(Story) The wondrous tales of Erik Jaeger

[vegeta020]

[Short Intro]
Hi, my (user)name is vegeta020, and I am a complete newbie in sub simulations. I have embarked on a personal challenge to try and survive in Silent Hunter III with almost no knowledge about the game at the moment i have started.
The idea is that I am allowed to learn as i play, by reading on the forums and watching youtube videos (I have enough time to browse on my cell anyway, even with high time compressions). I know all of you remember days when you were just starting to play the game, and this might be a good throwback to those days. For me it's a good way to keep track of my first adventures as a sub commader. Because, if I know anything for sure it's the fact that when I finish this playthrough i won't be the same anymore! :)

I've named my character Erik Jaeger, and he is basically me - he doesn't know what the hell he is doing with his submarine :rotfl2:
I am playing with GWX and SH3 Commander.
I am playing on FULL REALISTIC, with just god's eye turned on and action camera turned on.
Please, also note that English is not my domestic language (I am Croatian) so this is kind of a practice for me :yep:


[Actual Story]
My name is Erik. Leutnant Z. S. Erik Jaeger. Today is 1. September 1939. and I have a bad feeling. Yesterday we heard about the attack in Gleiwitz and we all can feel the war brewing. It's only a matter of day now.
But nobody will ruin this day for me. Today I take command of U-401 - my first submarine command (Feel free to toss around the potential sub names).
As we wave goodbye to our families we leave Kiel behind in the evening and go straight for Denmark. I would rather evade messing with Kiel kanal this time as my navigation skills are pretty bad at this point and I don't want to get marooned on the shore.

When we entered the North Sea we got the first message. The Army is mobilizing and attacking Poland. I couldn't help but feel the chills. We also got messages regarding which ships we should and should not attack. Our mission stated that we should just patrol the sector BF17 and get back after 24 hours of patrol. It should be easy enough.
Or so I thought, as soon came another message that we were declared war by British and that we should sink their warships without waiting to be fired upon first. It got very confusing really fast as tons of messages were flying around. We were first ordered to shoot at British ships, then not to shoot so we wouldn't humiliate them by sinking their capital ships.
Then there was a mixed bag of messages concerning French involvement in the war and I couldn't help but feel that Reich doesn't want to get in the war with France.
I got really nervous and got Otto Sollig - my radioman to start playing something cheerful on the gramophone to relax the crew and prepare them for anything that might wait for us.
At that moment i was getting around north part of Great Britain and started my descent south toward the sector we are supposed to patrol.
And then I heard the information that ship has been sighted to the east. I plotted the intercept course (Newbie players here's how to do it: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88961&page=10 ) and soon enough i was close to my target, but behind.
I missed in my calculations and got at the spot at the same moment as my target. I looked through my periscope and sighted that the ship is Norwegian. Neutral target, so i gave it a pass.

But soon enough I was rewarded with a second target. This one I have intercepted right and lined up for the shot, 500 meters from the rail. Then i got into the problems, because my calculations were saying that the bearing was completely wrong and my torpedo would swerve almost 45° to the left after it was fired. So then i consulted the official manuals some more (newbie players, here's how to manually use TDC: https://youtu.be/WNjp6Jt-OQw ).
You cannot imagine the panic at the moment when i should've fired the damn thing. I have checked my calculations almost four times, it took me almost 2 hours (IRL) to get all the info. I've spent 10 minutes comparing the ship to the manual to identify it. It was a lone British Coastal Freighter - SS Adm. Nelson - 1870 tons.
I've lined my shot and fired 2 torpedos. First one hit the ship in the middle and I've seen the beam of light in the night searching for me, but the second one hit right in the engineering room and with the loud bang the ship exploded. My first 2 torpedos shot. My first sinking. On full manual. I was out of myself and went to sleep.
Next morning we resumed our patrol and we were a few miles away of the sector we were supposed to patrol, when we the sensors picked up another ship. I have plotted the intercept course and we were on our way. I wanted to get there real soon so i ordered maximum speed. We've intercepted the bastard. British flag. Medium Cargo ship. I've lined up the shot again.
3-2-1. Torpedo in the water. Suspense was rising. And then i've hit him directly beneath the smokestack. But the bastard didn't go down.
I yelled around. "Surface the boat! Bearing 270! Flank speed! The sea was so stormy that i was shocked that we could man the cannon. But. It was not loaded. Hans in the dock forgot to include shells. Well darn it. MAN THE AA CANNON! (also protip for newbies. In GWX, the cannon is not loaded by default, you have to pick the ammo type and it will load)
My crew watched me as we kept up with our prey shooting 200 AP bullets through its hull until finally it gave up and went down to the bottom.
That is another one under the belt - SS Lookout - 5103 tons.
...

[FINAL WORDS]
This patrol was looking good so far, but it was just the start. I accept critique and will continue this ASAP, I just have to sleep now, as I am really tired.

[Aks]

Nice start, vegeta020! I want to say you just one thing - beware aircraft!

[Fahnenbohn]

GREAT STORY !

We were first ordered to shoot at British ships, then not to shoot so we wouldn't humiliate them by sinking their capital ships.

Haha ! :DL

You cannot imagine the panic at the moment when i should've fired the damn thing. I have checked my calculations almost four times, it took me almost 2 hours (IRL) to get all the info. I've spent 10 minutes comparing the ship to the manual to identify it.

:o

The sea was so stormy that i was shocked that we could man the cannon. But. It was not loaded. Hans in the dock forgot to include shells. Well darn it. MAN THE AA CANNON! My crew watched me as we kept up with our pray shooting 200 AP bullets through its hull until finally it gave up and went down to the bottom.

:lol: That was not Hans. That was ... Bernaaaaard !!!!!!

I just have to sleep now, as I am really tired.

:()1:

[Fishers of Men]

Keep your patrol story line going. I enjoyed reading this from a new player's perspective. By the way, your English is very good. Many Americans are not able to write as well as you do.

Good Hunting!

[vegeta020]

Thanks everyone for your kind words. Honestly, I am having a blast with this game so far :yep:


We kept patrolling BF17. The sea was getting worse with every passing moment. In the meantime one of the sailors found the ammunition for the damn cannon stashed somewhere in the torpedo room. I guess Bernard was really really drunk when they were rearming the sub. :haha:
The tone of the messages on the radio changed. There was much less confusion and it seems like other subs started doing their jobs. The whole crew rejoiced when HMS Courageous was sunk on 17th of September by U-29.
I honestly hope that i might be able to sink myself a carrier one day.

After a few hours we heard a sound contact and went to intercept it. I hoped to get myself another ship. After a hour of waiting we finally had a visual contact even though the overall visibility was really poor. And what a beautiful sight it was. One Medium Cargo and one Intermediate Tanker.

But problems started almost immediatelly. First I made a horrible mistake of submerging too late and they started their evasive maneuvres. But even though that happened i was able to calculate almost perfect firing solution. Or so i thought. I fired two torpedoes. And they both went in completely wrong direction :doh:
(Honestly i still don't get TDC, if I'm firing on the target that is going from left to right, what is the right way to configure bearing?)

But as we've found the fricking ammo we can put it to good use. Right? :hmph:
Again i yelled. Surface the boat! Flank speed! Chase them!
I manned the cannon myself and fired. First shot caused a big explosion on the tanker. How do you like my HE shells now?
As it began to swerve from it's initial course, we caught up with the cargo ship and gave it good pounding until it gave up and went to Davy Jones's locker.
The weather was so bad that sometimes the waves would fully cover the cannon :help:
I was afraid that they would be able to call for help because this process took over ten minutes and we chased them close to Ireland, but sinking of the tanker didn't take much time. I went back to the bridge and let my boys have some fun.
The ships were: SS Talisman (5104 tons) and MV Aletta (3490 tons)
Even thought it was a really messy fight and it could've been much easier I was proud because i have sunk almost 10k tons.
The weather was getting really bad now. Soon the visibility was awful. We patrolled our grid for another 15 or so hours and I wanted to start a return trip, because we were running kind of low on fuel.
I wanted to check the sites where we sunk last four ships to check if I would get really lucky and stumble upon one or two more. And I'll be damned, when we came to the first site we heard a sound contact, but sadly it didn't include any indications of bearing. I made a wild guess and we chased ghosts for almost 10 hours.
Then we picked up another contact, but this time with a bearing, set up a trap for it, but the visibility was so poor that probably in 10 hours we spent waiting for it to pass by it went through the fog. As I've seen that the we won't be getting anything more done on this trip. And there was a tiny problem that my engineer told me that I have 25% fuel left :dead:

We started our return trip and I first ordered 1/3 ahead but then i realized that i don't want to get caught on the north of England if the visibility improved, so i ordered full speed ahead through the middle of Northern Isles. Even though it wasn't the smartest thing to do, and even though we encountered sound contacts, the visibility was so damn bad that we probably snuck by a warship or two :har: :har:

And then in the middle of the North Sea, I was informed that i have 0% Diesel Fuel. I started panicking and ordered 1/3 speed ahead. Luckily it seems Fritz (my engineer) was drinking again. He was drinking A LOT. Because when I asked my navigator for the estimate how long can we run on those Fritz's 0% on 1/3 speed, the estimation was around 1300 kilometers.

We had to go through the Kiel kanal. And there was when the worse happened. I was lying on my bed, watching the sonarman spin that damn hydrophone wheel around. And then i heard a loud bang and a lot of screeching. Damn First Officer marooned the sub on the bank of Kiel kanal because he was so damn incompetent and he couldn't find the path around the bridge. The damage was luckily (for him) easily repaired, and we finally came to Kiel for much needed rest.

[NOTES]
Again, thank you for your support so far. :subsim:
I am honestly shocked my first patrol went this good and I hope it will remain like that. I wanted to include some screenshots but Fraps made everything pitch black :(
I think my tonnage (15567 tons) is not so bad for a first time player :arrgh!:
I hope you enjoyed it so far, there is more to come :know:

[Fahnenbohn]

In the meantime one of the sailors found the ammunition for the damn cannon stashed somewhere in the torpedo room. I guess Bernard was really really drunk when they were rearming the sub. :haha:
...
I fired two torpedoes. And they both went in completely wrong direction :doh:
...
But as we've found the fricking ammo we can put it to good use. Right? :hmph:

Sure my friend ! FEUER FREI !!!

Luckily it seems Fritz (my engineer) was drinking again. He was drinking A LOT. Because when I asked my navigator for the estimate how long can we run on those Fritz's 0% on 1/3 speed, the estimation was around 1300 kilometers.


Mmmh. :hmmm: In my opinion, rum should be permitted only for the crew who have made a vigil on the deck with rough sea.

[Borgneface]

S! vegeta020,
Welcome on board! This is a great story and a lot of fun to read! I do like your style..:yeah:
Carry on please....

Amicalement :Kaleun_Cheers:

[vegeta020]

I was given two weeks of leave to see my family and girlfriend. I also took care of some personal errands. When I got back to Kiel I was greeted by Fritz (my machinist, the one that got drunk :haha:) who didn't go home and decided to spend his free time at the city in the company of liqour and "easily approachable" women. Well, whatever rocks his boat.
He took me to the command where I was promoted to the rank of Oberleutnant Z. S. Even though my last patrol went really well, i hardly expected this to happen.

Day before the departure I went to the dock and went to see Bernard and asked him if he loaded the damn deck gun properly this time :nope:
I also consulted him about installing a new hydrophone (KDB instead of GHG). Even though it's easily damaged by depth charges, I thought it was okay because the whole first patrol was not so dangerous and it was mostly uneventful. Improved ability to hear what is happening in the water around us seemed to be very much worth the risk.

We left port on 15th of October during the cover of night. On my left side i watched our sole aircraft carrier - Graf Zeppelin. It's not combat ready, but I had a feeling it might bring us the power needed to defeat Brits.
We got a similar patrol route to our previous one. Instead of going to BF17, this time we had to patrol BF-19.
I followed my regular route, around Denmark, close to Norwegian coast and finally north of both Shetlands and Orkney Islands.
The ride was very uneventful. We intercepted 3 Norwegian ships and we let them all go.
In the meantime, we received word about Poland surrendering. It seemed that our war effort was going good so far. We all know that we still have to deal with both Britain and France, but I honestly hope that the war can be ended in a year or two.
We also have been getting a lot of messages on the radio about subs being lost, like U-12. We murmured our prayers and hoped that they at least had the privilege of swift death.
The weather again deteriorated badly. The waves were so high that my periscope would be covered fully at times even when it was fully extended.

When we were north of Ireland, we finally got our first contact! I steeled myself and ordered the intercept. But sadly the weather was so poor that even on flank speed we almost hit 11 knots of speed and visibility was so poor because of the night and fog that we never stood a chance of catching up to medium speed target.
I decided to lie in wait, just off the northern coast of Ireland. It was still night and we had almost 7 hours until the sunrise. We waited for an hour or two and then my patience was rewarded. Large cargo ship, coming in from the west, slow speed. I plotted a perfect intercept course and set up a rail for it. And then we heard the report. My sonarman informed me of a warship contact. As we were submerged and it was pitch black dark, i had no reason to suspect that the enemy knows of our position. We kept waiting for three or so more minutes when I heard the sonarman repeat the report. Warship again. I wondered why he was nagging me so I checked the map, and i saw 3 sound contacts. And soon after that a fourth and fifth. One cargo ship and four damn warships, basically surrounding my position and going about with their patrols.
But I have decided to sink this damn ship and i will do it! I refrained from extending the periscope because I was afraid i would get detected by enemy ships, so I did all of my calculations and just when i was about a minute or so from firing extended the damn thing. And then it struck me. The ship was well lit. It was an effin American cargo ship. I have risked my life to set up an ambush for a neutral. Damn my luck. Luckily I didn't fire the damn torpedo, because i had the patience to wait for the wave covering my periscope to subside, so I could get one final look at my target.

I went away grumbling and murmuring curses, damning the weather and neutrals. And then I decided to try and find that sole warship that was not in the formation (one was on my left side, and three were on my right side). I decided to predict it's maneuvres and try to chase it.
Now. I know what you are thinking right now. Basically, you first had this face :haha: . You thought I was just joking. But then you saw that I decided to chase a (WAR)ship that can sail at medium to fast speed at stormy weather. That probably transformed your face into this :o ("He's not really serious, right?"). And then when you definitely concluded that I was serious about this you basically were like this - :salute: ("Well Herr Kaleun Erik Jaeger, it was nice knowing you but you are now... dead").
So. I chased the contact and got close to it. It was (of course) a destroyer. And i got really really close to it so i could deduce that. But with the help of numerous miracles and some divine intervention I went undetected. (It just let me be. At this moment IRL i thought I installed some of the mods wrong and my game was bugging out.)

At this moment I was furious. I spent almost 4 hours in this terrible weather that makes intercepting anything a nightmare. And so, while I was retreating (tactically!) at full speed trying to forget about a horrible idea to find destroyers i heard about a sound contact.
And this was a moment when I snapped. IF IT'S A LEGAL TARGET, I AM SINKING IT! I did everything by the book, set up an ambush and there it was. A glorious prey. A ship that every U-boot captain dreams of sinking. A effing tugboat. Yep. Tugboat. But as my mental state was really bad after all that happened I needed a respite of sinking something. Anything!
So i lined up the shot and fired. Direct hit. It went down a few moments after that. Tugboats : me - 0:1! Yay?
But as i check my patrol log now i see that it was MV Harfry worth 1288 tons.
Soon after that I got another sound contact. But this one was too fast (again) because of the damned weather, so I just let it go, as I didn't want to waste all of my fuel. I just went to sleep because I felt bad for myself. Some of Kaleuns are sinking damn aircraft carriers! And I am contributing by distrupting delivery of general goods to Irish stores. Or something even more laughable.
In the morning my crew woke me up because watch saw a large merchant ship. I jumped into the uniform and skipped coffee (for now) and ran up the conning tower.
We plotted the intercept course, but again the damn weather ruined my calculations. We were too far to make it in time submerged so i ordered a surface attack.
I prepared a salvo just in case we miss. Of course, the merchant started maneuvering, but we successfully hit him with one of two torpedoes fired. As we were (still!!) unable to use the deck gun (I will have Bernard make the damn thing waterproof. Or find some other way to make the thing fire underwater :hmm2:)
Anyway, I had to fire another torpedo. Another hit. As i didn't want to waste any more shots, and was pretty sure the damn thing was sinking I submerged and kept just watching the target. It went down after 3 hours of struggle against the sea. SS City of Lincoln (Large Merchant) - 10448 tons of textiles.
After this victory we got back to our initial course. I got much better with managing the fuel reserves so we were sitting on 70 or so percent of our tank.
And then again we heard about a merchant in our vicinity so I changed the course and intercepted it. We lined the shot nicely and fired the torpedo. And then it happened. The wave raised the merchant ABOVE the torpedo and it passed below it's designated target. I just turned the sub around and went away. It's enough! Enough of this weather! Like it's not enough that half of time I can't even see my target because of the waves!

And so, as it took us another 20 hours to get to BF19 - our designated patrol grid, the weather calmed down. We were informed that British are launching a Task Force from the East. But I was not concerned as we were safe on the other side of the Isles.
24 hours of patrol went without any contacts. We only heard about a neutral convoy passing through the north, but i was honestly not interested in chasing a convoy of USA ships i cannot even sink, so I decided to extend the duration of the patrol to 48 hours.
And after some time we got another contact. I prepared an ambush and decided to use aft torpedoes (you gotta use those sometimes, right?). I hit him on the rear end and sent him to Davy Jones's locker using a gun. It was SS Port Darwin (Ore Carrier) worth 8188 tons.
As this day was going really really well, i felt confident about intercepting another contact. WNW, medium speed. I sadly failed to intercept it, which I realised after six hours of lying in wait.

And at that moment it struck me! I want to sink myself a warship! So I plotted the course for the west exit from the English Channel. And I didn't even get there and got a contact report. Large Convoy! Heading west! And it's close. Also, then we received a message about magnetic triggers not being safe on torpedoes. Well it's a good thing I never learned how to use those, right?
I plotted an intercept course and first thing i hear was of course: "Warship spotted...". Well i guess it can be presumed that the convoy will be escorted. I submerged and raised the periscope. I hoped for a juicy catch. A bigger ship. But I only saw another destroyer. It was maneuvering and I, as a new Kaleun wasn't really sure if it was doing that on purpose beacuse it knew I was here around somewhere, or because it's a part of regular routine of protecting the convoy.
I tried to get closer to the convoy and in one moment i saw the damn destroyer heading right for me.. Can't be good. Nope! Crash dive! Rudder 45° to bow! Silent running! Speed 2 knots! Depth 140m!
I have my sonarman call out the location of the destroyer. After few minutes, I thought i lost him so I order the periscope depth. And then. This happened.

http://i.imgur.com/9QmRhRVm.jpg

(I am sorry for the terrible quality, as the Fraps does not work I was forced to take this photo with my cell phone.)

[NOTES]
I got a few mails inviting me to join DEF. I am generally interested, but I would definitely for now like to keep my focus on this career of mine and I am wondering if there is any way to tie in content of DEF into my everyday routine of playing SHIII for this story.

Also, end of this part is a cliffhanger, but stay tuned, a lot more happened during this second patrol ;)

S! vegeta020,
Welcome on board! This is a great story and a lot of fun to read! I do like your style..:yeah:
Carry on please....

Amicalement :Kaleun_Cheers:

Thank you Borgneface for the feedback. I try to make it as fun as possible, but trust me, there is no way I can interpret the amount of fun and hilarity of some situations that I experience during my playthrough.

Mmmh. :hmmm: In my opinion, rum should be permitted only for the crew who have made a vigil on the deck with rough sea.

I am thinking of making some of my crewmembers walk the plank :ahoy:

[Fahnenbohn]

A ship that every U-boot captain dreams of sinking. A effing tugboat. Yep. Tugboat. But as my mental state was really bad after all that happened I needed a respite of sinking something. Anything!
So i lined up the shot and fired. Direct hit. It went down a few moments after that. Tugboats : me - 0:1! Yay?

:har: