We 've finaly catched up with the convoy .
But it went from bad to worse ...
I managed to bring U-100 to torpido range , sonar indicating 1850m , made surface and launched 1 T III to a juicy C3 at a 63 bow angle and was about to acquire a new range for the following Tanker Class 2 when my sonar boy shooted :
"warship approaching fast , bearing 092 !"
I slew the peri to the indicated bearing just in time to see a Flower Destroyer about to ram us !
Diiive !!!
Too late .
A screaching sound of twisted metal and down we started to go .
I immediatly send my Weapon officer who is a first class repair man to the stern quarter , which was taking water . His repair Team followed right away and started to work on various leaks ...
First damage report indicated that our bridge had been hit too , soon followed by another report from our Senior machinist screaming :
"Water in engine room !"
That wasn 't good . Not good at all .
The boat was now loosing its plane and was going down , stern first .
As the boat ' s nose was pointing up , I ordered full speed ahead straight , but with little effect . We were still going down !
Sending every available man to repair station , I started to think about ordering the Chief to blow ballast when a second report came again from the engine room :
"Batteries damaged Sir , acid in the water !"
At that time , we were going down at a rate of 1 meter per second .
Crushing depth was going to be reached in less that 4 minutes ...
...
At 200m , the hull was down to 88% .
At 210m , down to 86% .
Rivets started to fly in the command room and valves blowing up .
At 220m , hull was at 82% .
At 230m (!) , down to 80% .
But my brilliant repair Team who was now working theirs guts off , with the hope to save both theirs lives and our boat managed to stop all leaks .
U-100 "blackcat" stabilized herself at 240m (!!) , and started to rise slowly with the engine now going at third ahead only , but that was good enough to me ! :P
I immediatly ordered hard port 90 deg and at 160m , switched to silent running as all repairs were done .
...
We stayed an hour more under before to surface , Convoy and Destroyers gone .
We headed back to base with only 3 enemy ships sank , and a badly damaged boat , but everybody was alive and well .
US navy and the RN hammered us this time ...
But I 'll with back !
Cheers .