(Story) The wondrous tales of Erik Jaeger

[Fahnenbohn]

Originally Posted by vegeta020

In the meantime one of the sailors found the ammunition for the damn cannon stashed somewhere in the torpedo room. I guess Bernard was really really drunk when they were rearming the sub.
...
I fired two torpedoes. And they both went in completely wrong direction
...
But as we've found the fricking ammo we can put it to good use. Right?

Sure my friend ! FEUER FREI !!!

Originally Posted by vegeta020

Luckily it seems Fritz (my engineer) was drinking again. He was drinking A LOT. Because when I asked my navigator for the estimate how long can we run on those Fritz's 0% on 1/3 speed, the estimation was around 1300 kilometers.

Mmmh. In my opinion, rum should be permitted only for the crew who have made a vigil on the deck with rough sea.

[Borgneface]

S! vegeta020,
Welcome on board! This is a great story and a lot of fun to read! I do like your style..
Carry on please....

Amicalement

[vegeta020]

I was given two weeks of leave to see my family and girlfriend. I also took care of some personal errands. When I got back to Kiel I was greeted by Fritz (my machinist, the one that got drunk ) who didn't go home and decided to spend his free time at the city in the company of liqour and "easily approachable" women. Well, whatever rocks his boat.
He took me to the command where I was promoted to the rank of Oberleutnant Z. S. Even though my last patrol went really well, i hardly expected this to happen.

Day before the departure I went to the dock and went to see Bernard and asked him if he loaded the damn deck gun properly this time
I also consulted him about installing a new hydrophone (KDB instead of GHG). Even though it's easily damaged by depth charges, I thought it was okay because the whole first patrol was not so dangerous and it was mostly uneventful. Improved ability to hear what is happening in the water around us seemed to be very much worth the risk.

We left port on 15th of October during the cover of night. On my left side i watched our sole aircraft carrier - Graf Zeppelin. It's not combat ready, but I had a feeling it might bring us the power needed to defeat Brits.
We got a similar patrol route to our previous one. Instead of going to BF17, this time we had to patrol BF-19.
I followed my regular route, around Denmark, close to Norwegian coast and finally north of both Shetlands and Orkney Islands.
The ride was very uneventful. We intercepted 3 Norwegian ships and we let them all go.
In the meantime, we received word about Poland surrendering. It seemed that our war effort was going good so far. We all know that we still have to deal with both Britain and France, but I honestly hope that the war can be ended in a year or two.
We also have been getting a lot of messages on the radio about subs being lost, like U-12. We murmured our prayers and hoped that they at least had the privilege of swift death.
The weather again deteriorated badly. The waves were so high that my periscope would be covered fully at times even when it was fully extended.

When we were north of Ireland, we finally got our first contact! I steeled myself and ordered the intercept. But sadly the weather was so poor that even on flank speed we almost hit 11 knots of speed and visibility was so poor because of the night and fog that we never stood a chance of catching up to medium speed target.
I decided to lie in wait, just off the northern coast of Ireland. It was still night and we had almost 7 hours until the sunrise. We waited for an hour or two and then my patience was rewarded. Large cargo ship, coming in from the west, slow speed. I plotted a perfect intercept course and set up a rail for it. And then we heard the report. My sonarman informed me of a warship contact. As we were submerged and it was pitch black dark, i had no reason to suspect that the enemy knows of our position. We kept waiting for three or so more minutes when I heard the sonarman repeat the report. Warship again. I wondered why he was nagging me so I checked the map, and i saw 3 sound contacts. And soon after that a fourth and fifth. One cargo ship and four damn warships, basically surrounding my position and going about with their patrols.
But I have decided to sink this damn ship and i will do it! I refrained from extending the periscope because I was afraid i would get detected by enemy ships, so I did all of my calculations and just when i was about a minute or so from firing extended the damn thing. And then it struck me. The ship was well lit. It was an effin American cargo ship. I have risked my life to set up an ambush for a neutral. Damn my luck. Luckily I didn't fire the damn torpedo, because i had the patience to wait for the wave covering my periscope to subside, so I could get one final look at my target.

I went away grumbling and murmuring curses, damning the weather and neutrals. And then I decided to try and find that sole warship that was not in the formation (one was on my left side, and three were on my right side). I decided to predict it's maneuvres and try to chase it.
Now. I know what you are thinking right now. Basically, you first had this face . You thought I was just joking. But then you saw that I decided to chase a (WAR)ship that can sail at medium to fast speed at stormy weather. That probably transformed your face into this ("He's not really serious, right?"). And then when you definitely concluded that I was serious about this you basically were like this - ("Well Herr Kaleun Erik Jaeger, it was nice knowing you but you are now... dead").
So. I chased the contact and got close to it. It was (of course) a destroyer. And i got really really close to it so i could deduce that. But with the help of numerous miracles and some divine intervention I went undetected. (It just let me be. At this moment IRL i thought I installed some of the mods wrong and my game was bugging out.)

At this moment I was furious. I spent almost 4 hours in this terrible weather that makes intercepting anything a nightmare. And so, while I was retreating (tactically!) at full speed trying to forget about a horrible idea to find destroyers i heard about a sound contact.
And this was a moment when I snapped. IF IT'S A LEGAL TARGET, I AM SINKING IT! I did everything by the book, set up an ambush and there it was. A glorious prey. A ship that every U-boot captain dreams of sinking. A effing tugboat. Yep. Tugboat. But as my mental state was really bad after all that happened I needed a respite of sinking something. Anything!
So i lined up the shot and fired. Direct hit. It went down a few moments after that. Tugboats : me - 0:1! Yay?
But as i check my patrol log now i see that it was MV Harfry worth 1288 tons.
Soon after that I got another sound contact. But this one was too fast (again) because of the damned weather, so I just let it go, as I didn't want to waste all of my fuel. I just went to sleep because I felt bad for myself. Some of Kaleuns are sinking damn aircraft carriers! And I am contributing by distrupting delivery of general goods to Irish stores. Or something even more laughable.
In the morning my crew woke me up because watch saw a large merchant ship. I jumped into the uniform and skipped coffee (for now) and ran up the conning tower.
We plotted the intercept course, but again the damn weather ruined my calculations. We were too far to make it in time submerged so i ordered a surface attack.
I prepared a salvo just in case we miss. Of course, the merchant started maneuvering, but we successfully hit him with one of two torpedoes fired. As we were (still!!) unable to use the deck gun (I will have Bernard make the damn thing waterproof. Or find some other way to make the thing fire underwater )
Anyway, I had to fire another torpedo. Another hit. As i didn't want to waste any more shots, and was pretty sure the damn thing was sinking I submerged and kept just watching the target. It went down after 3 hours of struggle against the sea. SS City of Lincoln (Large Merchant) - 10448 tons of textiles.
After this victory we got back to our initial course. I got much better with managing the fuel reserves so we were sitting on 70 or so percent of our tank.
And then again we heard about a merchant in our vicinity so I changed the course and intercepted it. We lined the shot nicely and fired the torpedo. And then it happened. The wave raised the merchant ABOVE the torpedo and it passed below it's designated target. I just turned the sub around and went away. It's enough! Enough of this weather! Like it's not enough that half of time I can't even see my target because of the waves!

And so, as it took us another 20 hours to get to BF19 - our designated patrol grid, the weather calmed down. We were informed that British are launching a Task Force from the East. But I was not concerned as we were safe on the other side of the Isles.
24 hours of patrol went without any contacts. We only heard about a neutral convoy passing through the north, but i was honestly not interested in chasing a convoy of USA ships i cannot even sink, so I decided to extend the duration of the patrol to 48 hours.
And after some time we got another contact. I prepared an ambush and decided to use aft torpedoes (you gotta use those sometimes, right?). I hit him on the rear end and sent him to Davy Jones's locker using a gun. It was SS Port Darwin (Ore Carrier) worth 8188 tons.
As this day was going really really well, i felt confident about intercepting another contact. WNW, medium speed. I sadly failed to intercept it, which I realised after six hours of lying in wait.

And at that moment it struck me! I want to sink myself a warship! So I plotted the course for the west exit from the English Channel. And I didn't even get there and got a contact report. Large Convoy! Heading west! And it's close. Also, then we received a message about magnetic triggers not being safe on torpedoes. Well it's a good thing I never learned how to use those, right?
I plotted an intercept course and first thing i hear was of course: "Warship spotted...". Well i guess it can be presumed that the convoy will be escorted. I submerged and raised the periscope. I hoped for a juicy catch. A bigger ship. But I only saw another destroyer. It was maneuvering and I, as a new Kaleun wasn't really sure if it was doing that on purpose beacuse it knew I was here around somewhere, or because it's a part of regular routine of protecting the convoy.
I tried to get closer to the convoy and in one moment i saw the damn destroyer heading right for me.. Can't be good. Nope! Crash dive! Rudder 45° to bow! Silent running! Speed 2 knots! Depth 140m!
I have my sonarman call out the location of the destroyer. After few minutes, I thought i lost him so I order the periscope depth. And then. This happened.



(I am sorry for the terrible quality, as the Fraps does not work I was forced to take this photo with my cell phone.)

[NOTES]
I got a few mails inviting me to join DEF. I am generally interested, but I would definitely for now like to keep my focus on this career of mine and I am wondering if there is any way to tie in content of DEF into my everyday routine of playing SHIII for this story.

Also, end of this part is a cliffhanger, but stay tuned, a lot more happened during this second patrol

Originally Posted by Borgneface

S! vegeta020,
Welcome on board! This is a great story and a lot of fun to read! I do like your style..
Carry on please....

Amicalement

Thank you Borgneface for the feedback. I try to make it as fun as possible, but trust me, there is no way I can interpret the amount of fun and hilarity of some situations that I experience during my playthrough.

Originally Posted by Fahnenbohn

Mmmh. In my opinion, rum should be permitted only for the crew who have made a vigil on the deck with rough sea.

I am thinking of making some of my crewmembers walk the plank

[Fahnenbohn]

Originally Posted by vegeta020

A ship that every U-boot captain dreams of sinking. A effing tugboat. Yep. Tugboat. But as my mental state was really bad after all that happened I needed a respite of sinking something. Anything!
So i lined up the shot and fired. Direct hit. It went down a few moments after that. Tugboats : me - 0:1! Yay?