maillemaker
08-09-14, 05:30 PM
I survived up to May 1943 (yes, Black May) and had attacked a convoy and made my escape. I exited out the rear of the convoy and then when all was clear I headed back to kill a dead-in-the-water destroyer.
I nailed him, and blew him in half, and another destroyer turned and returned to the scene of the crime. He was easily 5000 m off and I dove my Type IX and was at 180 meters when that guy homed in on me at at 8 TC and dropped a perfect stick on top of me and sank me.
I have been playing dead is dead but I was so put out by that death I kept going.
I made it to the end of the war with that one death.
I had one real, real close call, just before I got my Type XXI I was still in my Type XI and had survived a convoy attack and had launched all my internal torpedoes, and was heavily damaged - down to 18% HI. I had dropped a decoy, and at periscope depth gotten about 5000 meters away with my stern kept pointed at 2 circling escorts. I got away, but when they gave up, one of them drove right past me on their way back to wherever they came from. I mean they went so close to port I could see their hull through the periscope underwater. They never heard us, and we made it home.
After I got my Type XXI, it put us back on the offensive. I left port with 6 T3 FaTs for hitting merchants, and the entire rest of the stores was filled with Type IX acoustic torpedoes. When I hit a convoy, I deliberately got detected to draw off the escorts, and I polished them off one by one with the magical homing torpedoes.
During the last few patrols convoys were full of escorts, sometimes 7 or more. By the time I got through them I was only able to hit a few juicy merchants. But the good news is late war there are usually a couple massive 10,000+ ton targets in the convoy, so I was able to rack up 30-60K patrols right up until the end.
Steve
I nailed him, and blew him in half, and another destroyer turned and returned to the scene of the crime. He was easily 5000 m off and I dove my Type IX and was at 180 meters when that guy homed in on me at at 8 TC and dropped a perfect stick on top of me and sank me.
I have been playing dead is dead but I was so put out by that death I kept going.
I made it to the end of the war with that one death.
I had one real, real close call, just before I got my Type XXI I was still in my Type XI and had survived a convoy attack and had launched all my internal torpedoes, and was heavily damaged - down to 18% HI. I had dropped a decoy, and at periscope depth gotten about 5000 meters away with my stern kept pointed at 2 circling escorts. I got away, but when they gave up, one of them drove right past me on their way back to wherever they came from. I mean they went so close to port I could see their hull through the periscope underwater. They never heard us, and we made it home.
After I got my Type XXI, it put us back on the offensive. I left port with 6 T3 FaTs for hitting merchants, and the entire rest of the stores was filled with Type IX acoustic torpedoes. When I hit a convoy, I deliberately got detected to draw off the escorts, and I polished them off one by one with the magical homing torpedoes.
During the last few patrols convoys were full of escorts, sometimes 7 or more. By the time I got through them I was only able to hit a few juicy merchants. But the good news is late war there are usually a couple massive 10,000+ ton targets in the convoy, so I was able to rack up 30-60K patrols right up until the end.
Steve