DAS BOOT and a question
 

Spring 1941

U-79 was on its first patrol. After an uneventful cruise along the western coast of Ireland, we were now chasing a convoy in heavy seas, pitch black night with fog and thick rain in AM 52, just on the continental shelf.

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Literally we fell into them, still having to close to about 300m to identify neutrals from Brits, for it was a predominantly neutral convoy. Attacking unseen on the surface a large 12.000t whale ship. Two hits out of three, she's going down. We turn to identify the large tanker starboard.
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While I stare through the bino trying my best in guessing the flag, without shooting or lights on, a destroyer pops out of the fog just behind us. ALAAAAARRM! But not quite fast enough, he runs over us and depthcharges us heavily. One petty officer dead, one NCO injured. Port E- and Diesel-engine are destroyed, starboard E-engine not responding, heavy flooding in four compartments and we are going down. Blowing tanks doesn't help, still going down. Finally we hit the bottom at 192m, all surprised the hull didn't crush.
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The following DC's miss us and the LI manages to contain the flooding. Starboard E is fixed and slowly we limp away, crawling at 180m and 2 knots. Forward battery is damaged, Aft battery is gone. We come to periscope depth after 3 hours and find a storm battered corvette far behind its convoy. One eel set to impact is our revenge. Surfacing, ahead flank to get away from these escorts.

But: My forward battery couldn't recharge after this at all! I had to travel the entire way home to St. Nazaire on the surface with one Diesel running at maximum rpm. Also tried different engine settings, told the LI to recharge. Nothing. My batteries were down to about 20%, so I was really lucky we didn't run into any ASW group or even a lone destroyer...

Is this a known "bug" in SH3? Because I would think both Diesels are capable of recharging the batteries, after some work of the LI at last. Or is it because my aft battery was destroyed and it needs to be working to conduct the current to the forward battery?

Thanks!

I'm not a U-Boat expert in even my own imagination, but I would guess they were damaged to the point that the forward batteries weren't enough to run the engines along with the rest of the electronics on board. Kind of like having a low battery in your car. It'll play the radio but won't start the engine.

Would say that you were very lucky to get home after that sort of kicking.

My rule is that if it is bad weather, just stay in hydrophones range and wait for better weather. The chances of an unexpected warship in that visibility are good and you have no way of running without getting a kicking.

What mods do you have, I have noticed that in GWX3.0 the destroyers don't mess about and are too accurate with the depth charges for my liking.

I had to learn the accuracy of the destroyers the hard way, only managed to stop my boat at 230m with very heavy damage.

Since then, I have been able to keep away from trouble by going deep after launching an attack and going silent. Even now, the brits still get too close to me and its only thanks to a 6 hour game of cat and mouse with 7 destroyers that i'm able to stay safe thanks to my experiences.

Good luck with your next attack, hopefully it will be you dishing out the pain:)

Fair play to you bero,you took a risk,but thats what the U-boat war is all about,you managed to hit them and they returned the favour,Honours even I'd say,best of luck hunting next time:salute::salute::salute:

Well done, attacking in those sort of conditions is real hard work.

After being run over by a tanker in rough weather at night, these days I tend to run submerged until the storm blows over.

Well done for getting home!:yeah:

When you realise that your batteries can't be charged any more you can order the LI to go to normal propulsion (I hope that's the English term). By that your second engine will be used for propulsion again and won't waste fuel on charging a dead battery.:salute:

I play 85% realism (event camera and soundmeter on in OLC 1.2.7) with GWX3.0 DID :)

...and I played with the thought of waiting for better weather to attack, but this would have meant to follow them even closer to the enemy's shore, which I considered too dangerous.

Lucky I was indeed: For had it been any deeper, my hull would have crushed, any shallower, the destroyers would probably have found me and given me the rest! Very sad that bottoming your boat itself doesn't give an advantage!

One half bottle of beer for everyone:arrgh!:

Whilst the weather played a major part in preventing you from noticing the destroyer, I believe it played an equally major part in preventing the destroyers from maintaining contact with you and finishing you of.

The area around the Rockall Bank is an extremely busy and heavily patrolled one....but I gues you know that now :DL

Well played, at any rate.

You survived to tell the story. Good job, and good luck in the next patrol.:salute: