Another update! Sorry about the delay, but I want to keep the campaign well ahead of the AAR to not run out of material even if I update just once a week.
We'll go through a sinking more closely this time.
August 18, 1940Soon 2 days after the latest encounter with the enemy, a lone sound contact is picked up again at 0600 hours. A slow merchantman, eastbound.
It takes 2 hours to get ahead of the target and intercept it. Preferably, the submarine lies submerged to ambush its prey, positioning itself along the target's path well beyond visual range. That is seldom possible nor even needed.
0801, smoke on the horizon! U-35 submerges.
0813: Closer now, the target is more or less identifiable.
That actually is not the type of the ship, but rather what I thought it was.
Again, the Kaleun decides to use a G7a steam torpedo. The 2 electric torpedoes on board will be spared for a possible warship target, or convoys, and are to be shot last.
0818: A single torpedo is launched with impact warhead - the weather is good, target identified(lol!!!). There has been plenty of time to estimate the range accurately with the periscope's stadimeter(target's known mast height is used with the visually estimated angle from waterline to the top of the mast to get the range), the angle-on-bow is just perfect. Yet again we're lacking an accurate speed for the target ship; its simply guessed to be 6 knots.
1 minute and 34 seconds come and go... No hit. The captain gives new values to be input to the torpedo calculator, when finally, 20 seconds overdue, the torpedo goes off:
Uhh... There seems to have been a GROSS underestimation in the range to target, which is thanks to the initial misidentification. Below are the TDC parameters used for the shot:
The explosion was so far aft that there must be just 1 compartment being flooded - perhaps it even hit the rudder, and theres none?
20 minutes after the hit the ship has all but stopped. The Kaleun orders the boat to turn starboard parallel to the freighter's course for a rear torpedo shot.
The values are put into the TDC. "Open tube four!" "Opening tube 4 herr Kaleun!" "Los!" "Nummer vier los herr Kaleun!" - What, isnt rear tube the number 5 and not 4? Yeh, a wasted torpedo. The target is off by more than 90 degrees, and the electric torpedo G7e is a miss.
The rear torpedo is fired, resulting in a hit a bit ahead of where aimed(target slowed down more than was estimated):
As an added insult, well, you can see how much its sunk already. Most likely it'd have gone down any way, so again we wasted 3 torpedoes when 1 would have been sufficient.
The sinking log so far:
The merchant goes down
BOW FIRST, but I still think the second torpedo was unnecessary.
U-35 then remains submerged, listening, until the next dawn. Just before the sunset, the boat briefly surfaces to reload the second externally storaged torpedo, this time the aft one.
Patrol day 16 behind, position circa 100 nm SSW of the SW-most point of Ireland, the U-35 remains on station.
PS. There was actually no mast height difference. I just screw it up with the stadimeter.