This weekend, I had a bad experience with a tanker. I found a convoy with two escorts, one out front, one in back. Two Nippon Maru 10,000 ton tankers in the near column, and three freighters on the far side. it was a nice setup, but I should have thought about the water depth before deciding to go in. I only had about 115' to work in.
I came in from their starboard bow, and got myself about 700 yards off the track. I waited for the first tanker to pass, then fired all four stern tubes, shifted target, and fired four bow tubes at the second. Three stern shots exploded prematurely, and the fourth hit an 11,000 ton freighter in the other column. One forward shot missed, the other three hit his starboard quarter. I quickly fired two more at him and started trying to sneak away. Both of those were duds.
While I tried to avoid the two escorts, the freighter that had taken one hit sank. The escorts started dropping charges on me, which left me pretty beat up. I ended up stopping and sinking to the bottom while my damage control crew fixed all they could. The one escort that kept attacking only had Y-guns and no roll-off racks, so even though he knew exactly where I was, his charges kept dropping off to my sides, and I was taking no more damage from them. The tanker, having taken three hits, was stopped, and was sitting at an angle with a third of his deck underwater.
Eventually, I figured out the the escort wasn't going to leave, so it was up to me to leave the party. Ahead flank, blow tanks, man the deck gun! I managed to reach the surface and started a gun battle. Somehow, I managed to sink both escorts with the deck gun (after replacing the dead crew twice).
That's when the tanker's deck gun sank me.
