Well, I'm glad I decided to hold off on the milk cow for now, and I'm glad I had some torps left. When I loaded back in with my pre-cow saved game and headed back home, I got a report of an enemy warship heading my way. Although I had to race at flank speed to try to intercept, I managed to get within sighting distance, and saw a lone destroyer about 8km away.
Since the spotting report had mentioned just a single warship and I could only see the one destroyer, I had already left the bridge to plot my course away and was turning around to move off when all of a sudden I heard my watch crew call out several more ship sightings. After about the third one I realized they probably weren't just repeating themselves and went up to take a look for myself. Lo and behold, there were my first BATTLESHIPS ever - TWO Nelson class battleships with what looked like maybe a light cruiser and 3 destroyers for escorts all emerging from the mists. :P
Unfortunately, it was daylight and visibility was down to about 8km, and they were going at 21 knots, so I had to submerge earlier than I would have liked and could only get within about 4,500m before I had to either fire or forget it. Since all my torps had come out of external storage, I had only steam ones left, so I figured I didn't have much chance to hit given the range and the likelihood that they would spot the wakes. However, I couldn't pass up the chance so I let a spread of 3 torps fly at about 4,500m. Of course, they all missed, but it was still an awesome sight watching them sail on out of view.
I still had a torp left in my stern tubes, and managed to stumble onto another convoy on the way home. I hit a C2 and, for the first time in about 8 convoy attacks with NYGM .39, actually found her later straggling behind the convoy when I got free of the escorts. She was dead in the water and settling by the stern, but did not appear to be on the verge of sinking even three hours after my initial attack. I was out of torps but put my last 30-35 shells from my deck gun into her waterline, and then started peppering her with my heavy flak gun just for grins. After about 45 minutes, there were a couple of explosions aboard and she went down.
I was sailing home to Lorient, feeling pretty good about my latest patrol's total of 38,000+ tons and expecting that it would finally vault me over Kretschmer into first place on the Aces list, when I got the following radio message from Kretschmer's u-boat:
| Zwei Zerstörer-Wasserbomben-53000Brt-Gefangen-Heil Hitler||Kretschmer
Sure enough, when I got back to port I discovered that Kretschmer was still holding on to 1st place, and by a wider margin than before. That disappointment wasn't enough to spoil our celebration, however, as I handed out several medals and promotions to my gallant crew and then let them head off to the best cabarets and brothels that Lorient has to offer.
Thanks to the devs and particularly to all the modders out there, this game just continues to amaze me
Now, though, someone needs to get this milk cow single patrol issue resolved before I need a re-supply on my next patrol
