Mike 'Red Ocktober' Hense
08-24-05, 02:10 PM
i just had one of the most exciting, and harrowing encounters while on patrol in SH3... it was almost the end of my long running career as a UBoat Captain...
i was getting bored going to the same spot on the maps... Uboat Command keeps sending me to grid BE something or the other... this time, i would take a more indirect course to the patrol zone... and maybe visit a few of the Brisith ports...
it was with this in mind that on August 25th at just about midnight local time, i found myself heading into the shallow inlet towards Loch Ewe... confident that i would find some fat loaded targets just sitting around waiting to up my renown...
but the bottom was shoaling even shallower than i thought it would be...
i wound up at periscope depth and gave the order for a sounding... 4 meters under the keel... i decided not to venture any further in, and immediately started a turn to port to head my TpeXXI towards the north west, and into some deeper waters...
i called for a sound check and my sound man reported a distant contact manuevering out to the east... so i popped the scope up to get a possible look see at what was out there...
to my surprise i wound up sighting down on a fast moving small patrol craft, not more than a thousand meters out...
now the next thing i did was totally irrational as a sub captain... and was probably the result of some sort of narcosis or the affects of diesel fumes for long periods of time, but i found myself odering the crew to blow ballast and prepare to engage the patrol craft with the flak guns...
hey... why not...
we broke surface in a hail of gunfire and i took command of one of the guns myself and turned toward the enemy craft... he had just turned on his searchlight, and was an easy target to spot... and i commenced firing...
boom boom boom boom boom... the flak gun reported in good form as it sent out deadly arcs of lead towards the fast mover... but, for some reason they didn't seem to be affecting the enemy ship at all...
suddenly a secnd search light appeared... a second ship... my Got!!! what have i gotten myself into... i kept firing... reloading... firing...
... when, WAAABOOOM!!! ... we took one... a bright flash, and notification that we were taking damage confirmed that their guns were more effective than mine this morning...
this wasn't how i had seen things happening... ALARM!!!! CARSH DIVE!!!! and in less than a second, i was in the control room watching as my guys went about making the boat heavy, as fast as they could...
as we started down i grabbed a quick look through the scope... then lowered it just in case... i then remebred that we were in relatively shallow waters, and that the XXI has a habit of taking the command to dive quite seriously... i yelled for the engineer to level er off... but it was too late... she was heading down like she was told to do, and in a matter of seconds, she struck the bottom with a loud boom, followed by scraping of the huill on the bottom...
BLOW BALLAST i yelled... in an attempt to minimize the damage... the crew responded immediately and soon we were on our way back up... but all attempts to level off below periscope depth failed, and i could here the ping ping pings of the bullets hitting the sail as we broached momentarily... and finally settled in at 20 meters depth...
i checked the damage report... not as bad as i had thought... we were down to 82 percent hull integrity... no casualties... not bad i thought... lets head outta this area and leave those patrol boats to play with themselves...
a few decoys and manuvering legs later it seemed as if our quarry had lost interest in us... or so i thought...
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i was getting bored going to the same spot on the maps... Uboat Command keeps sending me to grid BE something or the other... this time, i would take a more indirect course to the patrol zone... and maybe visit a few of the Brisith ports...
it was with this in mind that on August 25th at just about midnight local time, i found myself heading into the shallow inlet towards Loch Ewe... confident that i would find some fat loaded targets just sitting around waiting to up my renown...
but the bottom was shoaling even shallower than i thought it would be...
i wound up at periscope depth and gave the order for a sounding... 4 meters under the keel... i decided not to venture any further in, and immediately started a turn to port to head my TpeXXI towards the north west, and into some deeper waters...
i called for a sound check and my sound man reported a distant contact manuevering out to the east... so i popped the scope up to get a possible look see at what was out there...
to my surprise i wound up sighting down on a fast moving small patrol craft, not more than a thousand meters out...
now the next thing i did was totally irrational as a sub captain... and was probably the result of some sort of narcosis or the affects of diesel fumes for long periods of time, but i found myself odering the crew to blow ballast and prepare to engage the patrol craft with the flak guns...
hey... why not...
we broke surface in a hail of gunfire and i took command of one of the guns myself and turned toward the enemy craft... he had just turned on his searchlight, and was an easy target to spot... and i commenced firing...
boom boom boom boom boom... the flak gun reported in good form as it sent out deadly arcs of lead towards the fast mover... but, for some reason they didn't seem to be affecting the enemy ship at all...
suddenly a secnd search light appeared... a second ship... my Got!!! what have i gotten myself into... i kept firing... reloading... firing...
... when, WAAABOOOM!!! ... we took one... a bright flash, and notification that we were taking damage confirmed that their guns were more effective than mine this morning...
this wasn't how i had seen things happening... ALARM!!!! CARSH DIVE!!!! and in less than a second, i was in the control room watching as my guys went about making the boat heavy, as fast as they could...
as we started down i grabbed a quick look through the scope... then lowered it just in case... i then remebred that we were in relatively shallow waters, and that the XXI has a habit of taking the command to dive quite seriously... i yelled for the engineer to level er off... but it was too late... she was heading down like she was told to do, and in a matter of seconds, she struck the bottom with a loud boom, followed by scraping of the huill on the bottom...
BLOW BALLAST i yelled... in an attempt to minimize the damage... the crew responded immediately and soon we were on our way back up... but all attempts to level off below periscope depth failed, and i could here the ping ping pings of the bullets hitting the sail as we broached momentarily... and finally settled in at 20 meters depth...
i checked the damage report... not as bad as i had thought... we were down to 82 percent hull integrity... no casualties... not bad i thought... lets head outta this area and leave those patrol boats to play with themselves...
a few decoys and manuvering legs later it seemed as if our quarry had lost interest in us... or so i thought...
*** next page down ***