At Last! A Battleship!

[Slateford-5]

200 km W of Rockall Bank, on a wet and windy October 1940 night, just before midnight, I slip quietly by the lead Flower Class, cutting diagonally towards a convoy at periscope depth....

The sonar man is going crazy: Frachter...Frachter...Kontakt Kriegshciff, kontakt Frachter....the convoy looks big, maybe 6 x 4, although disappointingly only coastal merchants and tramps....

And then HMS Nelson hoves into view...I realise I have screwed up my torpedo loading and have G1's and G2's in the wrong tube order (had wanted to fire the G2's first, then set the G1's to fast and let them catch up, so they all struck at the same time: too late now.

Closing to 3,000 m, the stealth meter stays a reassuring shade of apple green: my main problem now is these ****ty little ships catching some eels en route. Gyroangle is taking forever to tick over. Low groan of the tube doors opening. Then hit the button and start counting. Cut to 2 knots and start drifting down, staying on course to pass right underneath the convoy, hoping this will mean the DD's bringing up the rear will find it difficult to get a run at me.

At 70m, torpedo treffe x 4: first time I have ever managed that, although still unsure of what the torpedoes actually hit. Ever further downwards, silently. 12 mins later I am exiting the NW side of the convoy: not a single ping, but no red ship sunk icon either.

After 30 mins drifting, I come up in increments, following warship contact. Entfernt sich. Just after 1am, we come up and 4 km behind us is a badly listing Nelson, with the hindmost DD a tiny smoke plume. Time passes, she rocks, she lists, she is stationary, but the damned thing won't sink. Then sonar boy says the dreaded "Kriegschiff, kommt naeher". A DD is coming back! Reluctantly, the stern tube is used. No mistake: two fires have now started and the foremost gun triplet is awash with water....

The DD turns away to the E to catch up to the convoy as the Nelson bulkheads start to screech. A further 30 mins later, she's going down, 36,000 tonnes, without so much as a ping, never mind a depth charge.

I know sinking battleships is probably quite standard for you guys, but I was elated: I didn't know whether to worry more about the DD's or a sudden CTD.

Anyway, other than a 12 hour depth charging a few weeks back near Malta, I have never been so gripped by a game in my days. Quite superb!

S-5

[FIREWALL]

I was roughly in the same area Oct 39 going after a lone freighter when to starboard NE and just out've torp range was the Hood followed by the Rodney.

Congrats on your kill.

[mengle]

a great story

[Hanomag]

Good Hunting Herr Kaluen!!

[nikbear]

Congratulations on a text book killI too also sank a BB last night,the Rodney,mine was a far more scrappy affair,twas april '40 and I blundered into a task force south of the kerwell sub base,fired 3 eel's on the surface at night from about 3K's away,then slowly slipped beneath the waves to the not so safe depth of 110M's,which was all there was.2 of the eel's hit home which irritated the 9,yes NINE DD escorts no end,who then proceeded to slowly circle around until they got a ping fix on me,even at silent running with that many ears they were bound towhat happened next was 2 real hours of utter hell as they dropped everthing including the galley sink on meeventually by slowly twisting and small bursts of speed during hells arrival in a can I managed to avoid death and finally gave them the slip with some light damage!Took ages to finally trace my wounded pray,but I finally caught up with her and dispatched her with a further 2 eelsI dont mind admiting that until I got that 'she's going down' message and heard the crew cheers I was a total nervous wreck,sweating and drinking far more beer that is good for me......and it was utterly FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!

[Red Heat]

Congratulations, Kaleu...

[xxx]

In a previous life I came up against a nelson, and king george the 5th with 9 destroyer escorts, in april '41 about 250km from portugal. I only had 3 torps left and 2 were duds . The torpedo that hit the nelson did absolutely nothing. P.S sorry for any bad spelling

[BasilY]

Originally Posted by Slateford-5

I know sinking battleships is probably quite standard for you guys, but I was elated: I didn't know whether to worry more about the DD's or a sudden CTD.

S-5

I sunk 4 BBs in my last career with 39 patrols. Another 3-4 excape from under my perescope. They are still quite a rare find, especially the one that offers you a good firing angle. Let me tell you, it never gets boring!

I once had the fast moving Rodney and Nelson giving me the slip west of Gibraltar. (only got 3 lousy DD for it). You always remember the one that got away.

Congrats!

A similar thing happend to me in grid BF something when i spotted a destroyer coming at me and he hadn´t spotted me yet so i dived to periscope depht and set my engiens to stop because if he cant here me he dont know iam there. Many here has said they never encount battleships and i had nerver done that before either..so i waited and then i saw more smoke behind the destroyer and what i saw was 2 battleships!! one nelson class and one revenge class. when thay had come in range i fired 4 torpedoes at the revenge class and i hited with one. battleships usually have thick armor but it started to lean 30 degrees and i sunk it with only 2 torpedoes one under the keel so the engiens stopped the destroyers (about 9) where totally confused, i got one hit in the nelson ship but that didnt do anything to him. but i slipped away whitout damage. later on my way to base i encountered a convoy with small merchants an i only got 2 torpedoes left and succeeeded to sink one.(this was in camapign)