Surprise sinking?

[Wijbrandus]

March, 1940. Using TGW 1.1a.

My boat was running a patrol down near the English channel, near the southeast tip of England. I was able to torpedo a couple of cargo ships, but ended up spotted by a PT boat, and had a swarm of destroyers on me for the next few hours. Despite a few close calls, I was able to evade damage.

Finally, managing to give them the slip, I started slipping off to the northeast at a depth of 20m. This is below periscope depth (Type VIIB sub). All was going well when "something" happened. My bridge, conning tower, and forward crew quarters were instantly and without warning "Heavily damaged". My boat dropped to the sea floor at 40m, and despite valiant attempts by my damage crew, all hands were lost.

I did an F12, and there was nothing near me. This was while I was sitting on the bottom trying to save my ship, so whatever hit me either had to be moving fast (airplane) or was invisible (mine). I just don't think they would have mined the center channel, and I didn't think an airplane could see me that deep.

First, what the hell happened? Can an airplane see me below the surface? Or did I possibly hit a mine?

Second, I had a full "Quality" meter on my damage control team. They were able to prolong my agony, but not save the boat. If I'm flooding, do I just need to stop the flooding to have a chance? Or do I actually need to repair as much as possible? My team was focused on stopping the flooding, and even though I did the boat still was lost. Should I have completely fixed one compartment before moving to the next?

[Rosencrantz]

Well, it was a mine, I'm sure. You have hardly any chance to survive if you struck into the mine. So it was then, in RL, and so it's now, in SHIII. Channel is filled with those things, so I usually don't travel via it. If you use SHIII General, you can get intelligency information about both freindly and enemy mine fields.


Greetings,

-RC-

[melnibonian]

Yes it was most probably a mine. If you need to get an idea where the minefields are you can either use SH3Gen or open up the editor and look around.

[Wijbrandus]

Well, the English can keep their stinking, mine-filled, channel then.

Those bastards cost me a promising career.

Ok, I'm over it. Next time around, I'll really make them pay!

[Wijbrandus]

Oh, was I handling the damage control right?

I figure if I can stop the flooding, the rest of it can be fixed in due time. If I flood out, I won't have time to fix anything else, and since I was in shallow water, I didn't think I needed to emergency surface - daytime, in the channel, that would have doomed me even faster.

[melnibonian]

Originally Posted by Wijbrandus

If I flood out, I won't have time to fix anything else, and since I was in shallow water, I didn't think I needed to emergency surface - daytime, in the channel, that would have doomed me even faster.

Even in night time it is dangerous. The Channel is heavily patroled by the Royal Navy. Better stay out of it.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Wijbrandus

Oh, was I handling the damage control right?

I figure if I can stop the flooding, the rest of it can be fixed in due time. If I flood out, I won't have time to fix anything else, and since I was in shallow water, I didn't think I needed to emergency surface - daytime, in the channel, that would have doomed me even faster.

Correct. You would have never outrun the PT boats. You were kind of boned from the start though, as shallow water doesn't give you much room to evade the extremely heavy enemy patrols, nor the slew of mines in the channel. I echo the sentiment of "stay the hell away from the Channel!"