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.

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.
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.

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!