U-45 has had moderate success since her last update. Two more patrols have occurred.
The first patrol sent U-45 of the West of Gibraltar, quite a trek to reach the area. In the interest of brevity, fuel range, and sheer boredom, I braved the Channel again. The weather was good and I waited until nightfall to push through the Strait of Dover at flank. Ships were spotted at long range and the boat was put at periscope depth a few times. Nothing else came of it. Once in the channel, U-45 surfaced once again, making quick pace to reach the open Atlantic. U-45 came across a large merchant on its own during her channel run and quickly put her out of action with the deck gun. The deck gunners were incredibly accurate, triggering what I suspect were munitions being shipped to various enemies of Germany. The merchant sank quickly. The other occurrence of note in the Channel was the siting of a friendly VII patrolling the channel on her own. Pleasantries were exchanged via radio and U-45 was on her way.
Once we pushed out of the channel, open ocean laid in front of us. Quickly, however, an enemy convoy was spotted and U-45 was in a favorable position to set up an attack. It seems as though it is easier to find enemy boats when I'm not trying! U-45 set up for an attack and waited - I decided I would be a bit brazen and set up inside the convoys path. We waited, and waited. The hydrophone contacts were all about us and the attack scope was raised. I prioritized targets and made my selections. An S-Class enemy submarine plodded alongside the convoy and at a nearly perfect bearing, a Southhampton class cruiser! I had to make these fish count. Two torpedos were ranged for the cruiser, one for the S-Class, and another for the largest merchant I could see. The rear tube found a small merchant as a target as well. All tubes were fired and crash dive orders were immediately given, the boat being turned to align parallel with the convoys path. My intent was that during the dive and chaos, hunting my submarine would be much harder with all the civilians panicking up above.
4 torpedo impacts were heard. Apparently, the rear torpedo had failed to detonate on its target as there was no explosion at the specified time. We hid at 140m, engines off, silent running and we waited. Charges were heard splashing in the water, but the explosions sounded like far off thunder, rather than Odin hammering on the hull. The charges soon faded and, after two hours, we began to slowly slink away, changing our bearing to the opposite of the convoy's heading.
We surfaced a short while later, noting an abandoned and slowly sinking merchant ship bobbing nearby. With some deck gun encouragement, she sank as well. We could only assume, at that point, the other two ships that we heard sinking were the S-Class and the Southhampton cruiser.
This convoy attack netted U-45 approximately 22,000 tons, with 12,000 being warships. This is, to date, my largest warship kill. I'd love to snag something bigger soon though!
U-45 continued to the area around Gibraltar and patrolled here, with minimal sinkings. She then met up with the Thalia and refitted, and set back out for another patrol...