Quite a predicament!

[onelifecrisis]

I'm not normally a story teller but this post (which ultimately is a request for advice) is about a situation which I think merits some prose - or attempted prose, at least! If my writing aint any good, just scroll down past all the indented stuff to the question at the end of the post.

The other day, having already become bored of the Type II, I started a new career in a trusty Type VIIB shored at willy (Sept. '39, 100% Realism, DiD). My first patrol resulted in a very respectable 55k (45k of merchant shipping and a Southampton Class cruiser). Feeling good, I set off on my second patrol last night...

Giving Britain a wide berth [GWX2 has that effect on me] we sailed to an uneventful 24 hours in our patrol grid at the Rockall Banks, stopping only to deck-gun a stray British ore carrier somewhere north of Scotland. We left the banks in weather that was as clear and calm as the day we left port and set course to a sweet spot south-west of Ireland, where I hoped to find more action. En route, some distance off Ireland's western coast, my crew spotted a DD at long range. I'm not in the habit of picking fights with DD's - especially not in clear calm weather at noon - so I ordered PD/silent and waited for it to vanish from sight, after which we continued on the surface, only to spot another DD within the hour. PD/silent again. It left, we surfaced and continued... and then spotted a large and distinctly lonely merchant. Probably British.

Normally in calm weather like that, so early in the war, I'd just charge at an unarmed merchant and open fire with the deck gun as soon as I could see the whites of its... flag. But on this occasion, knowing there were DD's around, I decided it would be a bad idea to sit on the surface waiting for my still-amateur deck-gun crew to sink an eight-thousand-ton ship.

It was heading away from us but I ordered PD anyway, just to be on the safe side, and plotted a course that'd put us in a flanking position well out of sight of its crew. Through the observation scope I watched our target disappear over the horizon...

"Down scope. Surface the boat. Ahead Flank." As soon as we were on the surface I kicked Bernard out of bed and told him to get out there on watch. No sooner had he obliged than the shouting began. Two aircraft contacts at short range. ohsh!t

I never, ever fight planes if I can possibly help it. I think that if god had wanted U-boats to fight aircraft, he wouldn't have given them dive planes. But on this day, when I jumped up on deck and saw those two Swordfish on their attack run, I knew I had no choice.

I ordered the flak gun manned and firing at will. I'd barely gotten below deck and started assembling a repair team when the first pair of bombs landed. Bernard wailed that he had a man down on deck, and several compartments took heavy damage. A young lad replaced the dead gunner only to be taken out by the second pair of bombs. The U-boat rocked violently and began to flood at an alarming rate. After telling Bernard to keep that flak gun manned at all costs I set about organising the repairs in a frantic effort to keep the U-boat afloat.

Both planes came back for seconds but were taken down quite quickly, and without any further damage being sustained by the U-boat. I made a mental note to give that gunner a medal and turned my attention back to the ongoing repairs... which were considerable. Every single piece of equipment on the sub was damaged, yet miraculously almost all of it was repairable - at least to the point of being functional again. However, structural damage was impossible to guess, and by the time the flooding had been stopped the stern quarters had become a small swimming pool - one that wouldn't drain.

I didn't dare dive just yet, but I couldn't let my prize go, so I guesstimated where the large merchant would be and ordered ahead flank on a rough surface-intercept, and to hell with the DD's! Before long the ship was visible. And it was British, as suspected. The deck gun crew, perhaps well-motivated under the circumstances, made surprisngly short work of it. I didn't hang around long enough to find out whether the DD's were en route.

Once we were safe I began to think. Returning to base in a boat filled with roughly equal measures of torpedoes and water was not an appealing prospect. I needed to know if the boat could dive...

No time like the present, I thought. I ordered ahead slow, normal dive. My crew obeyed, but looked concerned. I told my CE to be ready to blow tanks at a moments notice, which eased the tension a fraction, but you could still cut steel with it. We reached 70m before I ordered the boat to be surfaced. Surfaced normally, that is, not by blowing tanks. 70m is workable, I thought. Not against an escorted convoy, perhaps. No, scratch "perhaps". There'll be no convoy attacks now, not in this patrol. But against solo merchants, if we can find them, we really only need PD. And against aircraft we can still crash dive to safety... as long as we don't surface right underneath them again...

The CE interrupted my thoughts when he reported our depth at 80m metres. We were sinking. I ordered ahead standard and, to my relief, the boat started to rise almost immediately. But after returning to ahead slow we once again began to descend.

Further experimentation revealed that our U-boat had been rendered incapable of maintaining even periscope depth at anything less than 5 knots... meaning that my targets had become limited to solo merchants in poor visibility with well-calculated approaches. But that's doable. Good tonnage can be earned that way with a bit of luck.

While still pondering this I plotted a wandering, aimless course, hoping to catch some more deck gun targets while the good weather lasted, and give me more time to think. I was in luck, of a sort. That evening two ships sailed into view - a small freighter and a small tanker. Both British. No escorts. I decided to torpedo the tanker and then surface and use up the last of my deck gun ammunition on the freighter. I fired two torps (figured I might as well) with a narrow spread. They both hit their mark, but neither of them detonated. I must have been too close.

I quickly manouvered for a third shot - this one set to go off under the keel - and let it loose from behind the quickly escaping tanker. It sunk her.

I surfaced and had my crew expend the last of the deck gun ammunition on the freighter, but their aim was poor in the fading light and the ship sustained most of it's damage above decks, with the rest of the shots missing altogether in spite of the close range. Knowing the futility of precise calculation when firing at a weaving target, I lined up a quickly guesstimated shot through the UZO and let loose another torp. I got lucky - the small ship exploded extremely impressively...

And that's where I'm at. Two dead crew, no more deck gun ammo, a lot of torps, and a U-boat that can just about manage PD or a temporary crash dive. I've sunk about 22k so far... should I head for home? Keep in mind I'm playing DiD!


Edit: I just looked up the word "prose" and it doesn't mean what I thought it meant. How embarrassing.

[Platapus]

Head home, you have had a full day

[Schwuppes]

I say definately head home... don't risk it, you are crippled, and your crew is shaken up real bad. They are only human... and people under pressure can snap, make mistakes.... something you definately can't afford to have in a crippled boat.
And if a DD spots you you're screwed...considering you can't hold your depth at anything below 5 knots.

Better return to base, get repaired and live to fight another day!

I think thats what a real Kaleun would have done too.

I always check the skies before surfacing, I allow myself at least 2 or 3 minutes to check my surroundings with the observation scope.... sometimes even longer when I have one of my gut feelings. I believe that this was standard procedure in real life too.

[Domestos]

Home James, and don't spare the diesels.... Or they'll be pinning the medals on your wife.

[Reece]

That's a nice short story there OLC, I just got to a convoy & launched the 4 torps at two ships, one a medium gargo, the other a large cargo, the medium cargo went down in a few minutes but the other took around half an hour, then the most rotten thing happened, CTD before being able to save! Sux is life eh!
By the way I wouldn't push your luck, head for the closest port for repairs then head out again, good hunting!

[Abd_von_Mumit]

I'd absolutely not try to press the attack. Any further trouble and you are dead, as you are unable to dive and maintain stealth any more. I'd head home even if my boat was not able to dive to 200 metres any more.

[TomcatMVD]

Just like Alice said after "I think we're not in Kansas anymore": "Let's get the hell out of Dodge City"!

[onelifecrisis]

That decided it for me, thanks! I went back to port.

It's quite surprising just how fast you can sail around the UK if you've got a full tank of fuel and calm seas! I must have done 5000km at ahead full!

It turned out my HI wasn't that bad (82%) but still I'm extremely glad to have made it back.

[Brag]

Nice write up. Head for home and avoid trouble.

1) I'd head for home. The damage you've obviously taken has rendered your boat vulnerable. You've learned some valuable lessons and gained much-needed experience . . . none of which will do the Kriegsmarine any good if you don't carry through to another mission because you've been sunk or captured.

2) Write more. I insist. Damn good story!

3) Also, check the compartments for remaining water. I had that happen to me once; the compartment had been repaired and flooding stopped (so all the visual indicators appeared as 'ship-shape and Bristol fashion) but because I'd shifted the crew out to rest I hadn't realized that, although the damage had been repaired and the flooding had been stopped, not all the water had been pumped out

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by Albrecht Von Hesse

2) Write more. I insist. Damn good story!

This seems to be a trend here lately, this story, a piece by Miss Behavin, Golden Rivet's work and of course Brag's stuff

Very nice


RDP

[Keelbuster]

Nicely written tale! I'd say head home UNLESS - you executed a crash dive when you were under attack by the planes and then aborted it during the dive. If you don't let the crash dive go down to its 60m and then level off, the dive planes remain locked in the down position and you tend to sink at low speeds. This used to be a bug, and I wondered if it might have been fixed by all the modding, but I think I had the same issue yesterday - crash dive, then set a shallower depth while diving, and then sink slowly thereafter. The solution is to execute another crash dive and let it run to completion. Can anyone else confirm if this is the case?

[looney]

Cool story OLC