Your first sub lost... Tragic Tales.

[Osmium Steele]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The first sub I lost was playing Silent Service, so I'm afraid that after twenty-six years I really don't remember.

If you meant the first sub in SH3, well, that was six years ago, so I don't remember that either.

+1.

[postalbyke]

Off the east coast of Britain, positioned between the northbound and southbound convoy lanes, I waited for my prey to come to me...
After only a few hours, my hydrophones pick up a southbound convoy, fifteen ships with four escorts. I plot their courses carefully, double checking all the time until I can see the lead ship clearly. Being in a type II, I have only three shots from a stationary position before I have to withdraw, reload, and give chase...
Taking into account the time of day and the weather, I chose the west side of the convoy to attack from, opened the tubes, and let my eels fly!
Unlucky me, I was positioned right at the turning point for the convoy, and the second after my torpedos leave the tubes, the whole CF turns, leaving me out in the dry...
except for one hit! right in the screw for a medium cargo... she slows to a halt, and an escort drives right over me to get to her... while I'm reloading the tubes. Next I know, I'm in the middle of a depth charge pattern.
Fast forward a few hours, both electric motors are OOC, heavy flooding aft, sinking slowly... the escort seems to have lost me, but is loitering in area (I'm supposing for the merchant). My only hope: sink this insolent merchant and wait for the escort to leave!
I blow tanks til I'm at PD, snapshot the merchant, and try to convince the boat to sink as fast as it was a few minutes ago... to no avail.
I spin the periscope to the escort, and he's at full steam, headed right at me.
"The End..."

[XTChrisTX]

Running away from several destroyers in an XXI at Ahead Flank at periscope depth. That was my preferred tactic for a surprisingly long time.

Most embarassing was probably when I surfaced my XXI to take on about five destroyers with the flak guns because I didn't have many torpedoes left.

[Cheese]

About a week ago, ran straight into a corvette near Scapa Flow. Being young and foolish, I tried to engage it with a deck gun. When it got up right next to me, I, for some reason, decided to dive. It of course depth charged me and I forgot to(or couldn't?) pull out of the dive, so my boat was crushed by pressure. Lesson learned, don't get cocky, or dive next to a warship.

[GoDeep]

"I" have been killed more times than I can remember. Especially in the beginning, when I just had SH3 and played it quick and dirty. I learned the hard way that in U-boat warfare, there is no such thing as quick and dirty. Patience is key.

A few of my more memorable deaths from my GWX era:

• Second patrol (December 1939) in a IIA, about 100 miles of the British East coast. I'm running fast below the surface, trying to get a firing position on a merchant ship. Out of nowhere, a destroyer runs right over me, dropping charges. One of them rips open the stern, flooding the engine room. I sink fast to the bottom, which is at 80m. Killed by catastrophic flooding.
• New career, I decide to take a peek during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Lots of juicy targets there. One problem though...the sea is as smooth as glass and I am in 30 metres of water. Not much room to escape. However, my trigger finger gets the better of me and I line up two targets, one troop transport, the other a Southampton class cruiser. I launch four torpedoes, two at each target at about 2700 metres. Three hits, the Southampton comes to a full stop, the transport sinks rapidly. No time to enjoy my success though. As soon as the torpedoes hit, the escorts and destroyers go into overdrive, pinging like mad. Within 10 minutes, 7 destroyers have converged on my location and are pinging me in turn, dropping charges left and right. One after the other, they perform an attack run. I can not dive deep, so I have virtually no time to evade. For 2 hours (game time), I manage to evade the attacks without serious damage, then a destroyer makes a run right over my position. Fuel bunkers ripped open, hydrophone destroyed, periscopes destroyed, aft torpedo room, engine room and aft crew quarters flooded. A promising young Oberleutnant dead.
• Third career, sneaking up on the rear of a convoy, totally missing the auxiliary cruiser in the rear. It opens up with guns blazing, several other ships join in the fun. I manage to dive with serious flooding in the forward torpedo room. I have to keep up my speed and have the repair team working in order to stop the flooding and maintain depth. Unfortunately, I make a lot of noise like that and am depth-charged. More flooding. The boat rapidly sinks now and nothing I can do can to slow it down. At 220 metres or so, the boat implodes. Another young Oberleutnant dead...
• Did I mention planes yet? Trying to shoot it out on the surface? No? Well...I'd better not...

[JazzJR]

Originally Posted by GoDeep

• Did I mention planes yet? Trying to shoot it out on the surface? No? Well...I'd better not...

Oh that was a fun before GWX also these little Patrolboats, which now kill your whole crew and destroy the boat.

[WWII44]

I had time compression at 1024 and smackedinto a tiny island near the north western tip of scotland.

[Fish In The Water]

I was going to share my most harrowing experience, until it suddenly dawned on me I've spent a small fortune (and years on a couch) trying to get over it.

[PhantomLord]

Lost my first sub between german coast and Helgoland, following a pair of german destroyers heading home to Wilhelmshaven.

I missed the fact that there´s a minefield... kaboom at 128x TC.... lost with all hands

[Luno]

I know that GWX has a minefield map, but are there minefield maps that pertain to the stock game? It would really stink to hit your own fields.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Luno

I know that GWX has a minefield map, but are there minefield maps that pertain to the stock game? It would really stink to hit your own fields.

I don't know if stock has anything similar to the pulldown friendly harbor mine/net chart you get in GWX. At any rate it wouldn't help you with the mines around Helgoland as they were dropped by the British early on and the Tommies weren't polite enough to inform the Kriegsmarine about their location.

[soopaman2]

My first boat is sitting on the bottom about 13km se of Scapa flow.

Deck gunning a destroyer seemed like a great idea, until the pair of torpedos I let off before surfacing missed. 1 dud, one passed 10 feet behind the rudder. (it zigged when it shoulda zagged!

I'm not so cocky anymore...I was trying to play the game like a "game" rather than a sim.

[U-Falke]

First Uboat lost in SH3 since a long time playing 4 and 5

Playing second patrol on a VIIB, WAC, 200km north of the Hebrides, found a task force at 21 Knt. Tried to intercept but they were too fast. Ship spotted, dive the boat. As the sub dives, it suddenly shakes and the XO report massive damage in all compartments, with flooding in the torpedo room. The hydrophone would not work for the next 10h.
Too shallow, too late. Ordered flank speed and send the crew to fix the mess. I guess that's why they call this area ' Rockall Banks'.
Then, I went to scope and saw the warships coming.
They crossed my scope 4000m away at constant distance, so it was now or never.

Inside the uboat, the situation was chaotic. I decided to shoot a long range "what if" salvo... 2 TI at slow speed and 2 TII.
I had the AOB and the speed. Also a crude range to the cruisers.
Targeted the middle of the TF, and only the TI were able to reach them.
Almost 12 minutes later, one TI exploded the keel of a Dido light cruiser, wich was zig zagging after spotting the approaching wakes. Ship sunk.
That was at 8-9km from my position.
DDs started to look for the bastard who did that , but I was beyond the sight, and 12m below.
The sonarman said they had turned to slow speed, and I decided to flank them and shoot again. So, I maneuvered to surface some km away and do it. But they detected the surfaced u-boat and one tribal started the hunt.
Tried to use the deck gun to shell it, but had no success. To face the DD submerged in shallow waters was not a possibility.

uboat sunk ...

[Luno]

Well, I lost another uboat on a single mission. I really didn't mind, because I needed an excuse to leave the mission and go to bed.

So, I'm starting off in the stock "Sneak through Gibraltar" mission. Since there's still light, I proceed under the surface and listen. Once the sun finally sets, I surface the boat and proceed that way for as long as possible. After a while the watch spot a ship: destroyer. It too far away for a TII attack, so I order the engines to stop and dive.

But right then, it spots me. Searchlights fix on my position. Luckily I was down before it could start shelling me.

I dive, check the depth, and dive further. It starts pinging and DC'ing and I get rattled about, damaging the turm and fore-deck. Pipes inside start bursting and the compressed air is leaking, making a horribly annoying noise. I decide to use the engine RPM meters to make for a quieter silent speed than just "ahead slow".

This destroyer had side-launching wasser-bombs, and so I had to be especially careful with how I maneuvered. I am evading for around 15 minutes, still getting rocked from time to time when I hear bad news: "contact, kriegsschiffe, incoming, fast". There are now 4 enemy contacts after the first called for backup.

I took a deep breath...let's do this!

I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding the ships. I was getting rocked by the DC's, but I was slowly creeping away. My SO pipes up again....more contacts!

Long story short, I had 11, yes eleven(!) destroyers and and a few patrol boats circling overhead trying to DC me. I had to fight for hours to get away from them all, and I was still not even in the strait of Gibraltar yet!!

Eventually, I did get away, miraculously.

After an couple hours I surface and proceeded. We spotted a juicy C2, but there was destroyer right next to it. It was too far for a TI shot. So what was the only reasonable thing to do?

Get to the deck gun of course! I checked the range with the UZO and started shelling the destroyer. The second shot hit its mark at the bridge. I had cut off the head of the snake, and the rest was easy. No damage received. I proceeded to work on the C2 when...another warship. The first had called for help!

So, a half-hour later I had 14 (!!) ships on me. Here we go again...

So the tragic bit comes the next day. I was hugging the shore, surfaced, and hoping to charge the batteries a bit. I accelerated time and my Watch reported a contact when it was already shooting at me! This time I was stuck at the surface with a destroyer and PT boat. I did the only thing I could: took to the deck gun, and try to kill the destroyer first. I damaged it severely, but relentless peppering from the PT boats' 20 mm AA guns turned my hull into swiss cheese. I sank halfway though the strait. All hands lost

Ironically, I could survive DCing from 14 destroyers, but I was done in by a PT boat.... Now that's tragic!

[Brag]

In SHIII Vanilla days (Early 1942), SW of Gibraltar was racing to overtake a convoy in reduced visibility. Out of the murk, 2 destroyers appeared. In a matter of seconds it was over.