9th_cow
02-23-10, 04:05 PM
Edit: I should have put this in stories and patrol logs, my bad.
This has to go down in history as my worst ever time at sea :D
I set out from Kiel to support the invasion of Norway, on my way to the target area i see 2 ships, and ignore both as I assume incorrectly I will need my fish for something more worth while up north.
6 days pass and I complete my objective without seeing a single ship.
Contacting BDU to ask for new orders and I am told to patroll the area of my choice.
I patrol the North Sea top to bottom 2 times, seeing a few planes, but not one single ship.
After refitting I decide to head towards France as it is busy there.
Some days later I arrive and my first contact is with a task force.
These ships are not worthy of a torpedo I decide and quickly move on.
Force under constantly by aircraft and unable to crash dive in such shallow waters I give it up as a bad idea and head back to the North Sea.
Some almighty explosion tears through my sub flooding 2 compartments, injuring fully half my crew and killing one (not sure my medic is any use at all in these situations but never mind)
I scan the horizon for planes and see none, no ships either. :06:
About an hour later I am forced into fighting the first of many Blenheims that would continue to harras me till night time (12 hours or so) as due to flooding I am unwilling to risk a dive.
around 1 hour after i get the first compartment fixed i'm allmost blown out of the water once more, and this time I spot the culprit, some moron has mined the channel between SE England and France :cry:
Repairs and fights with planes continue untill night time and I do not get the water out of the conning tower for another 8-10 hours or so.
Finally I make my way home, this mission is cursed, I do not have maps of the mine fields (I guess they are in the OM manual/readme folder somewhere)
Out of petty spite I take on a merchant well NE of Holland as this is NOT! going to be my first 0 tonnage mission.
4 hits, 3 duds :o wtf.
Ok stuff it he can go my crew are too badly messed up for a surface battle.
13 hours later I catch another merchant and decide to salvage something from this god forsaken patrol.
4 hits :)
4 duds.................:yawn:
Okay I either have a spy or we buy these in London.
tonnage 0.
deaths 1
injuries 50%
Torpedo manufactures sent to concentration camps 10000
Now before I dare leave port again I need maps of those mine fields, and a slice of luck from my previous mission would not go amiss either.
In my previous mission I caught a large convoy, fired 4 fish 1 detonated premature, 3 hit but apparantly did no real damage (2 hits on one ship, 1 on another) down to the bottom to reload, up and shoot 2 more, miss with both. Curse my luck and down again.
Now the black cat/Gremlin left at this point.
Next trip up I got a single ship in the back and blew its screw off, he would of course be left alone and I would get at least something from this run once the rest of the convoy left the area.
Down once more for the last few fish and then I will wait till I can claim the one that is dead in the water.
Enemy ship sunk.. eh? One of my earlier misses made its way to the opposite side of the convoy and hit a ship at extreme range. This would also prove to be my largest merchant kill to date 6.6K or so. 1 hit and it blew itself apart and sank like a rock.
Up for the last fish and I score one more hit, this guy takes a hell of a blow but keeps running as I dive deep and prepare to wait till the last ship leaves the area.
As I come back up I see the guy I hit last has all but dissapeared beneath the waves and he would sink without further action from me, the earlier ship left dead in the water took my 2 rear torpedos and went down within 10 minutes of the last one hitting.
with only 2 externally held fish left on board I set sail for Spain to refit.
I called BDU to give them an update and found I had a fourth kill I was not aware of, this must have been one of the first 2 ships I hit early on that sailed well beyond my vision.
After refitting I would end the mission with a Heavy Cruiser catch NW of Scapa Flow moving at 29 knots they came straight at me, pure fluke to be in that area, and in that possition.
Now after a poor start I ended up with a nice tally from the convoy and a impressive scalp from the Navy before heading home for medals and promotions.
Compared to my last mission.. first time I went home with injuries, and first crew death, with nothing to show for it.
I don't know why I enjoy this game lol.
When you think about it we do nothing for 99% of every patrol, and out of the other 1% I think around 50% of it is spent cursing bad solutions, duds, premature detonations.
Takes a funny sort to like subs I guess.
This has to go down in history as my worst ever time at sea :D
I set out from Kiel to support the invasion of Norway, on my way to the target area i see 2 ships, and ignore both as I assume incorrectly I will need my fish for something more worth while up north.
6 days pass and I complete my objective without seeing a single ship.
Contacting BDU to ask for new orders and I am told to patroll the area of my choice.
I patrol the North Sea top to bottom 2 times, seeing a few planes, but not one single ship.
After refitting I decide to head towards France as it is busy there.
Some days later I arrive and my first contact is with a task force.
These ships are not worthy of a torpedo I decide and quickly move on.
Force under constantly by aircraft and unable to crash dive in such shallow waters I give it up as a bad idea and head back to the North Sea.
Some almighty explosion tears through my sub flooding 2 compartments, injuring fully half my crew and killing one (not sure my medic is any use at all in these situations but never mind)
I scan the horizon for planes and see none, no ships either. :06:
About an hour later I am forced into fighting the first of many Blenheims that would continue to harras me till night time (12 hours or so) as due to flooding I am unwilling to risk a dive.
around 1 hour after i get the first compartment fixed i'm allmost blown out of the water once more, and this time I spot the culprit, some moron has mined the channel between SE England and France :cry:
Repairs and fights with planes continue untill night time and I do not get the water out of the conning tower for another 8-10 hours or so.
Finally I make my way home, this mission is cursed, I do not have maps of the mine fields (I guess they are in the OM manual/readme folder somewhere)
Out of petty spite I take on a merchant well NE of Holland as this is NOT! going to be my first 0 tonnage mission.
4 hits, 3 duds :o wtf.
Ok stuff it he can go my crew are too badly messed up for a surface battle.
13 hours later I catch another merchant and decide to salvage something from this god forsaken patrol.
4 hits :)
4 duds.................:yawn:
Okay I either have a spy or we buy these in London.
tonnage 0.
deaths 1
injuries 50%
Torpedo manufactures sent to concentration camps 10000
Now before I dare leave port again I need maps of those mine fields, and a slice of luck from my previous mission would not go amiss either.
In my previous mission I caught a large convoy, fired 4 fish 1 detonated premature, 3 hit but apparantly did no real damage (2 hits on one ship, 1 on another) down to the bottom to reload, up and shoot 2 more, miss with both. Curse my luck and down again.
Now the black cat/Gremlin left at this point.
Next trip up I got a single ship in the back and blew its screw off, he would of course be left alone and I would get at least something from this run once the rest of the convoy left the area.
Down once more for the last few fish and then I will wait till I can claim the one that is dead in the water.
Enemy ship sunk.. eh? One of my earlier misses made its way to the opposite side of the convoy and hit a ship at extreme range. This would also prove to be my largest merchant kill to date 6.6K or so. 1 hit and it blew itself apart and sank like a rock.
Up for the last fish and I score one more hit, this guy takes a hell of a blow but keeps running as I dive deep and prepare to wait till the last ship leaves the area.
As I come back up I see the guy I hit last has all but dissapeared beneath the waves and he would sink without further action from me, the earlier ship left dead in the water took my 2 rear torpedos and went down within 10 minutes of the last one hitting.
with only 2 externally held fish left on board I set sail for Spain to refit.
I called BDU to give them an update and found I had a fourth kill I was not aware of, this must have been one of the first 2 ships I hit early on that sailed well beyond my vision.
After refitting I would end the mission with a Heavy Cruiser catch NW of Scapa Flow moving at 29 knots they came straight at me, pure fluke to be in that area, and in that possition.
Now after a poor start I ended up with a nice tally from the convoy and a impressive scalp from the Navy before heading home for medals and promotions.
Compared to my last mission.. first time I went home with injuries, and first crew death, with nothing to show for it.
I don't know why I enjoy this game lol.
When you think about it we do nothing for 99% of every patrol, and out of the other 1% I think around 50% of it is spent cursing bad solutions, duds, premature detonations.
Takes a funny sort to like subs I guess.