Deimos01
09-14-06, 03:09 PM
Just wanted to relate what was, to me, quite an exciting patrol.
I started out on patrol in June 1943 never realizing the series of malfunctions, bad luck, piss poor weather and just plain stupid decisions that were about to befall me and my fine crew.
Outbound from St Naziare in the Bay of Biscay:
The weather couldnt be nicer, sunny, no clouds, ocean like a mill pond, which means it couldnt be worse for me. "AIRCRAFT SPOTTED" yells my watch officer. I check and sure enough, here comes a sunderland bearing down from 90deg starboard. I immediatly order a crash dive, "AALLLAAAAARM!!!" "Navigator, what is the depth here?" "91 meters" he says. Good good, plenty of room. Well, either Bernard or the frenchies had gotten to my depth controls because before I knew it we were passing 80m. I order up dive planes and all back emergency but its too late and I was treated to the BOOOONG of my boat crashing into the sea floor followed by numerous damage reports.
Several hours later, still in the Bay of Biscay:
Repairs comlete, steaming due West. "AIRCRAFT SPOTTED" from my watch officer again. Not trusting to my depth controls in this shallow water and having an itch to try out my new twin barrel AA gun, I decide to fight it out on the surface. At this point I must thank which ever modder it was responsible for reducing the accuracy of my gunnery.:damn: As you can guess, my crewman completely blew his whole load without even scatching the paint on that Sunderland. I can tell you this too, nothing wrong with the accuracy of those enemy planes. He managed to neatly braket my boat between 2 bombs. Heavy damage to radar, sonar and forward torpedo room. Time to crash dive.
Grid AM 51:
Weather is horrid. High winds and waves, fog like pee soup. My gut tells me there is a convoy abouts. I order my radio man to begin radar searches of the whole area. Sure enough, before to long he picks up a large radar contact. It must be a convoy! "All ahead full!" It looks as though im in a perfect position to get 90deg abeam of the convoy, the perfect postion. If I can just get in range fast enough. "Radar warning" shouts my radioman. "VERDAMMIT!" Visibility is horrible. I know Im gonna have to get in close to engage any ships, however, same goes for the escort that is tracking me on radar. I go to flank speed and hope I have enough time. "SHIP SPOTTED! bearing 195deg" Damn! Its the escort! AALLLLAAAARRRRRM! I level off at 100m (my depth controls are still not functioning properly) and get a sound fix on the convoy. I am close, very close but not close enough. Theres no way I'll get in visual range in this fog at silent speed. Meanwhile, the persuing escort dropped a spread of DCs on my last postion which was thankfully well aft. I knew he had to have me though and sure enough he began pinging me then charged in for an attack run bow to stern on my boat. Damn those Tommies are getting good! He made 3 more runs on me, all bow to stern. By this time I had serious damage throughout the boat and my radar was out of action. I knew if I had any hope of engaging this convoy then it had to be now! Without radar, there is no way Id be able to find it again in this weather. I devised a bold plan. If the escort just makes another bow to stern pass on me I have a chance. YES! here he comes again, just like the other times. As the DCs started exploding around my boat I ordered flank speed and blow ballast. I estimated that the outer line of ships was within 1000-1500m. All I need is a few seconds on the surface to get in range. As my boat breached the surface, the escort was still well astern making his turn. This is where I realized that my estimate of the convoy range was a tad off as demostrated by the prow of the large merchant bearing down on a colision course. "ALL BACK EMERGENCY....HARD TO STARBOARD". Just in time my boat began to heave to and I only nudged the merchie. I ordered ahead flank. As my heart hammered in time with the pounding of the deisels I raced into the midst of the convoy. I was getting radar warnings from all over. The chase was on! Before I could get a visual on a new target I spotted the escort astern and closing fast! I dove to perisope depth. As I raised my periscope I finally spotted some targets. 2 fish for a troop transport, 2 for a liberty and 1 out the stern on a passing small merchie. By this time I could hear the escort through my hull and knew I had run out of time. "ALLLAAAARRRRM!" followed shortly by the sound of metal screeching as the escort rammed my boat and a split second after that the exploding DCs. Luckily I had managed to get enough depth to not be taken out by the ramming attack, however, I was subjected to a severe pounding by the DCs. Heavy damage in all compartments, flooding in the engine room. I went to 100m silent and 1 knot. Due to the flooding, though, the Chief couldnt hold depth at that speed. I had to increase to 3 knots and start repairs. Now my sound man was picking up 2 more warships approaching fast. "What was that?" "Torpedo explosions! 3 of them!" I scored some hits:rock: No time for that now though. For the next 3 hours I was subjected to a near continual barrage of DC attacks. The Tommies were in the zone. One would hold contact while the other 2 worked me over. All was not lost though. Im a slippery skipper and would not be had. I shucked, I jived, I shot out decoys and eventually I managed to evade the enemy. Good enough, time to lick my wounds and go home. I surfaced the boat to find that the fog a cleared somewhat. Enough for me to see the troop transport listing heavily and dead in the water. I swung around and put paid to that ship just in time to spot one of the escorts bearing down on my position again. I turned to flee at flank speed with the escort in hot pursuit. Thankfully I was still out of gun range and I was doing 18kts to his 15. Now here was an opportunity to pull one more trick out of the bag. I lined up the escort directly on my stern and fired of my stern torpedo set at 4m and magnetic detenator. Lets see how he likes an nice eel down the throat! To my surprise I scored a hit. It was a tough little escort and my fish failed to sink her. It was however enough to make her break off the pursuit. Figuring my luck was all used up I decided to return for base. Thus ended one of more memorable patrols.
When all was said and done, I managed to sink the troop transport and the small merchie and I imagine that most of my crew will be putting in for transfers to other boats in order to get far far away from their insane reckless captain.:lol:
I would like to think the GW team, NVDrifter and his realism mod and the maker of SH3 commander for all the extra excitement that I was able to experience during this patrol. :up:
I started out on patrol in June 1943 never realizing the series of malfunctions, bad luck, piss poor weather and just plain stupid decisions that were about to befall me and my fine crew.
Outbound from St Naziare in the Bay of Biscay:
The weather couldnt be nicer, sunny, no clouds, ocean like a mill pond, which means it couldnt be worse for me. "AIRCRAFT SPOTTED" yells my watch officer. I check and sure enough, here comes a sunderland bearing down from 90deg starboard. I immediatly order a crash dive, "AALLLAAAAARM!!!" "Navigator, what is the depth here?" "91 meters" he says. Good good, plenty of room. Well, either Bernard or the frenchies had gotten to my depth controls because before I knew it we were passing 80m. I order up dive planes and all back emergency but its too late and I was treated to the BOOOONG of my boat crashing into the sea floor followed by numerous damage reports.
Several hours later, still in the Bay of Biscay:
Repairs comlete, steaming due West. "AIRCRAFT SPOTTED" from my watch officer again. Not trusting to my depth controls in this shallow water and having an itch to try out my new twin barrel AA gun, I decide to fight it out on the surface. At this point I must thank which ever modder it was responsible for reducing the accuracy of my gunnery.:damn: As you can guess, my crewman completely blew his whole load without even scatching the paint on that Sunderland. I can tell you this too, nothing wrong with the accuracy of those enemy planes. He managed to neatly braket my boat between 2 bombs. Heavy damage to radar, sonar and forward torpedo room. Time to crash dive.
Grid AM 51:
Weather is horrid. High winds and waves, fog like pee soup. My gut tells me there is a convoy abouts. I order my radio man to begin radar searches of the whole area. Sure enough, before to long he picks up a large radar contact. It must be a convoy! "All ahead full!" It looks as though im in a perfect position to get 90deg abeam of the convoy, the perfect postion. If I can just get in range fast enough. "Radar warning" shouts my radioman. "VERDAMMIT!" Visibility is horrible. I know Im gonna have to get in close to engage any ships, however, same goes for the escort that is tracking me on radar. I go to flank speed and hope I have enough time. "SHIP SPOTTED! bearing 195deg" Damn! Its the escort! AALLLLAAAARRRRRM! I level off at 100m (my depth controls are still not functioning properly) and get a sound fix on the convoy. I am close, very close but not close enough. Theres no way I'll get in visual range in this fog at silent speed. Meanwhile, the persuing escort dropped a spread of DCs on my last postion which was thankfully well aft. I knew he had to have me though and sure enough he began pinging me then charged in for an attack run bow to stern on my boat. Damn those Tommies are getting good! He made 3 more runs on me, all bow to stern. By this time I had serious damage throughout the boat and my radar was out of action. I knew if I had any hope of engaging this convoy then it had to be now! Without radar, there is no way Id be able to find it again in this weather. I devised a bold plan. If the escort just makes another bow to stern pass on me I have a chance. YES! here he comes again, just like the other times. As the DCs started exploding around my boat I ordered flank speed and blow ballast. I estimated that the outer line of ships was within 1000-1500m. All I need is a few seconds on the surface to get in range. As my boat breached the surface, the escort was still well astern making his turn. This is where I realized that my estimate of the convoy range was a tad off as demostrated by the prow of the large merchant bearing down on a colision course. "ALL BACK EMERGENCY....HARD TO STARBOARD". Just in time my boat began to heave to and I only nudged the merchie. I ordered ahead flank. As my heart hammered in time with the pounding of the deisels I raced into the midst of the convoy. I was getting radar warnings from all over. The chase was on! Before I could get a visual on a new target I spotted the escort astern and closing fast! I dove to perisope depth. As I raised my periscope I finally spotted some targets. 2 fish for a troop transport, 2 for a liberty and 1 out the stern on a passing small merchie. By this time I could hear the escort through my hull and knew I had run out of time. "ALLLAAAARRRRM!" followed shortly by the sound of metal screeching as the escort rammed my boat and a split second after that the exploding DCs. Luckily I had managed to get enough depth to not be taken out by the ramming attack, however, I was subjected to a severe pounding by the DCs. Heavy damage in all compartments, flooding in the engine room. I went to 100m silent and 1 knot. Due to the flooding, though, the Chief couldnt hold depth at that speed. I had to increase to 3 knots and start repairs. Now my sound man was picking up 2 more warships approaching fast. "What was that?" "Torpedo explosions! 3 of them!" I scored some hits:rock: No time for that now though. For the next 3 hours I was subjected to a near continual barrage of DC attacks. The Tommies were in the zone. One would hold contact while the other 2 worked me over. All was not lost though. Im a slippery skipper and would not be had. I shucked, I jived, I shot out decoys and eventually I managed to evade the enemy. Good enough, time to lick my wounds and go home. I surfaced the boat to find that the fog a cleared somewhat. Enough for me to see the troop transport listing heavily and dead in the water. I swung around and put paid to that ship just in time to spot one of the escorts bearing down on my position again. I turned to flee at flank speed with the escort in hot pursuit. Thankfully I was still out of gun range and I was doing 18kts to his 15. Now here was an opportunity to pull one more trick out of the bag. I lined up the escort directly on my stern and fired of my stern torpedo set at 4m and magnetic detenator. Lets see how he likes an nice eel down the throat! To my surprise I scored a hit. It was a tough little escort and my fish failed to sink her. It was however enough to make her break off the pursuit. Figuring my luck was all used up I decided to return for base. Thus ended one of more memorable patrols.
When all was said and done, I managed to sink the troop transport and the small merchie and I imagine that most of my crew will be putting in for transfers to other boats in order to get far far away from their insane reckless captain.:lol:
I would like to think the GW team, NVDrifter and his realism mod and the maker of SH3 commander for all the extra excitement that I was able to experience during this patrol. :up: