Med Report

Murr44 · 08-24-08, 11:01 AM

Right now I'm into my 3rd patrol of a career in the Mediteranean sailing aboard U 73. New Year's Day 1942 has just come & gone and this has been a rotten b*st*rd of a patrol! We've had weeks of sunny skies with little or no wind. The problem is that there have been few targets & those that have appeared have all been heavily escorted. No lone ships. Every single merchantman has been in small (2-3 ship) convoys with at least 2 escort vessels: twice I've seen 2 escorts guarding a single lowly coastal freighter. We've suffered 4 aerial attacks; fortunately no permanent damage or casualties were inflicted and we have been chased off almost every convoy that we've met. Narrowly missed a Dido class 1 day out of base (possiblly a bad omen :hmm: ). On the plus side, we've sunk 2 large merchants for about 18,000 GRT so far on this trip. Very narrowly escaped being sunk attacking the 2nd large merchant: one Black Swan detected us in the last seconds

so I had to lauch torpedoes & go for depth asap.

We spent what seemed like an eternity twisting & turning trying to evade her and the 2nd escort. We're down to our last 3 torpedoes & I'm hopeful that we get a little rough weather (no rain & fog though) so that the next convoy may be easier to approach. This is starting to get sooooo monotonous...

Oblt. z. See Otto Vosseler.
GWX 2.1

08-24-08, 11:01 AM	#1
Murr44 Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 913 Downloads: 16 Uploads: 0	Med Report Right now I'm into my 3rd patrol of a career in the Mediteranean sailing aboard U 73. New Year's Day 1942 has just come & gone and this has been a rotten bstrd of a patrol! We've had weeks of sunny skies with little or no wind. The problem is that there have been few targets & those that have appeared have all been heavily escorted. No lone ships. Every single merchantman has been in small (2-3 ship) convoys with at least 2 escort vessels: twice I've seen 2 escorts guarding a single lowly coastal freighter. We've suffered 4 aerial attacks; fortunately no permanent damage or casualties were inflicted and we have been chased off almost every convoy that we've met. Narrowly missed a Dido class 1 day out of base (possiblly a bad omen :hmm: ). On the plus side, we've sunk 2 large merchants for about 18,000 GRT so far on this trip. Very narrowly escaped being sunk attacking the 2nd large merchant: one Black Swan detected us in the last seconds so I had to lauch torpedoes & go for depth asap. We spent what seemed like an eternity twisting & turning trying to evade her and the 2nd escort. We're down to our last 3 torpedoes & I'm hopeful that we get a little rough weather (no rain & fog though) so that the next convoy may be easier to approach. This is starting to get sooooo monotonous... Oblt. z. See Otto Vosseler. GWX 2.1