1th 100% patrol

[Mil_tera]

First patrol on 100% Realism.


3 September 1939,

Its in the middle of the night when we set sail on our first patrol after completing the Naval academy. The men are eager to go for a real patrol after all the days,weeks and months of practicing. On the other hand I realize that this might be more then just a patrol since after we invaded Poland it looks like Germany is on collision course with the English and it seems that England is about to Declare war on our country.


Lets hope this won’t be true….

After sailing for a couple of hours surfaced I decided to check the crew out on the bridge to see how they are doing and to have some fresh air. The sea is calm and the sky is clear at the moment. We are having some visual contacts but these are ships of our Kriegmarine so nothing to worry about yet. We are still in safe waters so we don’t have to worry yet about eventual hostilities from anyone, especially since we are not at war with anyone else yet then Poland..


Several hours after this pic we received the message we had expected but feared. We are at war now with the English. So this first patrol with a crew that still needs experience and a sub that is merely for training we are set for a dangerous adventure far from home without the security of ever make it back home. I got the microphone and told the crew the bad news and told them we were going to dive to go submerged for a while. Testing our Hydrophones and trying to build up some routine. We stayed submerged for most part of the 4th only to surface for a little breeze of fresh air. No visual or sound contacts so far except for the friendly visual contacts one day earlier.



The 5th we stayed submerged and from the 6th till the 11th we had a routine of submerging till the batteries were on 25% and then surface till the batteries were full again constantly being on our guard now the war has begun.






Then suddenly the 12th the Hydrophones pick up a sound!! Suddenly I get that adreline going through my vains!!! I upped the periscope and turned the scope towards the bearing the hydrophones were showing. It was a dot in the distance and we could’t make much out of it yet. Eventhough it should enough to get an estimated range from the WO.
I ordered the boat to service and together with the WO on the deck we took a range to Target and placed the marks on the map. The chase begun!!!!



I ordered to go flank speed on a parallel course of the target to stay within visual range and to outflank the target to set up an attack run. Suddenly we were alarmed by the sound of planes, I took a quick look through the binoculars to take another range so we could mark it off on the map and ordered a crash dive. I thought a second of fighting the planes off but the sound of the bombs and the anti aircraft might would alarm our prey. So I decided to go submerged for about an hour to try to shake the planes off. But being in the process of diving I noticed the planes didn’t change course to attack me so I guess they didn’t see us. We were lucky this time. We stopped the diving and went on flank speed turning slowly to our target to begin our attack run.



We are now on our attack spot waiting for the target. We know the range and the speed and the type of vessel. We first identified it through the hydrophones being probably a coastal merchant, but now we know for sure what it is. Its just a pity that the target is a Norwegian vessel which means its neutral.

At least we were able to find a target and even were able to lay in a perfect position for attack…� At least that gives me some faith for the future. After giving the merchant a final look I ordered to lower the periscope and we continued our patrol….








Ps. I have no clue how big the pics are in this thread but if they are too big please give me some advice to get them smaller without losing much of the quality!!