Guten Tag, Bernie!

I know we've argued long and hard about this in the 'Cat' with no sober conclusion, but for what it's worth:

I prefer to have a fully manned Watch to give us early warning of the RAF, discretion being the better part of valour! Rather than one watch officer and one flak gunner.

Dead Is Dead. That's what it means. No magical means of bringing ourselves back from Davy Jones' Locker, but you and I already know there is only one chance in this War, hein?

The VIIB's do get under quickly, but once under, I've been grateful of my VIIC's robustness to take me much deeper, and cope with attacks better, and that has been more important in the long run.

I know you like chasing after destroyers, you old rogue! It'll be the death of you one day, God forbid.

U-46 doesn't have any acoustic torpedoes, we've had enough trouble with the normal kind. Again, the wolf picks his fight with the lion very carefully. The main prize is the herd!

Yours, Lt de Bunsen, U-46

Guten Tag Raoul ,

My watch is always 1 Officer ~qualified in Watch , Gunnery and Flak~ , 1 Sr. warrant qualified in watch and 3 sailors .

My 2 Flak qualified warrant Officers are waiting near by the command room , usualy playing Chess at the officer table . I allowed them ;) .

The VII-C is a bloody Panzer ! It 's a U-Boat Tank ! :lol:
I saw one colliding with a fishing French trawler in Lorient Harbour without even stopping ! The French fishermen had only time to jump in the water while cursing the U-*** and all its ancesters ...

Shame on that Kaleun ...

Taking one or two DDs out open the door , and the Convoy is yours , Herr Kaleun :cool:

Catch you later at "Le Chat Noir" , drinks are on me Raoul :)

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .

You've got it Herr Kaleun,

I hope that imbecile at least put a small white pennant up!

LS

By the way you're right, Bernie,

Sometimes the only way in is to breach a hole in the escort screen.

Depends on the situation.

But I like to steal past them if I can, and start launching away like Kretschmer, right in the middle. You could release all 5 tubes blindly and still hear the explosions. Plus it puts the escorts in a hell of a flap. They can't shell you even if they can find you, they shouldn't (but sometimes do) drop depth charges with survivors in the water.

Best of all, our own prey's engines and propellors provide the noise camouflage for when we drop down and swim under the convoy on same course and speed, while we clank and swear around with the tube reloading. And of course directly under a big convoy the escorts don't have the same freedom of manouevre on the surface.

Mind you, a merchant rammed us once when we got too cocky, and on my last patrol I tried stand-off tactics, so I suppose it's horses for courses.

Schuss!, Rollie

Indeed , fighting from inside the Convoy 's path works well .

But when the Convoy starts to go "Pear shape" , it becomes dangerous to stay at periscope depth . What I mean is all marchants start to brake up theirs lines and it ends up being a sort of "Traffic Jam" :lol:
With you in the middle :down: ...

It is why I mostly fight from stand-off position . :up:

.....................................
This time , we hammered the British .

We found a Convoy coming from Gibraltar , probably heading for Liverpool .
We spent 8 Torps for 4 Ships sunk . One was a Destroyer , the rest were tankers . Nice juicy T3s ...

The escort gave me a hard time mind ... I had to leave the fight twice as it was getting too hot for my liking .

We then proceeded to our Patrol Grid (AF 78) .

I took a short-cut again within English coastal waters but we had to crash dive often . The Sea was bad , not allowing us to defend ourselves with the Flak .

We found another Convoy coming from the US near our Grid . We headed for it ...

I managed to put our boat in perfect position to launch 2 TI Fat 1s and sent 2 T2s straight to the bottom for starters .

It surely put the escort in a veeery bad mood . They started to use trigonometry on us and we quickly found ourselves closely surrounded by 4 angry Destroyers .
It took us a lot of time and hard maneuvers to save the boat .

They were pinging in turn , then doing theirs attack runs , dropping depth charges all over the place , then pinging again ...

As if that was not enough , the RAF came too .
And as it turns out , they sank one of their own Destroyer ~a Flower Class~ while bombing the area !! :o :lol:

They had someting like 2 Catalinas , 2 SwordFish and a couple of Hurricanes for good mesure . God , it was hot ...

The Grid was AM 18 .

After a while , I managed to get some distance and came back for some more tonnage . I had time to fire 2 TIIIs , both missed , then a TII who sank a small cargo .
It was night time and my radar guy did not get an incoming pair of Catalinas .

They dived on us ~unaware of the danger~ and completly hammered our forward deck . We lost one 20mm Flak gun and the other one was badly damaged .
The main problem is that I lost my attack periscope too ! :x

Stern Quarters started to flood but luckily , not badly enough to put the boat in jeopardy . I crash dived to 30m only as I was not sure about the damage reports yet . I was thinking about Hull integrity ...

We surfaced soon after to find the remaining Destroyers on Patrol near by . The closest was a Clemson , about 2000m behind us .
As it was still night time , I took the risk to send my Repair Team out to fix our Deck and the damaged Flak gun .

While they were fixing and welding , I launched a TI Fat2 ~one of those handy defensive rear Torps~ with a short pattern ~800m~ and a close max range ~1000m~ .

And it did the trick !! :hulk:

The Clemson went up in flame with a big bang !

We did not get the time to fix the forward casing ~who was damaged too~ and quickly dived to 120m , went silent running , set a different course and finaly escaped for good .

On the way back to Lorient , we found 2 small Merchants sailing together . Bad luck for them , down they went .

That was a good Patrol overall and we later had a good Party at "Le Chat Noir" where "Madame" offered us her finest Champagne while some of the lads went upstairs with a couple of nice French girls :yep:

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .

October 27th 1943 ,

U-100 left Lorient for Grid Patrol AF45 .

Torpido load :
6 T3s , 3 T1s , 2 T1s FAT1 , 2 T2s FAT2 , 1 Acoustic .

We recieved our new Flak-guns ~ the latest 38s~ as well as the new decoys "Bolts 2" .

At less than 85nm from Lorient , we had our first radar contact , bearing 358 long range . We were not in deep waters yet ...

Something told me that it surely was a British Destroyer , and indeed it was .
Coming straight at us at 25 knots .

Sea was calm so I dived to snorkel depth and set speed to 14 Kts , while turning starboard 20 Deg . At 2500m from the Destroyer , I launched my one and only acoustic torp , waited a bit then crash dived to 60m , adding 20 Deg more starboard .

...

"Torpido missed , Sir" .

Right , time to hide ...

Few missed depth charges later , the Destroyer ~River Class~ gave up the cat and mouse game and head up West at 9 knots in straight line , leaving us behind .

Checking my Weapon officer , he gave me a wink ;)
"Time to hunt him down !"

Periscope depth , right behind him , but the enemy was now over 3500m in front of us .
Ok , " snorkel up" , speed to 15 knots and we started to gain on him , slowly but surely .

2000m behind him , I fired a T3 set to magnetic , 1m under its keel and waited ...

"Torpido impact , YEAH !!"

The bugger 's behind went up in the air by at least 2 meters while its bow went straight under ! It sank in less than 10 secs , like it was "crash diving" !!

Everybody was cheering !

...

We did not see anything until Grid AL52 , when BdU sent us a report of a small Convoy heading our way , 85nm on our starboard .

I set up an intercept course and soon , we were in visual contact :
3 C2s . mmm , lovely !

6 Torpidos later , the Sea was quiet again :|\

2 days later , we fought 3 bombers . 3 less for the Brits to play with ... hehe ...
We rescued a pilot , put a bullet in his head and left his body for the fish to feed on . I hate seeing someone drowning ...
I 'm a Wolf , and not a nurse or a baywatch :stare:

...

Our Grid Patrol was empty , we did not see anything even after patroling it for 48 Hrs .

With 6 Torps left onboard , I decided to give Scapa Flow a little visit .
We 'll see how it goes ...

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .

Why, Bernie?

Why?

Tell me you were making a sick joke? I know you, you probably were?

The unbreakable law of the sea is for all mariners to come to the aid of another in distress, if they can.

In War we are the the ones who usually cause that distress in the first place, and if we should do so, and kill seamen without warning, or leave them to an uncertain fate on a raft, then so be it.

No Tommy will ever mourn over our deaths, as terrible as they will probably be. They will probably crack open beers as we have done, over a sinking.

Yes, BdU has said that experienced shipwrecked sailors shouldn't be allowed to survive and join another ship, to transport more war material against Germany. I say they have never been in in the water, and reached out a hand for rescue even from an enemy ship.

If we're executing people at sea now, here's my Cap and Medals...

Lt de Bunsen, U-46

Raoul , I am not joking . I never joke at Sea .

First , that British man was a RAF Pilot who was bombing us , not a sailor .
Secondly , we 're not allowed to take prisoners onboard and you know it .
Thirdly , the man died quicker . I would rather die from a bullet than drowning slowly ~alone~ in the middle of the cold Atlantic ...

Because you 're my friend , allow me to tell you something :
Keep your Cap and your Medals and get a grip , we 're at War .

I am not proud of what I 've done , but it had to be done .
Actually , I did that poor man a favor :yep:

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .

U-100 is now 68nm West of Scapa Flow .

The weather is bad , which is good for us , with big waves and a light fog .

We avoided 3 Destroyers by staying just under periscope depth . They can listen and ping better if our boat is deep ...
It was actually hard not to fire at them . But my goal is to make it to Scapa undetected ...

We lost a lot of time playing cat and mouse with them , even if the cats were never aware of the mouse being around . The crew was worried and I had to use my authority to maintain discipline and moral high .

One of my machinist even came to me to ask me to turn the boat around ! :o
I draw my Luger while shouting "How dare you !" :stare:
Luckily for him , Franz ~my weapon officer~ took him back to his station .
For few minutes . the Command room was silent , you could have heard a pin drop .
A good speech on the interComs and everything was back to normal ...

We counted no less than 6 Destroyers patroling the straight .
To be honest , I even thought about giving up ...
Only the reward of sinking a main Battleship kept me going ...

2 1/2 Hrs later , we were in Scapa Bay .
I ordered periscope depth and started to look around for target of opportunity .
To my surprise , the Sea and nearby harbor was empty !
"Where are they ?"

15 minutes later , I spotted something . Moving closer , I had a good look at it .
" Fiji Cruiser ahead , stationary , distance 3200m"

I moved slowly to 2000m and ordered full stop .

From there , I fired one T3 , pistol set to magnetic , depth 5.5m .
Only a anti-sub net could save her now ...

I kept an eye on my Jungsmann clock and 2 minute later ...

"Torpido impact !!"
then , " Unit destroyed, YEAH !!"

I stayed there for 2 whole minutes , listening and looking around .
No reaction whatsoever ...
"Surface the boat !"

Sea was now quieter , small waves but the light fog was still there . I ordered ahead standard and started to scout around for a good 5 minutes .
Nothing more ...

We went down to periscope depth again . At least, we did resupply the oxygen as the boat was stinking carbon oxide like hell .

For some reason , probably the 6th sense of the veteran sailor , I raised the peri just in time to see a wave of aircrafts approaching !
I counted no less than 13 of them !! :o

Then , my sonar man reported a long range contact coming our way , making very fast .
Then a second one , and 2 minutes later a third one .

While I still had time to do so quietly , I pinged the bottom :
"Depth under keel : 5m"

"Increase depth by 3m , speed to 3 knots"

I left the command room and headed for the sonar . With a hand on my sonar man 's shoulder , I kept a carefull ear on the nearest approaching Destroyer .
I wanted to present only the bow of our boat , to keep a low profile ...

It missed us by a hair , 250m port !

"ahead third !"

3 minutes later , same manoever again with the second incoming Destroyer , at very slow speed . It worked again .

I was about to do the same with the third Destroyer when the first one turned around and started to ping hard .

"Engine fullstop !"

It started to get hairy ...
I was running out of options ...

So I waited , praying ...

Luck came to our help . One of the Destroyer headed on our back starboard and started to drop depth charges 400m behind us . Soon afterwards , the Aircratfs started to drop bombs on the spot designated by the depth charges . My sonar man had to take the headphone out of his ears , the sea was getting VERY noisy !

I immediatly ordered flank speed , straigh ahead , for 2 minutes .
Then , "Engine fullstop" again ...

And we waited , without moving , for 1 1/2 hour .

...

5 Hrs later , we were back in the Atlantic , safe . :P

I promissed myself to never go back again near a British Port .
Ever .

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9823/fiji6zq.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1392/fijidown7vp.jpg

Crazy, Bernie!

See you back at he Chat Noir, you bad black cat!

LS

Well done, the luck of a cat rests with you :|\

Thx .

I have to say that it was good fun but stressfull !
I paused the game once for a coffee , but I had to play it real time , time compression is obviously a no-no in that kind of situation .

Basically , Scapa Flow as been a 9 Hrs straight run , and I only made a couple of hundred nm .

I saw 1 anti-sub net ~I was scanning with the peri slightly up~ but no minefields .

But I regret something : to have been too quiet and not to have fought a Destroyer or two . :roll: :hmm:

Cheers .

Patrol No. 27 , December 1943 .

U-100 "Blackcat" left Lorient with a good load .

I spent many renown points to get an aggressive load , including no less than 3 acoustic Torps , 1 TI fat 1 and 1 fat 2 .
I guess I just want to make a point after our run in Scapa Flow , and the crew needs to trust his Cpt , once for all ...

Grid patrol is AL85 , one of my favorite hunting ground .

...

We sank 3 coastal Merchants and 1 small merchant with our deck gun on our way to the Grid . Weather was excellent for December and I still have my 14 Torps onboard .

We spent Christmas at Sea :( but we had a good party ! :D
Our cook did his best to please everyone ! Man , that was a Party we 're not going to forget !!

We started 50m deep ~to be safe from a possible collision~ and everyone was invited , even my sonar man !
(Don 't tell Donitz :-? )

menu was :

- Eggs benedict with "almost" fresh spinash
- French smoked ham ~similar to Parma ham~ with rosted "Kartoffels"
- Frankfurt sausages and beans
- Dried apricots from Spain with english custard and "glace" cherries , served with Blitzkuchen Mit Apfeln Apple Cake !! :P

(if we get a Medal , it has to go to our Chef !)

I did buy some cheap Champagne from the "Chat Noir" in Lorient before to leave Port .
2 cases of "Becks" and some French cognac helped us to be "not in condition to f**k" ! :cool:

By 2 am , everybody was pissed and Chief said that he could take the boat to 300m deep without any problem !
Nevertheless , I maintained depth at 50m ... :lol:

One of our machinist gave us a stip-tease while our radio-man put on some "Rita cadillac" on the gramophone :huh:

God , it was ... special !!! :-j

...

24 Hrs later and the pukes 's splashes cleared up , we were back to war ...

B. Goelf out .

Cheers .