Tell us what you are upto in your current campaign

[gazpode_l]

Hey guys
Im in grid AM18, attacked a convoy and had sunk three ships thus far. left a forth lying there crippled. Managed to shrug off escorts and put my remaining eel's out to it. First didnt run deep enough and simply dud'd and bounced off at a v poor angle.

Second torp detonated succesfully and eventually dealt the final blow.

Im running away to the east now, but have become bogged down by three flower class who are hunting me. I think a long struggle is in order with this. So long as I stay deep I should be ok as these type are lethal if they run over you with you sat at anything shallower than 30m.

KLN W Suhr.
U-93

Another update to follow sunday night

[Missing Name]

Originally Posted by Corsair

@ Missing Name :

Quote : "Encountered two light cruisers, steaming at 28 knots. Four torpedoes missed, so I surfaced and let off a few rounds with the deck gun."

Now that takes some balls to take on 2 cruisers with a deck gun...

They didn't fire back, so I wasn't really in any danger.

[Gryffon300]

Codename: Johannes Janning

Well, finally crawled out of the bunk. Thanks for the replies..

But, Gargamel, looked at your post and saw some ragging about RTFM. Well, not having recalled anything, I re-read the thing, and after 3 hours couldn't see any reference to missing grids. Sure, I could have missed it, but unless someone can point me to the relevent section, I will continue to believe it was that damn mole at BdU (either that, or Bernard's twin brother! SNAFU.)

Anyway, here's my report.

Put to sea (23/08/39) on our second patrol in our nice new VIIB U-52 out of Willi, looking for the ellusive BF10. Turned into a monster 23 day grind, against 15m/s winds and huge seas for all but 2 days mid patrol. Managed to take out two Med Merchants with guns in that time, but regretfully, returned to base (23/09/39) with a lot of unexpended ammo due to lack of further fair weather opportunity.

Took out 13 merchants for a total of 58,795 tonnes. Unfortunately, one was a Pelagic Trawler that just got in the way - wrong place, wrong time. All the rest, bar one, were Medium Merchants. I was beginning to wonder if every other class had dissapeared off the surface of the seas. I finally nabbed an Ore carrier on our last day of action, so it broke the HooDoo.

Took some very minor damge from an ASW that was escorting one of the Merchants, but not even enough to warrant any repairs.

As I said elsewhere, nabbed a couple of 'Nowegian' enemy vessels, both turned out to be carrying military vehicles.

Have had surprising good luck with Magnetic Pistols this time out. On two occasions, I got into a stern chase in very heavy seas at night, with one chase lasting over 60 kms as I closed the distance from over 8kms to 3.5kms. As you may guess, I had sometimes less than 1 knott speed differential. But, on top of that, I had a strange navigation problem.

Though using the compass to set my course, I had a consistent drift to starboard of about 1 degree every 5 minutes. This went unnoticed at low 'speed', but was clear at high rates, such that it was impossible to hold course without constant correction.

Anyway, I had multiple successes with this stern chase technique, closing to 3.5 kms on targets NOT running evasive courses. I set my T1's to fast, Magnetic, at 8m. I then submerged (to reduce sea-state effects on the fire) and launched, then waited the many minutes to get the "Yay!" for the day. Very satisfying. I still used impacts (on Fast and 7m) for side shots with great effect. Only 2 duds. Happy with that!

No convoys, but 5 times encountered single ships under ASW escort - twice for 'Neutral' flagged vessels. By the time the ASW's got back the 4 or 5 kms to anywhere near my firing position, I was long gone on silent.

Not as bold as my surface gun attack on a rear end charlie Medium Tanker running in a large convoy on a moonlit night with only one V&W escort way out in front on a previous assignment... I surfaced 4 kms astern of him, with the V&W 8 kms ahead - I figured I could do enough damage to a tanker to be worthwhile before the escort got back in range. He was bracketing me at about 4kms and I had already ordered crash dive when the spotter announced that she was going down. Good stuff.

Anyway, I don't know if I will be able to get this boat back out to sea again. Although she performed flawlessly over weeks on this last cruise, she now refuses to put back out to sea. I wonder if I will ever see the end of 1939, or am I the Kapitan of an endless string of Flying Dutchmen?....

[gazpode_l]

I set my T1's to fast, Magnetic, at 8m. I then submerged (to reduce sea-state effects on the fire) and launched, then waited the many minutes to get the "Yay!" for the day. Very satisfying. I still used impacts (on Fast and 7m) for side shots with great effect. Only 2 duds. Happy with that!

Hey. How deep drafts were the medium merchants..how far below there actual keel did u shoot the torps?

[gazpode_l]

gone are all my eels now except one left in my stern and two useless external stored eels which i csnnot get at due to seven meter seas with winds constant at over 10m/s. Have sunk four merchants totalling twenty two thousand tons, the best haul of my SH3 playing days. Have gone round the top of the shetland isle after losing what was onl y one asw in the ennd who must have given up after running out of trash cans or losing contact.

My boat is heading bk to kiel for some rnr before we go again freshly loaded...

W.suhr
kaluen u93.

Docked at Lorient at 09.30.

Patrol 10:
Departed Lorient 11.aug.42, and returned to same 18.nov.42.
Area of operations was The Carribean Sea.
The convoy battles were fought east of Canada enroute home.
Crew and boat fully intact.
3 ships sunk for 21.085 GRT. (1 in convoy).
All torpedoes expended.

U64's history to date:
10 patrols between 23.mar.40 and 18.nov.42.
28 merchants sunk for 162.714 GRT. 0 warships sunk.
(No external reloads carried - 14 torpedoes total.
100% "realism". Manual targetting. No contact map.)

Looking forward to getting a radar detector.

[Gryffon300]

Gazpode 1, not really sure how accurate all that is. Draft would vary with actual class and load (as iambl says, the Brits went to emergency Wartime load limits that saw them much deeper in the water).

All I know is that once I set one to 7m on a medium merchant, only to see it bounce off the hull, then continue under and detonate, taking it out. (I was lucky that time, and blessed the event camera for the insight!) After that, I started setting to 8m, and have so far had good results. I assume they are running about 1m under the hull, depending on sea-state, and given they have the whole length of the ship to detect, they have a good chance of doing their job.

[gazpode_l]

@gryffon: Ok m8 thanks for coming back to me wiv ur reply.

Patrol 11
Departed Lorient on 16.dec.42, with our new Metox radar detector.

BE63 21.dec.42 2005 "Detecting radar signals".
Crash dived in anticipation of an air attack. Wrong.
Sound reported 3 warships coming at us fast.
After leveling off at 70 meters, we managed to crawl down to 99 meters.
It took about 1½ hours to put them a reasonable distance astern of us.
They pinged, dropped DC, and groped for us, but never realy got a good fix on us.
Credit where credit is due. Metox saved our cans. By the time they arrived on the scene our stern was pointed toward them at a 35 degree angle and we were turning 90 RPM on the shaft. Eventualy a fourth warship showed up and it was about 4 hours in all before we dared surface.

We were allowed to remain surfaced until 0305, when "Detecting radar" was again heard.
Crash dived again and survived an air attack. Thanks, Metox.

BE62 23.dec.42 0259 While traveling submerged, to avoid aircraft, we got a sound contact. Merchant. Moving slow. Closing. At 0356 we made a night surface attack with the stern tubes at 1000 meters (T3 Tanker. USA flagged. Armed). Both torpedoes found their mark as we were diving and taking up his course (066 - 6 knots).
He went dead in the water as tubes 5 & 6 were being reloaded. We came up for one more stern shot, which I had to take while turning at 2 knots. It hit, and he went down for 11.653 GRT.

We continued on course 270, since departing Lorient, to grid BD43 on 1.jan.43. There we turned to 144 which will take us onward to our patrol grid, should we survive. EE74 is what BDU assigned us. Our target destination lies less than 100 miles from the enemy base at Port Of Spain. Gateway to The Carribean Sea. Traffic wise it's a great grid, but one has to wonder if U64 will ever see Lorient again.

[Theusje]

WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

I just sunk a Revenge class, and I also sunk the HMS Rodney in this carreer. There's actually nothing to be proud of as it's not even 1940, with very lightly escorted convoys and a HUGE target moving at only 6 knots. But still it feels good.

And now I just remade contact with the convoy.

[Rhodes]

Returned from 4th (46 days in the North Atlantic) patrol, from 28DEC42 - 11FEB43.

Four ships sunk, a total of 35900 tons.
3 Failed convoy night attacks;
1 Sucessefuly convoy day (submerge) attack with two ships sunk.

Happy to return to port, the Atlantic is becaming to tough for surface attack...

[ijnfleetadmiral]

22 December 1939:

Tried attacking Scapa Flow. Found Prien's entrance blocked, so tried to come in from W; DD screen too alert, so broke off attack. Then remembered after Royal Oak was sunk, Home Fleet moved to Loch Ewe, so headed for there.

Arrived Loch Ewe and came in from W near coast, dodging EVEN HEAVIER DD screen. Get into harbor to find nothing more than four DDs at anchor or docked. Crew extremely disappointed and CO cursing blue streak at finding nothing more than destroyer nest. Decided to save game and resume from earlier standpoint.

- OLzS Albert Weber, Commanding Officer, U-46

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

What port is fairly easy to attack, and usually yields pretty good results? Anyone got recommendations?

-Matt

[Gryffon300]

Dover's usually good (early war) for a Southhampton and a troopship (plus a small tanker if you are so inclined), then pop across to Calais for a Large (or Modern) Tanker (one is a neutral - can't remember which), plus two or three Medium Merchants. Quite a good outing all round.

[Missing Name]

Originally Posted by ijnfleetadmiral

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

What port is fairly easy to attack, and usually yields pretty good results? Anyone got recommendations?

I like Gibraltar, and later on, Norfolk. Bermuda also might be good, but it's a crapshoot unless you look at the editor files.

[Gryffon300]

U-45, Flot Saltzwedel, Ex Wilhelmshaven, 2nd Patrol
Oberleutnant Johannes Krause (Janning retired due to inability to get to sea for 3rd patrol)

Well away Wilhelmshaven 10:06 21/08/39
Uneventful cruise to BF16. Heavy Channel traffic reported there & on return esp. south of Plymouth.



03/09/39 - At declaration of hostilities, position 50km SE Brighton. Weather perfect (therefore dangerous). 0km wind; 0.5m long, slow swell; visibility unlimited; long twilight. Transiting at 1/3 to conserve fuel (Down to 25%)

• 18:40 - Medium Merchant spotted at long range ENE heading WSW. Submerge and position for stern shot 900m perpendicular to course. All stop.
• 19:05 - 5 mins prior to firing, hydrophone reports high speed warship closing from the E. Moments later, second report, then third. Got position fix, and spotted Southhampton class at high speed (25 knotts?) at extreme range (22km).
• Even though chance of alerting warships to presence, decided to take out Merchant. T1, Impact, Fast successful. Merchant afire came to stop in less than 500m, but did not sink.
• Reloaded tube & maneuvered at 1/3, then Silent, to intercept approaching warship.
• Turned out to be Task force of 2 Southhamptons with 8 escorts transiting with evasive course.
• Detected by northern corner escort, but had already fired tubes 1&2 Impact; Medium at lead Southhampton at 1.5kms, and 3&4 Fast at second. Scored with both first eels (15 seconds late - disappointment turned to joy). Both second eels went UNDER second ship. Aghhh! (Thank you event camera for this information!).
• By now, had already ordered 25m and was awaiting time to order Flank speed, as escort 1 already pinging and on attack run. 3 other escorts joined the party and next few hours were exiting.
• Sustained damage & flooding to three compartments from DCs. Port diesel destroyed. Cancelled Silent order, and ordered full Damage Control team to work. Also manned forward torp room to re-load - we were making noise & exposed anyway.
• As DC's, though not really accurate, were constant, ordered All Stop & allowed flooding to bottom us out.
• 20:56 Southhampton 1 went down
• Escort on attack run, with no bearing change, so coming right down our throats from 90 deg port, when flooding under control. Ordered Blow Balast and Flank to get us off the bottom. Got out from under by the skin of out teeth.
• 6 escorts now engaged. Thankfully Brits not brilliant.
• Took many shots to no avail, till realised torps still running deep, even though set to 3m, then 2m.
• Nabbed A&B with stern tube. Adrift 1 km from Merchant.
• 4 escorts break off. Order Silent.
• V&W circling. Maneuver under drifting merchant (using partly deployed scope to position - plenty of visibility from star shells * & searchlights. Ordered off Silent & had last two eels loaded.
• Positioned alongside merchant & fired at 600m as V&W circled. Again missed deep!
• 22:30 - Set last torp to 1m & fired on next circuit. Success!!
• Headed SW at Standard for 5.5 kms, to place merchant between us & drifting A&B. Surfaced & ordered external stores loaded. Perfect conditions for load.
• Observed ASW trawler appear from N & nose around drifting vessels for an hour or so before departing.

04/09/39

• 02:00 Resumed attack, submerging 2.5kms from vessels & approached A&B from 90deg. Searchlights working & scope under fire at 600m
• 03:38 - shot successful (set at 1m). Yay!
• 03:46 - Surfaced & finished merchant with gun. Yay!
• Took out 2 more merchants that afternoon with gun, while still recharging. (Do you have ANY IDEA how long it takes to recharge with one engine destroyed?)

05, 07 & 08/09

• Medium Merchants with gun on each day up East coast as far as Newcastle

10/09/39

• Weather turning bad - deck gun no longer an option - decide to head home
• 19:10 - AN73 - warship spotted long range
• Submerge - discover C&D class transiting N fast on steady heading
• Think, "What the hell? One eel left. Why not try for it?"
• Set to 1m, medium at 5.3kms and GOT HIM!! How was THAT possible? Lousy lookouts as the torp was popping out all the way! Incredible! Turned out to be a Canadian - guess they aren't taking it too seriously yet.

RTB - 12/09/39 Tired & relieved.