Scapa Flow takes its toll

[Segwin]

Well...... My first career, my second patrol and the year is '39. Thought I'd have a peek at Scapa Flow, I figured that being so early in the war it would be safe. Big mistake. Hit a mine, all souls lost.

[mookiemookie]

Moral of the story: This is why, as a rule, U-boat captains didn't do harbor raids

[Jmack]

i went to scapa and its pretty easy if you follow the map of the real attack on royal oak .

read this site :
http://www.u47.org/english/u47_sca.asp

its very complete and it shows even the locations of the blockships

here is the link for the map of the real log book http://www.u47.org/downloads/u47log_map.zip

[Yahoshua]

heheh, I'm learning this the ahrd way.

I've spent 3 days (game time, 5 1/2 real time) prodding Scapa flow for a means of entering the port for some BB hunting (3 torps left after I sank a week earlier).

Avoided DDs' by moving near the bottom at 1 kt and surfacing at night in some of the small enclaves out of sight of the DDs'. Hasn't been too terrible so far and I haven't died doing it yet. I guess I'll try along that same route now......problem is I'm in the south parts on the other side of the sub nets .

So I gotta make my way around the islands to get to the port.....hopefully I'll find something nice and BIG for me to sink.

[Tachyon]

I never hit a mine when raiding scapa flow, i smashed right into a wrecked german ship...didnt take any damage strangely enough

[P_Funk]

Jmack those links are dead.

[Segwin]

@JMAC, thanks for the info! The links worked for me.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by Tachyon

I never hit a mine when raiding scapa flow, i smashed right into a wrecked german ship...didnt take any damage strangely enough

Actually... You struck a purposefully sunken British "Block Ship."

These were sunk in strategic places by the British to deny entry by enemy Submarine into Scapa Flow.

Gunther Prien had at least one close call avoiding sunken block ships.

Little known fact: The passage that Gunther Prien used to enter Scapa flow was already scheduled to be closed by the British when he used it... The block ship to be used to close that underwater passage... arrived the following day.

What a difference a day makes!

[GreyBeard]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Jmack those links are dead.

I just linked to them, no problem.

[melnibonian]

Try to use the eastern passage to the bay. The other two passages are mined. In the end of the passage there are two or three sunk ships to act as a blockade. You have to be careful and navigate around them. just go at 1-2knots and you can easily do it. After that the Royal Navy is yours for the killing

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Moral of the story: This is why, as a rule, U-boat captains didn't do harbor raids

This will change when GWX comes; as a rule, U-boat captains did shoot their superior officer if he even though about raiding an enemy port.

[stabiz]

Dowly is just pissed because he ended his life in Scapa recently. :rotfl:

Harbour raids are much, much more difficult in GWX, but it can be done. (Those who play dead is dead will never do it again, though)

[Dowly]

Thanks for the link, Jmack!

I found this one really interesting:

Prien's Ghost?

The story of the attack by U-47 at Scapa flow did not end on the fateful day in October 1939; as recently as September 2002, almost 63 years after the event, Prien and his boat were in the news again following the rather bizarre discovery of one its torpedoes by the Norwegian tanker MV Petrotrym. The following extract is taken from The Scottish Banner, a paper published in the United States for Scottish expatriates:

"TORPEDO" - Scapa Flow, Orkneys: An oil tanker recently had a narrow escape when it was nearly hit by a German torpedo - fired 63 years ago! The missile was one of four launched by submarine U-47 to scupper the battleship 'Royal Oak' in 1939 resulting in the loss of 833 lives.
Even though it failed to hit its target, the torpedo has lain on the seabed ever since, until it recently resurfaced in the dark waters of Scapa Flow and started to drift towards the 62,000 ton Norwegian tanker 'Petrotrym' , which was at anchor. Fortunately an attentive watchman noticed the barnacle-encrusted missile and raised the alarm in time.
The 15 foot torpedo was towed away by a tug to safe waters a mile away where it was detonated by a Royal Navy bomb disposal unit. Although its warhead was missing, the Navy said that it posed a genuine threat as it still contained its chamber of compressed gas.
(Thanks to Allan F. Cameron for submitting this article)

Following the removal of the torpedo to Scapa Pier on 9 September, Captain Nigel Mills, the Director of Orkney Island Council's Harbours Department, offered the following explanation for its sudden reappearance:

"It is difficult to state at this point exactly why this object decided to surface now. We did have an exceptionally low tide on Monday and it is possible that this disturbed the torpedo and allowed it to surface. Compressed air within a chamber inside the torpedo can force them to the surface in the way this one apparently did".
(Details from the Orkney Islands Council web site)

While the surfacing of the torpedo can be explained in purely scientific terms, its sudden reappearance in Scapa Flow over sixty years afterwards was remarkable. Might it indeed have been Prien's ghost, shouting defiantly from the depths?

Go get them, Prien!!

[AVGWarhawk]

Only a bottle of port for me. I can navigate a bottle of port in my easy chair. I usually kill it in about an hour. No DD, mines, sunken ships, or nets.

[Jmack]

they blew it ut ??? that was a museum item