The sickener factor.....

[in_vino_vomitus]

Just spent longer than I care to admit, tracking a convoy of six merchants and three escorts. It was my first patrol out in a brand new Balao. Anyway I had this convoy nailed pretty much. I knew its zig zag pattern and I knew the escorts routine. Using Lurker's radar approach method I'd positioned myself ahead of them and ten degrees off the base course track, gone to radar depth and laid an intercept course. Everything was going perfectly......

Interestingly enough, at radar depth I got visual contact before a radar return. I went to periscope depth with no radar plots because I didn't know how visible the antenna is to escorts, but I was able to check out the omnimeter, that I made, and it seems to work pretty well - I'd thought that radar might have made it redundant, but I ID'd a Kiturin Maru at extreme range, and though I had to guess where the waterline was, since it was over the horizon, It gave me a figure that fit well with where I expected it to be.

Picture the scene. The convoy is dead ahead heading roughly NxW I know that shortly they're going to come to a heading of about 275/285. I have an escort maybe 4500 yards off my starboard bow. I'm turning to port to present my stern to him. I've started the PK and entered in the first rough data, I've got plenty of time to refine my solution and unless they do something completely unexpected, they're going to be turning my way for a ten-minute run any moment now. I wonder what the escort's up to. I don't want to put my scope up so I ask the sonar guy for a report.....

Except I didn't. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I managed to press CTRL+ENTER instead of SHIFT+N and That was the end of my good times.......

Long story short. My aft torpedo room is full of water, I have two escorts above me that don't seem to have any problems locating me, even at 650 feet and I'm making three knots at flank speed - And it was going so well.....

One thing though. For some reason I can't seem to engage silent running. I went to flank speed when the first pattern was dropped, and for some reason, after that, the silent running icon refuses to appear - anyone know what's going on there?