Surface Battle
For all my years playing SH3/GWX I never saw a surface ship battle, until....
1942 running my patrol North of Tunis and I get a radar warning and submerge to periscope depth. As the boat goes under I hear gun fire but see no splashes near me. I checked my external view and saw three British Destroyers moving fast and firing their bow guns. There were splashes near them from where they were taking fire. I then got hydro readings on another group of ships. Since I had their bearing I went to camera mode and flew along over the water until I found the Brit Destroyers.
From there I followed their course and there were the Italian Ships. The battle shaped up to be the three Brit destroyers vs two Italian destroyers and two Small Merchants. The Italians were heading from the North to the South. The Brits were heading in column from the East directly at them, thus allowing their T to be crossed. Many shells were exchanged and you could see the clumps of splashes from salvos coming down.
At first it looked like the Brits were going to wipe out the small convoy, but the lead destroyer slowed, listed and began to sink. The combined Italian ships shifted their targeting to the second Brit destroyer. The small Merchantmen were firing away and as the ranged closed got some hits. Finally the 2nd Brit destroyer slows and it's bow begins to go under. It and it's predecessor had also hammered one of the Italian Destroyers which began to slow.
Finally the third Brit Destroyer was on it's own and put some damage to one of the Merchants before it too went down, almost simultaneously one the battered Italian destroyers sank.
The Italian Convoy continued on it's course, with one Merchant falling behind.
End score 3 Brit Destroyers sunk, 1 Italian Destroyer sunk, one Merchant Crippled and the other ships slightly damaged.
Pretty exciting stuff.
David I
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