barkhorn45
08-28-09, 03:40 PM
Early oct.'40 125 km from the strait of gibralter.Recieve a sonar contact for a convoy approaching from the sw.From the reports it is the largest convoy i've yet seen,stopped counting contact lines after 20.Anyway conditions are appalling,overcast,heavy rain and wind speed of 12 mps.Convoy is headed straight for me no need to manuever.Suddenly a black swan appears less than 300 m away and making a run at me.I crash dive and head sw to go under the convoy.
Depth charges are dropped but they don't do any damage,so i head west until all contact is lost.i surface and find that 2 ship's have evidently been sunk,don't know what kind and of course i don't recieve any credit.
Anyway i dive to take sonar reading's.6 hrs later i get a contact of merchant approaching,so i surface and look in dir. of target.No mer.but there is a glow on the horizon.
I dive and apprach it and find it is a black swan heeled over at an almost 45 degree angle and burning fiercly but moving at 8 knots!I should have known better but i fire a torp and it goes off into oblivion{i don't use manual targeting}so i fire another one,it too goes off into the night.
So i decide to ignore it and concentrate on mer.My sonar say's its getting close but weather has'ent improved,as it gets close i get a report i'm being pinged!Sure enough i swivel the per.and that d**n swan is directly behind me still burning and apparently dead in the water no matter what my torp control is telling me.
Just then the mer.appears moving left to right just over 300 m away I fire a torp knowing it won't arm in time{which it does'nt}the ship disappears into the rain so i turn my attention on the swan.Its still pinging me{you'd think the way it was burning the crew would have better things to do}I manually aim aft tubes and sink it with a torp.Just found it interesting it was showing 8 kn up to the end.So that convoy lost 3 ships with me evidently applying the coup de grae on the last one.Must have been a lot of confusion up there when i went under the convoy.
Depth charges are dropped but they don't do any damage,so i head west until all contact is lost.i surface and find that 2 ship's have evidently been sunk,don't know what kind and of course i don't recieve any credit.
Anyway i dive to take sonar reading's.6 hrs later i get a contact of merchant approaching,so i surface and look in dir. of target.No mer.but there is a glow on the horizon.
I dive and apprach it and find it is a black swan heeled over at an almost 45 degree angle and burning fiercly but moving at 8 knots!I should have known better but i fire a torp and it goes off into oblivion{i don't use manual targeting}so i fire another one,it too goes off into the night.
So i decide to ignore it and concentrate on mer.My sonar say's its getting close but weather has'ent improved,as it gets close i get a report i'm being pinged!Sure enough i swivel the per.and that d**n swan is directly behind me still burning and apparently dead in the water no matter what my torp control is telling me.
Just then the mer.appears moving left to right just over 300 m away I fire a torp knowing it won't arm in time{which it does'nt}the ship disappears into the rain so i turn my attention on the swan.Its still pinging me{you'd think the way it was burning the crew would have better things to do}I manually aim aft tubes and sink it with a torp.Just found it interesting it was showing 8 kn up to the end.So that convoy lost 3 ships with me evidently applying the coup de grae on the last one.Must have been a lot of confusion up there when i went under the convoy.