Bothersome
03-12-12, 11:11 AM
Well more like working at playing. :D
So there I was, out on the sea testing more ship interfaces and trying to catch up from a previous life of sinking ships. When suddenly a notice was shouted that we had merchant ships approaching south west of us. After some full speed ship maneuvers to "get ahead" of the convoy, we finally stopped and submerged to get a new bearing. We counted 16 merchants 5 wide and 3 deep with one following the group, aproaching slowly, and NO ESCORTS. They should arrive at about 2 meters to our south rough center of the convoy.
https://photos-6.dropbox.com/i/o/JwDqJw7_OoswQuCE1WdYt2sjOyOlNK1VinnpBKrCbmA/54171727/1331654400/68354fe/2012-03-11_00004.jpg
After a small wait and final preps to the boat. Getting things battle ready and trying to decide the best plan of action for maximum ship sinkage.
Eventually, I come to the idea that one topedo per ship and try to make a just aft of smoke stack shot for each ship would be best. This would hopefully at least disable the propulsion and make the ship come to a stop. Then I could come back and sink them at leasure later.
So then what ships? Heavy ships of course. Preferably in the front of the group and while still approaching. This would cause confusion and slow the group down as they try to avoid each other and allow me to gun down some of the closer ships. But estimates put the convoy at about 4500 meters across. Five wide is a wide convoy.
Batteried into position to put the first closest ship crossing our bow at about 400 meters. The furthest would be about 5K out. Shooting would be on a rough 45 degree across their port bow. Periscope view shows no guns on decks and sounding doesn't show any escorts. Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day after all! :DL
Weapons officer recommended a shooting schedule of slow torpedos at 7 meters depth with magnetic detonators on at 1 (45 seconds) 2 (40 seconds) 3 (30 seconds) 4.
Firing came off pretty much as normal but this was my first time shooting a simultaneous hit on 4 targets at once. They are tough to get all the calculations in in time. But fortunately, due to the way the german TDC works. the AOB is adjusted automatically for each new bearing as long as the targets don't change course or speed. So it was just a matter of getting one target programmed in and then shooting on a new bearing.
At least that was the plan. The initial results, were slightly different. Due to getting excided and prematurely shooting my... last torpedo by about 10 seconds. So, the last torpedo hits its target first about 10 seconds too early for a properly timed shot. This alerts everyone of course and now they are trying to avoid. But the shots were still well placed and all hit their targets. The furthest ship of course was cutting hard to starboard and the torpedo hit pretty close to the anchor chain storage. It looked as though that one might get away because it was so far away and it was still moving fast and had nothing to avoid in its way.
Next, we popped up right in front of the port most ship. Just about 800 meters away from us. Ordered full speed ahead to get in front of the confused convoy. Battlestations already set and I jump on the deck gun to cherry pick targets that would have the best chance of hit and sinking.
The next hour it seemed would be blasting the afts of ships and engine rooms to get ships to slow and stop. After the second stage of battle, 5 ships had come to a rough complete stop. 2 had gone down by now and 1 was running slowly away but heavily damaged. Still 2 others running fast but carrying heavy fire and smoke.
The last stage of the battle was a matter of picking off the weak. I decided to run out and catch what looked like a ship that was just about to sink but it was about 8K away. So we headed out at flank speed to catch it. On the way we passed a tanker that was sitting a bit low in the water on the aft section of the ship. Decided to finish it but that turned out to be a tactical error as it was determined in our debriefing after the battle. It had caused me to waste too many shells on its sinking. Shells that would have been better spent sinking something heavy, that was almost sunk anyway.
After catching up with the cargo vessel that had been hit in the anchor chain locker, it was revealed that it was not quite as damaged as previously suggested by our lookout. But since we made the journey, I figured we may as well sink it. Hind sight would reveal that a torpedo should have been used on this one because by now, all tubes were loaded and this cargo ship took too many shells to get it to go down. Especially for one that had water coming over its bow already.
Heading back to the wounded ships, it was decided that we didn't bring enough ammo. It was a choice we had to make while at port. Ammo or toilet paper. We just couldn't store everything.
Now come the tough decision of what ships to finish. The result was basically any ship that looks like it should have already sunk that was already crippled.
Using 5 torpedoes, one for each ship finished off the crippled.
Chased down the last two closest 1 torp for the one on our starboard and it sinks. One last ship within range and two torpedoes left. This ship is still moving at about 3 knots and turning slowly. I thought if I could get a premium shot into it 1 torpedo would do the trick. Then I could hunt down on the horizon one of those two columns of smoke. But as it turned out one torpedo wasn't going to be enough. And by now I had zero gun shells. It only needed a little more too. It should have sunk already. But I guess they run some of the very best pumps and damage control teams on the planet on those british steamers. Eventually, I had to use the last to finish it off.
Then turning south east for home.
https://photos-1.dropbox.com/i/o/LF5Mrdg1lQfUxvRrMTY4JYxozob4BpVDQ8QUCPCsNkM/54171727/1331654400/ff78c10/2012-03-12_00002.jpg
We had eventually sunk 9 of the 16 ships in that convoy. One ship and one torpedo had already been expended and sunk on the way to our patrol area.
So bartender, it's a half bottle of beer for each of my men. :D
** This was all done with no reloads. Results were the results, no backing up to change the outcome. Settings were Realistic but with map contacts and external camera. **
So there I was, out on the sea testing more ship interfaces and trying to catch up from a previous life of sinking ships. When suddenly a notice was shouted that we had merchant ships approaching south west of us. After some full speed ship maneuvers to "get ahead" of the convoy, we finally stopped and submerged to get a new bearing. We counted 16 merchants 5 wide and 3 deep with one following the group, aproaching slowly, and NO ESCORTS. They should arrive at about 2 meters to our south rough center of the convoy.
https://photos-6.dropbox.com/i/o/JwDqJw7_OoswQuCE1WdYt2sjOyOlNK1VinnpBKrCbmA/54171727/1331654400/68354fe/2012-03-11_00004.jpg
After a small wait and final preps to the boat. Getting things battle ready and trying to decide the best plan of action for maximum ship sinkage.
Eventually, I come to the idea that one topedo per ship and try to make a just aft of smoke stack shot for each ship would be best. This would hopefully at least disable the propulsion and make the ship come to a stop. Then I could come back and sink them at leasure later.
So then what ships? Heavy ships of course. Preferably in the front of the group and while still approaching. This would cause confusion and slow the group down as they try to avoid each other and allow me to gun down some of the closer ships. But estimates put the convoy at about 4500 meters across. Five wide is a wide convoy.
Batteried into position to put the first closest ship crossing our bow at about 400 meters. The furthest would be about 5K out. Shooting would be on a rough 45 degree across their port bow. Periscope view shows no guns on decks and sounding doesn't show any escorts. Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day after all! :DL
Weapons officer recommended a shooting schedule of slow torpedos at 7 meters depth with magnetic detonators on at 1 (45 seconds) 2 (40 seconds) 3 (30 seconds) 4.
Firing came off pretty much as normal but this was my first time shooting a simultaneous hit on 4 targets at once. They are tough to get all the calculations in in time. But fortunately, due to the way the german TDC works. the AOB is adjusted automatically for each new bearing as long as the targets don't change course or speed. So it was just a matter of getting one target programmed in and then shooting on a new bearing.
At least that was the plan. The initial results, were slightly different. Due to getting excided and prematurely shooting my... last torpedo by about 10 seconds. So, the last torpedo hits its target first about 10 seconds too early for a properly timed shot. This alerts everyone of course and now they are trying to avoid. But the shots were still well placed and all hit their targets. The furthest ship of course was cutting hard to starboard and the torpedo hit pretty close to the anchor chain storage. It looked as though that one might get away because it was so far away and it was still moving fast and had nothing to avoid in its way.
Next, we popped up right in front of the port most ship. Just about 800 meters away from us. Ordered full speed ahead to get in front of the confused convoy. Battlestations already set and I jump on the deck gun to cherry pick targets that would have the best chance of hit and sinking.
The next hour it seemed would be blasting the afts of ships and engine rooms to get ships to slow and stop. After the second stage of battle, 5 ships had come to a rough complete stop. 2 had gone down by now and 1 was running slowly away but heavily damaged. Still 2 others running fast but carrying heavy fire and smoke.
The last stage of the battle was a matter of picking off the weak. I decided to run out and catch what looked like a ship that was just about to sink but it was about 8K away. So we headed out at flank speed to catch it. On the way we passed a tanker that was sitting a bit low in the water on the aft section of the ship. Decided to finish it but that turned out to be a tactical error as it was determined in our debriefing after the battle. It had caused me to waste too many shells on its sinking. Shells that would have been better spent sinking something heavy, that was almost sunk anyway.
After catching up with the cargo vessel that had been hit in the anchor chain locker, it was revealed that it was not quite as damaged as previously suggested by our lookout. But since we made the journey, I figured we may as well sink it. Hind sight would reveal that a torpedo should have been used on this one because by now, all tubes were loaded and this cargo ship took too many shells to get it to go down. Especially for one that had water coming over its bow already.
Heading back to the wounded ships, it was decided that we didn't bring enough ammo. It was a choice we had to make while at port. Ammo or toilet paper. We just couldn't store everything.
Now come the tough decision of what ships to finish. The result was basically any ship that looks like it should have already sunk that was already crippled.
Using 5 torpedoes, one for each ship finished off the crippled.
Chased down the last two closest 1 torp for the one on our starboard and it sinks. One last ship within range and two torpedoes left. This ship is still moving at about 3 knots and turning slowly. I thought if I could get a premium shot into it 1 torpedo would do the trick. Then I could hunt down on the horizon one of those two columns of smoke. But as it turned out one torpedo wasn't going to be enough. And by now I had zero gun shells. It only needed a little more too. It should have sunk already. But I guess they run some of the very best pumps and damage control teams on the planet on those british steamers. Eventually, I had to use the last to finish it off.
Then turning south east for home.
https://photos-1.dropbox.com/i/o/LF5Mrdg1lQfUxvRrMTY4JYxozob4BpVDQ8QUCPCsNkM/54171727/1331654400/ff78c10/2012-03-12_00002.jpg
We had eventually sunk 9 of the 16 ships in that convoy. One ship and one torpedo had already been expended and sunk on the way to our patrol area.
So bartender, it's a half bottle of beer for each of my men. :D
** This was all done with no reloads. Results were the results, no backing up to change the outcome. Settings were Realistic but with map contacts and external camera. **