Stuck in the middle of the ocean...

[Elektroniikka-Asentaja]

Yeah.. Read the title and you'll see all you need to know..

So, background:

I was doing the second mission of Asiatic fleet S-18 boat, the one where you need to go to take photos about Japanese carriers in Manila. Everything went well, I sank 4 merchants in the way to the Philippines but faced some problems there, I sank 3 Akizuki destroyers, no problem as usual but then there came some other destroyer, one step smaller, 2300 tons or something. I shot a torpedo at it, hit from 3500 metres (and noticed that Mark-10 Torpedos have maximum shooting length of 4000 metres, wasted one torp by shooting from too far first..) The destroyer was nicely crippled, they stopped and had a nice hole in their ship, I thought that I'll quickly finish it off with the deck gun.. Then everything started to go horribly wrong, normally they shoot over me because their guns are meant for shooting aircraft or other battleships, not submarines. This time their ship was swimming about a meter lower than normally and all those "too high jap, learn to aim" shots hit I lost 5 crew members and my whole boat was ready for scrap metal yard.

Here is the problem, after I took heavy beating from the destroyer I was unable to get to periscope depth, either I was surfaced or at the bottom. Here I was lucky, I was fighting in the bad place, water was about 20 meters deep so I had no problem in lying at the bottom. I managed to sink the destroyer and get my ass to the photo area, even if it was heavily mined and had a "fence" in the water for submarines. Nothing happened there, no photos taken so I sank the 2 carriers I had to photograph (epic fail?) but then I figured out that I'm screwed.

I'm at the Philippines now, I can't move on surface because I have (only ONE though) diesel engine damaged, I can't dive anywhere else than to bottom and my crew are all in pretty bad shape. I have perhaps 5 guys who aren't injured.

Any good hints? And BTW, how to take those photos?