GLORIOUS hunting off Florida

[predavolk]

Wow. So it's January 1942, and I've been sent to the Southeastern tip of Florida. There's a deep channel running the length of the state that meets up with the Gulf channel below (often called the Gibraltar of the West due to its Gulf of Mexico connection) and an Atlantic channel to the east. A TON of shipping is passing along these deep channels, primarily tankers! I'm at 78K tons so far, with a few torps left, and all my gun rounds (AWFUL weather ). If you're looking for big tonnage, with dummy destroyers and zero aircover, this beats the heck out of Gibraltar. To the heck with the Brits, this really is Happy Times all over again! All I have to do is sit at periscope depth and listen to them zip up and down all around me!

[rifleman13]

Cavitation Central!
US shipping hunting season has begun!

Good luck, Kaleun!

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

So someone found a new Tanker Alley!! Make way for the new Priates of the Caribbean!!

[predavolk]

Update- after a few days of miserable weather, a failed intercept of a whaling ship because of prop damage (see here for details), and passing on minor ships, I get a longish shot (for me) at a large tanker with one of 3 remaining torps. I miss! I didn't have the speed right, and it may have reacted to the trail of the T1. Darn! But wait, can it be true? Is this tanker crazy enough to be travelling without any deck guns? And after two solid weeks of storms, is the ocean really glass?!? YES!!!

So I surface and sink the ship. A little too eagerly it seems, as I use over 30 rounds on it. Minutes later, a small merchant wanders into the same area and gets the same treatment! It's also unarmed! Twelve hours later, a medium cargo wanders in and also gets the same treatment! Out of caution, I attacked from the front, which was a good thing because it had a gun on its rear. Still, ten rounds and some 30mm send it to the bottom too! So I've hit the 100K mark again, with two torps and 50 rounds of deck gun left. 110K+ anyone? This new tanker alley, totally, totally rocks! It's like Britain in 1940, only more tankers!

[Murr44]

Can you give us the grid reference?

[rifleman13]

KM Grid Reference for the Florida Straits is DM.

This covers the Southern Florida Panhandle, Most of Cuba, Eastern Gulf of Mexico and West of the Bahamas. And the sunny Florida Straits!

Good Hunting, Kaleuns!

Don't forget to bring the sun tan!

[predavolk]

Originally Posted by Murr44

Can you give us the grid reference?

There's multiple grids. Just look for the deep channel just off the southeast coast of Florida. It's literally a pipeline of traffic in early 1942. Ridiculously so. Unescorted, sometimes unarmed traffic. There are sporadic hunter-killer groups of destoyers and patrol boats, but they are easy to avoid. And there's no air cover to speak of. DM98 was my originally assigned grid, but like I said, it's all up and down that channel. And the channel is only 60 km or so wide, so sitting in the middle of it, you can pretty much listen to all the traffic go by if you're submerged. Final total of that patrol = 124K tons. And that includes a few missed shots.

[R1fl3M4n]

nice1 ...i already have 81000tons and im only on my 6 patrol ...

[Brag]

Put the pressure on those tankers we need that to win the war

[BasilY]

Had some happy hunting there in my VIIB late 1942 (refuelled from 461). Just wonder how long it will last...

[papa_smurf]

As soon as th USA enters the war, and I get a type IX/C, I'll be there sinking tankers

[Tool]

I want to go to Florida.. but alas it is only March of 41.

Tool.

[predavolk]

I've found another tanker alley off the Americas that might be even more productive, although the defenses are definitely tougher. More to come when (if!) I finish my patrol.

[predavolk]

Well, here's the info. June/July 1942, I sank 18, yes 18 ships, in a radius of 30km! Where you might ask? The north entrance to Trinidad, near Port-of-Spain. It's a small channel that funnels an INCREDIBLE amount of traffic, much of it American tankers (a lot of neutral tankers too- Venezuela, who turn Ally late in the war). Including two ships sunk at nearby Barbados (Bridgetown is THE best harbor to raid- incredibly deep ALL the way in!!!), my total for the trip was 118K.

I got a lot of deck gun kills (4-5 I think), 6 tankers, 2 warships, and 12 cargo ships (mostly smaller ships, some liberties) in my IXB. The surface opposition was very light, consisting primarily of patrolling single destroyers (15% of the time), single antisub trawlers (15% of the time), and twin torpedo boats (70% of the time). Ironically, I saw a stationary trawler and went in to take it out with a close-range torpedo shot. For some reason (I got too close??), it heard me and started pinging like mad. It caught me off guard, ruined my shot, and forced me to surface and engage it with my flak guns. It was too shallow to dodge depth charges, and too maneuverable to torpedo. My twin 20mm took care of it fairly quickly, but not before it killed 6 of my men, including an experienced flak crewman, and my watch officer who had every medal but the purple heart.

But that was my own stupidity and arrogance. I should've left it or taken a longer shot. I was able to easily slip in and out of Barbados twice, under the nose of two trawlers (took out a big destroyer first time, modern tanker second time, both British). The MOST DANGEROUS hazard was easily the airplanes. I had to crash dive perhaps twelve times, was bombed almost every time, and was strafed a couple of times. By mid-cruise I would not surface without my decks awash. I think they were fighters, they often came in pairs, but no matter what they were they came screaming in- even at night, so I suspect radar. Once after I sent a patrol report, sometimes out of the blue, quite often after (or during) an attack on surface ships, so it was risky every which way.

I bragged a bit in my 100K Club thread about how this was my 3rd 100K+ patrol, but upon reaching home, it was closer than I thought. Between the pounding the little trawler gave me, close misses and strafings from airplanes, and the odd hits I took in my gun engagements (freakin' Liberty ships have an 88, a 100, and two 20's!), I ended up with 6 dead and about 35% hull integrity- my lowest ever!

The good news is that I didn't need to test it, or my new decoy capabilities (that were destroyed by the trawler!). The surface defenses were very, very soft. I was depth charged twice I think, otherwise I wasn't even detected while operating within sight of the coast. But man, those airplanes are going to be the death of me. I hope it's just that they have radar, otherwise they really are every where! Thank goodness I now have some radar detecting capability installed before my next trip!

Any how, it looks like this is a real gem of an area in mid-1942, so long as you are very respectful of the local airpower. Lots of British and US targets to be had in single, unescorted ships, and double, unescorted ships (I only saw one small convoy my whole time there, and couldn't reach it). Happy Hunting!

[Schwuppes]

Congrats on your sucesses Herr Kaleun! With this relentless fighting spirit we will bring them to their knees!

Oh, would you mind providing grid numbers to where exactly these hotspots are?