The Patrick J. Hurley 10,680 ton tanker sunk by gunfire from submarine.

[NEON DEON]

"The tanker began to burn shortly after the attack and was abandoned in about 10 minutes. The U-boat then rounded the stern and fired a few shells into the port side, leaving the vessel on fire and sinking. (O.N.I. Note: This was probably the SS Patrick J. Hurley, U.S. tanker, 10,865 G.T., sunk after attack on the 12th of September at 2335 in 25.59 N - 46.15 W. The Hurley was sunk by gun fire from a surfaced submarine.) After the sinking Schultze is alleged to have reported home that he had sunk a tanker of 7,500 tons. He received a return message from the Admiral in Command of U-boats which read roughly as follows: "The ship you sank was not 7,500 but 10,680 tons. It was the Herley Patrick" (sic). This caused great satisfaction and a victory pennant was prepared showing this tonnage."


Deck guns can destroy ships.:yep:

http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-512INT.htm

http://www.dvrbs.com/ccwd-ww2/WW2-MM-RichardOliverKelleher.htm

http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/TDIH/september/12Sep.txt

http://www.armed-guard.com/sunk.html

http://www.usmm.org/carib.html#anchor476032

[SteamWake]

The above quote leads me to believe that it was more than a deck gun :)

[Wilcke]

All well and good and the more information the better. Tactically, when planning an attack the "battle surface" command is way down on the list of cards to play. When playing careers I seldom if ever use the deck gun. I once had a mod to destabilize the deck gun and it was an eye opener, I think I was able to get a shot off every minute or so and my hit percentage was under 50% or so. I do not know what happened to it I looked on the HD but I must have tossed it, it had many other issues.

There are mods available to increase the ROF and shell power of the DG for those folks that wish to battle surface. The more variations and knowledge the better when it comes to these PC sims.

Well, good luck and happy hunting!

[Rockin Robbins]

Hey, give Neon his moment of glory! He's been looking for something like that for a long time. At the very least, here is a highly flammable target, finished off by a deck gun. You have to grant that the deck gun was not totally useless, Neon's point for over a year.

And you have to grant that Neon gave links to research his find. Any questions that can be asked here are most likely answered in his links. 7,500, 10,680, who cares! That's one big target to bring down, even just finished off, by a deck gun.

So I'm not asking any questions. I'm spending some time checking out the links. Good find, Neon!:up::up::up:

Edit: Links read. I have no questions. This is a deck gun only attack, as the Captain, apparent brother to Colonel Klink of Stalag 13, couldn't come up with a torpedo hit with four shots. In frustration he surfaced and sank the tanker by gunfire. The fact that the tanker easily burned contributed and may be the only reason for the sinking. But it is a well established larger than 3,000 tons sinking by deck gun only. Any more out there to be found? Great find, Neon!

[NEON DEON]

The above quote leads me to believe that it was more than a deck gun :)

Yes. The ocean.:D

[Rockin Robbins]

Now you've gone too far, Neon! The sun was also up wrinkling the plating on the ship. This causes leaks, sinking the boat. THE SUN DID IT!!!:know:

[NEON DEON]

Now you've gone too far, Neon! The sun was also up wrinkling the plating on the ship. This causes leaks, sinking the boat. THE SUN DID IT!!!:know:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Well I would like to offer my point of view which is a bit different(not that I am a contrarian or anything:roll: ).

It was the Moon as in Moonshine that did the SS Patrick J Hurley in. You see the third mate had just come on duty after sipping a bit too much White Lightning his Uncle Jed had given to him as a going away present. Lester T Foggyhead went to the number one Storage tank to check the condition. After a rather perilous few minutes in the tank Lester emerged from the tank and lit up a cigar his Uncle had given him along with the Moonshine. Meanwhile U 512 opened fire. The first shell sailed over the bridge and the first mate went hard over which is not much of a jolt but enough of one to knock the wobbly Liquored up Lester off balance and straight into the open hatch of the number one tank lit cigar and all. The cigar ignited the keosene fumes and the rest is history.:arrgh!:

Anyways thats me story and I am not sticking too it;)

[tater]

At 01.35 hours on 13 Sep, 1942, the unescorted Patrick J. Hurley (Master Carl Stromgren) was attacked with all guns by U-512 (http://uboat.net/find_boat.php3?find_boat=512) about 950 miles northeast of Barbados just when a lookout spotted the U-boat about 150 yards off the starboard bow, running parallel to the ship. The U-boat had missed the tanker with a torpedo during daylight the day before and apparently had a long time to catch the tanker, which was running at 15 knots. The gunfire hit the midships cabins, destroyed the radio antenna, wrecked the lifeboats, destroyed the forward 3in gun (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in, two 50mm and two 20mm guns), damaged the engine room and holed the tanker at the waterline, starting a fire in the cargo.
The tanker increased speed to about 17 knots and tried to escape by evasive maneuvres, while the armed guards fired six rounds from the stern gun and the 20mm guns, but to no avail. The U-boat fired about 30 shells, which turned the ship into a flaming inferno within ten minutes and caused her to sink shortly after dawn. The most of the ten officers, 34 crewmen and 18 armed guards on board abandoned ship in two lifeboats and two rafts when she was still under way and later redistributed into the two boats. The master, three officers, nine crewmen and four armed guards were lost.

Caught a tanker on fire, and it took a few hours to sink, looks like (attack at 1:35, sinking near dawn). 30 rounds from the DG.

Only one large ship was sunk by a US boat in the whole war with the DG. Very few above 1000 tons were ever even fired on by USN boats.