Desperate Measures

antikristuseke · 03-13-08, 05:56 PM

Great story and you were lucky, incredibly so, my last career ended with the third string from a Flower, first one was a miss, the second rocked my boat with no damage and the third destroyed bost diesels

Keelbuster · 03-17-08, 09:53 PM

Ok - so we made it back with no scopes. That was a major relief. The engineers reckoned we had 85% hull integrity. But BDU had a cruel sense of humour about it - they sent us right back to ET13. Once again we encountered a convoy in the gibraltar approach moving at 5kts. Protocol dictated that we attack. So we did. This time in fog and rain. Luckily, based on radio reports, I had their course charted almost exactly. We move in. I attack from what I thought was 3km. It turned out to be about 2km. I hit with 3 torps and sunk a troop transport for 16k, and a small freighter for 1.6k. But then we were detected. Relentless ASDIC ensued. I sunk an V&W with a T5. I was DCed right to hell - port propeller destroyed! Decoy Launcher destroyed! I limped away at 1kt (and discovered that even with a destroyed decoy launcher, you can still launch decoys). We made it back to port on 1 screw. I've updated my GWX 2.0 lessons - now I'm only bringing T1 FaTs, and I'm attacking from 4km min. It's just way too dangerous to get close now. (Dec '43).

Keelbuster · 03-18-08, 12:28 PM

Or else...later in patrol 13, attacking a Casablanca class in an HK group from fairly far (~3km), I sunk her with three hits and then got detected by a snooping escort far on the port side of the convoy. It is as if he knew where to look - he had broken formation and was snaking out near our position. After a long depth charging, we took heavy hits and had flooding in almost all compartments. We sunk to 250m, and had to blow ballast to level off. With the flooding stopped, we were still heavily damaged and could only pull 1kt at flank bell. The fatal DC destroyed the stern torpedo room and that was it. U-97 sunk with all hands somewhere in Grid AL29, Dec 31, 1943. In 13 patrols, she sunk 78 ships (14 warships) for a total of 591,386 G.R.T.

03-17-08, 09:53 PM	#2
Keelbuster Ace of the Deep Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: BA 72 Posts: 1,092 Downloads: 43 Uploads: 0	Ok - so we made it back with no scopes. That was a major relief. The engineers reckoned we had 85% hull integrity. But BDU had a cruel sense of humour about it - they sent us right back to ET13. Once again we encountered a convoy in the gibraltar approach moving at 5kts. Protocol dictated that we attack. So we did. This time in fog and rain. Luckily, based on radio reports, I had their course charted almost exactly. We move in. I attack from what I thought was 3km. It turned out to be about 2km. I hit with 3 torps and sunk a troop transport for 16k, and a small freighter for 1.6k. But then we were detected. Relentless ASDIC ensued. I sunk an V&W with a T5. I was DCed right to hell - port propeller destroyed! Decoy Launcher destroyed! I limped away at 1kt (and discovered that even with a destroyed decoy launcher, you can still launch decoys). We made it back to port on 1 screw. I've updated my GWX 2.0 lessons - now I'm only bringing T1 FaTs, and I'm attacking from 4km min. It's just way too dangerous to get close now. (Dec '43). __________________

03-18-08, 12:28 PM	#3
Keelbuster Ace of the Deep Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: BA 72 Posts: 1,092 Downloads: 43 Uploads: 0	Or else...later in patrol 13, attacking a Casablanca class in an HK group from fairly far (~3km), I sunk her with three hits and then got detected by a snooping escort far on the port side of the convoy. It is as if he knew where to look - he had broken formation and was snaking out near our position. After a long depth charging, we took heavy hits and had flooding in almost all compartments. We sunk to 250m, and had to blow ballast to level off. With the flooding stopped, we were still heavily damaged and could only pull 1kt at flank bell. The fatal DC destroyed the stern torpedo room and that was it. U-97 sunk with all hands somewhere in Grid AL29, Dec 31, 1943. In 13 patrols, she sunk 78 ships (14 warships) for a total of 591,386 G.R.T. __________________

03-13-08, 05:56 PM	#1
antikristuseke Silent Hunter Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Estland Posts: 4,330 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	Great story and you were lucky, incredibly so, my last career ended with the third string from a Flower, first one was a miss, the second rocked my boat with no damage and the third destroyed bost diesels