K-61
11-14-15, 10:40 AM
May 1944. After the retirement of my previous captain's career via SH3 Commander, I decided to commence a new career in another VIIC. Sailing out of Kiel on my shakedown cruise at Erpro, we head to our grid in the eastern Baltic Sea.
Off the coast of Sweden we sight an enemy convoy. Hmm, who could that be, is Ivan doing trade with IKEA Land? Sure enough he is, the crafty commie! A small merchantmen and two small tankers, escorted by two Russki destoyers and a small patrol craft.
I had lined up to attack the merchant vessels, unprudently as it would turn out to be, in less than 50 metres of water, when suddenly the convoy altered course 90 degrees to port. WTH? As it turned out, it converted a port beam attack into a starboard beam attack. With contempt for the escorts, I closed in and conducted a submerged attack and successfully sank the three merchantmen in succession. The escorts were furious and turned to hunt for me.
With little room to dive, I was eventually pinged and they made run after run on me. We were taking damage and fixing it when we could, but they were not releasing their quarry. Consulting my charts I turned toward deeper water, but would we live long enough to reach it?
Then, out of nowhere, a formation of cannon-armed Stukas arrived and proceeded to attack my Russian tormentors! They turned from hunting me to evading the wrath of the Luftwaffe. During the melee, I was able to quietly break away and observe the action from afar. One destroyer was sunk by the Stukas and I saw one Stuka get hit and a single parachute emerged to flutter down to the sea.
As the Stukas left, the two surviving escorts steamed south. Hmm, should I or should I not provoke the Bear again? Ja! After a turn to the east I brought to bear my only tube with a torpedo in it, since the entire time we had been on silent running. Steaming across my stern at about 800 metres I launched an electric torpedo, which slammed home and sank the last destroyer. We dove away at silent running and evaded, eventually to return to Kiel with some stories to tell.
The pictures are at the photo shop awaiting development. :03:
Off the coast of Sweden we sight an enemy convoy. Hmm, who could that be, is Ivan doing trade with IKEA Land? Sure enough he is, the crafty commie! A small merchantmen and two small tankers, escorted by two Russki destoyers and a small patrol craft.
I had lined up to attack the merchant vessels, unprudently as it would turn out to be, in less than 50 metres of water, when suddenly the convoy altered course 90 degrees to port. WTH? As it turned out, it converted a port beam attack into a starboard beam attack. With contempt for the escorts, I closed in and conducted a submerged attack and successfully sank the three merchantmen in succession. The escorts were furious and turned to hunt for me.
With little room to dive, I was eventually pinged and they made run after run on me. We were taking damage and fixing it when we could, but they were not releasing their quarry. Consulting my charts I turned toward deeper water, but would we live long enough to reach it?
Then, out of nowhere, a formation of cannon-armed Stukas arrived and proceeded to attack my Russian tormentors! They turned from hunting me to evading the wrath of the Luftwaffe. During the melee, I was able to quietly break away and observe the action from afar. One destroyer was sunk by the Stukas and I saw one Stuka get hit and a single parachute emerged to flutter down to the sea.
As the Stukas left, the two surviving escorts steamed south. Hmm, should I or should I not provoke the Bear again? Ja! After a turn to the east I brought to bear my only tube with a torpedo in it, since the entire time we had been on silent running. Steaming across my stern at about 800 metres I launched an electric torpedo, which slammed home and sank the last destroyer. We dove away at silent running and evaded, eventually to return to Kiel with some stories to tell.
The pictures are at the photo shop awaiting development. :03: