Damn these guys are good !!

SteamWake · 11-15-08, 05:22 PM

Well my Current Captiain 'Bill Eckam' finally met his demise...

late in the war January of 1944 assigned to the Formosa straights like so many times before.

We got spotted by aircraft and went deep for an hour or two, no big deal. Later the next day while heading north we pick up a convoy, crossing our path. Radar shows three ships.. Excellent ! This should be easy.

Plot the intercept and get into position. We crept along at 1 knot silent just waiting for the convoy to cross our path. As the ships got closer we popped up the scope for a quick look, one ship in range, a coastel cruiser, must be the escort... down scope...

A few minutes later BOOM BOOM wth ! Damn aircraft spotted us in the clear water. A quick check and sure enough the Coastal has turned straight for us. Dammit!

Take her deep and fast! At about 180 feet the first barrage of DC's rained down on us. Minor damage, keep diving... wheres that thermal !

We finally hit the thermal dived below it ordered silent and altered course. Checking sonar... two more warships, closing, fast! Cripes could it get worse.

After some time they had me surrounded pinging from all sides, dropping more DC's than Ive ever seen. Popping off 12 or so at a run. We try the scoot and manuver, we tried going deeper, we tried the silent running but a few cans got lucky and beat us bad. Forget the silent get that damage fixed ! Flooding fore and aft, bulkheads, etc. But the crew was getting ahead of it.

Flooding under control and other systems acceptable we returned to silent running again, altering course, keep em guessing. This went on for hours and hours. Finally i had to 'cheat' and check out the free cam. Holy smokes three DD's out there sailing in circles taking their turns at bombing us.

Hour after hour Co2 building up batteries sagging. Sometimes they got close other times not. It went on and on... they followed us for miles.

Try as he might he could not shake them. The Late Bill Eckam's luck had ran out, a series of close abord DC's wrecked the boat sending her down for good.

He was my most sucessfull Skipper to day with dozens of medals and patrols, and experienced crew all done now.

3 eliete destroyers in a convoy... bad bit of luck.

11-15-08, 05:22 PM	#1
SteamWake Rear Admiral Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 13,224 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Damn these guys are good !! Well my Current Captiain 'Bill Eckam' finally met his demise... late in the war January of 1944 assigned to the Formosa straights like so many times before. We got spotted by aircraft and went deep for an hour or two, no big deal. Later the next day while heading north we pick up a convoy, crossing our path. Radar shows three ships.. Excellent ! This should be easy. Plot the intercept and get into position. We crept along at 1 knot silent just waiting for the convoy to cross our path. As the ships got closer we popped up the scope for a quick look, one ship in range, a coastel cruiser, must be the escort... down scope... A few minutes later BOOM BOOM wth ! Damn aircraft spotted us in the clear water. A quick check and sure enough the Coastal has turned straight for us. Dammit! Take her deep and fast! At about 180 feet the first barrage of DC's rained down on us. Minor damage, keep diving... wheres that thermal ! We finally hit the thermal dived below it ordered silent and altered course. Checking sonar... two more warships, closing, fast! Cripes could it get worse. After some time they had me surrounded pinging from all sides, dropping more DC's than Ive ever seen. Popping off 12 or so at a run. We try the scoot and manuver, we tried going deeper, we tried the silent running but a few cans got lucky and beat us bad. Forget the silent get that damage fixed ! Flooding fore and aft, bulkheads, etc. But the crew was getting ahead of it. Flooding under control and other systems acceptable we returned to silent running again, altering course, keep em guessing. This went on for hours and hours. Finally i had to 'cheat' and check out the free cam. Holy smokes three DD's out there sailing in circles taking their turns at bombing us. Hour after hour Co2 building up batteries sagging. Sometimes they got close other times not. It went on and on... they followed us for miles. Try as he might he could not shake them. The Late Bill Eckam's luck had ran out, a series of close abord DC's wrecked the boat sending her down for good. He was my most sucessfull Skipper to day with dozens of medals and patrols, and experienced crew all done now. 3 eliete destroyers in a convoy... bad bit of luck.