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Originally Posted by predavolk
Wow Pioneer!  Did you rearm/refuel at sea, or did you bag all that with just the standard load of a IX's torpedoes? Either way, that's a really impressive score if you're using GWX (or NYGM) at 100% realism!  Even if you're not, that's still really impressive- where did you hunt, what did you get, what tactics did you use? |
GWX with SH3 Commander, 100% realism.
I set off from Wilhemshave 15 May 1940 on my ninth patrol but first in the IXB. After clearing the headland I hugged the coastline proceeding west on the 65m mark while I adjusted my crew positions after getting a new Watchman and losing a torpedoman. Bdu had detailed me to patrol CG75 (near Gibralter) so I had plans of slipping through the English channel. With the Allied retreat I opted to head north and was on day 7 offshore from Cambridge before my first contact became a confirmed sinking. South east of Scapa Flow around 26 May a storm moved in that would stay with me the entire voyage. With deck guns unable to operate, the hurricane weather meant one shot would cripple a ship, but I would have to stick around for it to sink. After getting one shot into a tanker on the west side of Scapa Flow, it took 3 days to sink, by which time I was already in the channel near Loch Ewe.
I started in on Loch Ewe in the afternoon and by 2200 was in the harbour. There were a few USA vessels there who shot at my scope (so much for being neutral). Inside the harbour I bagged two docks with one shot each and a CV for about 87k.
Coming out of Loch Ewe I reloaded the external torpedoes in time for a heavy convoy moving north through the channel - two more tankers and one Granville, each with one shot.
Turned west into the Atlantic and the storm was still with me, 22 hours submerged, 2 hours after sunset to recharge the batteries, it was a crawl down the Western Approaches. I missed at least one task force in the fog and one other convoy before settling on the single merchant route. Same drill, one torpedo, but with the weather, had to hang around and "chase" the target till it sunk. BY the time I cleared Ireland, I only had three left, two rear and one forward.
The new bases hadn't come on in France yet so I set my sights on Cadiz to refuel/rearm. While crossing the Bay of Biscay, Lorient came on line, and turned and ran for France 960km. The weather cleared the morning I arrived at Lorient, with only one torpedo left in the rear, and not a single shot of ammunition fired.
Did not make it to the patrol zone in the 88 days at sea, 75 spent in a severe storm that just followed me.
But I love the extra power, and now that I'm starting from Lorient...bring on the "long haul" mileage. If I can take a Type VII from Wilhemshaven to Freetown and back on one tank, what can I do with the IXB.
