Your greatest escape from a Destroyer

[jscharpf]

I think these are all cool stories!

[STEED]

Your greatest escape from a Destroyer

Only last night I had to take a phone call, so I switched off SH3.

[TabbyHunter]

Cruising north of Ireland, heavy storm, 15 meter visibility, if that.

I get a feeling, and dive. Not 300 meters away, sonar gets a destroyer contact. I dive, and bottom out (It has actually worked for me in the past) Well, this guy drops ashcans on me to the point I'm heavily damaged. I figure, "Wait till he starts his next run, surface, and flank dead south". Somehow or another, I surface with him no where to be seen, get away, back to St. Nazarie.

[Gerald]

I love DD,they are gullible

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by STEED

Only last night I had to take a phone call, so I switched off SH3.

Shoulda put the patrol on hold

[TwoGamers]

I was sailing through the channel and the waters calm but theres heaps of fog so Im saling along and I get the "Aircraft spotted messsage." I hit crash dive but to late the plane drops a bomb right on the stern of my VIIB, which kills the one guy in the stern tubes and destroys everything in the stern tubes that can be damaged. It also damages my batteries on top of the hull damage. I finnaly get under the water but as I do I get a sound contact message. Mesuring it on the map I see it's about 3000 etres away moving at constant distance. I quickly hit silent but its to late as the destroyer closes in on my. Now I was in for a few ingame hours of being depth charged while I have damaged batteries and he actually hit me once again in the stern which knocked out one battery. I eventually managed to shake him off .

[Sailor Steve]

U-boats were ordered never to use the Channel, under any circumstances. This included pre-war patrols.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

U-boats were ordered never to use the Channel, under any circumstances. This included pre-war patrols.

Thats not 100% true, as it turns out in 1944 with the D-Day invasion looming the Bdu issued the most bizzare orders since trying to get U-Boats into the Med. A quote from the book Iron Coffins "The group grew quiet. Kaptiaen Roesing patted his silvery hair, which seemed to interfere with his thinking. Not until he had caressed it into submission was he ready to speak. "Gentlemen, as you know, the Allied invasion is expected momentarily. You must be in the postion to sail at any hour. Because our Intelligence has been unable to discover the exact date and location of the landing, I only have general instructions for you. We shall be prepared to counter the blow wherever it falls. In Norway we have twenty-two boats on alert. The Biscay ports of Lorient, Saint Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bordeaux are staffed with another twenty-one boats. Most likely, however, the invasion fleet will simply cross the Channel and try to land some twenty to fifty miles from England. This is where you gentlemen step in. Headquarters' directive is short and precise: ATTACK AND SINK INVASION FLEET WITH THE FINAL OBJECTIVE OF DESTORYING ENEMY SHIPS BY RAMMING." Sorry about the caps at the end but thats the way it was in the book, but later in the book when the D-Day landings happen the U-Boat are sent from their ports on the French coast but many never return because the Allies had used the Normandy landings as a trap to destory as many U-Boats as possible.

[Sailor Steve]

Fair point, and you're right. Doenitz ordered that all boats departing in August were to use the North Sea route, and yet two boats did venture into the Channel in October 1939, and both were lost. I'm not sure if any boats braved the channel between then and 1944, but it would seem that no less than eleven boats tried their hand against the invasion. There may have been more, but that's how many were lost between June and August 1944. Several more tried in 1945, with similar results.
http://www.uboat.net/maps/channel.htm

My point was the standing order against using the Channel for transitioning to the North Atlantic from Germany.