So, what would you do?

[maillemaker]

So I've been playing "dead is dead" for a while now. Each time I die I start over in 1939. This is the longest I have survived - it is now December 1942.

I was patrolling south of the Rockall Banks, when, at night, I detected radar signals. As luck would have it, it was a task force - probably a sub-hunting group - 4 Clemson class destroyers and a central Bogue class carrier. I wanted that carrier.

I moved in to intercept, they were coming nearly right for me, so it was easy.

I launched 3 eels at the carrier from about 700 meters. All three hit, and down she went. Now, however, I had 4 Clemson destroyers very annoyed with me.

I dove down to 160 meters. Dodged and dodged, tossed some decoys, nothing worked. They were taking turns at me. So I pushed down to 200 meters. Still no luck evading.

So finally, I had enough. I secured from silent running, and ordered my crew to load all the torpedo tubes. Then I shot at flank speed to periscope depth. I winged the first one, nailed him right on his nose, but he was not sinking. The rest were confused - they were crowding each other and a couple of them had slowed to nearly a stop. I was backing up, trying to edge closer to the one I had wounded and was dead in the water, when suddenly, I don't know what happened, either one of the destroyers near me suddenly saw me and gunned me or depth charged me but WHAM! Attack periscope destroyed, after batteries destroyed, and both diesel engines destroyed. And I'm flooding. And now I can only make 2-3 knots. I set my repair crew to work and blow ballast, struggling to get back up to periscope depth. Thankfully, no one depth charges me during all of this.

Flooding is secured, and the water is pumped out, and we crawl back to periscope depth. Somewhere during this time there is an explosion, and one of the destroyers sinks - it may have depth charged itself. Anyway I crawl to periscope depth, and put up the damaged observation scope. Bang! I nail one of the last two destroyers with a magnetic, using perfect lead in front of him as he swung around.

The last Clemson charged me, but none of his charges struck home, though they did push me a bit higher in the water, drawing some machine gun fire. He past over my stern, and turned to port. As he did, I also turned to port and full reverse. He cut across my bow at about 350 meters and I slid another magnetic right under his belly, setting her on fire from stem to stern.

It was almost exactly midnight, two hours after I sank the Bogue.

I order us to surface, which we did, but of course with both diesels out, we could go nowhere.

Ironically, a life boat from one of the destroyers paddled right up along side us. We were the victors, but we were in nearly the same sad shape as they were.

After our repair crews had a chance to work topside (both flak guns were destroyed, but they were able to repair the radio and radar detector), I radioed our status back to base. After about half an hour, they replied, saying "Continue the fight as fuel and armaments allow."

Now just recently I have turned exterior view back on - I had been playing at 100% up till that point. I just found that I really enjoyed watching the ships sink and burn and blow up and the game wasn't nearly as fun when you are limited to the views from the boat.

So I was able to "end mission" and "return to base", without abandoning my career.

Do you think I could justify this by saying that I broadcast my status, and perhaps another u-boat came along and rescued us?

Should I have to "buy" another u-boat at home, assuming we scuttled our old one at sea? Or would they have been able to tow us home, or help us repair our engines?

Steve