Never Underestimate Your Opponent

[sharkbit]

U-80 VIIC
Oct. '43 in the Med.
5th patrol.

I'm cruising in the Med north of Tunis in the channel between Sardinia and North Africa and sight a single Liberty cargo escorted by a single escort-a Bathurst type minesweeper.

I have not been impressed with these guys on my previous experiences with this type of escort. They throw some desulatory DC's your way, they're slow, and they never really seem to press an attack. Within 30-45 minutes, they're sailing away with their tails tucked, leaving the survivors of the ship you sank from under them in the water.

So I put two eels in this Liberty ship and she goes down. I'm already heading down and clearing my firing point and here comes the puny little escort chugging along with a bone in her teeth. Ooooooh... I'm scared .

Well her first pattern does some minor damage to my tower and flak guns. No biggy though-I just need to stay deep and quiet and she'll go away in a little bit. I thought I'd look around with external camera and pop it on. I get it turned around and there's the escort heading for me and suddenly a bunch of little mortar shells are hurtling at me....Oh ****-hedgehog!!!!

Sure enough, one gets me in the stern torpedo room. Nothing too serious though-minor damage and some minor flooding. I'm able to maintain depth and silent running without sinking..yet.

This little puny escort hung on to me for almost 3 hours with me twisting and turning before leaving me with a damaged conning tower, flak guns, stern torpedo room, and stern quarters damaged and flooding and 96% HI. I had started to slowly sink when she damaged my stern quarters but I was able to keep it under control by timing my speed changes and repairs while the DC's were going off. Not enough to go into panic mode and the escort finally went away.

I finally surfaced, got the flodding stopped, performed minor repairs, and was able to remain on patrol. Me and the crew are hoping to exact a little pay back off the coast of Italy near Naples right now.

Man, it is getting tough though. All of these escorts are starting to get good with good weapons and the Med is just full of airplanes right now. I definitely won't get complacent and underestimate my enemy now.

[nikbear]

Your lucky you got away lightly,Hedgehogs are usually lethal I live in fear of meeting an escort equipped with them

[sharkbit]

My last career in the Med ended badly with Hedgehogs involved and I think my last career in the Atlantic ended with the aid of hedgehogs as well. Neither were outright kills, but they did a considerable amount of damage with a lot of flooding and panic.

They're scary looking on external camera coming right at you.

And what really sucks is that you don't know they're coming! There's no "Depth charges in the water!" message from your soundman. There's silence, then a lot of screaming and a lot of "We're taking damage!" messages and a lot of yellow and orange on your damage screen.

[andym]

Ive never tried the Med for a Career.Is it any fun?Sometimes fahzands of miles of open water with bugger all on it has limited appeal!

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by andym

Ive never tried the Med for a Career.Is it any fun?Sometimes fahzands of miles of open water with bugger all on it has limited appeal!

It is a very nice change. I started in the 29th out of La Spezia in 1942. You can start earlier out of Greece IIRC.

You see a lot more warships-I've seen a couple of cruiser task forces(no battleships or carriers yet), a lot of single/double ships with escorts, and smaller convoys (3-4 ships with and without escorts). Even nailed the Aqautania. (Von Dos makes that ship, along with others for the game and I have it enabled). You still see the occasional big convoy as well.

The Luftwaffe will even make appearances and help you (or hinder you when they sink a ship you just torpedoed or attack when you are setting up an approach and your target starts zigging all over ) and of course, a lot of British airplanes will harass you. I have found that you have to do a lot of cruising submerged during the day, especially around Malta.

Fuel consumption has never been a problem for me in the Med. You'll run out of torpedoes a lot quicker than you will fuel.

It is definitely worth a shot. I've started alternating between the Med and the Atlantic. When I get sunk/retired in one, I start another career in the other theater. It is a nice change of pace.

[BulSoldier]

Atleast we know of this threat (the hedgehogs) , just imagine what was IRL when DD got equiped with this hellbringer.

[sharkbit]

Originally Posted by BulSoldier

Atleast we know of this threat (the hedgehogs) , just imagine what was IRL when DD got equiped with this hellbringer.

I would think that initially, not many lived to tell the tale.

I guess that is one issue I have always had with the game-hindsight.