The Perfect Storm

[Blacklight]

We left Wilhemshaven early in the morning of September 1, 1939 and the weather was the most cheerful weather that could possibly be had. As we made our way out into the ocean, the crew had set up their folding chairs on the decks. They were sunning themselves, fishing, and playing vollyball and badmitton. The ocean waters were as smooth as the surface of a mirror as we approaced the streach of ocean between the Orkney's and Shetland. We even managed to sink SEVEN ships as we passed between the two large islands (six merchants and one C&C class warship). All in all, just going through there, we had racked up 23294 tons (A personal reccord !!)

Many days later, we reached our patrol area west of Spain and patrolled there for twenty four hours. Finding nothing and concerned about the ammount of fuel left (BDU had really pushed this sub to it's maximum distance for fuel usage), we turned and headed north again. What followed was several more days of beautiful weather, fishing, and vollyball tournaments.... then, as we approached west of Scotland... all hell broke loose.

The wind hit us like the force of God. We were assailed by sideways rain. The waves grew to towering heights. When driving on the surface, the Uboat became a terrifying roller coaster ride. It was very hard to make headway at all on the surface. Every time the Uboat would go over the top of a wave, it would plunge down the other side and slam into the bottom of the troth and end up underwater. Therefore, charging batteries was slow and painstaking. Not only that, but the wind was so fierce that it was actually blowing the Uboat westward as it tried to push it's little insignificant way north.

For days we fought the forces of nature when by chance, we ran into a northward bound convoy moving the exact same course that we were traveling. We shadowed them and occasionally were able to get into visual range (I use the term "visual" very loosely). It was a small convoy of merchants being escorted by a couple of Flowers and a larger warship. Apparently though.. the convoy was having just as bad a time with the weather as we were having.. if not worse.

We came upon our first wreck the next evening when we surfaced. It was a merchant half sticking out of the water on it's way down. Then.. a few hours later.. another merchant bobbing tail up in the huge waves. After catching up to the convoy enough to hit the "." key so I could see them, I saw that they were on their last leg. The remainder of the merchants were bobbing along tipped mostly on their sides, still struggling to remain afloat. As I skipped the camera around to look at each ship, I beheld the coolest sight I have ever seen in this game.

I skipped to the larger warship. It was having a really rough go in the waves when suddenly, HUGE wave hit it from the side. I watched the ship pitch over and flip like in the Posidon Adventure. That must have been ONE HELL of a wave !!!

The weather from Hell continued until I lost track of the convoy near Shetland. By that time, they were only one merchant and two warships barely bobbing along. I don't know if they ever made it to their destination but kudos to them ! Pretty much the entire convoy was on the bottom of the sea !

Of course it didn't occur to me to take screenshots of any of this until I though about it later !

Anyway.. as my boat and the convoy parted ways (and transmitting my last contact report to BDU), SHIII decides to stop and pop up a window that says "Silent Hunter III.exe needs to close. All data will be lost.. etc..etc.. " You know that window. I cursed !

I then restarted SHIII. Every time I would reload any of my mission saves.. SHIII would crash !!!

I uninstalled and reinstalled everything... and still it would crash whenever I loaded a saved game !!!!

Finally, after some playing around, I found a file that loads.. and guess what.. It's right before I discovered that convoy. Every save I made after that convoy was discovered was corrupt. So now, I've timewarped back into the beginning of The Perfect Storm and am going to get that seccond chance to watch the weather dismantle the convoy again. If I'm able to this time around, maybe I'll get some screengrabs. I'm really hoping to get a grab of one of the corvettes flipping over after getting hit broadside !!!!

[flag4]

at least you have weather.

i have lost everything with sh3 weather mod.

scraped my patrol, my carrer, with good and growing crew - and am now setting out again in '39 minus sh3 weather mod, and hopefully, the fear of plumetting to the bottom at a 128 kts every time i try to load saved game....blluurrrr.

it's so annoying, though i would have loved to see those WAVES of yours !!

hope all returns to normal for you...



oh, and losing my salami's is not funny...!


http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=126067


not so funny now: wweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ee !!

[panzer 49th]

Yeah that bad weather thingy has happened to me before it is so annoying (I was in a IIA) i moved across the ocean at a blistering speed of 4 knots and i found a PT boat it lasted 4 seconds then sank on its own:rotfl: then i found a destroyer it lasted 15 seconds then sank on its own.

Anyway it is so annoying trying to moove in that kind of weather.

[Blacklight]

at least you have weather.

i have lost everything with sh3 weather mod.

I wasn't even using a weather mod. I was just using the latest GWX with the Torpedo Damage mod and the Stay Alert Crew mod and that was it. It's one hell of a storm and I get to ride it out all over again (And hopefully get some pics of the doomed convoy if I can manage to run into it again.) Being that I'm a sci-fi nerd, I'm going to have to go with the theory that the storm triggered some kind of time/space anomoly and transported us back in time to before we encountered the convoy (Maybe something like what happened to that aircraft carrier in the movie "The Final Countdown").:hmm:

[Oberon]

Came across a Large Merchant which was half sunk, strangest thing was...this was in calmish waters...



Never one to pass up an opportunity, I helped her on her way with my deck gun, got the tonnage for it, and continued on with my patrol, stopping only to ram my bow into an uncharted seamount in the Clyde.

[Checkmate King 2]

Originally Posted by Oberon

...... stopping only to ram my bow into an uncharted seamount in the Clyde.

What's a seamount? Is that like a reef?

[Oberon]

More like an underwater hill or mountain.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Checkmate King 2

What's a seamount? Is that like a reef?

I have had some torpedoes blow up on those things before.

[U49]

Originally Posted by flag4

scraped my patrol, my carrer, with good and growing crew - and am now setting out again in '39 minus sh3 weather mod, and hopefully, the fear of plumetting to the bottom at a 128 kts every time i try to load saved game....blluurrrr.

It's the old thing that the camapign cfg files must never contain a windspeed setting of 0.. Anything else will be fine