down to 220m. Phew, she holds. But still no luck - the crystal clear water is like an open window. I can't shake this bastard. Pretty soon we're gonna be Buckley's Mixture. In my mind there's only one desperate option remaining - to come back to PD and take him out. In between DC runs I load the forward tubes. More close hits and flooding. I start my ascent. By the time I'm at PD, he's approaching astern. I have NO PERISCOPES. So I get a bearing off the hydrophone and fire my stern tube down it. Miss. I do a little dive to 25m to avoid getting rammed and then he's overtop and passed me. He DCs like crazy, but luckily they're deep. Back to PD. Open all bow tubes. He's zigging left. I fire each tube at 5 degree intervals, starting 10 degrees to the left of his bearing. Waiting....then... BAM. One of them gets him. 'She's going down!'. I surface to see the burning hulk slip under the waves. Massive elation throughout the boat: desperate, but still alive. Time to break out the rum ration.

Now to begin the return journey to Nazaire with no periscopes, no radio, no radar warning receivers. Hoping to get back by the old method - travelling by day and crash diving when the planes show up....:huh:

[Freiwillige]

:o DAMN!

[bookworm_020]

OUCH!:huh:

Makes you wish that you had sunk him first and then moved onto the convoy. It will be a long hard trip home, but you will have one hell of a story to tell when you get there!:yep:

[harzfeld]

what uboat type were u in? ya, if u have an opportunity to sink leading escort, always take it. I am in 1943 as well, but I am in spring right now, can't wait for VIIC/41 in October to get rid of this IXD2 tanker. How much damage was on ur hull?

[Graf Paper]

Almost the same thing happened to me on my last patrol, except it was a very determined Dido. This was in early Nov. 1940, so no BOLD to aid my escape, just sheer cunning, inhuman patience, and lots of prayer for myself and the brave crew of U-47.

He dropped his DCs in clusters of six and seemed to have a psychic's gift for knowing my exact position despite diving the boat to 160+ meters and killing my engines to drift. Two near misses took out nearly everything topside and damaged four compartments along with destroying my internal forward torpedo reserves, leaving me with just four eels to reload. The crew just managed to get the flooding under control as we sunk to 223 meters.

Is it just me or have the depth charges suddenly gotten about twice as powerful?

I managed to elude him after several hours with much maneuvering, quick bursts of 'Ahead Flank' at times when he was turning away, and then drifting at 'All Stop'. I eventually surfaced and did an overtake of the convoy with decks awash because all I had left was my UZO. I moved in at 2350 hours and gave them hell! Took down two large merchies, but my other two shots missed as I had them set for magnetic because of the sharp angle of the firing solution.

I slipped out of there at 'Ahead Flank' and the escorts never knew where I was thanks to my speed and running nearly surfaced, with only my conning tower exposed.

I may have time to slip in one more patrol before 1941 rolls around, at which time I'll hope the BdU has finally gotten around to moving me to Brest and missions in deeper waters. He sure is taking his time, seeing that our side took possession of thoe French ports six months ago.

[Myxale]

Wow, great read. And patrol!
You had moments that beat "Das Boot"!
:up:Kudos to for you "blind" kill!

[Konovalov]

Now that really was a bad day at the office. At least you got the chance to tell the tale. Great read. :up:

[KptLt Lindemann]

:o Hell of a story Kaleun. I hope your journey home is much less eventful.

[Platapus]

great exciting story. It is patrols like that which make this game so much more exciting than just "shoot-em-ups"

You also have a gift for narration. Just in that short post, I was starting to feel the changes of emotion as this battle ebbed and flowed.

One thing is clear. Despite this being a game, it is evident that you acted like a Captain should. You never gave up and tried everything to get the job done.

That must have been a thrilling mission!

Salute

BTW, what is "Buckley's Mixture"?:hmm:

[Keelbuster]

what uboat type were u in? ya, if u have an opportunity to sink leading escort, always take it. I am in 1943 as well, but I am in spring right now, can't wait for VIIC/41 in October to get rid of this IXD2 tanker. How much damage was on ur hull?

My o'le trusty VIIC - maxed out with '43 upgrades. I fear the damage report when and _if_ I make it back later tonight.

[Keelbuster]

Almost the same thing happened to me on my last patrol, except it was a very determined Dido.

Dido's a cruiser, right? I didn't think they have DC racks. Maybe a big destroyer?

[Keelbuster]

Glad you boys enjoyed it more than I did. I was ready to throw up for most of it. There's one new lesson for me here - it's definitely worth it to sink the escort if there's only one. And one old lesson has been double underlined - if it's perfectly calm, make it a _long_ shot. Oh, and I guess I found out that you don't _really_ need your periscope to get things done.

God I love this game:rock:

P.S. Buckley's Mixture is a foul kind of cough syrup: add three parts oil, two parts schteel, one part sailor, and stir it all up with compressed air and a couple of DCs:D

[danurve]

Cool Read, what kind of eels did you use?

[von stauber]

and as a writer- keep the posts coming when you get back , patch her up and shove off again!!!

[Keelbuster]

Cool Read, what kind of eels did you use?

Um..ok - Juicy Attack Details.

The inital strike on the convoy was: for the medium merchant, a T1 FaT1 set on medium, keel-depth+1, aimed amidships. To the medium tanker, i sent a T1 Fat1 on medium at the bow, keel depth+1, but I gave a T2 Fat1 a head start, heading amidships at 4m. Finally, the small tanker was cracked in half by a T1 Fat1 set at 3m - it hit amidships - and i'd never seen one of those tough little bastards break up before.

As for the 'desperate measures', I had a T2 in the back, and in the front I had two T2s and two T1 FaT1s. I set all of them at 4.2m since Buckley was listed as 3.5. Actually, I'm not sure if it was actually a Buckleys - i have to check the log when I get home. The two T2s up front went out first, and then the T1s went out on medium. Since it was a knife-fight, I cranked up the run-to-enable on the T1s so they didn't find me instead. They were all zero-gyro shots set for 300m run, and I used the 'broken' periscope to update the bearing in the TDC even though it couldn't be raised. I think it was one of the T1s that got him.

Note - it occurs to me that if the peri is really 'destroyed', you shouldn't be able to use it to set the gyro angle in the TDC. I'll have to take another look at the TDC to see if you can manual set the gyro - that would be the legit way to do it.

Note 2 - i've decided that in the future I'm going to keep all 3 stern fish as homing torps. This situation would have been a lot less precarious if I could have popped up, set one of those on his ass and then got down again. If all four of my bow fish had missed....well...we would have been tits up. Though, I guess I could have surfaced for a final deck gun duel:)

[Brag]

That was a gripping account!
Congratulations and safe return to St. Naz

[predavolk]

Wow! Nice one! That had to feel pretty damn satisfying- it felt that for me living it vicariously!

[Gezoes]

Good story and a safe trip home!

Actually, I'm reading Clay Blair's 'Hitler's U-boat war' (part 1 - the hunters - until 1942) now, wich I can recommend to anyone btw...

I think I remember Donitz ordered to take out escorts first in 1941, when it came to Gibraltar convoy's ;)

[trongey]

Back in my SHI days I used to do sound shots on Destroyers all the time. They loved to use the wheel attach in that game so I learned to watch for the stationary pinger. I would rotate to line up with him, float up to firing depth, and shoot straight ahead shallow depth. After I sunk two or three of them the rest would usually run away!

[Rykaird]

Great read!

By the way, if you had taken out the destroyer, it would have resulted in yet another routine conovy run, instead of the adventure you wound up with. As long as you survive, then its a story for grog mates and grandchildren!

[the.terrabyte.pirate]

Great read!

By the way, if you had taken out the destroyer, it would have resulted in yet another routine conovy run, instead of the adventure you wound up with. As long as you survive, then its a story for grog mates and grandchildren!
Ha, and everyone he told the story too, from grog mates to grandchildren, would ask "...but why didn't you sink the escort first?" :damn::rotfl:

[antikristuseke]

Great story and you were lucky, incredibly so, my last career ended with the third string from a Flower, first one was a miss, the second rocked my boat with no damage and the third destroyed bost diesels

[Keelbuster]

Ok - so we made it back with no scopes. That was a major relief. The engineers reckoned we had 85% hull integrity. But BDU had a cruel sense of humour about it - they sent us right back to ET13. Once again we encountered a convoy in the gibraltar approach moving at 5kts. Protocol dictated that we attack. So we did. This time in fog and rain. Luckily, based on radio reports, I had their course charted almost exactly. We move in. I attack from what I thought was 3km. It turned out to be about 2km. I hit with 3 torps and sunk a troop transport for 16k, and a small freighter for 1.6k. But then we were detected. Relentless ASDIC ensued. I sunk an V&W with a T5. I was DCed right to hell - port propeller destroyed! Decoy Launcher destroyed! I limped away at 1kt (and discovered that even with a destroyed decoy launcher, you can still launch decoys). We made it back to port on 1 screw. I've updated my GWX 2.0 lessons - now I'm only bringing T1 FaTs, and I'm attacking from 4km min. It's just way too dangerous to get close now. (Dec '43).

[Keelbuster]

Or else...later in patrol 13, attacking a Casablanca class in an HK group from fairly far (~3km), I sunk her with three hits and then got detected by a snooping escort far on the port side of the convoy. It is as if he knew where to look - he had broken formation and was snaking out near our position. After a long depth charging, we took heavy hits and had flooding in almost all compartments. We sunk to 250m, and had to blow ballast to level off. With the flooding stopped, we were still heavily damaged and could only pull 1kt at flank bell. The fatal DC destroyed the stern torpedo room and that was it. U-97 sunk with all hands somewhere in Grid AL29, Dec 31, 1943. In 13 patrols, she sunk 78 ships (14 warships) for a total of 591,386 G.R.T.

[Kipparikalle]

Great one man! You really had the lucky day didn't ya?

Desperate needs have desperate measures.

[Danelov]

That remember me the film "Duel in the Atlantic" with Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens, well the end is quite different, the U-Boot is always alive and not rammed by the Buckley class DE.