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I'm transported into the middle of an Atlantic storm in the midst of a raging battle. Actually, a blow-out as five British war ships are attacking the German battleship Bismark. At first I can't tell which sounds are guns firing and which is lightening cracking on the horizon. My sub is submerged at periscope depth and stationary, so I sit back and try to get a feel for what's going on. The British war ships are huge and menacing, but don't seem to be paying much attention to me. Maybe it's time I create some distance before they do. I set the telegraph to ahead standard and chart a course to give the war ships a wide berth. Once the Bismark
is sunk the war ships steam towards the northeast with I in pursuit.
There's "Crash dive! Hard to port!" I bark. The helmsman acknowledges, an alarm bell sounds and we descend. The destroyer's bow just misses us and steams past! I can see the hulking sixteen inch guns as she passes. Down to 50 meters, the sub creeks and groans. That's deep enough, I level off and check the position of the destroyer. It's making a wide U-turn, pings me a few times and heads back toward the British convoy. I guess one U-boat isn't worth it's time, so it's back to the surface.
Silent Hunter III has a time compression mode that speeds things up when traversing huge ocean distances. I set it to 128 times normal and head for the kitchen to clean up. If, during time compression, a ship comes within range Silent Hunter III automatically reverts back to real time. A few minutes later a watchman whisper shouts, "Ship spotted!" It's a coastal merchant, a slow unarmed ship, but a target nonetheless. I change our heading for an intercept course. It's now 10:30 PM and dark, so I stay on the surface. "He spotted us!" a crewman on the bridge retorts. I guess not dark enough. I dive to periscope depth and check the merchant. He altered course and I change mine for a new intercept. I do everything
by the book, just like I learned in Naval Academy. Position the
sub perpendicular to the "Torpedo impact!" the weapons officer shouts and a spray of water explodes into the air! The merchant ship is fatally wounded. "Woohoo!" an enthusiastic crewman exclaims. Crewman get tired and if not rested they become next to worthless. Torpedoes take forever to reload, watchman become myopic. In all the hullabaloo I forgot to check crew status and, combined with time compression, 80 percent of them are about to drop dead! I do some quick reshuffling and fill up all the empty bunks with dead tired submariners, but some stations are left undermanned.
A few minutes later I glance over and see the stealth meter, which displays how visible your sub is to the enemy, flashing brown to red. Green is undetected, brown is get over here and find out what the hell is out there, red is you'd better do something PDQ! I rush over to the map and try to identify the craft. Whatever it is it's right on top of us, but the icon is something I haven't seen before. All I've encountered so far are ships that have a square icon, but this is triangular. I make a quick 360 degree visual sweep of the ocean and see nothing. Then there's the familiar hum of airplane engines. It's a dive bomber! I crash dive, the plane drops a few bombs in the water, but we sustain no damage. The helmsman breathes a sigh of relief and wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. With another disaster barely avoided, I head back on course toward the England coast. home
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