'Splainin to do....

[Rockin Robbins]

Well, I have good news and I have bad news. Was in a nasty rainstorm at night. Coudn't see my own prow, much less anything else. Radar picked up a big juicy convoy, April 4, 1945, arrayed in a fan-shaped convoy. Checkout their speed: 12 knots. This could be a military convoy! I NEVER get to shoot at warships, other than those worthless escorts. And I'm directly in their path, 15 miles ahead! Yum!

Plotted the course of the first arc, the escorts and targeted the second row, the good stuff! They're running 8000 yards apart, yikes, give me an engraved invitation! I set up for a John P Cromwell approach, but first, have to let the escort go by. Went to radar depth, set up for 3,000 yards off the escort's track. As he got within 5 miles, he began a vicious zig pattern. Sometimes he was coming straight at me!

But it's dark, the sea is rough, it's raining, better play it cool. I went to 100' silent running as he slid on by without a clue at 1500 yards. I WOULD have to sit on the wrong part of his zig pattern. Now let's try to pick up number two in line. He's 8,000 yards away, just where he's supposed to be on radar.

But old Bernard on sonar keeps reporting the escort! Not only is this nerve wracking, it keeps me from getting updates on the trailing target unless I man the sonar myself. No problem. We'll get there. Here he comes, right on track by radar. Now with radar, you get a new position every 10 seconds or so, not a continuous update. I'd rather not shoot from that, lets submerge to periscope depth and shoot by continuously updating sonar. Blub, blub and.......no sonar bearings. Bernard is still reporting the escort, even though it's further away than my target. Here you may insert some very colorful and entertaining profanity! Back to radar depth: 40 feet! Damn, he's past the shoot point.

Hard port! Set up for a Dick O'Kane! Reset AoB for 80º port! Let's........"Sonar contact....merchant.....bearing 30º." NOW YOU TELL ME!!! (idiot) The bearing lines vanish again. Take her to radar depth, we're shooting four by radar bearing! 40 feet again. Radar blips about 10 seconds apart. I mark them with a pencil and count off the seconds between them to interpolate. We're only 1000 yards off the track. Blip, 1....2....3....4.. fire one....6....7...fire two.....9...fire 3....fire 4.\

This is chancy. I've never shot by radar before. Where's the target? Can't see squat in my observation scope and I'm pointed at the correct bearing to a "target" 1000 yards away. BOOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! now that's shooting! Not bad for the first time by radar bearing. Take her down 450'! When you get to the thermal barrier, change course to 90º! I don't know what we hit, but it was something big and made huge explosions! I think it went down.

After a couple of runs by escorts I'm getting away free, Time to do something unrealistic, check the log to see what I sank. In real life captains hardly ever did that for a target they never saw, but we'll cheat just a bit...


Oops.....looks like I got some splainin' to do with the Admiral when I get to port. I doubt the "blame it on Bernard" tactic will get a lot of mileage....

So cruise 19, TMO 1.8, might be my last for this career. Looks like I may have screwed the pooch big time.