(Story) U-104

[MantiBrutalis]

So, I got back into Silent Hunter 3 after many, many years. Got myself GWX 3.0 after a few patrols and I loved every bit of it. A week ago, I added h.sie’s V16B1 Realism Patch, because I really liked the ideas, mostly Range Inaccuracy, Torpedo Reloads and the U-tanker mod. In middle of my last patrol I said to myself – Hey, with this much realism and this awesome patrol I got going on, I have a good story on my hands right now. And because I found GWX and V16B1 here at Subsim, I figured I might as well post it, if I’m going to write it down. So here goes…



Note 1 – I don’t know how far will I go with this or when I’ll stop, can happen any time for any reason.

Note 2 – English is not my native language, I’m 21 years old student and I think I often suck at English. So sorry for destroying your language people…

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 26th December 1940, Lorient.

I start this diary this evening, before the 4th Patrol of Type IXB U-104 of the 2nd Flotilla. I start this diary as a radioman of the boat. I start it, because I have nothing to do in free time during our patrols, and this one will be the longest one yet, because we got assigned coordinates somewhere in the Atlantic.

I have to keep faith in our luck, but I worry we might not return from this one. Last patrol has gone very bad, after attacking a convoy off the British coast, we got surprised by a flight of Swordfish bombers. 3 men died, including my dear friend Karl Krieg. Badly damaged, we even hit the sea floor because of the water coming in. We spent an entire day repairing the boat before we could at least get up from the floor and move again. It was a horrible experience and all the crew is shaken.

The 2nd patrol was a bit luckier, we got a few British down, and we head home soon because of the bad weather. And the 1st patrol? That was only a few hours drill off the French coast to test our brand new boat.

Well, that’s all for today, tomorrow we depart early, they wake us up at 7 AM.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 27th December 1940, U-104, 200km west of Brest.

The Captain woke us up at 5 AM. The few people here, who were with him on his previous ship, the U-1 „Cloverleaf“ from 1st Flotilla, tell us, that it’s in his nature. We were told that he is very eager and doesn’t like to come back from patrol with spare torpedoes. Back in Lorient, they told us (again) the story of Cloverleaf’s demise. How the captain had tried to get to Scapa Flow out of frustration, that they had no luck with finding ships. The Cloverleaf had returned to Helgoland in terrible shape with only 14 survivors and had been ripped of useful equipment and scuttled there. It had only lasted 6 patrols.

We are now going to sail near the Irish coast to pick a few tons of British (if we’re lucky) and then head to our patrol destination. I think I heard the captain say something about grid AK53, but I didn’t see the orders myself.

In the evening, the captain told us all to come up with a name for the U-104 to grant us luck in the Atlantic. I don’t care about the name, but I really hope for some luck with this bloodthirsty captain.



Note 1 – This is turning out to be quite a good English practice for me.

Note 2 – I may have to rush this patrol a bit, because I started writing this when the patrol was at like 10th January 1940. I just don’t want to forget what all happened. I even stopped playing SH3 for a while to catch up with my writing.

Note 3 – You may already guessed it, I don’t have a name for the boat yet. Any ideas?

Note 4 – The part about Cloverleaf is almost true. I had a career with a IIA that had a cloverleaf as an emblem. And yes, I tried to go into Scapa Flow. And yes, it didn’t go that well, but I survived, I had 14 people alive, and I ended the career in German waters with a canoe that barely floated. I just couldn’t take anymore of the IIAs and I got overplayed with VIIBs, so I tried the IXB.

Note 5 – I like to play a little hardcore. I always return back to base, I never load a saved game if I die. I even researched that electric torpedoes couldn’t be placed in external reserves because of maintenance. This means that this story can end anytime, even in patrol 4, because it hasn’t ended yet.

Note 6 – Until now, I had my auto-correct set to Czech, so there may have been some mangled words so far. Usually you can guess what it is supposed to be in English.

[David I]

Mantibrutalis,

Keep them coming! :up:

You English is just fine for the task at hand (even adds a bit of flavor).

:salute:

David I

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 28th December 1940, U-104, 200km south-east of Ireland.

It’s the second day of our patrol and already we have 2 marks on our sheet. The watchboys spot a large merchant when we were nearing Ireland, and after getting a bit closer, they spot a smaller one ahead of it. Eventually, after getting close enough to recognize the British flags, the captain chose to make a use of our deck gun. From what I heard from down here, I can say that we were the only ones firing – the enemy had no guns. I hope the watch saw it, because if not… then the captain just risked that they were not armed. Anyway, that’s about 7500 tons on our nameless boat.

On the other hand, we didn’t spend that much ammunition, the captain slowed down when we were close enough (I really can’t tell how close), so the gunner could take precise shots. He even instructed the three freshmen, who had joined us in Lorient, to observe and teach them a bit of real shooting. Both ships were probably down before we closed in, at least I think… There seemed to be some kind of ammunition on one of the ships, the fireworks were very loud even down here.

The captain was satisfied, so he ordered to make for the open sea and head directly to our patrol area. Some of the crew expressed the fear of incoming planes to investigate the missing ships, but the captain didn’t even take notice. Guess he had some sixth sense, because we weren’t attacked. Anyway, this is going to take a few more weeks. I hope this soothed his bloodlust – I want to survive. I often think about the dead of the Cloverleaf and of Karl. Even the Cloverleaf wasn’t lucky enough for this captain…

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 31st December 1940, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Finally we are closing to our patrol area, which hopefully marks the half of our trip. The weather is still very calm, although cold. The days are very short, but it doesn’t make much of a difference down here. Despite great visibility during the short light time we are given, we haven’t met a single ship. Occasionally the captain has a “sense” that something is near, so he takes us under for half an hour, stops the engine… and spends the time asking Max (the hydrophones guys) if he’s sure that nothing’s near.

I spend my free time with our medic, playing cards or listening to his stories from the 1st Flotilla. He is not one of the Cloverleaf’s crew, but he served on two other IIAs. He doesn’t want to talk about his time on the U-14, apparently that boat claimed quite a few lives. Anyway, he got transferred to the 2nd Flotilla, because his proven skills were needed on one of the new “better” U-boats.

The crew is in better shape now, the calm sea and very uneventful patrol took out most of their worries. Just the captain isn’t very happy. He even gave me a “personal” message to BdU, about how they must have left out some contacts in our vicinity and so on. I didn’t send it though – it was quite rude and offensive, and it wouldn’t help anybody either way. Despite his anxiety, he makes a good captain – he reminds us to check the equipment often (mostly the torpedoes), so we should be in a good shape if we meet something.



Note – By this time I probably should state the setting I use on realism. I am too lazy to learn the targeting system entirely, although from time to time I set things myself – for the fun of it. So I am using Automatic Targeting and Weapon Office Assistance (whatever that does). I am using Map Updates (never tried without it) and External Camera, because I love explosions. I use it sparingly though, not to reveal anything I shouldn’t see, so I don’t spoil the fun for myself. Everything else is ticked – 81% Realism.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 2nd January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

We reached our designated patrol area yesterday in the morning. Captain said he knew there was prey close, so he set up quite a fast patrol route. For 24 hours it looked like we were burning fuel for nothing, then BdU sent me a contact very, very close to us. The message said it was a British ship, slowly moving away from us west.

It took just 15 minutes to find it – the captain spot it first, even though there wasn’t much light in the morning. Again he insisted that we get close and personal with our deck gun – the ship was moving away, and our batteries wouldn’t be enough to close the distance before they would be empty. Again, there was no return fire. But there was fire. Loads of it. At least the men who were up there said so. With more 5000 tons on us, we were pretty happy to look forward to the way back home.

But – we weren’t going home. The captain explained that we were supposed to be on a major shipping lane, which has to bring us some prey for our yet unused torpedoes. So we’re sailing along the supposed shipping lane towards Canada. The crew isn’t very happy about that. I am not very happy about that. We were ordered not to engage American ships, so what is he hoping to find here? I hope he finds it soon – I have never been this far from home. I never wanted to be on a tiny tin can in middle of the Atlantic. We are sailing away from the patrol area – in the wrong direction…

[Kelly621]

Keep your reports coming...one of the lasting qualities of SH3 is that it fires our imagination:up:

Kelly621

[Aarnoman]

:agree:
Keep them coming MantiBrutalis! Very enjoyable to read so far :)

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 4th January 1941, 7 AM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

I hear the captain shouting orders in the command room. Anytime now we will breach the surface. I can almost feel the merchant some 200 meters behind this wall.

I look at Arnold sitting on the other torpedo: “How many do you reckon?” “Should be a small ship. About 30?” “I bet they can sink her in 20,” I say. Nothing to do for us torpedo loaders. We sneaked up upon a small merchant we met, took us an hour under water. In this darkness, we couldn’t be sure about their flag, so we ended up pretty close.

We hear a hatch open, many legs rushing up the ladder. The few of us without work to do remain still and listen for the action up there. Few others begin to feed rounds up to the conning tower.

Bam! “One.”

I can hear two pairs of feet running from the tower to the deck gun, each man with a huge round in their hands.

Bam! “Two.”

There is some kind of a commotion suddenly, everybody up there stops and hesitates for a moment. We can hear the captain shouting: “Don’t just stand there, get that spotlight!”

Bam! “Three.”

Arnold smiles: “I told you, 30 rounds. They gonna waste a few trying to knock out that light. They could make it in 20, if it wasn’t blinding them.” “20, if they can pack –“ Bam! “- them all under the waterline.” “No way.”

We didn’t fire a single torpedo this patrol. Just maintenance for a week now, kinda boring.

Bam! “Five.”

“You think the captain will have enough now and head home?” I ask. “No way, he won’t leave these ladies unused,” Arnold says while gently rubbing his chair-torpedo. I just want to head home now, we aren’t even doing anything.

Bam!




Note - I seriously had a nightmare last night, with car accidents and stuff. And suddenly, in the middle of it, some random guy pesking me for my terrible past tences in this story. I am really sorry if I ******* English up from time to time.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 5th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Finally, the captain has what he wanted. We are finally making for a large British convoy south of us. When I delivered the contact report to the command room, I briefly watched the Navigation Officer make a lot of weird lines and circles on the map. I asked how precise can he be with determining the intercept course. He probably didn’t hear me, because the captain answered for him – “Magically. Now get back to your work”

We sank a small merchant yesterday and a bigger one this morning. Both of them with same procedure – sneak up in the darkness below water, check their flag and armaments with our periscope… And then the deck gun. It is really being put to work this patrol, it is responsible for 22000 tons of merchants so far.

We are some 800 km east of Canada now. I hope that we can make a fast attack on the convoy and go finally home. We are even getting close to having just enough fuel to go home, although we still have food enough for some 2 or 3 weeks. Large and British – means a lot of prey with lot of escorts. Max is quite superstitious, he thinks that attacking a convoy with a nameless ship will bring us bad luck. Or a depth charge.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 6th January 1941, noon, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Here we go. Finally. Spent last two hours deep under water to slip under the escorts. Now we’re slowly making our way up. Any time now. If the hydrophones guys is any good, we will come up right on the middle of the convoy. Just a few meters now…

“Open tubes one and two.”

Come on, come up, come up. Now. Oh boy. There is a lot. I quickly check for any escorts around, then hastily observe the prey. All British, as I can see. Ahead, behind. This will go very well. Let’s do this…

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 6th January 1941, noon, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Even through the hydrophones on my ears, I can hear them, pinging. Very faintly. Then again, few explosions to our left. They definitely think we are somewhere else than we really are. 200 meters under. Listening. Waiting for the escorts to catch up to the convoy. They should fear for the now poorly protected convoy and leave us be.

We heard all 6 torpedoes explode, but the captain wasn’t very happy about the first two. They exploded too early, captain first thought that they went off prematurely. Then I heard the crushing of metal, pressures claiming a ship, squeezing it in the deep water. After telling the captain, he began laughing. He said he misjudged the first two forward torpedoes, and it probably hit the small merchant closest to us, instead of a large merchant that we were supposed to hit.

Another set of depth charges explode to our left. Then a few more behind us, but I can tell they’re somewhat different. I quickly turn the wheel to listen in that direction. There! Another ship, slowly making its way down to the ocean floor. Captain reeks happiness now – both stern torpedoes found its target – cargo ship, estimated 9000 tons.

Another set of depth charges. The captain is good – he doesn’t believe in the reliability of electric torpedoes, but uses them for the stern tubes – so the escorts don’t have such an easy time to guess our position. They can’t find us even in this calm sea.

Time passes by. Still, I can hear three engines operating to our left, although they stopped with the charges. They should catch up to the convoy any time now. Then we maybe could go home…

[RustySubmarine]

Good account of a typical patrol. You may have given others, the idea to set up a diary. I like the way you involve different members of the crew. Great idea and interesting reading. :up:

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 6th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

This morning we attacked the convoy. All went well, we sank two ships immediately, and a Greek merchant with no engines, which was left behind by the convoy. After the escort left us, captain ordered to take external torpedoes inside, three for forward tubes, two for stern. We are now in pursuit of the convoy – it sails at 6 knots. The captain plans to overtake them and set another ambush in the morning.

The crew split up to two parts. Some of them think that we are really doing amazing and we should keep attacking the convoy and do some good for our country. I am with the others – we just want to survive the way home. Anyway, we have to do what the captain says – keep trashing the British.

I just hope that the enemy doesn’t adapt too fast to us. We could be in a world of trouble tomorrow. The BdU doesn’t respond to our contact reports. Nothing. It bothers me.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Thank guys. I think now there are about enough individual sailors to talk about. Any more and it could become confusing. Also, I accidentally swapped the names of our medic and sonarman, I did make up a few other names, which were used for my different careers. I hope I won't mix them up...

Edit - also I started making up my own English words... Confusive my ass -.-

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 7th January 1941, 6 AM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Waiting under water again. Still going deeper, meter by meter. I hate being so deep. We are getting slowly to intended 200 meters. Yesterday, after a week of doing nothing, we had to reload all the tubes and we even brought down 5 external torpedoes. I am exhausted, but it hasn’t ended yet. The escorts should be above us any time now. After this attack, we will reload all the tubes again, and I doubt the captain will leave the last external up there.

Suddenly all things go to hell. “210.” I panic for a second: “I thought we were supposed to stop at 200? Why are we still diving?”

No answer. Then I hear the captain all the way from the control room: “What is going on? Level us up!”
“The dive planes are stuck sir!”
“In what position?”
“Neutral.”
“220, sir!”
Now the panic truly begins.

“Every free man to the stern torpedo room! Back slow! Do something with those damn planes!”

We are all rushing through the narrow corridor into the back of the boat. We hope that we can level it up in time.

“230!”
Quiet humming of electric engines. No sound despite that.

“240!”
Somebody reminds the captain: “Sir, this boat is not supposed to go under 220.”
“Shut up! I know. But we can’t be heard from the surface.”

“250! Sir, we are still not leveling!”
“Shut up!”

“260!”
“Back standard.”
“Sir?”
“Back standard, are you deaf?” He is. He works with diesel engines, he has to be deaf by now. Unlike the British up there, I fear.

“Sir, we stopped diving.”
“Depth?”
“265.”
We are very slowly leveling up, electric engines saved us from death, while at the same time they invited another death to find us.

Finally, a bit of luck finds us: “Dive planes working, sir.”
“Ahead slow. Maintain depth. We are deep enough for their sonars and with luck we have just enough time to get away before depth charges begin to fall. Back to your stations, men!”

I hope he’s right.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 7th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

We are overtaking the convoy once again. This captain is crazy! This morning, when we were trying to slip under the escort of the convoy, our dive planes got stuck, so we dived uncontrollably. It was very tense, we had to keep ourselves away from death by pressure with our engines. Which alerted the enemy. We were deep enough to slip away from them, but this shook the crew’s morale. And the captain wants to try again in a few hours! We nearly died there, and he plans to try the exact same thing even with these damn diving planes against a convoy which we already attacked twice. They will be expecting us! This is madness!



Note – I know it may sound like I made this entire bit up. I didn’t. For some damn bug I couldn’t maintain depth when doing 2 knots or less. If I was diving, the boat would just continue diving, unless I sped up to 3 knots. I encountered this bug before, but the other way around – I couldn’t stay down, the boat would float up. I think it’s something in the GWX. Anyway, I found a way to include it in the story.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th January 1941, 9 PM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Here we go. Again. I refuse to let this convoy go, as long as I still have some explosive babies on board. We slipped under the convoy again. Stupid British escorts. They have no idea. Any time now, come on. Come on! We are late already, we are going up in between the last ships of the convoy. Come on! Get there already, you lazy excuse for a boat! Come on!

Surface! Now! “All stop. Open tubes one and two.” There’s a nice fat some 600 meters on front of us. I quickly turn the periscope right to look behind the boat. There’s a cargo ship too, but we have to act fast, the angle is a bit unlucky already.

Then an alarm goes off in my mind. What did I see? I turn the periscope back to 90 degrees. A small freighter sails perfectly straight away from us. That means the ship which is supposed to go in its path behind it is… I turn the periscope to the other side as fast as I can. “Oh… “

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 7th January 1941, 9 PM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Listening through the hydrophones like this is unusual. This is my first. Until now it has always been listening for rhythmic, metallic noises in midst of humming noises of waves and other natural things. This is my first convoy. This is unknown to me, totally different. Now I have to, yet again, listen for screws and engines. With other screws and engines on the background. Everywhere. It’s very hard to make anything out of all the noise up there. It feels like there is one single monstrous machine all around us. Above us. I clear my mind and focus on the listening part.

Small ships, big cargos, fast engines, slow ones, a tiny screw, two huge screws. All around me. Mostly, I am trying to listen for a suddenly accelerating smaller engine with two screws of an escort ship. I am trying hard, but this is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I do not know if I am guessing the distances right. Also I have to listen if the sounds are closing, moving away, moving around us…

I turn the wheel a bit more to check the escort at 260 degrees. There’s no sound of an escort – instead, there’s a loud swishing of water… Close. And closing. “Oh… “



Note - I really wish the story will catch up to my saved game soon. I haven't played the game since I started this, because I fear that I may forget some of the stuff that happened or the ideas I have for the story. It is slowly getting there. Almost there! I really don’t mind if nobody’s reading this, I am just having a good time refreshing my English and giving my boat and my crew a feel and a soul.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th January 1941, 9 PM, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

There’s a deafening screech while we are all swept to the right. My face arrives at a bunch of pipes. Then the body comes, my side stopped by something very pointy. The sound of traction between metals continues for a second, then stops. We are quite turned to our side, nearly horizontal.

A quick glance toward the depth meter – we are still pretty much at periscope depth, though I have my doubts about reliability of the device after such a hit. The only sound belongs to the ship right above us. It looks like there is nothing in need of urgent repairs, the crew is silently standing up and waiting … for my orders! They really are hero material.

But the fact remains, we are still on our side. I reach up for the periscope, using it as a support ,climb a bit and try to look what it has to show me. It works! Although there’s nothing to see. Suddenly, a giant screw comes from nowhere. It misses the periscope by inches, followed by a trail of bubbles.

My brain goes into turbo mode. The ship hit us somewhere in front of our tower. Tubes should be fine. Men in torpedo rooms… I don’t know. Not much time has passed, we are still near the surface. The convoy didn’t have the time to react yet. I am not going into the depths without a ship accompanying me down there!

“Open all tubes!” I shout. They obey. I try to remember where the ships should be now. “Tubes one and four. Salvo, bearing 350, spread 4. Fire. Tubes two and three, salvo, bearing 350, spread 10. Fire.”

I try to imagine where the ship behind us is. Not much of a chance, but I’ll take it anyway. “Tubes five and six, salvo, bearing 200, spread 6. Fire.”

I wait for the sound of the last salvo leaving the boat. And now… run. “Ahead flank! Dive fast! Damage report!” We start rocking from side to side. Men are doing their jobs anyway. Good.

I try to calm myself. I realize I have trouble breathing, drops are leaving my chin. I broke my nose.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 8th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Finally it’s over. Over the night, we attacked the convoy again. This time, the dive planes didn’t **** up. This time, it got even worse – a cargo ship sailed right through us. Even as we were rocking from side to side after it hit us, the captain managed to get all six tubes to fire. And we scored three hits. One ship sank immediately, other one stopped with its engines down. An escort guarded the crippled ship all the night, but it had to join the convoy in the morning, so we finished the poor bastard off.

Right now, the crew is fetching the last external torpedo down here. Including that one, we got three torpedoes in front and two in the back. Also we found out why are the escorts so bad at keeping us away – they aren’t British, they’re Canadian. Probably didn’t have much of a live action so far. Anyway, we are goi…

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 9th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Yesterday, as we were reloading the torpedoes, we got interrupted by the Canadian escort – quite a trap they pulled on us. They waited pretty far away, so we didn’t spot them. When they thought we might surface, they came charging right back. The boys up there had to put the torp back in the external chasing. We couldn’t move very fast, because of a free torpedo on our deck, but the captain at least turned us, so the escort didn’t have much of a target. It fired a few shot our way, but at the time of our diving, it was still some 7 kilometers away.

The Canadians left us be a few hours ago, still the captain decided to wait a bit longer. “No more Canadian jokes,” he said. I wonder if we can catch the convoy now, after they had such a lead. And maybe, just maybe the captain will let them go, finally. The collision left long shallow brown marks on the front of our tower and behind our deck gun. The deck gun seems alright, and we might yet use it, the sea is still very calm.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 10th January 1941, U-104, somewhere in the Atlantic.

We couldn’t find the convoy. We kept zig-zagging the ocean in hope of finding it. After nearly 24 hours, we got a message from U-122, that the convoy turned north after our last encounter. We caught them few hours later, right before the sunrise, but we didn’t perform the same trick as always. We didn’t have enough fuel to screw around again and we were quite far to overtake and prepare an ambush again. We had to act soon, so the captain ordered to fire the rest of our torpedoes from 8 kilometers away. One torpedo out of the five hit a large cargo ship, which sank a few minutes later. The escorts had no idea where we were.

Now, when we have no means to fight the convoy any more, we have other problems to attend to. We don’t have enough fuel to return to Europe and there’s a storm coming from the west. We have one option only – to make for the Belchen supply ship to refuel for our voyage back home. So, let’s head north. BdU still doesn’t respond. It bothers me, we need their help finding the supply ship.



Note - Finally the story nearly caught up to my patrol, so today I went on and finished it. I scored quite a lot, actually I beat my tonnage record - nearly three times. A lot of it was due to luck (good weather for deck gun, crazy blind torpedo fire which actually happened, etc.), but even then. I am toying with 100% realism for the next patrol, but A - I am not sure if I can learn manual targeting, and B - I am not sure if somebody reads this or I am just spamming this forum. Continuing, ending the story, trying to do next patrol differently, learning to actually sink something by myself... Decisions, decisions...

[KpnKardif]

Love the story so far, Manti! The bit about getting run over and the captain breaking his nose is great. That actually happened to me once as well, only I didn't see it coming, and it scared the crap out of me when that ship hit! I do hope you continue, as I have been enjoying reading it.

As for manual targeting, I had that same conundrum after about a year of playing. I started to get bored using the map contacts to plot everything, as I would almost never miss. So I made myself turn them off and learn manual targeting. It took some time and a lot of research to learn how, but I'm glad I did. SH3 has a whole new dimension to it when you do it manually, and hitting a ship is 1000x more rewarding. Harder yes (think my hit rate right after I switched was about 40%), but you do get better the more you practice. Try it out and see what you think! :up:

[Cpt Aurora]

Nice reports so far, keep them comming :up:.

[Alpha Von Burg]

Good story, I have to say. Its unique in a way where it incorporates the same story from different perspective. Keep it coming.

btw, about the bug where you just keep going down; not sure if it is a bug unique in GWX but I can say that it has happened to many of us before and many were not as fortunate as you were and ended at the bottom of the ocean, never to return.

Some say it is a bug; most like to say its part of the game mechanics to include some mechanical failures; others say its Davy Jones' pulling a helpless victim to his locker.

Cheers,

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 13th January 1941, U-104, 150km south of Greenland.

The storm has raged for three days now. Yesterday morning, we arrived at the coordinates of the Belchen supply ship, but visibility is very poor and there’s no sound of engines underwater. We don’t want to risk lights in case the British have captured the ship and are waiting for us behind the fog. The supply ship doesn’t have lights on, because they don’t know we are coming.

We are slowly searching the area. The crew is restless. If the ship isn’t here, we are done. BdU still doesn’t respond. Thing looks quite grim at the moment.



Note 1 – We will see. I will probably add SH3 Commander today and see if it breaks my standing mods or my career. I started a side career with a IIA for two reasons: Because this “main” one takes five times longer to write the story then to play the game, so I don’t get to play the game much. And to work on my manual targeting. There is a lot of options for doing this, but none seems to work for me so far. Anyway, we’ll see if I can nail it before the story ends the patrol. (Also the IIA is small and you don’t get that much action, so I can remember what is going on in the “story” career)

Note 2 – One of “my own” tweaks to the game is to make supply ships work like milkcows (as in 1.6). I hated how it made a new patrol, took a month, just so you can sail back home.

Note 3 – More notes than story in this one, sorry!

[capten yian]

Good story. Keep it coming.:up::salute:

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 18th January 1941, U-104, 150km south of Greenland.

This is our fifth day on the supply ship. Well not “on” the ship, but beside it. When we found it, we discovered a type VIIC U-81 “Sharkfin” waiting for two days already for the sea to calm down. The Sharkfin was damaged in the Atlantic, and like us, this supply ship was the only thing they could manage to get to. But unlike us, they can’t submerge to get a rest from the waves. The supply ship is freshly packed, so there isn’t all that much space, so the captain of the Sharkfin asked us if some of his crew could stay on our boat, until the storm passes.

Sometimes, the captain picked some of our crew to “visit” the supply ship, where the rest of Sharkfin’s crew and the supply ship’s crew were. Not anymore, captains of both U-boats had a huge argument, Sharkfin’s captain didn’t believe our captain the tonnage we sank so far and accused him of lying and faking patrol logs.

We spend our time playing cards, telling stories, and generally not doing anything useful what so ever. With our boat packed full with people, there is no space for maintenance duties. Despite the cold weather, it’s boiling hot in the boat, our medic has concerns about hygiene. Anyway, this storm has to pass someday. When that day comes, we have to part with Sharkfin. And possibly sail home. Finally.



Note 1 – With the manual targeting – I backed down a bit, I can now pretty reliably hit and sink stuff using almost exclusively the Map (F5) with Map Contact Update on. And I am angry with myself. The map has all the precise information already there, so I am only extracting the data from the map using basic geometry. Still feels like cheating. But when I try No Map Contact, I can’t even navigate to a place where I can get a decent 1,5km shot. Guessing AoB is f*ing hard and destroys all the work. Maybe if I could get to the point of shooting, things could go my way, since I think I understand what I am supposed to do. *sigh*

Note 2 – I installed SH3 Commander this morning, and so far I didn’t even launch the game. I spent the day screwing around with the settings, adding more cargo types and so on.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 19th January 1941, U-104, 150km south of Greenland.

Today things went pretty much the same as the days before, until BdU finally managed to send a message to us. They couldn’t contact us for the past few days because of a storm in Europe. After going through the missing information we couldn’t receive and after stating the situation of the three vessels, BdU ordered “Lucky Halibut” to escort “Sharkfin” back to France as soon as repairs and refitting are finished. God knows when that will be, since the storm is still raging and we can just speculate about the external damage to the Sharkfin.

Oh, the “Lucky Halibut” is us, the U-104. I should’ve written that sooner. It is a mock name that the Sharkfin’s crew thought up, since they began to believe the number of ships we sank. They say our boat must be really lucky, because we met a lot of unarmed lonely merchants and our torpedoes rarely missed or malfunctioned. We have sunk over 67000 tons of merchantry already! Anyhow, the name stuck to us, partly because there is nothing to do to forget. I don’t have any work at all, since all the radio chatter is done by the supply ship and a bed was set up in our radio room anyway.

Regarding the damage to the Sharkfin – either of their port engines won’t turn, which would indicate a problem with the propeller or the drive shaft. Also, their rudder can’t move left more than a few degrees. Escorting Sharkfin means no additional danger for us, since the VIIC can dive faster than us even on one engine and it is a far smaller target for British sonars. The thing that bothers me is that VIICs are a lot slower on paper then IXBs. And they have working engines and rudder on paper. This patrol can still be very long.



Note – I took a short pause on my writing to relax and stir my imagination a bit. If I wrote several entries every day, the quality would go down. Anyway, on the pause I was thinking about how would an average person write a diary in a sub, so I can write more realistically. For example if you wrote an entry every evening, you would probably first write about the big things that happened that day, then you would remember some smaller stuff from the afternoon. But you would often forget about some minor things that happened in the morning. So basically, I already left out some stuff intentionally. It may be unnoticeable (is that a word?) by a reader, but it makes me happier.

[NZChickenPlox]

Dude, love your story! I wrote a creative writing story last year for a school assessment as a captain of a U-Boot, but never thought of using the crew perspective, and yours is so much better. Keep 'em rolling off the spillway my friend :yeah:

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 20th January 1941, U-104, 150km south of Greenland.

The fog cleared overnight, and the storm ventured to the northwest. At dawn, the sea calmed down its eternal rocking and we finally started the preparations for our way home. We began pumping diesel and loading torpedoes to the Lucky Halibut using the supply ship’s crane. Meanwhile, the Sharkfin had its port propeller bended back to its proper place and they were working on fixing their rudder.

When I saw the back of the Sharkfin, I couldn’t believe it still floated. It looked like someone tried to open the back of the boat with a huge can opener and when he failed, he at least battered the can with a hammer. The place where the aft tube should be, was now outside the boat. The Sharkfin was lucky that there was no torpedo in there when the depth charge hit them. And that the pressure hull didn’t let go.

The days are very short this far north, so we managed to load only three torpedoes before the sunset. The sea and sky cleared some more, the rain stopped completely. Our diesel tanks were nearly full, so we dived and began to run maintenance of everything. The Lucky Halibut needed it, nothing was ready for our departure. Except us. We were dying to get home. In high hopes of getting back to Europe in full health with amazing results and only a few scars on our trusty little boat, we worked hard, so we can surface. And head home.



Note – Yes, Manfred did just call the enormous IXB a “little boat”. Blame him, even being one of the bigger types of U-boat, it was still damn cramped inside.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 20th January 1941, 9 PM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 150km south of Greenland.

Excellent. The boat has passed all tests without a problem. Even with the slight damage from the collision, we just went to 100 meters like nothing happened. Now just to check that the observation periscope works too. I forgot to try it, we didn’t need it since the collision. Just a peak above the water and we’re clear to go. To go slowly to Europe, helping those jealous bastards get home. There will be no hunting this trip.

“Not a dribble, sir, the Lucky Halibut is in a great shape.”

Lucky Halibut my ass. I hate the name, but the crew decided to go with it. Well… Whatever.

“Sound contact! One engine, 40 degrees, close, moving slow.”

So they are trying to start up the second engine. We would be much faster if both their engines worked.

I go through the door to the radio room, lean to the wooden wall there. Bollmann is writing his diary again. He does it usually when we are underwater, since we can’t receive radio messages. I turn to Max.

“What do you hear?”
“One engine.”
“I mean what does it sound like?” I ask impatiently.
He looks puzzled for a moment, then he focuses on the headphones: “Sounds normal to me, sir.”

The broken propeller should make a distinctive sound – when I saw it I though it will be useless. It’s trashed, it doesn’t even look like a propeller anymore.

“Periscope depth,” report comes from the control room. I begin to leave, when Max suddenly adds more.

“Second engine. Doesn’t sound very healthy.”

At least something, I smile to myself. “Get the observation periscope up,” I order.
“Yes, sir.”

“Their undamaged engine stopped. The other makes a very bad noise, and it is getting worse.”

Damn. It may not work after all. I go back to the control room, right to the periscope. 40 degrees. There. The Sharkfin is slowly reversing toward the supply ship. Why would they try the engine on reverse first? And if they want to get something from the supply ship, why would they use only the broken engine to get to it? I can see two men crouching on the back of the Sharkfin, looking at their propellers and waving arms. I can’t see clearly, it is dark already.

“Something is wrong…” I murmur to myself.
“Sir?”
“Ahead full, surface the boat, hard to starboard.”

I continue to look through the periscope. Sharkfin is still closing to the supply ship’s side. More people come out of the boat, some of them now lie on the deck. What the hell is happening?

Suddenly, a cloud of black smoke emerges from the Sharkfin’s tower. Fire??? We have to hurry. Come on, come up, come up!

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by watchman Ludwig Peters, 20th January 1941, 9 PM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 150km south of Greenland.

We just climbed to the tower with the captain, seeing the Sharkfin some 400 meters away from the supply ship, but closing fast.

“Rudder straight, Ahead flank!” the captain shouted down the hatch.
“What are we going to do, captain?” I ask.
“We have to do something. The Sharkfin is doing some 5 knots now. If it hits the supply ship, it could be ugly. It is freshly packed with fuel and ammunition.”

We sail to the Sharkfin as fast as we can. The captain leads us to its right side. When we are finally at hearing range, captain tries to find out what is going on.

“What are you doing?! What is on fire?!” the captain shouts. There are more than 15 people on Sharfin’s deck now.
“The engine caught fire and it can’t be stopped!” a sailor stands up.
“You have to steer clear of the supply ship!”
“The rudder controls aren’t working, we were just repairing them!”
“Dammit. Then dive, just don’t hit the supply ship!”
The man on the deck is out of breath now, he just silently points to the pillar of black smoke and then crouches again.

“Dammit,” the captain isn’t shouting anymore, he talks to himself rather to than to us.
“Why isn’t the supply ship moving out of the way? They have to see what’s happening.”

Both U-boats are some 200 meters from the ship now.

“Dammit. Maintain speed! Rudder 4 degrees port!”
The boats approach each other slowly.
The captain shouts to all of us: “Hold on to something!”

The boats hit each other with a loud thud. Then metal grinds metal, we are a bit faster than the Sharkfin.

“A bit slower! Rudder 10 degrees port! We have to make it in time!”

We are closing to the back of the supply ship. Will the captain manage to do this? This is crazy! Well, it’s probably safer than to let the collision have its way…




Note – I did say that this patrol will be written in a rush, didn’t I? Well… Looks like I won’t get to play this career for a little longer than I thought.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Let’s take a break from the action to honor the real U-104 by learning something about its history.

U-104 was one of the 14 IXB type German U-boats, it was commissioned to the Kriegsmarine in August 1940, under Kapitänleutnant Harald Jürst. It was stationed in Wilhelmshaven, and it wasn’t quite as lucky as the imaginary Lucky Halibut.

On its first patrol, which started 12th November, U-104 sank British merchant Diplomat and damaged British motor tanker Charles F. Meyer north of Scotland. On 28th November, contact was lost with U-104, which has been most likely sunk by a newly laid minefield north of Ireland. No survivor or wreck of U-104 was ever found.

The information posted here can be false, and was taken from Wikipedia and uboat.net. Since its service was not very long, not much info can be found about it. Also, if you type “U-104” in Google, some very weird stuff comes up. The only known photo of U-104 is already posted here http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1074917, revealing its emblem, yet other sources indicate that U-104 had no emblem at all. I would like a confirmation that U-104 is indeed on that photo and where it was found.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 21st January 1941, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.

A whole lot happened yesterday when I finished writing that day’s diary entry. When we came above the water to leave, we found that Sharkfin’s port engine is stuck in reverse and on fire. The Sharkfin was heading straight for the supply ship, which engines couldn’t be started. Our captain decided to steer the Sharkfin with our own boat, which eventually saved the situation, although the smaller Sharkfin did suffer some damage to its outer plating.

Quick communication with BdU after the incident revealed, that the Belchen supply ship’s crew will be punished at appropriate time for poor maintenance of their ship, but for now they have to stay in position and help with repairing of U-81 “Sharkfin”. On the other hand, our crew was praised and BdU suggested decoration. Meanwhile, we were ordered to take transportable wounded man back to Europe as soon as possible.

Later that night, we have started our return to France with 6 wounded men on board. Five of them have serious burns, the last one has broken his leg when climbing the smoke-filled tower. Nobody has died in the accident, but one sailor couldn’t be transported, because of the extent of his burns, and is being treated on the supply ship.

We are finally heading home in our yet again scratched boat.




Note 1 – I should hand out quite a few medals and relieve part of my crew of active duty after this demanding patrol, right?

Note 2 – For those of you, who don’t like that I included stuff that didn’t and can’t happen in the game, don’t worry. I just saw this opportunity (really, how often can you stay in a vicinity of a friendly vessel for more than a few hours?) to spice the story up a bit, so it isn’t that boring and hollow. I don’t see it happening soon or very often, since these ideas and opportunities just don’t come often in Silent Hunter 3.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by doctor Fritz Matuszak, 24th January 1941, 5 AM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.

Finally bed. Finally going to sleep.

These past days were one of the hardest I spent on a U-boat. We are on the sea for a long time now and the crew is getting very exhausted. I can see it. They don’t pay as much attention to their jobs as they should. Doing mistakes. Yesterday, one of the “deft boys” came with blood all over his shirt, he lost an index finger to an engine. The crew isn’t used to this, because we were never on the sea for so long.

But we have to get used to this. It is only logical that the smaller short-ranged VII boats will do better around Europe with all these planes around. We will be assigned only west and south Atlantic grids from now on, to stay away from British air cover.

“Hey doc, you will probably get relieved of duty, what are you gonna do with all the free time?” Arnold asked.

“I’m thinking about staying with you boys a little longer. You wouldn’t even wipe yourselves if I wasn’t scolding you about hygiene all the time.”

“Come on doc, you deserve some rest. You and the few guys from Cloverleaf were on how many now? 9 patrols?”

“This is our eighth one. And if you want me to rest, let me sleep. Wake me up in two hours, ok?” I have to suppress a yawn.

“Two hours?! Get some more sleep, fool.”

“I can’t if I want to see the Sharkfin’s boys through this. One of them is getting worse, I have to check him again soon. Now let me have my rest.” I turn around and make myself as comfortable as this bed allows me.

A lot of work for me, these burned ones. And hygiene got pretty bad when waiting with additional men on board near the supply ship. I need to finish examinations of the crew tomorrow. And I have to check captain’s nose again. It doesn’t look that bad, but when I met him today, I noted that he still can’t breathe. I have to admit, he is quite a thorn to the British.

British… How are they even fighting, our forces should be much stronger and more prepared than theirs. How could they hold out the aerial onslaught German forces brought? Looks like someone in High Command isn’t as good as claimed.

Slowly, my mind falls to sleep, fading slowly… On the edge of my consciousness I hear our radioman: “Radio report… …British convoy, close… … … north, 250 kilometers…”

The boat tilts to the right, waking me up again. Convoy, great. Just what we needed. I try to sleep again, but rushed preparations for the encounter keep waking me up…

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by doctor Fritz Matuszak, 24th January 1941, 8 AM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.

I make my way through the boat. Another explosion, I fall down and stand up again. My battered and bruised body doesn’t even register the pain from hitting a pipe with my shoulder. I make two more steps, then I have to make way for Claus, who is dragging someone unconscious with his shirt torn and bloody.

“Put him to bed, try to be careful,” I whisper an order.

We will die here. But I have to try to save as many of us as I can. Another man dragging his wounded comrade goes through. Explosion, far. Second one, much closer. I brace for the third one, it could be right on top of us.

Bam! The pipe I hit just seconds ago goes off, water spilling everywhere. Then the bolts give away and shoot though the boat. Darkness. Few seconds pass by, water hissing through the boat, whispering going on somewhere. Lights flicker like they can’t decide if to help us survive or rather hide death, blood and water in darkness.

I look around, see water still rising, now higher than my knees. Another set of explosions. The boat rocks left and right, sitting on the sea floor. The lights choose to help us and begin to work fulltime.

A whisper comes: “Doc, help me with him.”
The wounded man was barely standing while trying to keep the sailor who was dragging him before above water. They positions now reversed. I approach the duo, help to get the fallen man from the water. Quick examination reveals two bolts buried themselves in the poor chap’s chest. His blood is spilling everywhere, but he still breathes, although he is unconscious.

“Hold him, I have to take out the bolts.”
But before we are able to do anything, he twitches and then sags. I examine him again, he is not breathing.

“Come on, stay with me!” I begin to shout while trying to improvise a hearth massage against a wall. Nobody cares about me being loud at this point. “Come one! Wake up! Wake up!!!”

“… Wake up… … … Wake up, doc.”

I open my eyes, sweat all over the bed.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep a bit more, doc?”

“No. I have to save some lives,” I answer.
Arnold frowns, then asks the obvious: “Nightmares?”
I wipe the sweat of my face. “Scapa Flow, Cloverleaf. Engines dead, bottom of the sea. They kept depth charging us for hours. Many good men died, I couldn’t save them.”
He makes even sadder face, but doesn’t say anything.
“Are we at the convoy?” I change the subject.
“Two more hours before we dive in its path,” he responses quietly. “Do you need my help, doc?”
“Yes, thank you.”

[RustySubmarine]

I reckon you should write a book about this. Going off the story so far it is as good as any other published material I have read, from well known WWII Naval authors.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Let’s take a break from the action to honor the real U-1 and U-81 German U-boats by looking into their history.

U-1 was one of the 6 IIA type German U-boats. It was the first WW2 U-boat built in Germany, after Adolf Hitler repealed the Treaty of Versailles in 1935. The U-1 was built rapidly in a few months. This fact and German yet untested technologies caused the boat to be constructed poorly. The boat was slower than intended and often leaked, making it unreliable. Most of the II type boats were meant to be used to training only, but because of lack of units, the U-1 sailed on 2 war patrols. Training on this boat took place in Netherlands.

In spring of 1940, the U-1 sailed against British off Norway, but did not encounter any shipping. On 4th April, she sailed again, only to be lost on 6th April to either a newly laid British minefield No 7 or to a mine delivered by British sub HMS Narwhal west of Helgoland. The U-1 and her 24 sailors were never found.


U-81 was one of many VIIC type German U-boats. She was launched in spring of 1941 and served two captains in 17 patrols. She was a successful boat, sinking 24 ships during her career totaling over 63 thousand tons. In November 1941, the U-81 entered the Mediterranean on her second attempt (being detected and damaged on her first attempt). During her passage of Gibraltar, she sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal with one torpedo, avoiding any damage from the British escort’s retaliation. The 22 600 tons heavy HMS Ark Royal sank after 12 hours, only one life claimed out of her 1580 sailors.

In the Mediterranean, the U-81 was successfully deployed against British shipping, finally sank by US bombers while docked in Pola, Croatia in January 1944. The wreck was raised in April that year and broken up. The sinking of U-81 claimed only two lives.

Information taken from Wikipedia and uboat.net, check these sites to get precise information on the U-1 and a ton of additional info on the careers of U-81 and HMS Ark Royal. Photos of both U-boats can be found in this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=149950.



@RustySubmarine: You must be out of your mind, my friend. Everything I know about submarines is from games and Wikipedia, the story can be (and probably is) very inaccurate. Also, I consider this a training of my poor English, I am not a native English speaker and I believe there are MANY mistakes in the story. I have a lot more reasons to think that idea silly, but I don’t want to start a discussion here. Maybe in a separate thread or through PM. In short – this story is far from publishable material.

EDIT1 - I do not mind an encouraging or critical comment every now and then, but if you want to say something about the story but don't want to clog the thread up, you can PM me any time. I don't complain now, the comments so far made me work harder to bring you better and more detailed story.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 24th January 1941, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.

It has been 4 hours now, since we launched our last torpedoes against a convoy we met. It has been 4 hours now since the British started hunting us. I have nothing to do, I can’t help with anything right now, so to steady my mind and banish the fear back from where it came, I write.

Three torpedoes fired. Two at a bigger merchant, the last one heading toward a smaller one. As we dived and tried to disappear, we could hear all of them explode and one ship sinking right away. It was a huge convoy, more than 30 merchant ships and at least 8 escorts, which immediately started looking for us with the intention to send us where we sent one of their merchants. Since then, at least 3 escorts take turns in attack runs and pinging – but we had gone deep enough before they could react.

Nearly an hour ago, we could hear a pair of ships crumbling under the pressure. They were too far apart to be one ship broken in half. The captain was puzzled by this for a while, but soon he accepted that one of the torpedoes missed and hit another ship. Even now, issuing orders of evasive maneuvers from here, the sonar room, his face is amusingly torn between the pleasure of sinking three ships and upset of missing a shot. Meanwhile, he keeps cooperating with Max to keep us out of harm’s way. And he does a brilliant job. The fact that we are under 180 meters of water helps a lot.

But the pinging. Faint, because of our depth, but persistent and never-ending. The pinging kills us piece by piece inside. No sound, complete silence, just the pinging. Then the sound stops to let us admire how many more barrels are the British determined to drop to get rid of us. Four or five explosions… and pinging again. I have to keep my mind working to stay sane.

I wonder if there is any snow back in France. Seeing an open field under a snow blanket, that’s what I need now. The freedom to move around, the feeling of having solid earth under my feet. Alcohol. Women. If we get home, I will reap those fruits, take them from those who don’t know what it’s like not to feel firm surface under them. I will enjoy all those things like there is no tomorrow. Oh, I hope so much that repairs of Lucky Halibut will take long. I love the boat, it means my life here. But I was born on land and I want to return to land and stay there as long as I can…

[CaptBones]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Let’s take a break from the action to honor the real U-1 and U-81 German U-boats by looking into their history.

U-1 was one of the 6 IIA type German U-boats. It was the first WW2 U-boat built in Germany, after Adolf Hitler repealed the Treaty of Versailles in 1935. The U-1 was built rapidly in a few months. This fact and German yet untested technologies caused the boat to be constructed poorly. The boat was slower than intended and often leaked, making it unreliable. Most of the II type boats were meant to be used to training only, but because of lack of units, the U-1 sailed on 2 war patrols. Training on this boat took place in Netherlands.

In spring of 1940, the U-1 sailed against British off Norway, but did not encounter any shipping. On 4th April, she sailed again, only to be lost on 6th April to either a newly laid British minefield No 7 or to a mine delivered by British sub HMS Narwhal west of Helgoland. The U-1 and her 24 sailors were never found.


U-81 was one of many VIIC type German U-boats. She was launched in spring of 1941 and served two captains in 17 patrols. She was a successful boat, sinking 24 ships during her career totaling over 63 thousand tons. In November 1941, the U-81 entered the Mediterranean on her second attempt (being detected and damaged on her first attempt). During her passage of Gibraltar, she sunk the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal with one torpedo, avoiding any damage from the British escort’s retaliation. The 22 600 tons heavy HMS Ark Royal sunk after 12 hours, only one life claimed out of her 1580 sailors.

In the Mediterranean, the U-81 was successfully deployed against British shipping, finally sunk by US bombers while docked in Pola, Croatia in January 1944. The wreck was raised in April that year and broken up. The sinking of U-81 claimed only two lives.


Information taken from Wikipedia and uboat.net, check these sites to get precise information on the U-1 and a ton of additional info on the careers of U-81 and HMS Ark Royal. Photos of both U-boats can be found in this thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=149950.

@RustySubmarine: You must be out of your mind, my friend. Everything I know about submarines is from games and Wikipedia, the story can be (and probably is) very inaccurate. Also, I consider this a training of my poor English, I am not a native English speaker and I believe there are MANY mistakes in the story. I have a lot more reasons to think that idea silly, but I don’t want to start a discussion here. Maybe in a separate thread or through PM. In short – this story is far from publishable material.

EDIT1 - I do not mind an encouraging or critical comment every now and then, but if you want to say something about the story but don't want to clog the thread up, you can PM me any time. I don't complain now, the comments so far made me work harder to bring you better and more detailed story.

Manti,

Your story is really good work, particularly in view of the knowledge base that you mentioned and being a non-native English speaker. In fact, your English is better than just about any U.S. high-school graduate (and most U.S. college graduates) that I've interviewed, hired and supervised over the past fifteen years. Frankly, at this point I'd say it's as accurate as anything produced by Tom Clancy and the lot of other writers today of similar fiction. Keep it going please, I'm truly enjoying the tale of the "Lucky Halibut" and Mssrs. Bollmann and Matuszak (you must be taking some of your inspiration from Patrick O'Brian's "Jack Aubrey" novels?).

Best wishes...

[spartan21071]

Great post, Great read! Thank you.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 25th January 1941, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, somewhere in the Atlantic.

The convoy left with its escort in the morning. The British had kept looking for us through the entire night, but they had begun saving their ammunition after midnight. After noon, the captain decided that we waited long enough, so we checked if there weren’t any strugglers left. Then we’ve set our course to Lorient.

The crew has been quite euphoric since our encounter with the last convoy; we have no torpedoes left, the sea is showing us its increasing strength, so our deck gun isn’t really much help either. This means we are going home. Finally. The only one who isn’t smiling like a child given a bag full of lollipops is our doctor. And nobody blames him – one of the burned guys from Sharkfin is getting worse by the minute. That is also why we’re racing back to France like there’s no tomorrow. There could be no tomorrow for the poor lad, if he doesn’t get proper hospital attention soon. We should get to Lorient in a few days if we maintain this pace.

[RustySubmarine]

Hope you make it back safely and the badly burned crew member lives to tell his story. :salute:

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 29th January 1941, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, just off the French coast.

The sea got really harsh today, waves are toying with our little boat like it doesn’t weight a thousand tons. Does it matter? No! The watchboys can just about see the coast from here, but we have to wait for an escort boat to guide us around a newly laid minefield. According to the boys up the tower, there’s no snow that they can see. Does that matter? No! We’re finally coming back to experience solid land after a month in the Atlantic.

The crew suppressed their eagerness for now, because the one that really needs to get back to the dock is the wounded Sharkfin’s lad. Hopefully they can fix him in the Lorient hospital. Hopefully they’ll take their time fixing the Lucky Halibut, none of us wants to go back to action any time soon.

Land. Alcohol. Women. Shower, bed. I can almost smell these things from here.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Coming soon:

Patrol 5 of the U-104 "Lucky Halibut", 2nd Flotilla based in Lorient.



What to expect: (Nothing set in stone, things may change)

Changes to game settings:
My last save is from 26th March 2013. My game changed in a few ways, the biggest change being the addition of SH3 Commander. I remember tweaking some config files and adding some cargo types to SH3 Commander, but it is a long time, I can't remember everything and the config changes were rather small. So I will not look up and post what changed. Deal with it.

Changes to realism:
I learned quite a bit of manual targetting, which means I will get close to 100% Realism. I will not use No Map Updates, usually when I try this, I ram ships when exiting my own port. Also, I will probably leave the Event Camera on, I just love it too much and it can help me polishing my manual targetting skills. Before, I named the Event Camera the "External Camera". Sorry for confusing you, the "Free Roam OP God Camera" was never on, I meant the camera which follows your eels around and stuff. Event Camera will probably stay. Deal with it.

Changes to crew:
To keep things "real", I will transfer out many seasoned sailors to training, their experience is needed to help greenhorns survive their first patrols. Luckily enough, the men I picked to tell this story aren't that experienced yet, and most (if not all) of the men you came to know will stay a little longer.




What may or may not come:

Experimentation in storytelling:
I have quite a few ideas on how to spice things up with telling the story from different points of view, but I will not spoil you just yet. Work in progress. I will not (at least now) picture lives of sailors while in port, I feel my knowledge of the topic is inadequate for the job.

More depth:
I spent some time studying the life and functioning of a U-boat, so I may add some more precise stuff as I learn more. I will not change (at least for now) the historical mistakes already written in the story so far.

Editing:
There has been some editing going on for some time now, and I will continue to correct misspells and spacing problems. I will not change any part of the story, I will just repair the damage my poor English has already done. I may or may not sit down with a friend to go through the entire story to check the grammar. Probably not. Who likes having their mistakes pointed out? Not me. Deal with it.

Keyboard destruction:
Hey there, let's change "shooting" to "shodni", I am a Czech computer and I don't care if you're trying to write in English or Chinese. I am going to randomly switch auto-correct to Czech, even if you disable the function million times over. Also, whenever you try to insert an apostrophe in any other style than copy-paste, I am going to underline the entire sentence with a red wave to remind you of how stupid it is to use a Czech installation of MS Office to write an English story! Yaaaay!

[RustySubmarine]

Thank you MantiBrutalis for giving us all an update for the continuation of your story. You are certainly putting a lot of effort in to it and keeping it interesting.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Peter Clausen, 23rd February 1941, 3 PM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, few miles off the French coast.

Bam!

“This boat is huge,” I say to myself as we load the fourth tube with a 7 meters long torpedo.
Bam!
“Much larger than the little training boats, huh?” comes from Erwin. Just like me, he has just been transferred to the U-104 from training.
“Much more crew, too. There won’t be much more space. I reckon there will be even less, since we have to take supplies for a few months.” Saying that, I turn my head to look at the officer overseeing us. He doesn’t look happy with the fact that we talk this much while performing our duties.

Bam!
Erwin doesn’t seem to mind the expression on the officer’s face and goes on: “They are really putting in some work up there, huh? The rate of fire, wow.”
I just nod my head. I don’t want any trouble with my superiors this soon.

“Crash dive! Crash dive!” the order is chained through the ship by many mouths, bells ringing. We finish loading as the rest of the crew arrives in a hurry, trying to tip the front of the boat down as soon as possible. Nothing happens for a while, the only sounds being the water fizzing around us and engines trying to pick up speed and quickly dive the boat. Then the tilting comes. We are going down.

When we arrive at our designated depth, the officer whispers with a grin: “And now you’ll show me how you can repair this lady while making no noise.”

We have to learn how to maintain and operate this boat, if we want to survive once we go on a patrol in the Atlantic.




Note – I am sorry about my commas. I just can’t grasp them naturally. I know how they work in English in theory, but since we use commas differently and much more often in Czech, my mind is keeping me confused and makes them automatically. And probably in bad places.

[RustySubmarine]

Don't worry about your spelling or grammar, no one is going to criticize you for that. Even English speaking people make mistakes with there own language, including myself.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 23rd February 1941, Lorient.

First sober day since we returned from the last patrol. Half of our crew had to stay sober today, we were assigned eight new sailors after the remainder of Cloverleaf’s crew left us. Only the doc stayed. There were some medals and promotions given after we came back, basically every one of us got promoted. Not that I remember much of the promotion anyway.

Back to this sober day – after the training staff returned with our boat, we took over the rookies and continued explaining how different IXBs are from the training II types. These new guys aren’t half bad, even if a bit too young. They will fit with the rest of us well. We will see how much will their first combat patrol change them.

Tomorrow there will be some additional training for part of our crew, but not for me. Nothing changed in my job. I still have to understand the rest of the boat very well, but I don’t need to know every single detail.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 24th February 1941, Lorient.

There was an interesting argument yesterday at the pub. As usual, our crew and several others met at our favorite place, trying to drink our faces off. We were going on about our own business, getting drunk enough to forget that we will have to sail across the Atlantic in a few weeks, after the repairs of the U-104 will be finished.

We weren’t even halfway done, when our captain with a local dockmaster came in shouting at each other. We listened in on the quarrel, as did everybody else inside. The mood of our crew kept sinking lower and lower as expressions like “not critical enough”, “barely a scratch” or “waste of time and resources” were used. And after the final sentence “BdU lets me decide what to repair” was used, the dockmaster marched through the door and our thoughts went deep enough to shame the reach of any U-boat known to men. The Lucky Halibut will be sent to another patrol without any repairs, because she was deemed sea-worthy. We are going to cross the Atlantic again in a few days.

As I am writing this, a young French girl sleeps on my bed behind my back. Time to wake her up, I need to cherish every moment I can grasp, before we sail again. I promised her to show her around my U-boat. She fell for the “brave sailor” quickly. I am not taking her to the Lucky Halibut, the guard wouldn’t let her in anyway. Too many sabotages this month already.




Note - The plan at first was to just write this off with "Bollmann forgot his diary on the boat" or "Bollmann didn't want to recall patrols when on leave", but I just couldn't. I promised myself that I will skip this nonsense and continue straight with the beginning of a new patrol, so I can play my favorite career again. Well, ooooops...

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

After a recent virus attack on my laptop, the save of this career vanished (as did some of my other (and probably more important) personal files)

I have several back-ups of the whole game, but the save files are of different dates and show different stages of corruption and damage. I am fairly sure I can reconstruct the save back to its former glory, as the damage isn't that severe, I was actually before the start of a new patrol and I nearly managed to repair a broken save file in the past.

I don't know when (or if) I can do this, as other matters came up with this problem.

I am truly sorry, I will keep you posted on the progress...



EDIT1 - Save looks good now, wasn't as damaged as expected. Just a few changes to dates are needed, as the game keeps setting my new patrol to 10th February whatever I set in SH3Commander. I should play this evening a bit, additions to story to be expected in today's evening or morning tomorrow (European time).

[VONHARRIS]

Too bad about that virus attack to your laptop.

Looking forward to reading more of your story.

Gute Jagd Herr Kaleun

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 26th February 1941, 23:10, leaving Lorient.

We just left the base for our next patrol. All the fanfares and parting nonsense. We changed our clothes from our uniforms (as they are impractical in action) to our working clothes (which will have to suffice for a long time, starting now) as soon as we were out of the port and the escort ship left us.

It was very cold outside, much colder than during our last patrol, but we had to check that everything on the deck was ready for action. As we were fixing equipment on the tower, so it won’t come off while under water, a German destroyer not far from us towed its prize, a British merchant, back to Lorient. It seemed they had a good time on the sea. We just have to pray that the Lucky Halibut will be as lucky as that destroyer.

Right now, the crew is in a good mood. The captain is playing a game with them, its purpose is to guess the grid we are going to patrol. No luck so far, but the course we set tells us that it will be a bit more southerly than last time.




Note – Thanks to an idea from sharkbit, I am revising a dice system to implement into my gameplay. Its purpose is to let the dice decide on some occasional situations. For example if to intercept convoys based on its distance and heading, if to transfer to the Mediterranean in October 41 or the participation of the U-104 in Operation Drumbeat. The odds will be decided on the spot according to historical data (for example half of the IX boat were transferred to the Mediterranean).

Note 2 – I feel like my notes about dice rolls or game configuration are clogging the thread a bit, so I will keep these things to myself for now on. Anyone curious enough to PM me will be awarded with answers to his questions.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Peter Clausen, 28th February 1941, 2 PM, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 250km northwest of Spain.

It isn’t that bad, is my first thought when I finally settle on the bed right next to the radio room. Sure, the hygiene isn’t a word I would use when describing the life on a U-boat, at least not without a “no” before it. One will get used to the cramped space after some time. Sure, I didn’t see sunlight in a few days, because we have to stay alert and ready to dive since we left friendly waters, but it’s pretty cold outside anyway. The crew seems solid and experienced, helpful and willing to provide entertainment.

As usual, there is quite a lot of talking going on in our quarters, when suddenly everybody gets quiet and listens. This is yet another quality I found amongst the crew – they have a sixth sense. They always know exactly when will our radioman report radio messages to the captain.

“Contact report, single ship, 45km east of us, medium speed, course north-northeast,” the report states.
We wait a bit in silence, as the control room is too far for us to hear clearly, then the boat tilts and turns, engines loudly presenting the strength they reserved so far. The crew cheers. I cheer with them, even if I am a bit worried about my first combat engagement. Someone on a bed below me hushes us, our radioman isn’t done yet.

“… …double-coded, sir. For your eyes only, sir.”

The captain takes the radioman’s place and starts decoding the message. Minutes pass by as we listen for the outcome. Then the captain walks back to the control room, saying: “Jürgen, do the intercept estimate again. We can’t let this one go, it’s top priority, orders of the BdU.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 28th February 1941, 19:07, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 200km west-northwest of Vigo.

“Sir?”
“The front one is a destroyer, 1000 tons, British. The other one a passenger ship, but loaded with some crates. 2000 tons,” I answer.
“Small fry,” my first watch officer Jürgen adds.
“We are to destroy the cargo ship by any means, no warning. Order of the BdU.”
“Got to be important. Escorted by a destroyer. Only one little ship.” This man used to be impatient. U-boat service taught him how to keep calm.

I continue describing my observations: “The destroyer is only a kilometer away now, dead ahead. Darting all around the place, looking for U-boats. Looks like one from the world war.”
“V class?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“1100 tons. Torpedoes. Depth charges.”
“Nearly as old as me,” I end the observation amused. “We’ll wait for the cargo. Observe them for now.” I let him to the periscope. I need to think about this.

It’s a small one. But it is important. And the destroyer won’t let us get another chance. Two torpedoes then.
“Sir, destroyer turned around. It’s going back to the cargo ship.”
I let him watch the ships. He’s experienced, no need to man the periscope myself, unless we’re shooting. Shooting is mine.

“It’s now sailing just ahead of the cargo. Speed and heading stable. Estimating 10 knots.”
Good. “Set for magnetic pistols. All bow tubes. Depth 4.”
“What’s the plan, captain?” Jürgen asks nervously.
“All four torpedoes spread at the destroyer. It’s dark enough, they won’t notice until it’s too late. And they have nowhere to run from the spread. Afterwards, we can do anything we want with the cargo ship.”
There’s a wide grin on Jürgen’s face.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Garry Smith, 28th February 1941, 19:12, HMS Walpole, 200km west-northwest of Vigo.

I suddenly wake up. There was a whirling sound in my dream that woke me up. Probably just in a dream. Probably.
“Hey, did you hear anything?”
“Shut it and let me sleep, Garry.”

I am now sure of it. I heard something, and that something woke me up. I stretch myself on the bed and then I put my ear to the side of the ship. Just water going past. Or… Now! I am not sure, but there was the whirling again. Faint. Distant. Or was there?
“Did you hear that?” I ask again.
“And did you hear me? Shut it! I want to sleep finally. You and your ghost sounds.”

Well, probably wasn’t anything. Maybe I’m imagining things, I am still all drowsy.
I try to fall asleep again, but something is going on in my mind. Well, let’s get some fresh air…

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 28th February 1941, 19:12, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 200km west-northwest of Vigo.

“Hard to port, ahead slow,” I whisper orders. Damn torpedoes. The destroyer was right there, the two torpedoes in the middle should have hit it. I swear if anyone tells me again that our torpedoes are working now and that they fixed every problem there was… I will have to kill them with my own hands. We left the base two days ago and still at least two of the four were broken. Dammit!

Just then I realize the tension of men behind me. I answer their worried faces: “Duds. They didn’t even notice them. Prepare to fire the bow tubes. Depth 5, impact pistols.”

Time reluctantly passed by, as slowly as we were turning to present our enemy with another pair of our torpedoes. But soon it was apparent that we weren’t turning fast enough. We lost this opportunity. Dammit.

[Navy_Mech2]

Awesome story! I spent 40min on the toilet at work this morning reading the whole thread! This is darn near tom Clancy material

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 28th February 1941, 21:03, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km northwest of Vigo.

“Current depth 25.”
“All stop. Hear anything?” I look for Max at the hydrophones.
“Nothing, sir.”
“We’ll wait. They should be here any minute.”

Minute. Two. Three.
I hear Jürgen walking around the control room, calming down the rookies: “Keep your mouth shut, eyes on your work. You’re safe now. If you want to remain safe, do exactly what I tell you to do.”
Rookies. Scared even when there is nothing out there. I scratch my chin. They should be here, we are exactly where we need to be. Another few minutes pass by.

“Max?”
“Nothing,” he replies.
Maybe we aren’t where we need to be. I go back to our notes, check the calculations, but nothing new comes up – we did these calculations like never before. They should be right here, right now.

“Max?”
“Still nothing, sir.”
“Dammit. Well, we will wait here for at least an hour, maybe they slo-“ Ping! Ping! Ping!
Surprise, fear and panic overwhelm my mind for a fraction of a second, then my brain starts working again: “Ahead flank! Dive!” “Sound contact! 20 degrees, closing fast!” “Don’t panic! Keep doing your work!” “What? How?!” “All men forward! Where the hell are you?!” And all the time, the loud pinging reminds us that death is coming for us.

Every men in the U-boat looks at exactly the same time upwards. The pinging stopped, only to be replaced by the screws of a passing ship.
“Hard to starboard!”
We can hear depth charges entering our underwater world. Then – Bam! Bam! Bam!

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 28th February 1941, 21:41, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km northwest of Vigo.

“The ship is leaving north,” Max whispers.

Finally it ended. The enemy didn’t waste too much depth charges – the first 15, which were close, but not really on the mark. And then the other few just minutes ago, as their sonar showed something which wasn’t there, pretty far away from us. But beside the first attack, there were no pings. Maybe their sonar broke or something. I don’t know, I don’t care. We all now wait for the next explosion – the captain’s face was getting darker and darker since the surprise, and we know what is going to happen. He is going to get very angry at somebody. And… here we go…

“What the hell was that, Max!! Before we dived there was nothing miles around!! How comes that minutes later, a destroyer falls from the sky right in front of us!! Explain!”
“I-I-I don’t know, s-sir. I just didn’t hear it,” poor Max replies. There is a feeling within me that I should defend my comrade. But he did nearly kill us all.
“I figured you didn’t hear it! But how?! It was right in front of us and it had to be doing God’s speed to be at us that fast!”
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know.”
“Dammit, man. You nearly killed us!”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“Sure you are!!”
The first watch officer interrupts the fight: “Captain, what now?”
The captain calms down a bit, and with a lot of focus, you could manage to detect a faint smile on his face: “They let us live. Let’s catch up and repay the favor.”

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 28th February 1941, 23:17, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

We picked up a message from BdU about a single ship trailing close to us. Captain decided to intercept it, just to reveal that this single ship has its own destroyer escort. Anyway, the first attack failed miserably – we fired four torpedoes, but none hit the destroyer. The captain claims two of them were duds. Two hours later we tried to reengage, but we were surprised by the escort, which kept hunting us for half an hour. Luckily for us, these men seemed to have little experience with their anti-submarine equipment. Anyone more experienced would send us to the bottom of the ocean.

There was a fight between the captain and Max, but I didn’t hear it as I was helping to secure food which escaped from its net and spilled on the bow torpedo room floor. Anyway, we are hunting this odd pair again. I hope for more luck with torpedoes for the Lucky Halibut.



Note – I repaired some spacing problems and punctuation throughout the story. I also changed “feint” to “faint” on several occasions. Educational gaps everywhere :(

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 28th February 1941, 23:55, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

“Current depth 50.”
“Max?”
“Destroyer at 145. Slow,” I whisper the answer.
“And the cargo?”
“Engines slowed down even more. Very weak, nearly doesn’t move.”
“Good.”

The captain seems a bit happier, now that we hit the cargo ship with a torpedo. The other torpedo we fired probably exploded prematurely. I still wonder if I am going to be punished when we return back to France. I just don’t know where did the destroyer come from back then. I am quite sure I checked everywhere.

I continue to listen for the ships: “I lost the sound of the cargo ship. The destroyer is going slow. Making its way back to the left.”
“Can you hear the cargo sinking?”
“No, sir.”

Time flies by. You get used to patient waiting for hours on a U-boat. There is usually a lot of waiting involved. I lost the destroyer at the same place the cargo ship’s engines stopped. Another ten minutes passed by. Then the destroyer left at high speed.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 29th February 1941, 01:49, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 220km west of El Ferrol.

I observe the damaged cargo ship through the periscope for the last time. We are some 500 meters away. The ship is tilted heavily to its right, its nose nearly entirely under water. No men, no lights. Abandoned gun on the stern deck. It has been like this for more than an hour. Exactly like this. It isn’t going to sink.

For a moment, I toy with the idea of boarding the ship, but I reject it soon. They wouldn’t leave any important documents behind and the ship doesn’t seem very stable. Let’s blow it up then. I take the periscope back down, thinking about the way to put this one under.

“Prepare to surface and man the deck gun. I want watch crews scanning air and sea. I also want five deck gun shots into its bridge as soon as possible.” Just to make sure it can’t radio our position.
“Ready? Take her up.”

We prepare inside the tower, me and Jürgen first, then the deck gun boys, the rest of the watch right behind them. We rush up, I immediately do a quick scan of the horizon.

Bam!
The first shot hits the bridge. I don’t even care to look what damage has the shot done. I should have.

Bam! There’s a bright flash on the edge of my vision. I instinctively fall down while the shockwave arrives to our boat. The sound of the explosion deafens me for a while. Everybody else on the tower was thrown down on the tower’s floor. After we stand back up, we can’t even look at the ship, the pillar of fire in the night is blinding. What we can see is four of our sailors trying to help two of their comrades who ended up in the freezing water.

“Get them inside and get them warm!” my first watch officer shouts. I wonder if they can hear him, I nearly didn’t myself. The men are carrying out the orders either way.
Jürgen frowns: “Did they set a trap for us with explosives?”
“It does look like it.” Good thing we’re all alive. Darkness reigns again – both the fire and the ship disappeared. It sank like stone.

[darqen27]

Keep it coming herr kapitain, I am on my toes constantly waiting for the next update on the ol' Lucky Halibut

:salute:

Kapitänleutnant Justin Loehner

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 1st March 1941, 10:22, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, Vigo.

After finally sinking the target cargo ship, which managed to cost us quite a lot of trouble until it finally gave up and sank, we were ordered by the BdU to sail to Spain. This morning we arrived at the Spanish port of Vigo to resupply at a covert supply ship. We are now refilling our diesel tanks and we found out that there are only 2 torpedoes left on the supply ship. At least we can use its crane to help load our externals inside.

In the evening we will continue to our destination west of Gibraltar. We will depart the same way we arrived here – in the cover of the night. Spain may be neutral, but you can never be too safe. There is a lot of juicy traffic around Vigo, but the Spanish let us dock our supply ship in their ports only if we maintain peace in their waters, so we weren’t even looking for potential pray.




Note – Another quick revision of the story, found a few missing letters, fixed my sank/sunk problem. I can’t believe I actually did these mistakes. I have to read the posts after myself more thoroughly…

Historical note – Did some more research. None of the 8 working IXBs in 1941 ventured into the Mediterranean. The Lucky Halibut will enjoy the second happy time, providing it will survive long enough. The last IXBs were scuttled or used as training boats in 1944.

Edit - Just so you know: From the begging of this patrol to leaving Vigo, it was an hour of gameplay. One hour and 4 minutes, to be precise.

[Navy_Mech2]

Edit - Just so you know: From the begging of this patrol to leaving Vigo, it was an hour of gameplay. One hour and 4 minutes, to be precise.

Gotta love time compression haha

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 6th March 1941, 02:36, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

Nothing. Since Vigo, nothing. Just boredom. We arrived at our patrol coordinates two days ago. During the cruise here, nothing happened. Not a single ship, plane, living creature. Nothing. We are supposed to ambush a British convoy from Freetown. It should be here… yesterday. BdU had confirmed information that the convoy should be on its way, so we are to remain in position for some time longer. The convoy is probably somewhere completely else by this time.

The sea grew harsher over the last night. It will be even worse than it was until now. The sea has been at least very helpful with not rocking our boat like it is a toy. Not anymore. Since the sudden change in weather, we cherish every moment we spend under the water listening for an imaginary convoy. Just a few hours of peace, silence and stability every now and then. It is tiresome.

Things between the captain and Max got even worse (since there is nothing else to do). The captain doesn’t trust Max anymore. He supervises any listening we do under water. This undermines the crew’s morale even more than this weather and the feeling of uselessness.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th March 1941, 05:08, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

Yet again babysitting this useless guy. I just can’t trust his skills anymore, I am responsible for this entire boat and its every single sailor. I can’t let him kill us all. I even listen through the hydrophones myself half the time, just to be sure. But there is not a single ship around here. We need to find something. I hope the BdU lets us sail somewhere else or this patrol could be a waste of time.

“Take her up. We need fresh air,” I order while going back to the control room.
Exciting whisper stops me before I get there: “Wait! Contact, 135. Slow.”
I hastily return to Max’s side while ordering to maintain our depth and take one of the headphones for myself. 5 seconds… 10 seconds…

“But I don’t hear –“ I start to speak just to be interrupted.
“Shh! The waves. You can hear it for a few seconds when it dips lower in the waves,” he whispers with his eyes closed.

I close my eyes too, but it doesn’t help. I don’t hear anything. I open my eyes again and watch Max’s hand indicating the engines rotations. Four times… Then nothing for a few seconds. Then again, five more engine revs and nothing. I can see his hands, yet I don’t hear anything. But he seems sure of it.

I start to leave, when Max adds: “It is quite far away. But I am sure it is there.”

Let’s test his skills then: “Full ahead, surface the boat. Course 250.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Herbert Krauss, 7th March 1941, 07:44, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

“So we carry these stupid useless things just to see them fail,” Arnold complains as we’re preparing the last torpedo for loading.
“Maybe we should name these things too, for the luck in it,” I suggest ironically.
“Yeah… Sure… Let this one be named Platypus. And let it fail like the rest. What next, you want to name every round for the deck gun?”
Everybody laughs at that. The truth is that we weren’t exactly lucky with our shots this patrol. Starting with those four misses and duds against a destroyer. Then one of the pair against its charge detonated prematurely.

We start to fetch the Platypus into the tube.

And now these failures. First torpedo we fired today detonated appallingly soon after we let it go. The second one bumped the ship so hard even we could tell. Then the third exploded prematurely too, just the fourth made it. That makes 10 torpedoes, 2 hits. That’s bad.

“Shh!” someone stops our loading with the Platypus half inside. All eyes turn up and we listen. Nothing. Then the distinctive sound of metal screeching and moaning under the pressure of water, but this time it isn’t our boat doing it. The target is going down. 10 torpedoes, 2 ships. Still bad. We finish loading the Platypus. The captain will want to check what’s left of the ship.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 7th March 1941, 07:58, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

The ship is gone. It vanished somewhere down there and there isn’t that much left up here. Some floating debris, shattered wooden crates here and there is all we can see from our tower. The ship went down pretty fast, and with this weather on top of that, its crew went probably with it. At least some of it did, one of the watchboys is pointing somewhere ahead of our boat.

It takes me a while to find two sailors trying to stay above the waves. They are visible always just for a moment on a top of a wave, before disappearing somewhere among the scarce debris. They didn’t see us yet. I had the weapons brought up when we surfaced, just in case we found a resisting lifeboat. These guys won’t resist – they are freezing right now.

I think about the situation for a second before stating my command: “Search for a usable lifeboat.”
“Sir, shouldn’t we pick them up first?” Jürgen asks.
“No. If there’s no lifeboat we can’t help them.”
“But –“
“What?! You want to rescue them just to throw them back in the ocean after an hour?!”
“We can’t leave them here in this weather with no lifeboat! That would be a death sentence!”
“We can’t help them! Somebody will pick them up anyway,” I start to get angry. Nobody will endanger my boat.
“And who would that be? We are here for a week now and this is the first ship we met. They won’t survive even for two days in this cold!”

He’s right. What am I thinking? What is wrong with me?! They will die here if we won’t help them. We have to, they are just from merchant navy. The cargo is lost, that is our target. Not murdering people.

“Ahead slow. Rudder 2 degrees starboard. Hook up yourselves with ropes, we’re going to pick them up.”
Jürgen is a bold man to stand up against me like this…



Note - Some repairing still underway, hopefully no more mistakes will occur. Mistakes in dates repaired for couple last posts.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Manfred Bollmann, 7th March 1941, 08:03, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 500km northwest of Madeira.

I’m patiently waiting for the party up there to finish their observations, so the captain can finally tell me what message to send to BdU. I can hear the hatch to the tower opening, followed by (as always in rough seas) a fair amount of water. Then the order comes.

“Prepare your weapons, two Tommies coming in!”
“Yes, si- wait what?” the surprised sailor replies.
“Two survivors coming down, take care of them.”
“Why down here? Don’t we do these things on the deck?”
“Didn’t you forget something, mate?”
“Sorry, captain. Will do, captain.”
“And bind their eyes, feet and hands. They might stay with us for a while, unless we can find a usable lifeboat. And treat them with respect.”
“Yes, sir,” the sailor responds, then saying more, apparently just to himself: “Well this is brilliant.”
“What did you say?” comes from above.
“Nothing, sir.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Richard Manfold, 7th March 1941, probably just before noon, in a U-boat God knows where.

Well, Lord help us both. In a German submarine, somewhere in the ocean. This tin can is much less stable than our ship is (or rather was), a thing I thought was impossible to achieve. On the other hand, the Germans seem to know what’s good for their little boat, so we spend most of the time underwater. Never in my life I thought I would share a metal coffin enclosed by water with a bunch of Jerries. And yet here I am. And when I say “I”, I mean “we”. Peter looks pretty horrified. He has probably not yet accepted this reality, unlike me.

Apparently there was only one free ticket left on this ride, so we have to share a bed together. Our hosts untied our eyes and feet after the first ten minutes of this trip; we kept falling off “our” bed due to the rather insane waves. Apart from the expected bruises, the Jerries are still taking care of us to some degree (if you pass over the fact that we can’t speak, move or go to toilet). We are even given regular meals and water. The only person who spoke to us in English was a guy named Manfred, explaining that they will find a way to get us out of the boat as soon as possible. I haven’t decided yet if it is good or bad news. Thinking back a bit, I believe we were given the better fate out of our ship’s crew…



Note - I just finished my English test, yaaaay! Well, I probably haven't passed it, my essay was pretty horrible in my opinion. Anyway, I have got some time to spare in the coming days, so you can expect more of the Lucky Halibut's story (before the main exam period comes). Also I am not sure what to do with this British scum on board of my beloved boat...

[Marko_Ramius]

Hi MantiBrutalis,

Just to say thanks for your story :up: This is nice to read.

Goog luck for exam !

[MantiBrutalis]

Radio message 0817/07, 7th March 1941, 08:17.

To BdU: Clear sky, sea very harsh. Sank SS Wear (2228 tons), CF8919. 2 seamen second class picked up, interrogated. 10 torpedoes remaining, unable to load externals due to weather. Sea condition does not allow further operation. 8 out of 10 torpedoes failed. Requesting new orders. - U-104 -




Radio message 0841/07, 7th March 1941, 08:41.

To U-104: Proceed to Canary Islands for refitting. Increase torpedo maintenance rate. Non-officer prisoners unimportant, permission to let them go when possible granted. Report after 24 hours. - BdU -

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 8th March 1941, 00:52, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 300km northwest of Madeira.

Yesterday we finally found a ship to sink and we did, although it cost us four more torpedoes. Damn useless torpedoes, failing so often this patrol. We had to take two British survivors on board, there was not a single working lifeboat for them. These two visitors and the fact that the sea decided to kill us is really sinking the crew’s morale.

The sea became our enemy. We spend most of the time underwater, since the waves slow us down, threaten to damage the boat or injure the watch. They also steer us away a lot, so we have to constantly adjust our course. Course to Canary Islands! It isn’t freezing now, but still, Canary Islands should be a warm paradise. We will probably stay there a few days to check everything on the boat, reload and store the extra provisions. Not that the quality of the resources matter with our cook, he makes horrible stuff. Also, we could dump our British friends there, although the captain hopes that we could place them on a lifeboat of the next ship we sink.

Anyway, back to reality. We are making less than 5 knots on average now. And we will really need to recharge our batteries soon, or we could be trapped in one place for a looong time. The sea can stay this way for a lot longer. We are surfacing for fresh air every couple of hours, but only for a brief moment. Recharging batteries could take a few hours. That is going to be unpleasant.



Note - Bollmann's diary acts like a recap lately, or as a tool to skip times when nothing's happening. Sometimes I feel it is a hindrance to tell the part of the story twice. Maybe I shouldn't continue with the diary. Maybe Bollmann should die... :hmm2: Just to justify the end of the diary. Any ideas/suggestions?

[MantiBrutalis]

Radio message 0113/08, 8th March 1941, 01:13.

To BdU: Convoy sighted, DH1394, 6 knots, course 20. 20+ ships, 4+ destroyers. Small and medium cargos, 2+ tankers. Sea harsh, but we can shadow. Standing by for orders. - U-107 -



Radio message 0119/08, 8th March 1941, 01:19.

To U-107: Shadow convoy, report every hour. Await reinforcements.
To U-83, U-104: Intercept large convoy, DH1394, 6 knots, course 20. Report position every two hours. Report upon contact with convoy. Permission to engage not granted. - BdU -
 




As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 8th March 1941, 01:21, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, 300km northwest of Madeira.

Jürgen Kriegshammer scratched his bearded chin before looking again at the charts. For the last two minutes, he has been drawing lines, circles and triangles far more complex that what they taught us at the Academy. I’d like to say I understand his creations, but I can’t. Half the stuff there has no meaning for me. But now we are running out of time to ask unnecessary questions, we dived to 20 meters just to be able to draw this.

I begin to lose my patience: “So?”
“I don’t know,” he mutters, “we might be able to get there in time. The convoy is 200 kilometers west of –“ he pauses as our submerged boat’s cracking sounds reminds us of its fragility “– west of us. Eight hours to this intercept.”
“Why can’t we make for this closer intercept?” I point at a different line on the paper.
“We’re not fast enough. We have to head a bit more ahead of them if we plan to make it. Even then, we have to do at least 8 knots on average,” Jürgen rests his head against the wall.
“Another IXB type shadows the convoy, which means they can do more than 6 knots. The Lucky Halibut isn’t just some IXB, it is the best one. It will not be beaten by another.”

Jürgen raises his eyebrows. To this point I have never accepted the name of this boat. After a brief pause, he nods: “Hard to starboard. Prepare to surface the boat. Ahead flank. We have a sea to tame and a meeting to catch.”

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by doctor Fritz Matuszak, 8th March 1941, 05:03, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, closing on convoy SL-67.

This wound doesn’t look good, I think to myself.
The owner of this bloodied and torn arm, the chief engineer Peter Zeisller, nervously asks: “Come on, patch me up already. I need to check the port engine’s oil now!”
I avert my eyes from his arm to look at him: “Do you want your arm or not? I can let you go, you can lose your arm.”
“Whatever, just do it fast. The engines don’t operate themselves, not when strained this much.”
“If you don’t hold still for a moment, there won’t be a chief engineer to do it.”
“Yeah, sorry. But the sea calmed a bit, we can still make it in time.”
“Right… Sure…”

Lucky Halibut cuts through the harsh sea, battling it, metal moaning with stress. I can’t stitch in these conditions, bandages have to do it for now. At least he won’t bleed to death. I start working as soon as the boat rams through the next wave. Nothing is falling off the walls in the entire boat anymore. What did fall off was fastened where it ended up. This entire boat was a mess now, but it is still bravely fighting the sea in this mad race to battle.

“Done?”
“For now. Take it easy, you could still easily lose it.”
“Thanks, doc,” he trails away through the boat.

Lot of injuries in these conditions, mainly the watchboys. Nothing too serious yet, but that might come sooner than I’d like.
“Next!”

[MantiBrutalis]

Radio message 0748/08, 8th March 1941, 07:48.

To BdU: Convoy report, CF8891, 4 knots, course 20. 30+ ships. - U-107 -



Radio message 0756/08, 8th March 1941, 07:56.

To BdU: Developed engine problems due to sea conditions. Unable to intercept convoy. Port engine not operational. – U-83 –



Radio message 0803/08, 8th March 1941, 08:03.

To U-83, U-104, U-107: Escort reinforcements reported from north. ETA 10 hours.
To U-83: Abort pursuit. Safely proceed to CF8891, permission to engage ships breaking off the convoy granted. Leave the area before 14:00.
To U-107: Attack immediately. Leave the area before 16:00.
To U-104: Attack immediately upon arrival. Leave the area before 16:00. - BdU -

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 8th March 1941, 10:17, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, engaging convoy SC-67.

This waiting will kill me. I am looking through the periscope for an hour and half already! And I can’t see bloody nothing over these high waves. Max stopped trying to count the ships; he says there is just a giant wall of noise on our entire left side. But the periscope is under the water half the time, and I don’t want to raise the boat more, the tower could emerge between the waves. The visibility is perfect, the enemy could spot us so easily. We’re taking 10 minute shifts with Jürgen at the periscope. It’s his turn now.

Just as I prepare to relax for a while and let Jürgen take the periscope, a broadside of a destroyer emerges above the waves.
I immediately report my sightings to Jürgen: “Destroyer, V class, dead ahead. 1000 meters. AOB 90, going slow.”
“That means the convoy is right on top of us. Anything else?”
I turn the periscope to our left side to check: “I think I can see smoke.”
Jürgen chuckles: “Let’s start hunting.”

[Jimbuna]

Patience is a virtue http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 8th March 1941, 10:40, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, engaging convoy SC-67.

We hear last of the four torpedoes leave the tube to meet the Inneroy, a Norwegian tanker.

“Ahead flank, hard to starboard.”

There are only a few small ships behind us, so I intend to turn around and shoot our stern tubes at a tanker following the Inneroy. It also means we could be heard miles away, but I will risk it. The sea is bad enough to conceal us and the torpedo trails. Also, it appears that U-107 did score a few hits; two smaller ships are quite low in the water and there seems to be a strange gap in the convoy’s columns left of us. On top of that, I can’t see any of the escorts, but one can hardly be sure in these waves.

An explosion interrupts my efforts to identify the second tanker. I look at my stopwatch. “Premature.”
“Another,” Jürgen mutters.
I return my focus on our current prey: “British Captain.”
“What?”
“The name of the ship, write it down.”
“Silly Tommies,” Jürgen adds as he notes the name.

I shift the periscope back to the Inneroy, the remaining three torpedoes should be arriving any time now. A wave swallows the periscope as the explosion goes off. It takes a few seconds for the wave to pass and when it finally does, I witness the second torpedo arrive right in the middle of the Inneroy. The first one probably hit it somewhere under its first mast. The third one arrives dozen seconds later under the smokestack.

“Well this one is done,” I say as burning oil leaks from the breaches and engulfs the Inneroy in a hellish inferno.
“Let’s send the British Captain down too.”



@ Jimbuna: Time goes by very quickly when you want to sink two tanker which you can barely see...

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Richard Manfold, probably 8th March, German U-boat.

There is a sudden whizzing noise. I don’t like that noise, but all we can do is look at the always closed curtain of our bed. Nothing else, just the nerve racking whizzing. Then metal cries loudly, being torn in half, the boat shaking violently. Suddenly it stops and the whizz leaves somewhere. I try to listen to what happens next. No screams, that’s good. Flowing water? That is not good. A lot of water, too! I can’t scream, because my mouth is bound. And we are tied to the piping! Water begins to appear on our bed. It is fast. I pull the rope on my arms, but it doesn’t care. I try to get as high as I can, the water is getting higher every second. This will be the end.

A pair of hands shakes me into consciousness: “Wake up. You need to move.”
I jerk up in panic, but the pair of hands holds me firmly. I realize I am staring into Manfred’s eyes while panting heavily though the gag in my mouth. Stupid nightmare!
“Shh,” come from Manfred, as he unties our hands while someone else covers our eyes. Then we are led somewhere, lots of noises behind us. The Germans probably need something below our bed. Someone makes me sit against a wall, another body being placed just beside me.

Manfred’s voice comes again: “You will return to bed soon. Rest now.”
I would like to reply. I would like to ask. I need to know what day is it, what time is it, where are we…

With my eyes out of the way, my other senses sharpen. As my sleepiness finally wears off, I suddenly realize what is wrong in here. Explosion after explosion in the distance. One after another, just a few seconds between them! We are under attack! Or are we attacking?

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by Max Wermuth, 8th March 1941, 12:02, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, behind convoy SC-67.

The ruckus made by loading our last few torpedoes has finally ended. Manfred stands up to lead our British friends back to their place, while I have a much better chance to grasp what is happening 50 meters above us.

One of the tankers is still blazing at 340, but the explosions are almost gone. Just a few here and there. The fire must be enormous to be heard down here. Also, from time to time, a single engine makes itself heard at the direction of the fire. I wonder if there is still someone alive and waiting for rescue. There is a lonely ship at 255, probably an escort based on its speed. The rest of the convoy passed us, I can hear them all the way from 0 to 30 degrees.

“Ahead slow. Course 160,” the captain’s whisperings travel through the boat.

We slowly start turning right, I remember the number 340. I need a reference point when we’re turning, it can get confusing. The tanker on fire isn’t going anywhere and is quite loud – the best solid point I can wish for. As always when changing course, one must promptly check what was right behind him, as we can’t hear what’s at 160 to 200 degrees. I listen for the 160 – the edge of what can be heard behind. Nothing. Unsurprising, there shouldn’t be anyone. There was nothing an hour ago, and ships don’t fall from the sky.

I can hear someone approaching from the command room. No need to look, the captain is easily distinguishable. He has a special aura around him all the time.

“How’s it going?” a whispered question comes.
“We’re fine. They have no idea.”
“Where are the esc-“ “Ships fall from the sky,” I interrupt him.
“What?”
“Two merchants, right behind us. Very slow… Coming right at us.”
“Range?”
“Maybe a kilometer, God knows in these conditions.”

The captains thinks for a few seconds before saying: “Ahead standard, periscope depth. Rudder amidships”
As he begins to leave I add: “Sir, they are probably quite small.”
He chuckles: “We are going to rearm at Canaries, we better use up every fish we have now.”

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Another fun historical fact time! Yaay!

U-83 and U-107 both made a brief appearance in the story, so let’s learn a little basic info about them. (Both U-boats were picked at random, U-83 wasn’t even anywhere close to convoy SC-67)

U-83 was a VIIB type, for a brief time stationed with 1st Flotilla at Brest, active there from June to December 1941. In middle of December 1941, she successfully transferred to 23rd Flotilla in the Mediterranean (later in 1942 transferred to 29th Flotilla, still the Med). The U-83 wasn’t very successful, during her 12 war patrols and 273 days at sea, she sunk close to 18 000 tons of shipping. U-83 met its fate on 4th March 1943, south-east of the Spanish coast, delivered by a British Hudson of the RAF. All 50 men died.





U-107 was a IXB type of the 2nd Flotilla based at Lorient. She served 4 skippers in 13 war patrols, staying whopping 749 days at sea (some patrols took over 3 months). As you probably guessed from the number of skippers and war patrols, she was very successful. She sank 37 ships, totalling over 207 000 GRT. As many other U-boats stationed in French bases, it was sunk in the Bay of Biscay. On 18th August 1944, the U-107 was sunk by a British Sunderland, all 58 men dead.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101II-MW-3956-05A%2C_Frankreich%2C_Lorient%2C_U-107.jpg/300px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_101II-MW-3956-05A%2C_Frankreich%2C_Lorient%2C_U-107.jpg
U-107 at Lorient, 1941





The convoy SC-67 departed from Freetown on 1st March 1941 and arrived at Liverpool on 26th the same month. It started with 57 merchants and 8 escorts. It was attacked by U-105 and U-124 on 8th March west of Mauritania. The attack claimed 5 merchants from the convoy with nearly 30 000 tons. On 10th March, somewhere around the Canary Islands, the convoy was reinforced by the battlecruiser HMS Renown of the Force H, and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. The Force H and the HMS Ark Royal were ordered to search for the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau around Canary Islands on 8th March, while reinforcing nearby convoys. The HMS Renown and HMS Ark Royal were sent to SC-67 to discourage additional attacks by U-boats.

Tankers SS British Captain and M/T Innerøy were both part of the convoy SC-67, but neither was lost during that cruise. SS British Captain had 6968 tons and sank on 2nd December 1941 after hitting a mine close to eastern coasts of Britain. M/T Innerøy was sunk by U-553 on its way from Bermuda to Halifax on 22nd January 1942. The tanker had 8260 tons.


When encountering the convoy in the game, I chose the SC-67 due to its relative proximity, merchant and escort numbers in real life. In reality, the convoy arrived at the point of my virtual attack few days later. I also (to a certain degree) included the reinforcements of the Force H. The names of the tankers were established immediately upon their sinking, based on their nationalities and tonnage (actually, the SS British Captain weights exactly the same as in the game, while the M/T Innerøy is off by just a few hundred tons)

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org
uboat.net
www.convoyweb.org.uk
www.wrecksite.eu
www.warsailors.com

If you like these fast facts, please, let me know. I could do more on the featured HMS Walpole, SS Wear and other encountered vessels.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 8th March 1941, 14:24, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, few miles southeast of convoy SC-67.

A lot happened in the past hours. We received an order to assist in attacking a convoy 200 kilometers away from us. It was a mad race across the raging sea. And it bruised the Lucky Halibut and its crew quite badly. We have a lot of minor injuries and the inside of the boat is a mess. Everything is everywhere, every single bit of this boat needs maintenance. All important stuff is working for now, but no way the Lucky Halibut is okay after such a madness.

Anyway, we did manage to get to the convoy, and we sank two medium sized tankers. Very good results in these conditions. We didn’t know where were the escorts, but they were not looking for us. Right now we are slowly closing on the Canaries. The sea remains harsh, so we aren’t making much of a progress. With the state this thing is in, we will have to stay there for quite some time. Not complaining.

[MantiBrutalis]

As experienced by captain Georg Braun, 12th March 1941, 8:48, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, entering the harbor of Las Palmas.

After days of wild hostile seas, we are finally arriving at the calm of this Spanish harbor. I finish some notes to my logs and leave my cabin.

As I finally climb up the tower, the boys greet me: “Morning, captain. Finally some peaceful waters, eh?”
“Yes, finally,” I answer as I note the seagulls, palms, and firm piece of land around. It is a good feeling.
“So, which one is the Corrientes?”
“No idea. I have never been here. Keep looking.”

We both scan the ships in the harbor for any betrayal of Germany. On my second run, I notice some seamen preparing a ship crane at the other side than the pier is. I point in that direction: “That’s it. Signal them.”

We are too slow with trying to make our signal light work, they begin to signal first. I miss the first word, but the second is clear. And disheartening. T-R-A-I-L.

As I turn around, one of the watchboys asks: “Oul trail? What does that mean?”
They didn’t get it yet, but I am already looking at a thin oil trail leading from our boat back to the open sea. Something we didn’t notice amongst the harsh waves. This boat is hurt more than I thought.

[MantiBrutalis]

~~~Not part of the story~~~

Hello!

So, my girlfriend woke up yesterday and said: "Hey, how is that submarine story going?" And I was like: "Oh... err..."

So, a quick sum-up what happened. My life had a very sudden turn for the worse and a few weeks were very, very hectic. I did have a lot on my plate. And when it finally ended, my SH3 installation didn't work (I have a DVD-ROM-less laptop, so there was no way for me to get it back until I borrow a portable one). And on top of that, the shock of all the things that happened made me forget about the U-104 "Lucky Halibut" and her crew.


Well, since I now again have a relatively calm life and some free time, I may get back into SH. I actually want to try SH5 for a bit, since I have a friend's PC home for repairs (she travelled overseas before I could finish it). And then, maybe, I get back to SH3. And the U-104. So, officially, the story is on hiatus. Sorry for leaving without saying a word.

PS: And let me know if you'd like the story to continue, I may have the save somewhere!

[VONHARRIS]

Well , it looks like the "Lucky Halibut" didn't bring any luck.:D

Seriously now , I am sorry for what has happened to you.

But , do continue writing your story , it is very good.:up:

[MantiBrutalis]

19th March 1941, afternoon, Bay of Biscay

Imagine water. Just water. Most of you picture a blue liquid, yet pure water is colourless. A glass of water isn’t blue. Water in a bathtub isn’t blue. Water in rivers may come in a lot of different colours, but most rivers aren’t blue. Yet rivers feed seas and oceans, and those are mostly blue. Why?

Oceans, seas and bigger lakes have two reasons to be mostly blue, and neither was their choice. The first one is a matter of optics, which can be described in a long and tiresome way, including terms like wavelength, molecules, scattering and other science-y stuff. Let’s just say optics and be done with it. The deeper the water the bluer the colour. The other reason of this blue lies above the water – the sky. A clear sky is blue, most of the day, thanks to a similar optical trick. Bigger bodies of water reflect this blue, making them more blue. Blue, what a colour! A calm, pleasant thing.

Now imagine the Atlantic on a sunny afternoon. Blue water, blue sky. A soothing sight. Yet this world of blue is a battlefield. A vast battlefield on which the course of human history is being decided. The blue of the Atlantic has witnessed many, many battles in recent months, still even more will come.

Very near the edge of this blue world, in the Bay of Biscay, a different colour makes its way just between the cold blue of the sky and the colder blue of the seawater. A tiny speckle of grey heads back to its home on the French coast once again. It may be a peaceful sight, but this grey thing, looking so little in the vast Atlantic, is one of the combatants on this battlefield.

On closer look, this German U-boat, a fierce metal beast, isn’t as small. Over thousand tons of steel, fuel, men and their few belongings, courage and pride. A watchful observer can tell that there is something different about this U-boat’s crossing of the Bay of Biscay. Firstly, there are the two British comrades of the young German men. A very strange sight in these times, men of these two nations being so friendly to each other. Secondly, this U-boat, the U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, traverses the Bay a bit differently. In these calm waters, it banks a bit to its right side. In the left fuel tank of the Lucky Halibut, the diesel fuel is being slowly drained by the boat’s engines while being properly replaced by saltwater. On the other side, no fuel at all floats above the water as it should – there is only water in the right tank. This weight unbalance causes the U-104 to tip by just a few degrees to the side – still enough to irritate some men. It also makes course corrections a bit more frequent than usual.

Still, the wounded Lucky Halibut plunges toward the port a Lorient, eager to return to the blue battlefield and make its mark in the Second World War.

[MantiBrutalis]

Diary of Manfred Bollmann, 20th March 1941, 19:10, U-104 “Lucky Halibut”, Bay of Biscay.

Four days ago we have left the lovely harbour of Las Palmas. There, we discovered three ruptures in the right fuel tank, which leaked fuel through the outer casing into the sea. That left a bit of a trail when travelling or surface and even worse, rather big pools of floating diesel at places of our dives and resurfaces. Our chief engineer, Peter Zeisller, wasn’t sure if we’d be able to repair the tank without dismantling it or how reliable would such a temporary repair would be. On top of that, the boat would have to be dry-docked once we return to Lorient either way. The captain decided that the best way to deal with it would be to just empty the fuel tank and head straight home. He seemed certain BdU would agree with him.

Because the fuel tanks are meant to receive diesel and not to deliver it, the operation was a bit awkward and took a few days. Most of the crew wasn’t needed on the boat for the time, so we used the first day of our visit to get rid of the rest of our spoiled food and restocked fresh rations for the trip home. For the rest of that time we took a shower and borrowed some proper clothes for a visit of Las Palmas. Those few days were so refreshing, it seems like there are 20 degrees all year at the Canary Islands.

Once the damaged fuel tank was empty, we set off back home. Shaved, clean, our matresses turned to the clean side and our boat “spacious” (since we dropped all the canned food and loaded fresh food for only a week), we were quite a happy bunch. We had a calm sea all the way home, which made our light list to the right stand out (and a bit weird). But the captain ordered to maintain the boat as light as possible, so we could race back to Lorient as fast as this beast can, so no trimming the weight distribution by addition saltwater… The British duo prepared some of their culinary magic, which helped since our cook isn’t very good.

Everyone was happy with our situation now except the captain. He loathes the fact that we’re returning home not at all like heroes from the battlefield, but as a group of tourist, clean and well fed, with only a few ships hunted down. On top of that, BdU won’t be very happy with his log once we arrive, our captain yet again disobeyed a direct order – this time he tried the magnetic pistols for the torpedoes. Things like that are the reason why he doesn’t have the Knight’s Cross yet. And he’s well beyond the hundred thousand tons, which is generally accepted as the proper amount for the decoration.

We have a few more hours to go. The crew already started to make their plans, since the repair of the Lucky Halibut will take a few more days than usual. Only thing I am afraid of now that we’ll never see our British friends again. Maybe it’s better to not know what will happen to them…

[MantiBrutalis]

Ah... This feels like 10 years ago. My life has changed quite a bit in September 2013. And the Lucky Halibut had to stay dry-docked as I went to play some other games after all that chaos settled. I do remember getting the U-boat urge a few times, but I never managed to get my corrupted SH3 running... till now.

Took more than 5 hours to make SH3 resurface from the depths of errors, widescreen issues, black skies and freezes. But it is back. And boy does time fly when you're trying to hunt a cargo ship protected by a destroyer on 100% realism. Hours are lost again to listening to the sea, watching the skies for planes and using geometry to make that one bloody eel hit its target. I'm currently playing a "learning" career in a much smaller boat than the U-104, in the Mediterranean, which I've never done before.

I'm still missing a mod or two I had back then, but can't figure out which ones. I think I had ship's names and cargos listed in the patrol log...

The Lucky Halibut will be undergoing repairs at least a bit longer. The continuation of U-104's story depends on few thing:
1. Me relearning all the bits a skipper needs to know, as well as hitting ships without map markers on.
2. Finding the rest of the mods I used back then.
3. The save working. If not, I might sort of simulate it.
4. Me rereading the entire story, because I forgot most of the characters and events. I may even edit all the grammar issues, as my English progressed a bit more.

And one of the most important questions: Are people here at Subsim even interested in reading the rest of U-104's adventure?

[UKönig]

I would be interested in reading further your U-story. I am sort of writing a few chapters here and there of my own captain and crew.
It brings the subject to "life" a little bit more, and I draw inspiration from other players and their adventures.
So please... continue.

[MantiBrutalis]

I believe I do not have the time for this story at the moment. It used to be very time consuming, and quite often I spent more time writing it and researching all the historical info than playing the game (not necessarily a bad thing, I love getting lost while googling history). Also I went and finally tried what is it like to be part of a Flotilla. But hopefully I'll get back to this one day.

[Aktungbby]

It used to be very time consuming, and quite often I spent more time writing it and researching all the historical info than playing the game (not necessarily a bad thing, I love getting lost while googling history). Also I went and finally tried what is it like to be part of a Flotilla. But hopefully I'll get back to this one day. WHAT!!!! I'm not the only one!:D