U-161 (Type IXC) departs Lorient on the evening of 1st March 1941, for a patrol off the coast of West Africa. The off-duty crew line the decks as the sound of the band on the quayside fades, to replaced by the rumble of our diesels and the screeches of the seagulls.



We turn to starboard to fall in astern of our minesweeper escort...



...and slide past a pair of floating docks and their customers. Offshore lies a half-sunken ship marked by with a flashing red buoy.



The minesweeper leads us past the recently-built U-boat pens.



One of the bridge watch spots an aircraft off the starboard quarter. Air cover at this time of the day seems unlikely. Next thing I know, the sounds of air raid sirens are heard from the port. The flak starts firing and the beams of many searchlights start to sweep the skies. Air raid!



I order our flak gun manned and watch anxiously astern. The waters here are much too shallow to submerge. First one and then another four-engined enemy bomber is shot down. The flak ceases and one by one, the searchlights go out. All I can see is what's left of the flak bursts hanging in the air.



Except, they're not flak bursts. Through my binoculars, I can see that they're the parachutes of the crews of the fallen bombers!



My flak gunner closely watches their descent, but there's nothing else for him to do, thank goodness.



Stand down from air defence stations! Out of the swept channel we go, behind our escort.



Astern, Lorient is peaceful again.



The only further excitement is the passing traffic - another U-boat and a hilfskreuzer disguised raider making their way into port.



Soon we're on our own and into open seas. Daylight finds us making good time in clear weather across the bay of Biscay.



As far as I know, port traffic and possibly air raids on ports don't feature in stock Silent Hunter III, so this evening's activities are a good example of the extra immersion that comes with a good mega-mod - in my case, Grey Wolves Expansion Onealex Edition - highly recommended, get it here (d/l link in video description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhL1C-WDRWA

Cool, never saw a level bombing attack and the base AA responding. Back then I played the GWX mod, don`t know if this already implemented.

I'm not sure but I don't recall air raids in GWX before I moved to the Onealex version. Anyway, despite the raid we made it out into the Atlantic!

Nice report 33lima and some beautiful pictures mucker! Keep up the good work as it would be nice to see this mission all the way through in this thread.

S!Blade<><

Excellent. Loved all the details at port and the fact that the mod has made things more livelier. I hope to try the mod sometime.

Well, we've had an eventful few days off the coast of Portugal, well short of our patrol area. In stormy conditions, we diverted to intercept two small fast convoys reported nearby.

We managed to make contact with both convoys. The first one was three merchantmen with a 4-stack lend-lease destroyer in the lead. Somehow as he zig-zagged, he detected us submerged and while on his beam, when I thought we were well outside both the range and the pattern of his ASDIC. I was caught completely by surprise and wasted two torpedoes in an effort to put him off his attack run, when I realised he was going for us. Despite not being very deep when they burst, we survived the depth charging with no damage and after one more attack, he returned to his convoy. By this time the convoy was steaming away and I while I surfaced when at the limit of visibility and tried to hook around them, I lost contact. I would have had to shadow them till the weather improved in any event, as torpedoes, unreliable at the best of times, are wasted if fired in a heavy sea state.

Conditions had improved slightly when we sighted the second, slightly larger convoy.



I decided to attack submerged without waiting for the winds to drop any further. But again, an escort located us and I missed with the two eels I fired at him before going deep. I may have put him off, for his depth charges also went wide. We crept away on silent running, then surfaced to hook around the convoy while keeping it on the horizon.



But visibility worsened and we lost sight of the ships. We raced ahead to a calculated interception point then submerged to listen for them on the hydrophones. Nothing! They must have changed course. Nothing else for it, U-161 set course again to the south, to our assigned patrol area.

On 16th March, we finally reached our assigned patrol area off the Vichy French port of Dakar. For days, we rumble back and forth in fine conditions, but the seas and skies remain empty.



Eventually tiring of this, we sail south-east and start patrolling instead off the major enemy port at Freetown. Here, the weather is also clear and calm.



But it's not long before a pair of Whitley bombers come up astern of us.



Alarm!!!



They both bomb us on their first pass, but somehow, we avoid damage.



An hour later and after a hydrophone check which reveals no nearby shipping, we come back up to the surface.



We don't get much further before two Catalina flying boats come straight at us from starboard.



Again we are savagely bombed. But again, we get away with it.



This time when it's safe to surface again, I decide to change course westwards, out to sea. The further away U-161 gets from land, the less trouble I reckon we'll get, from the air!

Back on the surface, we continue westwards, away from the coast. The bridge watch remains vigilant, or course.



Which is just as well, for our next visitors are not long in arriving - a pair of Hudsons, coming in from the starboard quarter.



Down into the cellar we go again!



We're machine-gunned and bombed. But the lookouts spotted the enemy far enough out to enable us to get deep enough to avoid damage.



About 45 minutes later, after a hydrophone sweep as well as the obligatory sweep with the sky periscope, up we come again.



Running again on the surface, it's obvious the sea conditions are ideal for us to bring some of the torpedoes stored under the deck casing into the boat. We have four empty spaces from the eels we largely wasted on the attacking escorts.



But we can't submerge while doing so. And there's no way I'm going to risk being caught on the surface by these seemingly ever-present aircraft. So on we go. The further from land we are, the less we'll see of them...I hope...

So your 'Happy Time' is over, eh?

Still waiting for it to start!

I have in the meantime assembled a small mod to the airbase files in the data/Land folder which (if my research is right) will reduce A/S aircraft patrols to 1 rather than the unrealistic 2 I'm seeing nearly every time. If the mod works, it might increase my survival chances, if not the number of attacks! Have to wait till the patrol is over and in between patrols in port, before enabling, to avoid problems loading mission saves.

It seems no time before were forced down again by aircraft - two more Whitleys this time.



We escape damage in the attacks which follow, but as we're diving, my trusty hydrophone operator...



...reports a sound contact, off our starboard beam - a warship.



I turn U-161 in that direction and as soon as I think it's safe, come up for a sweep with the periscope. I can see nothing so surface and race towards the contact. I don't particularly want to run into a solitary destroyer or escort vessel, which would be rather fast to overhaul in any event. I'm hoping the warship might be a sweeper for a convoy, which I would have a decent chance of catching.



The chase proves fruitless and I resume my course away from land.





Darkness begins to fall, thank goodness. Anything to stop or reduce these incessant air attacks!

The stars appear and we slink away into the gathering darkness (wasn't that the title of one of the volumes of Winston Churchill's WW2 history?).



On through the night we go, but even before daybreak, our peace is once more shattered from the air.



This time it's REALLY serious. The Hudson must have been radar equipped. And/or the lookouts had dozed off, for the aircraft was upon us before we'd got below the surface.



My home-made mod is apparently working as there was just one Hudson not two, but one was enough. U-161 is violently rocked by the detonations.



Rocked...and damaged!



I put a hastily-assembled repair crew onto work in the diesel room, as it's steadily flooding.



It's at that point that I notice from reports and the depth gauges that the boat is falling away rapidly. I give the order for an emergency blow of the ballast.

The depth keeps on increasing. A second ballast blow doesn't even slow us down. Seconds later, it's all over. U-161 is lost with all hands off the coast of west Africa.

But not quite. For some reason, when next loading SH3, my captain and crew are recorded in SH3 Commander and SH3 as still available, and an earlier saved mission loads successfully. U-161 lines again!



I'm not sure whether I'll just start a fresh career, since I was nailed fair and square. Besides, I messed up the realism settings somewhere and had unlimited fuel and fast reload times. I reckon I'll let U161 lie where she rests on the virtual seabed. Maybe I should try Silent Hunter 4 this time; I've recently got the Op Monsun Far East U-Boat add-on and the Dark Waters mod...



... which allows the Battle of the Atlantic campaign to be played too, including in the Type IX.





SH3 modded would be a very hard act to follow, though.

From a Silent Hunter to a silent grave just like that. Sorry to here of your boat finding the bottom. I was looking forward to reading of some of your crew's tactics while hunting their prey. Hopefully you will recruit a new crew, christen a new boat and receive orders soon Sir.

S!Blade<><

Already up and running with that BM, and have so far managed to avoid a watery grave: https://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4577063/surviving-ww2-in-a-u-boat#Post4577063



Next best thing to this:

Heil und seig!



Alaaarm!



Klarmachen zum tauchen!