UBOAT 16: Finding Needle in Convoy Haystack (2 ships sunk)
1Welcome to ANOTHER series of videos from @CaptChang Presents... UBOAT! I've actually owned UBOAT since its early access days, but never really tried it. Now that it's left early access, it's time to give it a try!
01/08/2025
Our assignment was another simple "tonnage war" patrol. But it's NEVER that simple...
00:00 Start
It's now April of 1940, and we picked "tonnage war: AN15-AN46" as our assignment. We made sure we got enough supplies, and started our journey through the Kiel Canal.
04:48 Reached patrol sector
We got a tip from another Uboat about a convoy to our south. Then we got a priority mission from BdU that we need to chase down a convoy heading to Norway, and sink a specific ship called Empire Lorenzo, which may contain a prototype something.
This convoy is fast, 15 kt or faster, and we had to put engineer on the diesel and 2 extra guys to enable flank speed to overtake the convoy to even make interception possible.
06:49 Convoy intercepted
However, we intercepted the convoy's flank guard... a corvette. We need to turn right and get AHEAD of convoy, as we can't get closer to identify the ships.
10:48 Inside the convoy
This convoy is huge... almost two dozen ships, 2 cruisers in the middle, plus destroyer and corvette... But where is that darn Empire Lorenzo? We got Empire this and Empire that, just not Empire Lorenzo...
11:21 It's not in the middle
We went through the middle of the convoy and Empire Lorenzo is NOT in the middle, and we IDed most of the ships in the convoy. There are a few in the right-front corner that we didn't ID. But I am fast running out of fuel doing all these flank dashes. We have no choice but to simply shoot those we didn't ID... So, one last flank dash...
13:20 Shoot the unknown...
2 torpedoes fired, 1 hit. Lucky me, that happened to be the Empire Lorenzo. We dived deep as the corvette immediately turned around followed by the destroyer. We came back to periscope depth and put a torpedo into another freighter, the Empire Miniver.
The torpedo we put into the Empire Lorenzo did not sink her. She's stern down, but not sunk. The crew had abandoned ship.
The escorts couldn't find us as they searched south-southeast. We ducked around the Empire Lorenzo, and watched the escorts search fruitlessly. I tried to send a boarding party to the Empire Lorenzo, but seems our crew was too tired, as only the two radiomen are not fatigued. I turned off alarm, sat at periscope depth, and rested for a few hours. In the meanwhile, we checked the lifeboarts and invited the 2 officers and 4 crew onboard as guests.
22:36 Boarding Party Ready
We sent over the boarding party when it was dark, and the crew checked the cargo hold left and right, captain's cabin, deckhouse... All they found were medical supplies. The engineer then scuttled the ship, and we went home to Kiel.
24:44 Back home...
We scored almost 9000 GRT of shipping, which is enough for Tonnage War II, with the next goal to be 100K GRT (and we're over 57K done). We got the improved hydrophone project started at HQ (needed radiomen and 3 rep). We used another rep to recon another British port. We resupplied at the warehouse, and released the guests to our crew liaison officer. We then went to our BdU liaison. We're being transferred back to Wilhelmshaven... We will do the transit...
...In the next episode.
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I actually haven't played a WW2 sub sim for a VERY long time. Last one I've played was Sid Meier's Silent Service (the original, not II). Yes, it's been that long. I actually never played the Silent Hunter series either. This would be an interesting experience as I tend to play more "modern" sub sims.
I'll take it easy on myself and go with the "entertaining" setting instead of hardcore.
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Buy me a book or coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kschang775
Check out my entire PC gaming channel at @captchang
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