My First Career Capital Ship

[Ancient Mariner]

Well it's been a long time coming...finally bagged a capital ship and it was tough.

I came across a mid Atlantic convoy heading toward liverpool rough 500km west of the Rockallbanks,thinking it was gonna be a cake walk I closed in from the SSW,the weather was poor but in the distance i made ou a shape of a BB,the Nelson infact surrounded by a few merchants and with what looked like no escorts,mint I thought a real treat.

What i hadn't noticed was an escort(A&D) coming up fast from the West,by the time i had closed to round 3km from the nelson it was nearly upon me and had radio'd it's mate,now the chase was on.I slipped to 60m @ quiet running,but when i saw the the target getting away I got the proverbial "white line fever" and went hell bent for leather. I slipped through a ew depth charge attacks and got into position,fire tubes 1,3,4 running at 1m with impact fuses,"los!" time ran out and 1 had hit.

After some hair raising manouvers and a wait that seemed like hours i had another 2 ready,same setup,"LOS!!" just i got 2 of 2,cool she had 3 in her,the list was bad,one screw wasn't turning but those pesky DD's were raining hell on me.

Then wasserbomben & bang i was hit,tubes 2-4 were destroyed heavy flooding in forward torp room,good thing i have a great damage control crew. I decided to shadow and wait for darkness.

I ended up getting away and ahead of the convoy around 19.00 and waited,had I been spotted?not yet,then in what would be a dumb move i surfaced and was seen!!! The DD's raced in,i was at periscope depth,i ran to the center of the convoy hoping they'd get stuck in the confusion,but instead i got rammed & lost my scopes

So i turned and blindly shot off an eel,now again luck is with me cause after 30 seconds,there was a massive explosion followed by "she's going down!" Yuss,i had taken a DD by sheer luck. I retreated again to reload my solitary tube and repair damage sustained.

When tube1 was ready a cam in again,fired at the Nelson but the fish bounced off Hastily with a last relaod and a better AoB I opened fire from around 1800m away and time dragged until with a splash and an explosion i hit her again in the listing side,I knew she was now doomed and didnt think that she would turn and fire at me She got off 2 salvoes in my direction minor machine gun hits but nothing significant(yes i was attacking on the surface with my UZO,no scopes),she went down finally I bagged a career capital ship ,a promotion,an Iron Cross,medals all round for the crew and a bit of work for the dock workers.

Oberleutnant z S Joseph Becker
21 Nov '39
3rd patrol-70726 Tons
DiD
80% Realism
Gwx 3 gold + Sh3cmmdr

[KeptinCranky]

LOL a pop-up attack with the UZO vs. a Battleship Awesome but very very suicidal, well done

were you silly enough to attack from the side it was listing towards? and if so, dit it try to train its main guns on you?

[Ancient Mariner]

Well yea i knew things could've gone horribly awry,there was no moon,heavy clouds & my blacked out Viib was running with decks awash.

Yea she did,the crash dive that followed the first rounds of her big guns was nerve wracking,wont be doing that in a hurry again

Edit: Had no option but UZo my scopes were knocked out in an earlier attack,i had 1 eel left to attack convoy but thought I had pushed my luck a little bit earlier on

[Damo]

I noticed DiD in your sig.

Does it stand for Death is Definite??



Well done, but think of all that cargo and supplies that made it to the enemy...

Doenitz won't be pleased.

[Pohl]

Leader of Kriegsmarine at that time was Raeder (I think), instead of using the UZO you could have tried to use the hydrophones unless they got destroyed =/

[nikbear]

Good hit,bet you had a sweat onthose moments waiting for the 'She's going down' cheer seem to take forever

[JU_88]

I just got lucky in the MED, I started a GWX 3.0 career with the 29th flotilla,
Wouldnt you know it - 12 hours in to my first patrol I run slap bang in to the path of A HUUGE British taskforce.
I counted 4 BBs.

manged to get within 2000m and carried out the most 'well syncronised' attack i think i have every made in Silent hunter 3.

I shot a salvo of two electrics at a King Geroge V, followed by 2 fast Steam eels at the Neslon behind him, thanks to the difference in running time, the four impacts on both vessels were simutainiouse!

By the time the DDs came sniffing i was already at 90 meters.
I went down to 220m and had a very scary problem, dispite not sustaining any damage from the DC attacks, my boat (bizarely) could not sustain a level depth and kept sinking deeper - very slowly, worst of all she refused to assend when ordered!
I had to blow ballast tanks 3 times! to escape crush depth, each time i let her rise to 100m before ordering the crew to level off - but she still kept sinking!

Eventually the escorts gave up the ghost and sailed off, a good thing too as only had enough compressed air for one more accent! after that i'd have no way to surface the boat!
Weirdly, once I reached periscope depth, the problem corrected it self and i could accend/decend with the dive planes as normal...

With the TASk force out of Hyrophone range I looked around with the scope.
Neither of the battle ships were sunk, but both were crippled, low in the water and unable to move, just me and them - alone together at last!

....4 eels later and they both went to the bottom.
King George was stubbon and absorbed 3 more eels before she went under, I got lucky with the nelson, as she exploded with one last hit (maybe i hit a magzine?)

Anyway - 71k and iron crosses all round!

[Mopy]

Crazy Kapitain! But well done on your first career BB sinking

I've only sunk one Revenge so far in this career. Never seen anything > than 31,000. I'd love to stumble upon something larger.

[Ancient Mariner]

Well the way I see it,they may have got some supplies,but the loss of a Capital Ship well that would make life easier for the KM.

Well as I see it you'd have to be half mad to go onto a Uboat in the war & as 1 of my fave sayings goes "Those who dare to fail greatly,succeed greatly"

[Bent Periscope]

Great job!

BP

[ARC0001Orar]

Good Job sinking the Battleship, now I the extreme displeasure of telling thousands of German mother's that their son is not coming home all because you went for glory instead of doing what your orders were....


That's what I imagine the debriefing would have been like. but still nice kill

[Raptor]

I've found that below about 120 meters, running silent at Slow can't keep me from slowly sinking. Running faster risks detection. It's a delicate balance.

[Gargamel]

Awaiting Jim's gratuitous necro pic.......

[Alfred Keitzer]

LOL !!! When Donitz said, "Attack! ... Attack! ... Attack!", I'm not sure that's what he had in mind, but truly a hilarious story just the same -- you survived despite yourself and probably deserve the Ritterkreuz for that fact alone. Congratulations!

Speaking of the Med, JU88 reminded me of that same situation in the Med -- not the holding depth -- but having a task force overtake me from behind in moderate fog and rushing to depth to get out of thier way (in calm seas of course) and hoping they didn't hear me.

[misha1967]

I bet that when you sent your status report after that, Ancient Mariner, you DIDN'T get a "be more aggressive!" from BdU