Hand to hand combat on the high seas. | Forums

[jagtigermk2]

This report says hand to hand combat took place when a Destroyer rammed a U-boat.



The very first salvo from 3-inch guns scored a direct hit on the submarine’s forecastle just forward of the conning tower. Prisoners from U-66 stated that this salvo knocked out their deck gun. Thereupon the commanding officer of U-66 gave the order to abandon ship. This order apparently was not carried out immediately for machine gun fire was still directed against the onrushing BUCKLEY.

At 0422 BUCKLEY ceased fire momentarily. A torpedo wake was reported on the starboard bow and the rudder was put over right full. With the submarine again directly up-moon, fire was resumed by BUCKLEY at 0422. Hits from 20-mm. shells were observed on the U-boat’s conning tower. After which all fire from the submarine ceased, except for intermittent short bursts. Although the U-boat continued to maneuver at about 18 knots, range was closed rapidly. Further gunfire from BUCKLEY caused a fire to break out on the U-boat’s bridge, burning with increasing intensity until snuffed out by a direct 3-inch hit.

At 0428 BUCKLEY rammed U-66 riding up on the forecastle of the U-boat and staying there. Personnel from U-66 clambered up onto BUCKLEY’S forecastle with their hands raised. Several of these men were killed by small arms before it was realized they were surrendering. Hand-to-hand engagements took place but fortunately BUCKLEY’S only casualty was a man who bruised his fist knocking one of the enemy over the side.

At 0430 BUCKLEY backed off to avoid being boarded by too many of the enemy.

U-66 drew ahead rapidly to port maintaining a speed of about 18 knots. Intense fire from BUCKLEY raked the U-boat as range was once more closed at flank speed.

At 0435 the U-boat, still making 18 knots, veered sharply towards BUCKLEY. Attempts were made to steer clear but BUCKLEY was struck a glancing blow and the U-boat rode under the forward engine room. This caused U-66 to roll over to an angle of 600 while she slowly drew off with her bow under BUCKLEY on the starboard side.

By 0436 the U-boat was clear of BUCKLEY. Still making about 15 knots she then disappeared under the surface with the conning tower and forward hatches open and fire blazing from them. At 0439 underwater explosions were heard and U-66 was finally destroyed in position 17.17 N. â€" 32.29 W.

During the next three hours BUCKLEY picked up 36 survivors, including four officers.

http://www.uboatarchive.net/

[Johnny_JG2]

Wow, that was intense. U-66 went down swinging, that's for sure.

[jagtigermk2]

She sure did.

[Dominicrigg]

Shows to all those who think the U-boats take too much gunfire to destroy they are not so right.

That one took one hell of a beating!

[smokincrater]

If your interested in tight naval fights the first battle of Gudecanal(the crappy island the middle of the pacific the japs and the yanks fought over,I can`t spell it properly)had a lot of tight fighting they repaorts of Yank destoryers raking jap battleships.

[reumatiib]

by reading this we can see that U-boat men would never risk their health or lives to man a deck gun in a heavy sea. . .

Yeah - right!

One can see by reading this that only programmers who have seen real combat should be allowed to make War sims.

[ARM505]

Er, then we wouldn't have any sims. That would suck. You might have to compromise on that one.

[Dominicrigg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ARM505:
Er, then we wouldn't have any sims. That would suck. You might have to compromise on that one. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

lol too true

But to the other guy, where did it say there were high seas?

[RoughRaider1]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>One can see by reading this that only programmers who have seen real combat should be allowed to make War sims. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think there are too many 80+ year old WWII vet that are PC game programmers out there. So we will have to live with games made by research. Since the research shows deck guns weren't used in heavey seas, that is why we can't use them. Maybe there were times they were used, but if it was made available in the game to use them in heavey seas, then people would just use them all the time without thought of sea conditions which would not be realistic. Right now rolling around is not modeled in the deck gun from the seas even in light winds. If it was, nobody would even bother using the deckgun in heavey seas anyways because you couldn't hit squat.
I wouldn't mind being able to use the deck gun in heavey seas if rolling around was modeled in the deckgun to make aiming harder and death and injury to the crew from the wash. Maybe court martials as well for unessasarily risking your crew.