Worst situation you survived?

[timmy41]

Whats the worst situation you have ever survived? stuck in the english channel bottomed out with ASW boats taking turns? tracked by k-ships and PBY's until you've gone insane? Let bernard take the helm only to have him navigate you into another ship?

tell your story!


I think my worst so far has been being stuck with my electric engines non-functioning and my pumps damaged, flooding in most compartments, 200m under in a VIIC. was able to repair the pumps and pump out enough to repair the engines and scoot on out of there, and meet up with a supply ship for a new pair of underwear.

[Immelman]

As always in my trusty VIIB being stuck under for several hours after a convoy attack in late '44 while 5 DD proceeded to drop God knows how many hedgehogs and an uninterrupted supply of depth charges :timeout:

Got hit on the trum by a hedgehog Ob scope kaput, radio antenna kaput, one flak kaput one damaged, radar warning device damaged. Thankfully my pressure hull was not perforated and I managed to sneak away after they run out of everything to throw at me 8 hours later... :doh:

[timmy41]

a B in 1944? :o

[Immelman]

What can I say I love my VIIB its fast and nimble. I do have a house rule where if the sub damaged more then 40% hull damage when I get back to base I "scrap" it and get a new boat. This simulates reality, they would not spend a lot of man hours and material to majorly overhaul an old boat. They would just give you a new one.

[timmy41]

I thought the C was more nimble than the B except it was .6 knots slower? at least in game it is.

[Weiss Pinguin]

I've been caught with my Type VII in enemy ports several times... Scary to have depth charges dropped on you in less than 50 meters of water, but even scarier is when you've been under for half a day and escorts are still circling above.

[schlechter pfennig]

Worst I ever survived was in a VIIC, mid '43, with both electric engines destroyed, watchtower destroyed, both the attack and observation scopes destroyed, deck and flak guns destroyed, radio destroyed and radar warning destroyed.

I still have no idea how we made it back to port!

[STEED]

Dead in the water...engines and batteries smashed with no hope at all. :damn:

[Rhodes]

Mid 43 or 44 I think, had to go to 235m to escape 2 destroyers that were trying to get me. At 2 kn silent running, the boat began to sink slowly... Manage to survive that depth.

[pickinthebanjo]

I've been caught with my Type VII in enemy ports several times... Scary to have depth charges dropped on you in less than 50 meters of water, but even scarier is when you've been under for half a day and escorts are still circling above.

I hear that. 50m is an overstatment in an enemy port. Usually lucky if it's deeper than 20. When I attacked Gibraltar I got pinned under the bow of a southhampton that refused to completly sink. I was there for over 6 hours before deciding to just make a run for the minefield. Mafe it out though and with three battleships sunk and for my efforts I was demoted

[Task Force]

When I was pinned down by 5 DDs after sinking the warspite. Lasted for about a hour. (in Narvik)

[Renesco]

took on a convoy from the rear off the coast of canada with no forward torpedoes left, only a IX B with the deck gun (1941), surfaced next to a destroyer and sank it in quick order, 2 more destroyers came charging in, one was going for a ram, I headed directly away from it at top speed and got it with a poxy rear torpedo shot as it closed, the third was farther away and tried the same thing, done the same thing and headed directly away and fired off my last two rear torpedo's, one hit square on and sank it, that was 3 out of the 4 destroyers guarding the convey dead.

The 4'th destroyer came out of nowhere seemingly, I only spotted it when it was 2,000 metres and closing fast, engaged it with the deck gun but it was too damn close and was chewing me up, was taking some serious damage and it was closing fast so I crash dived, it connected at ramming speed anyway as I was crash diving, making crap of my conning tower, deck gun and flak guns, then came 90 minutes or so (in real time) of being depth charged repeatedly

by the time I snuck away I had no conning tower left (to speak of) no deck gun or flak guns, 1 diesel engine, broken bow planes, every compartment had been flooded and repaired at one stage, malfunctioning aft tubes (no torps left anyway to fire) and about 30% hull integrity

That was only the last part of the best patrol I ever done that saw me engage 3 convoys among other things, downed a bunch of planes and sank 19 ships, and limped home in pieces.

The other bad situation I can think of is a full speed collision in the middle of the atlantic with a c3 cargo in heavy fog and rain at night, the crew management screen said I had 00% intergrity left after the collision, according to the AAR I had 0.4% hull left when I finished the patrol.

[klh]

I attacked a convoy in late 1940 with my VIIB. I got greedy and tried to stay near the surface while reloading. Two destroyers closed in on my position and DC'd me like crazy.

Major damage to the hull, flooding in the forward compartments, and going down by the bow. I blew ballast, but I was still going down. Went Flank Reverse on the engines, and it was just enough to keep me above 200m.

I focused repairs on the flooding while the depth charges were still falling around me. Fortunately my constantly changing depth kept them off guard because they sure could hear me.

Finally the flooding stopped and I was able to trim the boat level and start maneuvering. After over an hour of cat and mouse, I was able to break contact. After surfacing, I completed what repairs I could and limped home. Forward tubes destroyed, periscopes destroyed, but all alive and well.

[toodrunk]

Went Flank Reverse on the engines, and it was just enough to keep me above 200m.

Farking genius! Way to keep your head level when your boat is anything but.

[maillemaker]

My best one was tonight.

I was dueling with a destroyer and he blew both my periscopes away.

I used the hydrophone to nail his ass with a magnetic torpedo! Took 2 shots, but I got him!

Steve

[java`s revenge]

This is also my worst game i ever had, i could have written it....:88)

I attacked a convoy in late 1940 with my VIIB. I got greedy and tried to stay near the surface while reloading. Two destroyers closed in on my position and DC'd me like crazy.

Major damage to the hull, flooding in the forward compartments, and going down by the bow. I blew ballast, but I was still going down. Went Flank Reverse on the engines, and it was just enough to keep me above 200m.

I focused repairs on the flooding while the depth charges were still falling around me. Fortunately my constantly changing depth kept them off guard because they sure could hear me.

Finally the flooding stopped and I was able to trim the boat level and start maneuvering. After over an hour of cat and mouse, I was able to break contact. After surfacing, I completed what repairs I could and limped home. Forward tubes destroyed, periscopes destroyed, but all alive and well.

[Brag]

GWX 1942

West of St George channel. After attacking convoy, got hit by several destroyers. Electrics out, diesels out, persicopes out. Going down out of control. 100 meters, 125, 150, 175, 200 meters.

Hit bottom and stayed there. Serious flooding. Managed to keep flooding at bay. When destroyers left. Blew ballast and surfaced. Was a able to limp back to Lorient.:smug:

[derrinurban]

This is also my worst game i ever had, i could have written it....:88)

I second that. Add to that, bridge destroyed. Was scarry as hell trying to make it back to port with no one on lookout duty.

[Snestorm]

Gee. I only remember the ones I didn't come out of.

[gazpode_l]

Last night - surfaced right next to an ASW trawler and decided to duke it out with my deck-gun. He rammed me and ended up temporarily attached to me and took out all of my deck crew with one foul swoop.

I submerged to 90m and as I was doing so the contact broke up and sunk behind me. It was my worst situation i've lived through in lieu of losing 8 members of my crew. Later buried off the coast of long-ships.

[Dissaray]

I was siting prity in '42 in a VIIc. Had just completed a devistating convoy attack, four shot and four struk near simultainous and left two large cargos and one large tanker sinking fast and a whale ship burning and listing. I dove to 20m runing flank away from the convoy and shot a magnetic lader runing torpido out the aft tube in a parthian shot that taged a medium cargo that later sank.

That last shot took the target from the other side of the target from me and managed to confuse half the escorts. Unfortuantly the other half were well on my sent, unbeknownst to me, even though I went silent after the last shot was made. I set my depth to 50m and put my stern to the bearing of the last known position of the nearest distroyer and made my bid for escape. That is when I heard engens and knew the game was afoot.

They were much closer than I knew and soon enuf I heard them pass over me and the phoneman called out depth charges in the water. Being far too confident I figured with such a small profile they could never get an accurate depth on me and maintaned course, speed and depth. The charges sounded and the boat was rocked hard and damage reports came flooding in.

The damage control screen was lit up like a Christmas tree and flooding was bad. I orderd the repair team into action starting where the flooding was worse, the forward crew quarters, and orderd back slow. I wanted to get more depth but not that quickly and that did just that. By this point the second distroyer in the attack formation made its run but fortuanatly missed my depth desptie all the noise.

I got the flooding under contorl and stabalized the depth at 100m. We danced with three distoyers for about an hour and were largly unmolested by further depth charge attacks. Despite my best efforts I couldn't shake my attackers. I was watching the action from the nav map so I could time the evasive manuvers with help of the hydrophones and noticed that two of the contact lines were geting much longer than the third. This was great news, I had out lasted the ammo suply of the enemy and cut engens to wait for the third to bugger off and set depth to 20m.

I was already making plans for my return course and the order of repair for my outer equpment, what little was left of it, as I drifted up. Then I heard the report again of ASDIC! falowed shortly by depth charges in the water. There was nothing I could do, the engens wouldn't be fast enuf to get me out of the way in time, the attack was coming from the bow. I quickly decided to go loud, blast flank speed and put the ruder hard to starbord. If I was giong to get hit I wasn't going to make it easy. To my suprize I dodged all but three of the charges. Three was enuf though. The stern torpido room was obliterated, one of the electric engens were shaterd and both of the desiles was distroyed utterly and both of the prop shafts were put out of service. Three crew dead, no one was in the stern torpido room. We were going down by the stern fast and with no power geting to the screws there was nothing I could do but wait for the crew to fix it. We hit 218m, had no compresed air to empty the balast tanks, and I though I was done. But the shafts were fixed and I got the one engen cranking at flank and it was enuf to keep me from going any ferther down.

The distroyer left us alone after that, likely out of ammo, though it stayed on station for a while befor leaving us all together. Without any deisles there wasn't much I could do and had to telaport back to base, but I lived.

[flag4]

...three of us where walking/climbing Ben Nevis 15 years ago and got caught in a White-Out. we were roped together and held ice axes in case of a fall. i could see no further than arms length and the point where the rope dissapeared into the snow.

after two hours of this there was a loud crack like glass breaking then the ground beneath us shifted - i felt the rope go taught and i dropped to my knees slaming the ice axe into the snow. my freinds had done the same. as it turned out an avalanche had broke ground starting to slide away with us on it, grumbling stone underneath. after about 10-15 meters it slowed and stoped. we got up, got together and made way to higher ground - quickly.

like fools, we had wandered off the path. i have no idea what was coming if the slide had continued. but i did s*** myself at the possibility of an untimely death!!

we all got thouroughly drunk that night.

sorry, no U Boat stories, have'nt played in ages.

[Kemper Boyd]

In my first patrol with a brand new IXB, I had hunted down a small convoy and was looking for stragglers. The destroyer escort had gone away according to my hydrophone operator so I was feeling pretty safe when I rose to periscope depth and saw one of the ships sitting dead in the water.

Surfaced and realized I had surfaced about three meters from a V&W destroyer. No time to dive, so I manned the deck gun and started firing.

The destroyer got off one shot that missed, I got off three, before the destroyer sank. That was pretty tense.

[timmy41]

In my first patrol with a brand new IXB, I had hunted down a small convoy and was looking for stragglers. The destroyer escort had gone away according to my hydrophone operator so I was feeling pretty safe when I rose to periscope depth and saw one of the ships sitting dead in the water.

Surfaced and realized I had surfaced about three meters from a V&W destroyer. No time to dive, so I manned the deck gun and started firing.

The destroyer got off one shot that missed, I got off three, before the destroyer sank. That was pretty tense.
hahaha, bet you needed new pants after that one! WOW!

[KL-alfman]

I had surfaced about three meters from a V&W destroyer.


you could have saved your HE and boarded the DD! :D
taking over a British DD would have made you immortal in the history-books. :haha:

[maillemaker]

LOL sounds like you were so close they could not depress their guns to hit you! :)

[Doolar]

There I was , mid May 2010 , my grass was a foot high and my wife put "CUT THE GRASS" on my orders list and went to the food store . Knowing shes going to be an hour and a half or so , I used my "FREE TIME COMPUTER" ( FTR ) , put in 1.5 hours + 3 beers , and came up with a solution of 45minutes , before I had to start on the lawn . PREFECT ! Thats 45 minutes to play SH III Well one thing led to another and the next thing I knew , she was home . I don't know whats worse the sound of a ping from sonar or the front door opening but anyway . She must of circled me for about an hour before I figured out , that if I start the lawn mower , I won't be able to hear her and she'll loose interest and go away . It worked ! Its in the manual .:yeah: LOL .

All kidding aside . It was mid May 1940 , just off the southern approaches when I got a call from my hydrophone man of a warship contact . Went to check it out and discovered , he was an escort of a nice convoy . Well I plotted a course to place me well ahead and set up an ambush . After arriving at the sweet spot , I waited and waited ... nothing . :timeout: I decided to head north , which was my original heading anyway , and BINGO there it was . I either miscalculated or it turned , but anyway , due to impatience , I made a 5kt sumuraged run at it and got detected . Well for the next 2 hours , I got hammered . I used many of the tactics that I've read about here on the forum on making my escape . Luckly I got away with only minor damage and no loss of life . I have since read many threads on convoy attacks and will use them as best I can . All I need now is a convoy and a food store in the next state . So as they say impatience and not getting the lawn cut , can kill you !

[maillemaker]

LOL, I have been busted by wife coming home, too! :)

[krashkart]

I'm not sure if this classifies as a "survived" situation. I was sailing a Type IX in one of my power-gamer careers, with a full load of homing torpedoes. At some point I was presented with the opportunity to use one against the enemy, and it might have worked had I remembered to back off the throttles before firing. The top speed of the torpedo was 24kts, the top speed of my boat was ~32kts. I ran the Uboat right over top of the torpedo, which triggered the magnetic pistol, which in turn resulted in a resounding "WTF???" from me.


I estimate that the torpedo detonated somewhere underneath the diesels, as both were completely destroyed. Home plate was too far away to use batteries, and I was forced to scuttle that career. Technically, I could probably say that we did survive long enough to be released from captivity after the war ended.

"With kaleuns like Krashkart, we have little to fear from the Allies."

[Zedwardson]

Well, mine was tonight's patrol. (using GWX)

Late 1939, and Karl Myer and "Unlucky" U-17 are in the middle of a gale, and even when he is able to hunt down a ship using hydrophones, they only become visible within 300 meters, too short for a torpedo to arm. So Karl talks to his officers and decides to do something with kahunas, as the last patrol was cut short by having a A&B pop out of a storm and kill three crew in the resulting depth-charging.


U-17 is going to scapa flow. Even if its just a cruiser, it would be high marks to take one out early in the war. So In the gale, and timeing the by nightfall, U-17 slips into Scapa flow.

And there not a ship to be found. :down: Unlucky U-17 bad luck strikes again.

Now, after searching, and no signs of even a tanker to put to the bottom, U-17 needs to slip back out, and near the exit, the Hydrophone operator detects one near, so Karl lifts the scope up to see what is there.

at 1200 meters is a V&W broadsides, in a almost ideal 90degree angle, So Karl launches 1 and 2, aiming for a double hit. This is the first target in two patrols, so he a bit aggressive as he does not want to loose his command. just as the second eel is out, and just as he about to order a crash drive, he sees the V&W turn to U-17, so Urban stays calm, and waits till it finishes it turn, and unleashes the third eel at the V&W, and orders a crash dive.

The third Eel goes deep, however the pistol was set for mag, and there is a nice BOOM as the torpedo hits true. The U-boat is rocked by the first round of or depth charges, and then odd, loud explosions rip though the water. Then the Hydrophone operator informs that the target is sunk. Apparently, cordite went up in smoke, and the ship broke in two and slid into the sea.

Of course, being Near Scapa flow, means there was a rally towards the sunken ship, and they found me.

Four hours later, I finally have escaped, Seven of my men lay dead, including my watch officer, and another officer is wounded, I had flooding in the bow (and as a nice touch, the boat leans towards the flooding. I try to rise to scope depth, as a gale is chased off the escorts. I am not rising. Not sure if it was the damage or if I had the planes set down for some reason, but I called for a emergency blow. ever so slowly I poped to the surface and headed back home.

had 37 percent hull left, and afterwords found out that I had sunk the HMAS Vampire with 76 of 100 hands lost at sea.

[tankeriv]

My most exciting I experienced to date was in my Type 9 1 may 45 not far from the Irish coast.

I was stalking a convoy for a while and I had successfully managed to destroy about four enemy tankers then I withdrew because it was getting a little too hot for me. I wanted to survive this because to my feeling the entire royal navy was getting on my arse to nail me.

After a while of sit and wait and running at low speed my battery was running dry and my oxygen was also running low.

So I surfaced and decided to charge my batteries.
I run for about an hour what is in no way enough to fully charge my batteries again.

Then all of a sudden hell broke loose again as now it seemed like the whole RAF was trying to its utter best to help me reach heaven.

I took two planes by surprise by nailing them with my M42 double but I had to dive because a whole swarm of birds was heading my way.

I dove as quick as I could do made a quick turn to evade the bombs.

I thought I had now had been through all of it as two sound contacts were reported.
Two DD´s closing and FAST!!

I switched to silent running as I still heard the birds overhead pounding the heck out of me. The two DD´s were approaching and again ANOTHER TWO SOUND CONTACTS! What the F*!!??

In absolute no time the initial two destroyers had tracked me down and were trying to kill me.

Not much later the two initial sound contacts seemed to be two Flowers but both armed with hedgehogs were also aiming for me.

They managed to score a few hits forcing me to leave my depth of 180 metres and search for a safer depth of 100metres.

As if not enough another sound contact came in.

In the mean time I got totally crazy of the pinging and I did all I could to get out!
Full speed whilst DC's exploded, slow speed quickly afterwards, decoys.
After one hour of desperate trying finally I managed to shake off.

In the mean time I had only 60% hull integrity left. But I managed to slip away.

Whoo what a day.....