:hmm:

'twas during the summer of 1940 IIRC in the Channel in shallow waters. I was Kaleuning a VIIB and bumped into this task force consisting of 1 light cruiser and 3 destroyers. Sunk the cruiser, plus 2 of the escorts, and then tried to get away from the 3rd! No such luck - ended up blowing ballast and surrendering after the buggeress had reduced my boat to something resembling Swiss cheese with her DCs :lol:

Lost a good Kaleun there too - some 150ktons sunk until then. Was a hair-raising fight indeed, lasted for some 5hrs real time...

Yah, that's what you get when you forget The Rule Nr. #1: never EVER engage warships when in shallow waters :damn:

S! m8s.

This is nothing compared to the above stories but it was the closest I've probably come to being sunk in my short time playing....(I'm playing GWX2.1 with ~84% realism-still playing auto-targeting:down: and map updates)

Late January 1940, I'm on my 7th patrol, heading for my patrol area, CG76 to the west of Gibraltar(should be a piece of cake there, right? :) ). Enroute, to the north of Ireland, I get a task force report sailing north up the Irish Channel. I've noticed that there seems to be a lot more naval activity around England on this patrol compared to previous ones . I figure this task force is probably a couple of destroyers on patrol but I thought it would be worth checking it out. I finally intercept and it is a couple of ASW Trawlers and a MTB. Not worth it but they sight me, force me down, a drop a few random DC's before leaving.
Baah, time to get out of this shallow water and head on to my patrol area.

I'm working my out to deeper water, dodge 2 other destroyers without being spotted, and later that night my lookouts sight a Tribal class destroyer. I'm not even going to try to tangle with her and I put my tail to her to avoid and continue on my way. A few minutes later, she suddenly opens up on me and hits me a couple of times. Both diesels out, flak gun out, aft batteries damged, and some minor damage as well as flooding in the diesel engine room. I crash dive and head to 80 meters with about another 60 under my keel, but I can't maintain depth because of the flooding. I try creeping along and I sink. I secure from silent running to start pumping and increase speed. I sank to about 120 meters before I got some control but I had to keep a fair amount of speed on to maintain depth. Meanwhile, this destroyer is up there dropping things on me and I'm making all kinds of noise. I might as well be singing beer hall songs.

I finally get a rhythm going-I silent run at 1 knot and sink. When the destroyer makes a run and I get the "Wasserbomben!" message, I pour the coals to her, get her back to about 60 meters and then back to 1 knot when the DC's are going off with the occasional course change thrown in and sink back down.
I did this several times. No DC's caused any damage, but the destroyer stayed fairly close. The timing was perfect-about the time I'd sink to 120 meters or so, the destroyer would make another run and I'd be able to bring her back up using my technique.

Eventually the destroyer got further away and didn't make as many runs at me so I couldn't make my mad dash very often to maintain depth, so I played with my speed until I found a happy medium of about 3 to 4 knots to maintain depth and hopefully didn't make too much noise. The destroyer never seemed to pick me up by this time and he eventually left. The whole episode from the time I spotted the destroyer to the time I got back to periscope depth after he left was 2 hours.
What a blast! :rock:

I eventually surface, get everything repaired and get out to deeper waters to do some checks. I make sure I can dive deep and maintain depth at slow speeds and the hull doesn't spring leaks.
All is good and continue on with my patrol.:arrgh!:

I've just intercepted a convoy on my way to my area and am currently working my way into position. Hopefully, the previous experience is not an omen.
:)