On my first patrol of my new career...

[cawimmer430]

So I started a new career with a VIIB in 1939. My home base is Kiel and on my first mission I was sent to patrol grid AM18 which is west of Ireland a short way into the Atlantic. I sunk a few small merchants on the way there with the deck gun, reach my assigned grid, patrol for 24 hours and then go hunting for more. Sadly, I was then plagued with bad weather throughout the patrol. Heavy rains and winds and zero visibility. I also didn't detect any merchants when I went down to 25 meters to listen.

So I figured I'd head home because I will probably encounter some enemy vessels off the coast of Northern England. My route home took me north of Scapa Flow. The weather was still miserable but visibility had improved thanks to no rain (oddly enough there was a light fog but you could see through it).

Suddenly, my lookouts detect a V&W Destroyer, distance about 4.5 km. I am aching for some action so I head towards it at full speed and submerge to periscope depth at about 2 km and go to low speed. The destroyer has still not spotted me and I am in perfect firing position.

Now here's the good part.

I'm viewing the destroyer through my attack periscope preparing to fire a torpedo when all of sudden I spot a convoy behind the destroyer. Holy cow! Finally I am being rewarded. But when I magnify the convoy I nearly make my pants dirty. Revenge Class Battleship and Nelson Class Battleship as well as several Fiji and Dido Cruisers and a two J-Class destroyers. There were a bunch of other warships in the convoy but I couldn't identify them.

I have to act quickly! I fire a salvo of three torpedoes at the Revenge Class Battleship and then fire my last torpedo at the destroyer near me.

The fourth torpedo sinks the V&W Destroyer in half. It sinks but its bow stands out above the water. The depth under keel is 60 meters. I immediately set up my position near the sunk vessel so that I can't be attacked from the now alerted enemy task force. A J-Class destroyers heads my way. He's close and he's not zigzagging. I'm about to fire a torpedo when he makes a course correction and ends up going behind me pinging away. No problem, I fire a fish at him from my stern torpedo and he goes down.

At this moment I also hear three explosions. Using my periscope I see that my torpedoes have stopped the Revenge battleship which is now dead in the water heavily listing to its port side. Meanwhile my three forward torpedo tubes have been reloaded. I am about 2 km away from the task force and still in perfect firing position for attacking the Nelson! My weapons officers does the calculations and I fire away a salvo of three torpedoes at the Nelson. I found it strange that none of the ships was zigzagging making them easy targets.

Two of them impact near the rear of the Nelson, one of them misses. Thankfully the Nelson is also dead in the water so my attack has most likely disabled its engines. I am still near the sunk V&W destroyer and I wait for the remaining task force to perform their search and move away. To my amazement no destroyer comes after me. At my hydrophone station I detect no pinging noises. It's like they don't care!

So after a few minutes the task force is out of visual distance leaving behind the Nelson and the Revenge class battleship. I fire my last two forward torpedoes at the Nelson. It sinks.

Then I fire another torpedo at the Revenge class battleship using my stern torpedo. It's a solid hit but the ship doesn't go down. The weather is still foggy and the waves are rough so I move out of visual range. Surface, reload the stern torpedo with my last exterior reserve torpedo. Double back and fire away at the battleship. She goes down.

Then I proceed to get the hell out of here at max speed. I made it safely back to Kiel encountering two large enemy cargo ships on the way but being unable to sink them because of a lack of torpedoes and rough weather (no use of the deck gun).

Still, it was a great first patrol!

Kriegsmarine 1 : Royal Navy 0