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View Full Version : Your worst depth charge attack?


Salvadoreno
07-27-05, 02:54 AM
What Year?
What Boat?
By What Nation?
How Many DDs?
The Outcome?

Mine was just recently. When i started the campaign i vowed that i would not use the save feature unless i was leaving, so when i died, i died.. THis to me adds lots of anxiety when playing.

March 1941
West off Ireland.
Convoy probably inbound Halifax
VIIB
1 Trawler and 1 V&W

Without realizing that DDs improve their ASW measures in 1941, and i should have known im reading "Hitlers Uboat War" i approach a convoy a bit sloppy. Im going ahead Flank when i get detected. "Ack great" i say to myself and i dive 50 feet not worrying about the lousy abiities of the V&W and Trawler. "Ping Ping" starts.. no biggie.. Depth charges in the water? HAH!! Boom Boom! close.. but far.. i rig silent after the first two explosions and go deeper still.
Then without warning i get the other 60million depth charges that rock the HELL out of my boat! "ALARM" "We need 1/2' gaskets!!" "Get that Flashlight over here!!!" the crew yells as the pipes and bolts come loose.. Causing FLOODS.. not leaks.. I could fix the damages yes, but it was going to come close... I tell every1 to go to repairs.. "The Boat is DROPPING" my cheif yells! Crap didnt see that comming. "AHEAD FLANK" i order to keep the boat from sinking. That stops the drowing but now my boat is louder then ever, and my port is sticvking up toward the surface and my bow is pointing towards the deep blue. Quite funny to look at, im almost perpendicular.. "Ping Ping" again.. Yikes.. Now im kind of nervous. "Depth Charges in the war" Ack! I hold on for dear life. Bang Bang another hard hit, damages my batteries and causes minor leaks.. Shew,, Im still getting proper damage reports and fixing my command room leak, radio room leaks, and diesel engine room FLOOD. Finally the boat trims out after about 15 minutes realtime. Diesel room flood fixed, and i order ahead slow and deeper still. 150 meters.. I get no contact for about 10 mins.. i thiink im--"ping ping".. Arg... This depth charge attack destroys pretty much everything on the conning tower.. No radio ... If i die i die alone here with nobody to know where i am.. deeper stiil.. 170 metes.. Silent Run.. 5mins. "ping ping" CHRIST! BAM command room bursts in leaks.. Noo... im done for.. With no seabed below me.. im going to drown... 200 meters i sink until it fixed.. Right when its fixed.."ping ping". I CANT SHAKE THESE GUYS.... THEY ARE ELITES!!! Must have been the wolveriene that was credited with the killing of Prien.. More charges.. More damages..... "Well..." i say to myself... "Ill just restart in 1941".... But i fix all the damages and wait for the inevitable... But it doesnt come.. They lose me.. And i lose the convoy... Quite an experience.

Patrol Report..
1 Ship sunk for 7,640tons
50% hull integrity
no casualties
Donitz praises me with the return of my damaged uboat for avoiding such a catastrophy.
Thats my story. Im stil alive with a diff boat now. An IXB... Same career, 10th patrol..

Grifter808
07-27-05, 03:32 AM
The worst I had was 3 destroyers pinging me. They must've been smiling to themselves up there on the surface because there was no getting away from them.

Just when I thought I'd lost them...ping! ping! The depth charges damaged my boat so much I sank to the bottom, which was only about 100 feet. The bad news was that I couldn't surface the boat for some reason. So my boat floundered on the sea bottom, taking on water and more depth charges. I never felt so helpless.

I got owned in a very special way... :dead:

Anakonda
07-27-05, 04:53 AM
well... I felt as if I read memories of a wartime U-Boat commander... good job you saved the boat and yourself... :up:

Woof1701
07-27-05, 05:06 AM
So far I was pretty lucky. Currently I'm still in 1941 in my second career due to lack of time :(. My recent night convoy attack near the Canaries went like a charm. Almost too easy in fact. The DDs were completely inept and I managed to sink a T2, a T3 and a C3 while damaging one C2, which I finished off after it fell out of the convoy. BUT I had one SH3 encounter I remember quite well.

It was on my second patrol in October 1939. I was leaving Wilhelmshaven in my Typ II and decided against using the long route around the British Isles and headed for the Channel. I waited for nightfall about 50 km east of Dover and when a moonless night came I started westward. The sea was calm and the visibility was good. Since I was so used to more or less blind escorts at night in early wartime (from AOD) I only registered the presence of several DDs in the area, but paid little attention, since I thought they wouldn't be able to spot me in any case. This turned out to be an error in judgement, since an armed trawler started turning towards me. This didn't alarm me very much, since I thought he was just on a routine tour and accidentally heading in my direction. Second error in judgment. By the time I realised that he was on my tail he was already pretty close, and shelling me but I managed to slip under and avoid any damage. I rigged for silent at about 25m and crawled a small turn to the right and ran straight north. This went on for a few minutes, and the trawler already seemed to have lost me since it was moving away. So I pushed my luck, went up to periscope depth and had a look around. Third error in judgement. The trawler was much closer than I expected, and he seemed to have spotted my scope, because he did a u-turn and sped towards me almost ramming my conning tower while I was trying to get some water above the boat. Due to the fact that the Channel simply is very shallow I again stayed at 25m and tried to escape westward. This time the trawler was already closer and didn't lose me as quickly, and what was worse was the fact, that a second ship was approaching from the direction I was heading. So I had one behind me and one in front of me. Great. I kept my front towards the incoming DD (as it turned out) but it was no use. With no room to maneuver (especially downward) and two escorts cornering me I decided to shoot the torpedoes I carried on the DD and then turn away towards the trawler since he posed less of a threat and I silently hoped that I might get the DD AI to do something stupid like depth charging the trawler. So I went to periscope depth, asked my watch officer to calculate a solution, let loose all three eels at 600m distance and, revving up my motors to maximum speed, I turned and ran towards the trawler. But I had pushed my luck to far, since the DD was unimpressed by my attempt to sink him - needless to say all eels either missed or didn't detonate. He caught up with me before I could reach the trawler, pinged me and set loose several depth charges the exact number of which I refused to remember. I turned several times before the DD finally had a lucky shot, and a depth charge crippled my rudder. My last resort was to sink to the bottom at silent running and try to sit it out. No such luck. On the next pass I got several leaks and - after the announcement that a third warship was approaching - the DD made his next pass sinking me. All hands lost.

What did I learn?
- Stay alert
- Never trust to be invisible at night.
- Never trust an escort to have lost you.
- Keep out of the Channel unless you have at least several 8 inch guns and heavy armor or a Typ XXI with magic torpedos.
- Always set your torps to magnetic pistol, and aim below the ship when attacking from bow or stern, to have at least a limited chance of success. My torps were set to detonator pistol and I'm sure they all just bounced off the hull.

SeaSlug_U999
07-27-05, 07:56 AM
I took 2 hedgehogs on the bow from 2 (i think they were Buckleys). The 3rd old V&W dropped some DC's very close to the coning tower, almost bouncing off the the hull. Could not control the trim and kept diving with massive flooding in the bow and aft topedo room, one diesel destroyed, the other one damaged port electric engine damaged (5 mins rep time), hull at 12%.

The good thing was that the bottom was near (4 m under the keel at 110m). So I sat at the bottom quietly hopin they'll go away and I'll be able to fix the sub after they gone. The bastards kept rolling DC exactly on top of me. I died.

I hate them! :hulk:

Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense
07-27-05, 08:55 AM
wow... hedgehogs... i can't wait... :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

i must have a death wish or something... but i love being depth charged...

since i play without external cameras or that instant replay popup, it adds an unparalled sense of realism and excitement, not knowing who or how many of them are up there...

you've gotta use your instincts and a few of your nine lives to survive...

i only wish that the depth charge explosion were louder :-j :-j :-j

--Mike

Carcassonne
07-27-05, 01:40 PM
December '44
U-753
VIIC
2 squads of Sutherlands
2 V&W Destroyers
1 C Class

The Destroyers were close enought to get wet from the Sutherlands DC's. I was ony in 60 of water but was unable to dive quick enough to evade the raining death.

big_feef
07-27-05, 02:02 PM
Febuary of 1944
Type IXC with all realism settings except for external view (92%)
British/Americans off the north coast of Ireland
7 DD's with 3 Light Cruisers
Got sunk by Hedgehogs

I had just set up a nice convoy attack and was evading 4 DD's and a light cruiser when 3 DD's and 2 light cruisers show up to join the hunt. I did escape the encirclement a couple of times, but it seems the damn light cruisers (who were patroling outside the DD circle) would ping me again. I was only in waters about 100m deep, so the furthest I could dive was to about 86m. After the 3 DD's showed up, it was almost impossible to evade the encirclement, and I got nailed by hedgehogs. It was a blast though, I was evading 4 DD for about 90 minutes, and 7 for almost an hour. :rock: Didn't get any sleep that night. :dead:

jason210
07-27-05, 02:49 PM
April 1942

North of Ireland somewhere, I encountered a heavily escorted convoy and managed to sink four big ships. Two C2s (three shots) a T3 (one shot) and a Liberty Cargo (One shot). Then I dived to 150 m and maneuvered to avoid a destroyer, but it still managed to get me with depth charge, right on it's mark. I watched it the drum float down right on to the stern, then detonate, as if by magic.

How can this be??

I didn't save so I was really pissed.

Zie Chuckinator
07-28-05, 10:44 AM
1941
January
VIIB
British Escorts: 1 c class, 1 V&W, 2 Flower, 1 Armed Trawler, about a dozan or so fighters.
Survived otherwise, how do u think i would have gotton back to tell my story?

Ok, lets say i had few Becks too much, i decided on a surface attack during a full moon at about 1730 hours. i know i know, ur about to say "ingenius timing". well thank u :-j . so yea, i got hit by a couple of shells and .50 cal bullets from that damn Trawler, and my watch officer got riddled with bullets and hes dead along with my only flak and sonar qualified petty officers. u might say, "thats not much" well i know so ill stop complaining :-j .

so i went under to periscope depth and i forgot to take the periscope down from a previous lone c3 :-j . so i decide to be Mr. Kretschmer and go up and down the lanes of the convoy :yep: . shells from every single merchant start to land all around us. i reason that they're firing star shells and since im "completly" submerged i will be ok.

3 hours later, after a dozan DC runs from multiple destroyers im at 25 % hull integrity and i get the message observation periscope destroyed. so i look through the attack periscope and for a second i see the trawler but then theres an explosion and the screen in the periscope turns completly black. again, its no biggie :-j then i relize that i left it up the entire time and now its stuck there. oh well it could be worse :-j so i order the planes man to dive to 50 meters. as soon as we reach 25 meters the amazing silent-o-meter turns all green again. yay! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOMB! and we start to sink. at about 70 meters i order blow ballast. When i come to the surface 2 km later, the escorts are going back to the convoy.

i set course for home and once i loose sight of the convoy, planes planes and more planes. i decide that im gonna be a stubborn bastard and fight them. i get within 50 km of Lorient and the planes are still molesting me. then they destory my diesal. so i go to eletric and periscope depth. with my periscope still up i go im still being attacked.

then they destroy my my electics and i dive to 70 meters. after 8 hours i blow ballast and theres no planes in sight. i order a tow boat to drag us back to lorient with 5% hull integrity.

Salvadoreno
07-28-05, 11:53 PM
lol ur ass got pwned

Ultraboy
07-29-05, 01:32 AM
Heh, during my magical first career, which went through only one patch, I found myself taking on many a warship and surviving easily. No re-loads, and I made it to mid-1944 before an untimely format ended that career.

Fast-forward to now, and I'm on my second career with 1.04... I've gotten to the point where I hear those pings and I just want to cry. The joy of having newfound realism was quickly overshadowed by my yearning for the "happy times" of v1.01. Every time the boat shudders and the lights kick out I wonder if this is the time we're not coming back up. In Sub Command death was instant, in SHIII it takes it's time to shake the hell out of you before it strikes.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go thank my lucky stars I'm not really on a U-Boat, and pray that the nightmares go away.



P.S. Just caught on History channel the actual casualty numbers for German submariners in WW2, that really is truly astounding.

rik007
07-29-05, 03:25 PM
April 1941 Scapa Flow

I gunned a merchant and watched it sinking when a DD arrived at the horizon. After I dived the DD I was shocked that there was only 50 m water under my keel. I evaded the DC and after a while I got pretty trained in doing so. The DD couldnot kill me but I could not get rid of him when at a certain moment the fatal message came that a second DD was approaching fast. I did everything to survive and got desparate as a U-boot commander would have been in reality in that situation. My boat was taking more and more damage and slowly thing ran out of control. At the end massive flooding all guys turned red and that was it.