well...

[GoldenRivet]

It has been a little over two months since a torpedo has left any tubes of mine.

My return to work in late august & September proved strenuous and required my attention.

My gaming desires have temporarily turned away from SH3 and more toward first person shooters and combat flight sims - their fast paced action seems to be more suited to what little liesure time i have had to myself recently. but the happy times are returning to my keyboard!

this evening i fired up SH3 and broke out my pencil, plotter and graph paper to see if i still had my touch.

I raised the scope to reveal a troop ship, and marked my first observations on the graph paper... bearing 320 degrees... range 3100 meters.

I started the clock and three minutes ticked by, i raised my scope for another observation on the troop ship... bearing 326 degrees... range 2750 meters. Down the scope went for yet a third time observation. I have had a lot of fresh showers in the past months but there was still salt on my skipper's skin and i wasnt going to be embarassed by a miss!

The scope raised for the 6th minute interval observation; longer that i usually take. Bearing 333 degrees; range to target 2350 meters.

I drew a course line on my graph paper connecting the three observation points, and using my plotter determined that the target had a 55 degree AOB. final range of 2300 meters was put manually into the TDC, i calculated the speed to be somewhere between 5 and 6 knots based on the distance between my first and last observation being about 1000 to 1100 meters and the time to cover the distance was 6 minutes.

I put 6 knots into the TDC and locked in the bearing and AOB and let a shallow spread of 2 fish scream from tubes 2 and 3.

as the tiny cronograph needled approached and eventually passed the red impact hand i glanced down at my graph paper, searching it for mistakes or omissions.















KA-BOOOOOM THUMP!

KA-BOOOOOM THUMP!

My attention was diverted from the graph paper back to the periscope view.

two giesers of water settled around the stern of the troop ship and she settled low in the water. defiant for several minutes, she finally slipped beneath the sea.

"That should save the Wehrmacht a little trouble" i said to myself

I was glad to see that very little rust had collected on my U-boat, my crew and myself during our lengthy hiatus!

[U-96]

Sehr gut Herr Kaleunt.

Beer is on me when you return to port.

The last time I faced a Passenger liner (Obviously a troop ship) I had one G7e torpedo left... I decided on a Keel shot.

Good news is that it hit dead center of it's keel. Bad news is it didn't sink... It just immobilzed it. The weather was too rough for the deck gun, And the hydrophones picked up fast movers nearby. Still it irritates me to this day, that I could not sink that troop ship. I'm glad you've managed that feat.

[andylegate]

Welcome back Herr Kaluent! What a nice way to start the day!