November 1939, just NE of Hartlepool in a Type IIA. I've been playing catchup with this medium cargo all afternoon. Visibility unlimited, wind 0/ms. Finally passed him in the evening gloom and put an electric into him from 900 meters with a magnetic exploder. (unusual in 1939)
Very nice boom. Target slows to 7 knots and I decided to lower the scope, cross behind him and evade the two ASW trawlers my hydrophone operator can hear coming out of Hartlepool.
Target slows, but never quite stops, he's at short range. Sonar reports the AWS trawlers turning away. Pop up the scope expecting to see the burning wreck...
... Nothing.
No ship, no slick, no bobbing cargo, no lifeboats, no ship sunk message.
Hydrophone operator still reports closest contact as a merchant on that bearing, short range, moving away.
He's a ghost ship. It wasn't yet fully dark, and this target should be 3000 meters away.
His sonar trace fades slowly from the map, and once it disappears entirely, sonar stops reporting the contact.
I'm figuring it despawned when it came within range of Hartlepool.
20% of my loadout wasted on a ghost ship.
I was so ticked I save within sight of the piers outside Hartlepool. We'll see if I CTD when I start the game tonight. I did remove the Read-only flag from all the files, so we'll see.