Starting Return Passage Attn: Karl Donitz

[GoldenRivet]

May - 1942 - Just had one of the most successful and immersive convoy attacks of any career to date!

In an 4 day long engagement with a convoy which i stalked day and night for about 350KM i managed to send 46,631 tons to the bottom!

Here is the whole story - I'll Try to keep it short.

I Departed Brest, France with intentions to patrol off The Coast of New York and New Jersey. The weather was lousy for almost the entire voyage, i chased down a few sound contacts but due to the weather i was never able to get a visual let alone form an attack!

Managed to bag two small freighters traveling in convoy with one another and that was IT! i decided to dock with U-461, tanker up, and head for home.

Spent a day with the crew of U-461. collected their mail, refueled and headed out for the return voyage.

I planned my trip to pass just west of St. Johns in grid square BC43, from there i would proceed due north to Grid Square AJ87 before heading East toward home. I did this in the hopes of catching a few lone merchants along the way.

Instead what i stumbled upon by blind luck was a convoy, 4 or 5 columns across, heavily escorted. I snuck into attack position and scanned the gaggle of ships by the light of an early morning sunrise. it was a mix of American, British and Canadian Ships, mostly small merchants and tramp steamers. Near the center of the convoy, and close to the trailing edge were a large Tanker, Small Tanker, medium Tanker and at least 4 Liberty Ships and a Large Cargo.

With Targets selected i let lose a spread of two torpedoes at the medium tanker and Large Tanker.

They were the closest and most likely to be hit.

One torpedo hit the medium tanker and sent it ablaze, the other missed but struck a nearby granville-type freighter. The large tanker took both fish and split in half.

At this point i broke contact and stalked the convoy again until sunset.

On Day Two of the engagement, i fired a spread of two at the Large cargo and a Liberty Cargo.

The large cargo sank, the liberty cargo only took one hit. i assumed the other fish to be a dud - the ship sailed on.

On day three i established an attack position with the intent of sinking the damaged liberty cargo and perhaps one of her sister ships.

making use of my remaining forward tubes and my stern tube I managed to sink the damaged liberty cargo, yet the untouched ship only seemed to take light damage and sailed on.

On day four, i finished off the final Liberty Cargo with a stern shot.

The escorts nearly got me on day four with a couple of close calls with Depth Charges, but for the most part they showed little aggression.

About an hour after breaking contact for the last time, i began to sail toward brest once again, and spotted a Type VIIC .

Hopefully he has the same luck!

[andym]

Excellent patrol.I just completed a good one as well,sunk a Kent class Cruiser and an A&B class destroyer 2 med Freighters in harbour in the Faroes.Proceded south,2 Granville type and an Ore carrier.RTB no fish and very little gun ammo!

[meduza]

A great battle, GoldenRivet!
After a year of sinking helpless tankers in Caribbean sea, I almost forgot the joy (and danger) a convoy attack brings. It all become more challeging, since I'm at the end of '43.

I had a great success against a convoy in September, when I sank 7 ships (around 60000 tons) in 4 consecutive attacks (first one was a failure and the escorts almost got me) during the 3 days.

[nikbear]

Message to GoldenRivet,don't make it short,its reports like these that I like the mostI like to hear/read everthing....in detailits most enjoyable and gives me a chance to compare notes,so to speakalso its reading stuff like this that really fires the imagination when I can't get to my own rig and fire-up GWX.Excellent patrol and attacks,keep up the good work

[Kapt Z]

To:U-461
From:U-456

Well done!

[Brag]

Good account, Rivet! Keep it up.

[GoldenRivet]

Thanks guys!

@ Nikbear... i wanted to expound on my entire patrol, but i feared that the average reader would pass it off as being "too wordy" or "too long" and just skip it.

SH3 with GWX is very dynamic, you never really know whats going to happen! I was fully prepared to head home with next to nothing... but the situation turned around 180 degrees at the drop of a hat - never expected it either!

[Task Force]

This sounds like the patroal I just had. Except it was a hour long convoy attack.

The weather was horiable, waves covering the boat. Could barely keep 9kts, we were right out of the entrence to the bay Reykjavik is located at. we were going to periscope debth when i got over 10 contacts, so I surfaced to take a look.

When I got into viewing range I saw what this convoy had in it. Two liners one for 19,xxx tons, and one for 8,000 or 9,000 tons. Plus quite a fiew tankers, and cargo ship.

I was raceing as fast as I could at ahead full during this bad storm. Then after a while a distroyer found me on the surface and started fireing but the weather made them miss (these waves were huge) Then one shell found its mark. I crash dived at this point, Had to evade a closely spread debthcharges. The distroyer tryed to ram me while I ran at ahead flank to get infront of the convoy.

I got all of my torpedos ready to make there mark on the targets. After I got in the convoy I fired a salvo of three torpedos at one liner, It went up in flames. sank shortly afterwords. Next with the last eel I had went into the second liner which cought on fire imediantly. sunk about five minutes later.

Right after the torpedo hit the liner, I fired a stern torpedo at a large tanker which went up in flames. Later I put one eel in her and finished her off.

Then everything started going downhill. A distroyer droppend a DC right into the top of my Conning tower, Top of tower was distroyed, Flooding started. The repair crew stoped it.

Well I got back to Loriert, We got through it and everyone survived with 88.XX percent hull integrety.

35,XXX tons. Made up for past patrol.

[dalton74]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

May - 1942 - Just had one of the most successful and immersive convoy attacks of any career to date!

In an 4 day long engagement with a convoy which i stalked day and night for about 350KM i managed to send 46,631 tons to the bottom!

Here is the whole story - I'll Try to keep it short.

I Departed Brest, France with intentions to patrol off The Coast of New York and New Jersey. The weather was lousy for almost the entire voyage, i chased down a few sound contacts but due to the weather i was never able to get a visual let alone form an attack!

Managed to bag two small freighters traveling in convoy with one another and that was IT! i decided to dock with U-461, tanker up, and head for home.

Spent a day with the crew of U-461. collected their mail, refueled and headed out for the return voyage.

I planned my trip to pass just west of St. Johns in grid square BC43, from there i would proceed due north to Grid Square AJ87 before heading East toward home. I did this in the hopes of catching a few lone merchants along the way.

Instead what i stumbled upon by blind luck was a convoy, 4 or 5 columns across, heavily escorted. I snuck into attack position and scanned the gaggle of ships by the light of an early morning sunrise. it was a mix of American, British and Canadian Ships, mostly small merchants and tramp steamers. Near the center of the convoy, and close to the trailing edge were a large Tanker, Small Tanker, medium Tanker and at least 4 Liberty Ships and a Large Cargo.

With Targets selected i let lose a spread of two torpedoes at the medium tanker and Large Tanker.

They were the closest and most likely to be hit.

One torpedo hit the medium tanker and sent it ablaze, the other missed but struck a nearby granville-type freighter. The large tanker took both fish and split in half.

At this point i broke contact and stalked the convoy again until sunset.

On Day Two of the engagement, i fired a spread of two at the Large cargo and a Liberty Cargo.

The large cargo sank, the liberty cargo only took one hit. i assumed the other fish to be a dud - the ship sailed on.

On day three i established an attack position with the intent of sinking the damaged liberty cargo and perhaps one of her sister ships.

making use of my remaining forward tubes and my stern tube I managed to sink the damaged liberty cargo, yet the untouched ship only seemed to take light damage and sailed on.

On day four, i finished off the final Liberty Cargo with a stern shot.

The escorts nearly got me on day four with a couple of close calls with Depth Charges, but for the most part they showed little aggression.

About an hour after breaking contact for the last time, i began to sail toward brest once again, and spotted a Type VIIC .

Hopefully he has the same luck!

nice patrol. But how about the destroyers? They didn't bother you? (no danger?).