A bit of a scare

[Grey Area]

Had a bit of a scare yesterday while cruising towards Scapa Flow after keeping my assigned patrol grid.

Got a ship spotted message from my highly trained watch crew. After I pulled on my overcoat and hauled up to the bridge to take a look, sure enough there was a DD dead ahead with his nose on me.

I thought to myself, "there's no way he can see me from here?" but I crashed dived anyway and continued the dive down to ~100M.

As I heard the DD approach I ordered silent running and dead slow on the screws. Heart in my mouth, with the ops crew briefed on emergency maneoveres the DD approached overhead as we all strained to hear the splash of the depth charges.

Nothing, nada. The DD just passed over us, and I mean DIRECTLY over us without even a twitch of rudder. It must have been a coincedene of our tracks.

Dynamic campaign - ya gotta love it.

[STEED]

You live to fight another day. :)

[HunterICX]

:rotfl: that scary?

Flower Corvettes are Scary...thos blasted bastards always have the hang on ya

[Jmack]

that's scary ?


so read this all

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=34

[TarJak]

Flower Corvettes are Scary...thos blasted bastards always have the hang on ya
I'm with you on that one. I just had to finish a campaign because of a Flower. I thought I'd had the best luck after a pretty quiet patrol in BF17, I got a radio report of a convoy headed my way. I was easily able to line up a head on intercept and just lay at 25m with all engines stopped.:arrgh!:

I was down to 6 torps so I wanted to get something juicy. Snuck up to periscope depth and had a look around. Looked good nice an easy only a C Class DD, a Flower Corvette and an Armed Trawler for escort and about twenty ships in the convoy. Nothing real big but it had 3 Large Cargo's and a mixed bag of smalls and tramps.

Anyway I lined up on one of the large cargoes from just inside the starbord column of the convoy hoping to get a luck ster tube shot on another large cargo in the starbord column. Fired two at the first Lge Cargo and then swung hard a starboard to get a bead on the 2nd one.

3 hits all looking good. I still had two in the forward tubes and great line up on a Medium Cargo so I took the shot. 1 dud and a hit. Great I thought as I dived for cover as the escorts came looking; I'l hag around at about 100m under on of the slowed targets and wait till the fuss dies down.

No such $#^% luck! The DD kept going with the rest of the convoy and obviously ordered the Flower to keep on my ass. He made a few runs without dropping anything then unloaded right on my head. No pinging or anything. As I was deep and silent I thought I was OK but no he got 3 DC hits on the nose of U53 and the fun really started. Amazingly hull integrity still showed 100% despite the flooding and the obvious damege to the forward batteries and dive planes. Not to mention the forward tubes, not that I had any eels left for them.

I ordered an end to silent running called the the damage crew and anyone else I coud to get to work and tried to stop the flooding in the forward torpedo room and the forward mess. It looked like I had it all under control when the chief started calling new depths in 10m increments and I knew I was in trouble after I'd ordered back emergency, blow ballast and we were still cruising past 200m and moving faster. 240 went by, the crew and I were frantic by now trying again and again to slow the dive. Ran out of compressed air at 280m and we were still gowing down despite the dive planes all being back in working order and the flooding slowly getting under control.

300m and we are still diving, the hull screaming under the torture of the pressure at that depth. I knew it was all over then as I watched the hull integrity start to drop dramtically and the last thing I saw before we were all crushed to death by the pressure was the our depth gauge showing 322m! Then it all went black. :dead:

@#$@#$@ Flower Corvettes!:damn: Not a happy camper as I play DID and now have to start a new career from scratch. Bugger! Scary though but still some of the best fun I've had while playing SH3. I guess thats why I love playing it, the challenges never seem to go away and it always comes up with something to surprise me.

[Jmack]

for those who are thinking what kind of damage the U-505 suffered
there is a picture here http://uboat.net/boats/u505.htm

[SabreHawk]

Hehe, yep been there. The DD just simply hadnt spotted you, and you submerged before he could spot you.
Believe me if he had, you would have had some depth charges for supper!:yep:

I had one attack us during a nasty storm about two hours after we had sunk a C3 cargo and a small tanker.
Now I can only assume he found us with radar, as we were in heavy fog, rain, and seas and overcast skies. But that was what made it so scary, as we did spot him till he attacked, and he was at about 400m:huh: .....................yeah right in top of us practicly!! So no "Ship spotted" report, only WERE UNDER ATTACK SIR!!!!:o

I swung my view round to about 240 and there he was barrelling in fast and firing away and I thought we were gonna get rammed as well as pummeled by her guns.
We took damage to the conning tower, flak guns, and the deck gun casing before I could get her under and I know we barely missed getting rammed as close as he was.
But then we lost him quickly in about half an hour. But for a while there I thought we were gonners for sure.

[shegeek72]

Here's some heart-pounding fun that happened on a 1940 campaign. :arrgh!:

I raise the periscope and check the convoy's speed and distance, then quickly lower it to prevent being detected. There must be at least a dozen ships! It’s now late afternoon and they’re traveling at a leisurely 7 knots. “Ahead slow!” I order. Again, I raise the periscope and decide on what targets I’m going to attack. I choose a C2 cargo and a small merchant.

Targets are 1000 meters and closing, my heartbeat races! “Up periscope,” I order. 900 meters and closing! I check weapon’s control - all four forward tubes are loaded and ready. 800 meters and closing – just a few more meters until the merchant is at optimal target angle! I activate tube one and fire! The torpedo leaves a trail of bubbles and is right on course! No time to savor watching the torpedo impact, I quickly activate tube two, enter the firing solution and fire! Another torpedo hisses out of its tube! The cargo ship wasn’t at optimal angle, but time’s running out. I rotate the periscope to see a destroyer bearing down on us, much closer than I expected! My mind races. I can’t turn and run as the three warships will quickly find me. I locate the closest merchant ship, head toward her at flank speed and descend to 50 meters, figuring I can hide underneath her. Then there are two loud booms, both torpedoes hit their targets! The small merchant is breaking up and sinking, but the C2 is merely wounded and limps away, listing to port.

The merchant ship I’m headed for is getting closer, but so is the destroyer! “Enemy is pinging us!” the sonar man reports. We're not going to make it! The destroyer launches a barrage of depth charges and they explode around us rocking the sub! The helmsman grabs a bar to keep from falling. “We’re taking damage!” he shouts.

“Compressor damaged!” “Flak gun damaged!” “Radio damaged!” A pipe bursts in the command room and sprays water!

I’m finally in the merchant’s wash, but due to damage our speed is only 7 knots. However, I’m close enough and the destroyer has to veer off its attack run. I’m somewhat relieved, but now the merchant knows I’m using it as cover and is veering left and right. Keeping close takes quite a bit of maneuvering and sometimes I swing out to one side or another. The destroyer circles around, waiting for me to make a mistake. Then it and the merchant work together, with the warship passing in front of the merchant, who veers sharply left or right, trying to set me up. As it swings in front of the merchant it deploys more depth charges, but I stick close to the merchant avoiding further damage, all the while my batteries are quickly draining at flank speed - this can’t go on much longer!

The destroyer stops circling the merchant and just hangs around. She could be out of depth charges. I decide to test this by leaving the cover of the merchant and going silent running. If I’m wrong it means certain sinking. The warship starts pinging us and begins an attack run. It passes directly over and . . . no depth charges! By now the other warships have reached us, but with silent running and being far enough away they can’t get a good bearing on me. They drop some depth charges out of range, then head back toward the convoy. But the destroyer stays on my tail, waiting for the inevitable surfacing so it can take us out with its amour-piercing rounds. This goes on for hours; fortunately at slow speed the batteries don’t drain quickly. Then I realize, you idiot, you’re too shallow! I descend to 90 meters, the destroyer can no longer track us and turns around.

I secure from silent running, increase speed to one-third and head for the surface so the flak gun and radio antenna can be repaired. :up:
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