U-51 lying on the bottom das boot style.

[Viduka]

After having patrolled my allocated patrol grid DH44 down past spain for 24 hours, I headed back up towards the channel, stopping in at a friendly port near Spain for some milkcow goodness.

Took some time to take in the dolphins (first time i'd ever seen them!) and started back out of port towards the English channel with a full rack of torps and a fresh, eager crew.

Just after entering the south west mouth of the channel, a convoy was reported to me. My 2nd ever only. I made my way into position, albeit a bit late and while although I was at a good 90 degree angle to fire, I was around about 5 kms square away of the convoy itself.

Ideally, I wanted to be within 1km or 500m but as they were all passing in front of me, that would have to do!

I set up my crew ready in the front torpedo bay, so they could start reloading as soon as i'd fired my first one. All tubes ordered open and FIRE at one of the straggling cargo ships (I'd let most of the convoy pass by as I wanted to delay firing so I could get as close as possible).

So, tube one FIRE, straight away manual targeting off so the scope updates my angle of bow automatically. Re-aiming - Tubes 2,3 and 4 fire!

End result, 1 larger cargo sunk with 2 torps, 1 other torp seemed to have detonated early and another must've missed altogether.

4 torps, 1 boat down and a big ass destroyer coming towards me looking for some revenge!

Depth charges go off and straight away he was right on the mark, multiple damage reports and I quickly sent the repair crew into action.

A 2nd round of charges and U-51 was taking a pounding. In all the commotion, i'd failed to realise that my dive planes had been damaged. It's pointed out to me slightly after by the large CLUNK and SCRAPE of hitting the bottom of the English channel - 72m down.

I tried to get the boat back off the bottom but she wouldn't budge. We had flooding and right then I was a sitting duck.

More depth charges and it seemed my batteries were either flat and/or damaged badly. I was unable to climb off the bottom of the ocean so I started with the ballast blowing.

Once, twice, nothing.

Finally, after giving the order to surface (instead of ordering periscope depth) and blowing ballast one more time, she started to rise. A big scrape and clunk and I was heading back up towards the surface.

All throughout, I was being tracked, pinged and depth charged. Damage was happening faster than I could repair it and I decided to dive back down a bit as I had almost surfaced (not what I had in mind with a destroyer hunting me).

So back down I went to about 20m, but despite my orders the ship was still sinking. It seemed that despite my repairs being all but complete, any order I gave to take her down was causing the boot to dive uncontrollably to the bottom, but I had not exactly realised this was what was going on - just yet.

Another big clunk and scraping metal sounds - I was back on the Channel floor 72m down. I repeated the process of getting back up, blowing ballast, ordering to surface but once again I couldn't stablise her and before I really DID surface I had to give the order to dive once again.

I had finally figured out what was going on. Any order of sending the boot to a lower depth effectively meant going right to the bottom. So back down to 72m I went, still being pinged and depth charged.

I tried to lay silent and optimistically hoped the destroyer would go away. He didn't - and I was left with the choice of just sitting there and waiting to die or trying to surface once again and hope maybe that I could control my depth.

I blew ballast and gave the order to surface. Nothing. Blew ballast and ordered to surface again and still she wouldn't budge.

My compressed air was getting low - I started blowing ballast mutliple times and trying to surface but she wouldn't rise. I was still being depth charged and members of my crew were starting to dwindle in numbers as they became injured or died.

"We're out of compressed air herr kaluen!".

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So that's where U-51 sits. It was 4.30am real time and I needed to save and get to bed so I could get some sleep before work the next day (I had a late start that day thankfully).

Tonite, when I get home I will load up the save again but i'm not sure there's any point. No compressed air, batteries are flat, stuck on the bottom of the English Channel at 72m waiting for depth charges to drop on me And this was my final patrol before i'd finally have enough reknown to upgrade to a type IX for the first time.

Looks like i'm dead and DiD. Back to 1939 in the 2nd flotilla to start all over again.

Such a fantastic adventure and testament as to why I love and hate this game. I had to share it .

Hope you enjoyed (what looks like the end of) U-51's final voyage.