Philipp_Thomsen
10-25-10, 11:51 AM
February 22nd, 1943.
Left Brest with my IXB U-109 at 7:42 am, on a sunny day. Decided to head for on of the most dangerous, and yet, most rewarding places on the map, the deadly quadrant BF21.
Arriving there around 10am, received a transmission from another u-boat: Task Force, less than 200km west of my position, heading my way. Went ahead flank to intercept.
A couple of hours later I saw some smoke on the horizon, and went under for some listening. It was a very clear day, so I decided to stay under and let them come my way.
Observing on the periscope, I saw two battleships, some auxiliary cruisers, a couple of cruisers and a handful of destroyers. Set my heading 225 degrees and ahead 2/3, would let them slip right at my mustache, before firing the fishes.
At a 4km distance, fired 2 fishes at one battleship, and another 2 at another, and one stern torpedo at the destroyer passing right behind me. Changed my course to the same course as the task force, to gain some time reloading the torpedos and have another go before I couldn't keep with them anymore.
All 5 torpedos hit, first battleship with a hit on the middle and bow, the other middle and stern. The destroyer lost speed and eventually sunk. Some minutes later, I had some fishes reloaded, fired one stern torpedo at one auxiliary cruiser and two bow torpedos at two cruisers, before I noticed 4 destroyers coming fast my direction. Dodged the first 2 destroyers by diving, and going ahead flank, playing a little with the rudder, but they started pinging me.
Managed to dodge most of the attacks while heading same direction as the convoy, till my 4 bow torpedos were reloaded. I was determined to get as much tonnage as I could before running away. Went back to periscope depth, fired a fish at one destroyer at my tail, and the 4 bow torpedos were distributed to all the heavier ships around, one torpedo-one ship. A quick look with the periscope around, found out that most ships I've hit were stationary or very slow, sinking by the bow or aft. Also, found out I was being chased by 4 destroyers again, even after sending 2 destroyers to the deep.
Decided to change my course to the nearest ship to get some shelter, it was a stationary auxiliary cruiser. Parked the sub right under it, while reloading more torpedos.
At 13:20, the worse happened. I heard a huge explosion, followed by screams from the chief engineer, reporting flooding and systems destroyed. Parking under an auxiliary cruiser filled with ammunition was not such a good idea after all.
One crew dead, another injuried, and the sub was sinking fast. I distributed the crew to stop the flooding, that was filling every single one of the compartments, except for the stern quarters.
The sub hitted the bottom at 104 meters, and the auxiliary cruiser sank right by my side. I was struggling to stop all the flooding, most of the compartments were reporting 3 minutes to be completly flooded. Then the destroyers started having a field day.
I did report contacts via radio before going under. That was my luck. I started hearing airplanes passing by, and a lot of explosions on the surface.
Managed to stop all the floodings, just in time. All compartments had water at more than half of compartment's height. I started checking for the damaged systems. It was a lot. Most of it was not working or seriously damaged. I asked for silent running, till I got rid of the destroyers.
I kept being depth charged each 5 minutes, some of them were really close, damaging more systems and get more flooding. Some of them killed my crew. It was 2 hours of nightmare, and I seriously thought I was done for. I play DiD (dead is dead, so no saving, no reloading), so I was decided to fight till the last second. They stopped pinging me at about 15:15, but kept on the depth-charge-runs for another couple of hours, till they ran empty.
I couldn't hear anything anymore at around 6pm, but then again, my hydrophone was broken, so I was relying only on my ears.
So I started the system checks, and the repairs.
Everything was basically destroyed, irreparable, except for one electric engine on the port side. Battery was down to 30%. I started the repairs on what could be repaired. It was 6:30pm.
Around 12:45 (noon, next day, about 18 hours later), I ordered blow ballast. She went up slowly and screeching. At surface, quick look with binoculars showed me nothing was on sight. Plotted course back to Brest, and took me almost a day to get there, running very slowly on ONE electric engine. (Didn't quite made it there, but was close enough to "Return to base").
Three months to fix the uboat. Next patrol started in June, believe it or not.
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/1043/46401820.jpg
Sorry for the chopped image, I run a higher resolution, so the screenshots get like this.
Successful patrol, 127.990 tons. :rock:
Left Brest with my IXB U-109 at 7:42 am, on a sunny day. Decided to head for on of the most dangerous, and yet, most rewarding places on the map, the deadly quadrant BF21.
Arriving there around 10am, received a transmission from another u-boat: Task Force, less than 200km west of my position, heading my way. Went ahead flank to intercept.
A couple of hours later I saw some smoke on the horizon, and went under for some listening. It was a very clear day, so I decided to stay under and let them come my way.
Observing on the periscope, I saw two battleships, some auxiliary cruisers, a couple of cruisers and a handful of destroyers. Set my heading 225 degrees and ahead 2/3, would let them slip right at my mustache, before firing the fishes.
At a 4km distance, fired 2 fishes at one battleship, and another 2 at another, and one stern torpedo at the destroyer passing right behind me. Changed my course to the same course as the task force, to gain some time reloading the torpedos and have another go before I couldn't keep with them anymore.
All 5 torpedos hit, first battleship with a hit on the middle and bow, the other middle and stern. The destroyer lost speed and eventually sunk. Some minutes later, I had some fishes reloaded, fired one stern torpedo at one auxiliary cruiser and two bow torpedos at two cruisers, before I noticed 4 destroyers coming fast my direction. Dodged the first 2 destroyers by diving, and going ahead flank, playing a little with the rudder, but they started pinging me.
Managed to dodge most of the attacks while heading same direction as the convoy, till my 4 bow torpedos were reloaded. I was determined to get as much tonnage as I could before running away. Went back to periscope depth, fired a fish at one destroyer at my tail, and the 4 bow torpedos were distributed to all the heavier ships around, one torpedo-one ship. A quick look with the periscope around, found out that most ships I've hit were stationary or very slow, sinking by the bow or aft. Also, found out I was being chased by 4 destroyers again, even after sending 2 destroyers to the deep.
Decided to change my course to the nearest ship to get some shelter, it was a stationary auxiliary cruiser. Parked the sub right under it, while reloading more torpedos.
At 13:20, the worse happened. I heard a huge explosion, followed by screams from the chief engineer, reporting flooding and systems destroyed. Parking under an auxiliary cruiser filled with ammunition was not such a good idea after all.
One crew dead, another injuried, and the sub was sinking fast. I distributed the crew to stop the flooding, that was filling every single one of the compartments, except for the stern quarters.
The sub hitted the bottom at 104 meters, and the auxiliary cruiser sank right by my side. I was struggling to stop all the flooding, most of the compartments were reporting 3 minutes to be completly flooded. Then the destroyers started having a field day.
I did report contacts via radio before going under. That was my luck. I started hearing airplanes passing by, and a lot of explosions on the surface.
Managed to stop all the floodings, just in time. All compartments had water at more than half of compartment's height. I started checking for the damaged systems. It was a lot. Most of it was not working or seriously damaged. I asked for silent running, till I got rid of the destroyers.
I kept being depth charged each 5 minutes, some of them were really close, damaging more systems and get more flooding. Some of them killed my crew. It was 2 hours of nightmare, and I seriously thought I was done for. I play DiD (dead is dead, so no saving, no reloading), so I was decided to fight till the last second. They stopped pinging me at about 15:15, but kept on the depth-charge-runs for another couple of hours, till they ran empty.
I couldn't hear anything anymore at around 6pm, but then again, my hydrophone was broken, so I was relying only on my ears.
So I started the system checks, and the repairs.
Everything was basically destroyed, irreparable, except for one electric engine on the port side. Battery was down to 30%. I started the repairs on what could be repaired. It was 6:30pm.
Around 12:45 (noon, next day, about 18 hours later), I ordered blow ballast. She went up slowly and screeching. At surface, quick look with binoculars showed me nothing was on sight. Plotted course back to Brest, and took me almost a day to get there, running very slowly on ONE electric engine. (Didn't quite made it there, but was close enough to "Return to base").
Three months to fix the uboat. Next patrol started in June, believe it or not.
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/1043/46401820.jpg
Sorry for the chopped image, I run a higher resolution, so the screenshots get like this.
Successful patrol, 127.990 tons. :rock: