So there I am, sitting pretty, one Hunt I class destroyer about 4500 meters 
away, its partner on the opposite end about 6500 meters away.

Water nice and deep, batteries fully charged, 0415. Sea state calm, and a 
juicy, fat convoy spread out over the entire horizon, heading more or less 
my way.

Wohlauf kameraden! (What does that mean, anyway?)

Turn left 90 degrees, flank speed, and dive hard and deep to about 125 
meters. Nice, deeply buried under the layer, no ASDIC able to reach the boat 
except for a little tickle at 90 meters. Lean over the hydrophone operator's 
shoulder... yep, they're still coming toward me, DD's nice and slow, 
apparently drifting for a listen.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait some more. 7 knots is slow when you know each breath you take may be 
one of the last you ever can.

Convoy drifting closer, spreading around the scope, clearly I'm getting in 
among them. It is virtually impossible to detect distance though.

Ok, so I wait until the sounds are spread around about 110 degrees of arc. 
I've GOT to be in among them now.

BATTLESTATIONS!

Manning the torpedo room I come up to periscope depth, catching some nasty 
ASDIC from 40 meters on up, destroyer coming up rapidly from astern, running 
down the trace. Raise the scope... CRAP! I'm too close!

Big juicy C3 Cargo ship, but it is only 280 meters away. My G7a's won't arm 
until they've done 300 odd meters.

Turn the scope, ahh! Another ship just behind it. Fire...

DAMN DAMN DAMN - I forgot to turn the entire SUBMARINE. ^@@^#@@##@$!@#!!!!!!

Another 45 minute approach crawl wasted.

Its quite wonderful just HOW good Silent Hunter III can be - and how well it 
simulates the pressure of combat, and how ACCURATE it is... something as 
simple as remembering you've got unguided torps that run in whatever 
direction you point the nose, gets hard to remember when you've "feel" that 
destroyer charging down your neck at about 60 km/h, everybody is shooting at 
your periscope, and you frantically try to fire off your torps and go hide 
in the cellar again.

And few things as bone-chilling as the fright of that first, quiet little 
ASDIC "ping" hitting the boat in shallow water.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

Post a reply to this message