rcs929
02-05-06, 08:15 AM
I don't post much but I have enjoyed many of the stories I have read from this board and think it's a great community :) This isn't a story but rather just a couple of scenarios I have experienced from silent hunter 3 (and 2). I am hooked on this franchise, hehe. Anyone got any exciting or wierd things you have experienced or seen while out sailing on patrol? I would like to read them if you care to share them.
In my latest patrol (#24) it became fairly stormy seas, 15 windspeed with real low visibility, probably about 200 - 300 meters once I got West of Ireland. Ah finally I won't have to see Tommy's damned hurricanes flying about. It was like this for seven days, /sigh I finally get a deck gun on my new VIIB and cannot use it. I had the IIA for 19 patrols, IID for 3 & was a bit anxious to try it out. My assigned patrol area was AM78, I then prowled some areas in BE & BF as AM78 was a rather empty spot of ocean.
In BE33 I had just sank the S.S. Sea Centaur (C3 Cargo), 6793 tons. It had the first gun I had seen on merchant so far in this war. When it shot at us from 300m my vision got all blurry (nice effect like in BF2) when they hit the conning tower. Took them long enough but they finally got smart enough to put guns on thier boats. It's May 41 in my current campaign.
So after sinking her I move Heinrich Strenlow, my sonar man with a radio qualification, off the sound device & check for contacts myself. Going to set up a hearing exam for him when we return to Brest. I hear faint screws bearing 180, checking before I surface after this attack. I set a course to intercept. (I speed up time compression to 128) to the end of waypoint at the estmated spot course I think she will be. I am anticipating that I will have to dive, recheck sonar bearing & move towards her. The intercept track was about 10-20 km's away in BF15.
Upon reaching the end of my waypoint I climbed out on to the conning tower & ask my watch officer, Helmut Brummer - a vet of 23 previous patrols and has been on my boat since the beginning - if there are any visual contacts, his reply is no. I am thinking that it is ok to go ahead & go down to 20 meters to acquire a sound contact before I plan further action. Taking a glance to the starboard side as I'm about to climb down the hatch I see the bow section of a merchant not more than 200 meters away! WHOA! I then ask my watch officer again, any visual contacts? His binocs are now pointed right at the ship & he says, 'No visual contacts, sir'. I then look back at the ship & ask him, 'What in the hell do you call that then, Brummer?' He gives me no reply of course not even a shrug. I see the name of 'S.S. Llanarth' on the stern, a T2 Tanker. The Llanarth's heading was N/NE, mine was W/NW when we intercepted. At this moment I am just thinking, wow that was a nice guesstimated intercept off of a sonar contact! In fact it doesn't get any closer than that, eh?
To be fair though with that low visibility & just coming off of time compression I can understand why the watch officer didn't see her. Instead I'd like to think that he probably had full breeches from us almost ramming her & was braced for collision down at the base of the conning tower. I bet that was a scary sight from his view lol.
The Llanarth is flying the British colors proudly so I get into a position behind her & put a fish into 'er aft screws. Then I start to pass her so that I can stop, turn & fire a fish into her starboard side and finisher her off. I am trying to be careful to not loser her in the fog.
The UZO reports it's doing 12 knots, hmm I'm not doing much more but leaving her behind. She's burning pretty good though & these swells are fairly high, nah she's not doing 12 knots. Eyeing Brummer my watch officer I'm thinking he must have traded smokes for extra rum today since it's raining heavy :) The fog is swallowing her up but the fire is bright enough to betray her position. Slowing & circling around I come back to her but now I am looking at the stern of a ship headed S/SW. Getting closer now and her stern is showing and the midships to bow is hidden by fog. Hmm. Stern showing, what the heck? I have yet to see a boat with 2 sterns. WOW! Another ship must have come out of the fog & rammed the Llanarth, the merchant I fired upon.
I get closer as I circle around from my target's starboard to port side. No, I only see 1 ship there now. I have no idea how she got turned around so fast or this ship has two portsides? heh I fire a fish breaking the ship in two. leaving the scene I am a bit onfused. Honestly I don't know if there were only 1 or two ships now. The original target must have either sank really fast then I sank the second? Or did the game turn her around confused by the time compression. I am guessing the latter. No TC was used after spotting the ship either. I usually don't use high TC values because I think back to SH2 & how ships would nose dive. Also after reading that planes don't attack over x256 TC I try not to go over that as well.
The fog can be frustrating but has surprises. I had another scenario with bad weather & very low visibility. I was moving towards a sonar contact but unware of the ships true course. I knew it was ahead of me & I was moving towards it. I am moving at her at 1/3 speed and she comes right out of the fog headed right at my boat. I move about so she will not ram me but she doesn't even attempt it. Perhaps her captain should have tried because that boat went under not long after that.
This fog has brought back a memory from the last war (SH2). I had sound contacts all around according to my sonar operator & I even heard them when I rechecked. On the conning tower I could not see anything because it's was a heavily fogged up night. I dived, rechecked sonar contact bearings. Hmm soundman says they are all around but I cannot see anything. I was not sure how far visibility was in heavy fog & I was less experienced then. What luck according to sonar, I am in the middle of a convoy and cannot see a single ship!
I surface with a speed of a a couple knots & shortly later two rows of ships come out of the fog about 100 - 200 meters on each side of the boat heading past my boat to the stern. What a sight seeing these large lumbering merchants so close & thinking they could get squirrly and ram me in a panicked zig zag any second. And of course they are to close to shoot & I needed to get perpendicular to them to fire. Seems so long ago now that I cannot what happened after that.
My last patrol in this war (sh3 campaign) was my 'shakedown cruise' with my new VIIB. I was assigned a grid sqaure in AN departing from Brest. Bah can't they send a boat from Keil rather then send us all the way around England or go through the channel? This was the first time I had requested a new grid to patrol (I changed it in sh3 commander). I wanted to pick something close to try out the new boat so I chose BF27, a new area for me since I had spent most of my time prowling the waters close to England in a IIA. Later in the patrol with torpedoes to spare I had meandered into the NW corner of BF12 just roaming for targets. I had missed a large convoy radio contact, it was around 100 km east heading towards the Channel and heading away, east, about 100+ km away . Ah would have been nice to been there with all these torpedo tubes I have with this new type VII.
But within a couple hours that night while in BF12 my watch officer spots a ship. Then I spot a destroyer about 3.5km at bearing 320 or so. Next I see 3 rows of ships headed right towards us! YES! a convoy & my first in this war! I flank speed ahead of them so the middle row is bearing 270, set up at 50m depth & wait for them to arrive. When they do I come up & hit a troop tranport at 300 off my bow, a tanker past that & and a merchant to from my stern tube before I dive to reload. Diving to 50 meters I order full speed ahead to keep up with the convoy while I am reloading. I am a little bit worried the escorts will detect me but they don't seem to be. There's a lot of noise coming from all them screws up there. I order the boat up again & fire more torpedoes. I see an escort about 2600m ahead of my bow with its searchlight is swinging towards my scope. 'Must....fire......this.....torpedo before ....I.....dive!', I am thinking. FIRE 2, FIRE 3! The escort is heading right at us now, CRASH DIVE! The boat took some damage from the charges they dropped down on us. It really shook the boat around even up as well but she held. Gah! to get sunk on the shake down cruise after 19 patrols in a IIA :( The radio antenna was destroyed as well as the flak gun. The deck gun was hit but not destroyed. The batteries had some very light damage but was fixed fast. Was a bit of flooding but I put my Exec on it who's repair qualification is rarely needed & we were ok. Once the boat got some depth and the flooding stopped I ordered 'rig for silent running' & proceeded the game of cat mouse with the escorts for some time. The escorts didn't really hit near us after that but a couple stayed back to hunt us. Another came up from what would have been the back of the convoy, it must have been a large convoy & joined in.
It's really nice to see the boat move around while depth charges go off close, diving etc & not have a static screen/sub. I haven't been killed yet but it would be nice if they did it like enigma(?) where it goes all dark & you hear hull crushing sounds while the boat goes into a steep or vertical dive. That gave a clear signal that something had gone wrong, terrifyingly wrong! I usually don't mess with escorts, I like the idea of hitting targets on the escorts 'watch'. (Think of the game Thief with the 'ghost' ruleset). I am also playing DiD (dead is dead) so I am trying not to be reckless.
There was one lone escort from an earlier patrol that I did fire upon though. There hadn't been any merchants in the assigned grid & he was the only ship to show up with British colors flying so I decided to wheel around & let him have it. I sent 2 torpedoes at him as he was turning in front of the boat in his search. He had lost me & was coming back towards me but was turning away. Honestly I expected them to miss but I heard a great explosion as I was diving for cover.
I have not seen any Luftwaffe assistance but there was a patrol where I intercepted a freighter & was just a bit late. It was speeding away and I gave chase in my IIA but we were matched knot for knot. He had about 4-5km lead on my boat with clear skies & seas. GAH! I'll never catch that damn thing and he wasn't zig zagging. Soon two planes come swooping down from the sky & bomb it! The ship is only doing 4 knots now YES! I hadn't radioed a contact report & we were about 100-150 km east of England. Probably around 1000 - 1500km from Germany. Not sure what happened there but it worked out great!
Good luck out there & happy hunting!
In my latest patrol (#24) it became fairly stormy seas, 15 windspeed with real low visibility, probably about 200 - 300 meters once I got West of Ireland. Ah finally I won't have to see Tommy's damned hurricanes flying about. It was like this for seven days, /sigh I finally get a deck gun on my new VIIB and cannot use it. I had the IIA for 19 patrols, IID for 3 & was a bit anxious to try it out. My assigned patrol area was AM78, I then prowled some areas in BE & BF as AM78 was a rather empty spot of ocean.
In BE33 I had just sank the S.S. Sea Centaur (C3 Cargo), 6793 tons. It had the first gun I had seen on merchant so far in this war. When it shot at us from 300m my vision got all blurry (nice effect like in BF2) when they hit the conning tower. Took them long enough but they finally got smart enough to put guns on thier boats. It's May 41 in my current campaign.
So after sinking her I move Heinrich Strenlow, my sonar man with a radio qualification, off the sound device & check for contacts myself. Going to set up a hearing exam for him when we return to Brest. I hear faint screws bearing 180, checking before I surface after this attack. I set a course to intercept. (I speed up time compression to 128) to the end of waypoint at the estmated spot course I think she will be. I am anticipating that I will have to dive, recheck sonar bearing & move towards her. The intercept track was about 10-20 km's away in BF15.
Upon reaching the end of my waypoint I climbed out on to the conning tower & ask my watch officer, Helmut Brummer - a vet of 23 previous patrols and has been on my boat since the beginning - if there are any visual contacts, his reply is no. I am thinking that it is ok to go ahead & go down to 20 meters to acquire a sound contact before I plan further action. Taking a glance to the starboard side as I'm about to climb down the hatch I see the bow section of a merchant not more than 200 meters away! WHOA! I then ask my watch officer again, any visual contacts? His binocs are now pointed right at the ship & he says, 'No visual contacts, sir'. I then look back at the ship & ask him, 'What in the hell do you call that then, Brummer?' He gives me no reply of course not even a shrug. I see the name of 'S.S. Llanarth' on the stern, a T2 Tanker. The Llanarth's heading was N/NE, mine was W/NW when we intercepted. At this moment I am just thinking, wow that was a nice guesstimated intercept off of a sonar contact! In fact it doesn't get any closer than that, eh?
To be fair though with that low visibility & just coming off of time compression I can understand why the watch officer didn't see her. Instead I'd like to think that he probably had full breeches from us almost ramming her & was braced for collision down at the base of the conning tower. I bet that was a scary sight from his view lol.
The Llanarth is flying the British colors proudly so I get into a position behind her & put a fish into 'er aft screws. Then I start to pass her so that I can stop, turn & fire a fish into her starboard side and finisher her off. I am trying to be careful to not loser her in the fog.
The UZO reports it's doing 12 knots, hmm I'm not doing much more but leaving her behind. She's burning pretty good though & these swells are fairly high, nah she's not doing 12 knots. Eyeing Brummer my watch officer I'm thinking he must have traded smokes for extra rum today since it's raining heavy :) The fog is swallowing her up but the fire is bright enough to betray her position. Slowing & circling around I come back to her but now I am looking at the stern of a ship headed S/SW. Getting closer now and her stern is showing and the midships to bow is hidden by fog. Hmm. Stern showing, what the heck? I have yet to see a boat with 2 sterns. WOW! Another ship must have come out of the fog & rammed the Llanarth, the merchant I fired upon.
I get closer as I circle around from my target's starboard to port side. No, I only see 1 ship there now. I have no idea how she got turned around so fast or this ship has two portsides? heh I fire a fish breaking the ship in two. leaving the scene I am a bit onfused. Honestly I don't know if there were only 1 or two ships now. The original target must have either sank really fast then I sank the second? Or did the game turn her around confused by the time compression. I am guessing the latter. No TC was used after spotting the ship either. I usually don't use high TC values because I think back to SH2 & how ships would nose dive. Also after reading that planes don't attack over x256 TC I try not to go over that as well.
The fog can be frustrating but has surprises. I had another scenario with bad weather & very low visibility. I was moving towards a sonar contact but unware of the ships true course. I knew it was ahead of me & I was moving towards it. I am moving at her at 1/3 speed and she comes right out of the fog headed right at my boat. I move about so she will not ram me but she doesn't even attempt it. Perhaps her captain should have tried because that boat went under not long after that.
This fog has brought back a memory from the last war (SH2). I had sound contacts all around according to my sonar operator & I even heard them when I rechecked. On the conning tower I could not see anything because it's was a heavily fogged up night. I dived, rechecked sonar contact bearings. Hmm soundman says they are all around but I cannot see anything. I was not sure how far visibility was in heavy fog & I was less experienced then. What luck according to sonar, I am in the middle of a convoy and cannot see a single ship!
I surface with a speed of a a couple knots & shortly later two rows of ships come out of the fog about 100 - 200 meters on each side of the boat heading past my boat to the stern. What a sight seeing these large lumbering merchants so close & thinking they could get squirrly and ram me in a panicked zig zag any second. And of course they are to close to shoot & I needed to get perpendicular to them to fire. Seems so long ago now that I cannot what happened after that.
My last patrol in this war (sh3 campaign) was my 'shakedown cruise' with my new VIIB. I was assigned a grid sqaure in AN departing from Brest. Bah can't they send a boat from Keil rather then send us all the way around England or go through the channel? This was the first time I had requested a new grid to patrol (I changed it in sh3 commander). I wanted to pick something close to try out the new boat so I chose BF27, a new area for me since I had spent most of my time prowling the waters close to England in a IIA. Later in the patrol with torpedoes to spare I had meandered into the NW corner of BF12 just roaming for targets. I had missed a large convoy radio contact, it was around 100 km east heading towards the Channel and heading away, east, about 100+ km away . Ah would have been nice to been there with all these torpedo tubes I have with this new type VII.
But within a couple hours that night while in BF12 my watch officer spots a ship. Then I spot a destroyer about 3.5km at bearing 320 or so. Next I see 3 rows of ships headed right towards us! YES! a convoy & my first in this war! I flank speed ahead of them so the middle row is bearing 270, set up at 50m depth & wait for them to arrive. When they do I come up & hit a troop tranport at 300 off my bow, a tanker past that & and a merchant to from my stern tube before I dive to reload. Diving to 50 meters I order full speed ahead to keep up with the convoy while I am reloading. I am a little bit worried the escorts will detect me but they don't seem to be. There's a lot of noise coming from all them screws up there. I order the boat up again & fire more torpedoes. I see an escort about 2600m ahead of my bow with its searchlight is swinging towards my scope. 'Must....fire......this.....torpedo before ....I.....dive!', I am thinking. FIRE 2, FIRE 3! The escort is heading right at us now, CRASH DIVE! The boat took some damage from the charges they dropped down on us. It really shook the boat around even up as well but she held. Gah! to get sunk on the shake down cruise after 19 patrols in a IIA :( The radio antenna was destroyed as well as the flak gun. The deck gun was hit but not destroyed. The batteries had some very light damage but was fixed fast. Was a bit of flooding but I put my Exec on it who's repair qualification is rarely needed & we were ok. Once the boat got some depth and the flooding stopped I ordered 'rig for silent running' & proceeded the game of cat mouse with the escorts for some time. The escorts didn't really hit near us after that but a couple stayed back to hunt us. Another came up from what would have been the back of the convoy, it must have been a large convoy & joined in.
It's really nice to see the boat move around while depth charges go off close, diving etc & not have a static screen/sub. I haven't been killed yet but it would be nice if they did it like enigma(?) where it goes all dark & you hear hull crushing sounds while the boat goes into a steep or vertical dive. That gave a clear signal that something had gone wrong, terrifyingly wrong! I usually don't mess with escorts, I like the idea of hitting targets on the escorts 'watch'. (Think of the game Thief with the 'ghost' ruleset). I am also playing DiD (dead is dead) so I am trying not to be reckless.
There was one lone escort from an earlier patrol that I did fire upon though. There hadn't been any merchants in the assigned grid & he was the only ship to show up with British colors flying so I decided to wheel around & let him have it. I sent 2 torpedoes at him as he was turning in front of the boat in his search. He had lost me & was coming back towards me but was turning away. Honestly I expected them to miss but I heard a great explosion as I was diving for cover.
I have not seen any Luftwaffe assistance but there was a patrol where I intercepted a freighter & was just a bit late. It was speeding away and I gave chase in my IIA but we were matched knot for knot. He had about 4-5km lead on my boat with clear skies & seas. GAH! I'll never catch that damn thing and he wasn't zig zagging. Soon two planes come swooping down from the sky & bomb it! The ship is only doing 4 knots now YES! I hadn't radioed a contact report & we were about 100-150 km east of England. Probably around 1000 - 1500km from Germany. Not sure what happened there but it worked out great!
Good luck out there & happy hunting!