I think I jinxed myself with my earlier comment.
Quote:
Now watch, I bet every patrol from now on will not produce any results.  The moon and stars were lined right on this one. 
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On my latest patrol, I really stepped into it this time. My task was to patrol AM41. I had just left port a couple days earlier. I was sailing along minding my own business in grid AN45 when all of a sudden I get a warship spotted message. It is a DD. Lucky for me it was night time when I spotted it because it probably would have engaged us if it were day time. He is headed ENE. I am headed NW. I order all stop. I then order a course parallel his and then stop. I sit there watching him go by when I get a merchant spotted message. I had stumbled upon a medium sized convoy. I order silent running and go to PD. I only ever saw this one DD. I see two nice looking medium merchants heading ENE one following the other. I slug a fish into the gut of the leade medium merchant and they turn on their spot lights. I then send two more fish towards the on following. That is when I realize I really stumbled into the hornet's nest. There are at least a half dozen DDs escorting this convoy. Not like my dream convoy in my previous patrol. I lower my periscope and try to slink away. Not gonna happen. They must have spotted it because they all fired starshells above it. Then they started to ping me. I try to sneak under some other ships in the convoy, but they eventually move on. They make their first DC run - and they make it a doosey. I am still pretty shallow. I get hit hard and head towards the bottom. I thought this is it. Ended in 1939. I don't want to see what 1944 is like!
Anyway, we hit bottom (138m deep) and sit there. Too bad I was running full ahead when I hit not realizing how close we were. As soon as my crew stops the flooding I decide to sit there awhile.
Look at all the contacts!
I really pissed them off!
They even sent a submarine!
They continue to drop DCs and I figure we're dead if we stay here so I order silent running secured and begin making final repairs. Then I blow some ballast and we're off. I try zig zagging every which way and they still find me. I thought we would never make it out alive. Somehow, someway, we manage to elude our tormenters. Once we did, I repaired topside damage and made a beeline for home. This was a short patrol. I'm just lucky to have survived. Oh well, at least we put two medium merchants on the ocean floor - each worth about 5000 tons.
My deck gun was destroyed so I didn't want to carry on if I needed and I didn't know how bad my hull was after that encounter.
It just goes to show how big of a change that can occur. That convoy was the total antithesis of the other one. This was my nightmare while the other my dream.
