S boat loses..pic heavy

[Armistead]

Someone wanted to know how to attack one of the large invasion forces in RSRD at Lingayen Gulf, so I thought I would do an attack and show him.
LOL...

I forgot I had added some subkillers patrolling Lingayen, so in an old S boat without radar I go in at high TC....BAM.......escort saw me and scored a hit before I got TC down. Didn't get a SS of the hit, but he got one good
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_195627_156.jpg

My stern engine room was flooded, the sub took a terrible down stern angle, maybe worse one I've had. The escort was still far, but coming.. If I used any speed, because of the angle, I just popped up out of the water.

At 1/3, I was able to hold it still, but wasn't going anywhere. Only way to gain some depth was to cut engines and in seconds I was heading to the bottom at 7kts before I could use tactics to pull out of the dive...Seems all I could do is bob up and down with my nose almost out of the water.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_200919_375.jpg

Escort came on , actually rammed my nose doing damage to himself and dropped a pattern.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_201304_390.jpg

Since he had only bow guns I blew tanks and came up behind him and started shooting, keeping my nose to his stern. After several rounds he sunk, never got a shot off.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_202306_093.jpg

So we escaped that one, but stern engine bulkhead destroyed, using Trav's mod, so it's for good.

I then notice smoke on the horizon, guess this is another one I added and his buddy had called in, He was coming full speed.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_202510_312.jpg

I had some distance, so I turned south away, making 8kts best speed due to damage with battery charge off. I hadn't got far when I saw flashes....with my mod setup your lucky to survive one shell, two is bad, but he scored before I could get under, not as bad, mostly deck damge on that last shot. You can barely see escorts smoke on the horizon, left to the sunk ship smoke, about 5nms away.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_203127_453.jpg



So I'm back to bobbing like a cork being teased by a well fed fish...can't get anywhere. I would cut speed to dive down, blow tanks, flank to pull out, but the S boat rockets in either direction. However, getting careless I let my boat get out of control, waited a lil too long to pull out, did all I could to save her, but she hit speeds of 12 kts going down, I couldn't pull
out...

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_203705_000.jpg

As we were headed to the depths, my Exec Wernher looked at me with one last word of encouragement.

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2011-04-10_140209_693-1.jpg


Anyway, the lesson I wanted to teach the fellow was, be careful about using high TC without surface radar, moreso if you place elite killers around.

[Ruff EL]

LMAO!!! especially that last screenshot!!

i have never seen an angle like that either, i cant beleive u got her up ONCE. Almost nice work hehe....on a side note, even if u survived, that would be one long ass ride back to surabuya with that damage

[Hinrich Schwab]

Yep, Time Compression is like METOX; it WILL get you killed. :damn:

Taking that S-boat out into a hornet's nest was a real gamble, too. You definitely get kudos for returning the stern shot on the first sub hunter.

[MKalafatas]

LOL. (I'm a noob but...) Best.Thread.Ever!

It is somewhat reassuring to know that the "old hands" are occasionally mortal. Incredible escape in round one. Heroic, Medal-of-Honor stuff.

And massive kudos to you for publicizing this encounter. My own approach is simply to forget as quickly as possible. :-)

[Hylander_1314]

Honestly, even with radar, set your stopwatch in the corner. when at high TC, the stopwatch will either start running jerky, or will momentarily pause. So you have time to drop out of TC and scope out what's goin' on.

[Armistead]

Honestly, even with radar, set your stopwatch in the corner. when at high TC, the stopwatch will either start running jerky, or will momentarily pause. So you have time to drop out of TC and scope out what's goin' on.

That works good when the groups is big enough to place enough burden on your PC so it lags a lil, doesn't work so good with singles, but yea you can easily tell if something is near you that way if it lags you.

[Rockin Robbins]

Wow! That was a great sequence. Thanks for swallowing your pride and sharing that with us. I'm amazed that you survived as long as you did. Great job of not giving up and gaining some control of your destiny.

[Armistead]

Wow! That was a great sequence. Thanks for swallowing your pride and sharing that with us. I'm amazed that you survived as long as you did. Great job of not giving up and gaining some control of your destiny.


Oh heck, I die all the time, I have my subs tweaked very fragile and added way too many elite escorts to RSRD....

Just try getting through the Lombak strait....muhahaha.....

[TorpX]

So, you're saying that gun duels with Elite sub-killers isn't a good idea? :hmmm:

[Carthaginian]

Heck of a story.
At least it's not as embarrassing my first Sugar boat loss...
Didn't realize my rudder was jammed hard over (and wasn't showing up as damaged on the display) after a depth charge attack.
Then I ramped up the TC to try and get back to Australia.

I just rammed Sumatra, nothing major.

[Armistead]

So, you're saying that gun duels with Elite sub-killers isn't a good idea? :hmmm:



Haha, wasn't a duel, it was an ambush in which I ran and got shot in the back.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Now that's what I call "gettin' skinny".:D
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2004-02-16_200919_375.jpg

[7499275]

I can not see how you brought her out of that steep angle, even getting it back up and knocking a escort out and then getting away for some distance before a DD came and knocked on your door.

I am amazed good sir!

[Loudspeaker]

Best photo story ever!

[Armistead]

Best photo story ever!

Hehe, I've got some good ones, usually I post all my stories at Ubi forum, think first time here, but most of my stories revolve around my stupid exec........Wernher Von Trapp.....He's ruined many a good sub.

[TorpX]

Haha, wasn't a duel, it was an ambush in which I ran and got shot in the back.

Yeah, I was just kidding you there. Actually, considering the frightfull angle the sub was at, you did pretty well.


I had a VERY short career in SH 3 once.

I took my type II boat under for a test dive (the first).

I figured a German boat can go a lot deeper than US boats.

I figured there would be plenty of warnings before I reached crush depth.

I figured wrong. :dead:

[RedTerex]

Yeah, I was just kidding you there. Actually, considering the frightfull angle the sub was at, you did pretty well.


I had a VERY short career in SH 3 once.

I took my type II boat under for a test dive (the first).

I figured a German boat can go a lot deeper than US boats.

I figured there would be plenty of warnings before I reached crush depth.

I figured wrong. :dead:


Same thing happened for real to the USS Thresher on April 10th 1963 a new US Sub went out with full compliment of crew. It signalled that first dive was to commence and that was it!...was never seen or heard of again.

It is thought it went past test depth and just kept going, unable to stop, in water that was deep....very deep at over 8400 feet!

[doulos05]

Same thing happened for real to the USS Thresher on April 10th 1963 a new US Sub went out with full compliment of crew. It signalled that first dive was to commence and that was it!...was never seen or heard of again.

It is thought it went past test depth and just kept going, unable to stop, in water that was deep....very deep at over 8400 feet!

Well, there is some evidence to suggest there may have been a loss of propulsion due to maintenance failures on the nuclear reactor, but yes.

Undamaged Nuclear subs, unlike fleet boats, generally can't surface simply by blowing ballast, even an emergency blow of ballast. Propulsive power is basically a requirement for maintaining and changing depth in a nuclear submarine.

[RedTerex]

Well, there is some evidence to suggest there may have been a loss of propulsion due to maintenance failures on the nuclear reactor, but yes.

Undamaged Nuclear subs, unlike fleet boats, generally can't surface simply by blowing ballast, even an emergency blow of ballast. Propulsive power is basically a requirement for maintaining and changing depth in a nuclear submarine.

Thats very interesting, thanks for the heads-up. I would have thought that blowing ballast would have been enough to raise a sub of any description, what with all that air going in and expelling the "heavy" water out.

I suppose that with all the high tech stuff it corrupts the simplistic basics. Its gotta be like the engine of a 1970's car, lift the hood and we see...block, plugs, carb, basic wiring and thats it...just look under the hood today and you cant even see the engine through all the crap in there...so yep point taken.

[twm47099]

Back in the 1980's we had a visit from Capt Ed Beach (ret) at work. Besides serving in WWII subs and writing the RSRD series of books he had been the CO of the USS Triton when she made the first submerged voyage around the world. (The only time they surfaced was to have a sick crewman airlifted off.)

One of the topics he discussed during his talk was his impressions on the causes of the loss of USS Thresher.

Thresher was on its test dive after completing her Post Shakedown Availability when she was loss.

Based on what he knew of the subs and operating procedures of the time, along with the available voice and sonar recordings, he believed the following occurred.

Ship was negatively buoyant. But as she went deeper the negative bouyancy increased as the hull contracted. It appeared that was not adjusted as she went deeper. At test depth there was a report of a water leak. It was surmised that a sil-brazed seawater piping joint leaked and sprayed high pressure water on some electrical panel.

That scrammed the reactor, and they lost propulsion.

At that point they had to rely on battery power to either pump ballast to regain positive buoyancy or to restart the reactor. IIRRC they tried pumping because the time needed to regain propulsion would have exceeded the time they had before they would have reached collapse depth. However, at depth the pumping was too slow and rapidly depleted the battery.

There were sounds of high pressure air blowing (emergency ballast blow - EBB), but it cut off after only a couple of seconds. After a while the sound was heard again, but again it cut off quickly. Then contact was lost.

Capt. Beach believed that the EBB sounds were due to moisture in the air line freezing and plugging the line at the EBB valve. Back then the EBB valve was located outside the P hull and was surrounded by the cold seawater. High velocity air passing through the constrictions in the EBB valve would drop further in temperature and cause any moisture to freeze. He said they had experienced exactly that same situation (including the times) in Triton during an EBB drill.

After the loss of Thresher, the Navy made major changes to the design of many systems in the subs and instituted the SUBSAFE program to prevent each of those failure modes. One example is that high pressure seawater piping is welded, no longer sil-brazed. Also procedure now is to be positively bouyant on the test dive and use propulsion and dive planes to drive the ship to depth. That way loss of propulsion or plane control would allow the ship to surface w/o power.

Tom

[doulos05]

Now that is informative stuff there, I didn't know some of that, particularly the sil-brazing or the negative/positive buoyancy thing. I had heard the EBB part though, with the condensation freezing in the line.

[TorpX]

One of the topics he discussed during his talk was his impressions on the causes of the loss of USS Thresher.

...........
Tom


This is interesting info.

[Char]

:har: Great Story Armistead!

I had a Similar Situation in my own S-boat.but Instead of having that bad of a Down-Angle,I completly Rolled over and was UPSIDE DOWN.

I was never able to right myself,but I didnt die either!


When I hit the Surface key,I'd dive deeper.when I hit the Dive key,I'd Surface.When I broke the Surface,my Watch Crew came on deck..note that they were on deck Upside Down and Underwater....:haha:

I could only make about 10 Knots on the Surface,due to my props kinda being out of the water,but I made it back to Java.Ohh the looks on their faces when I pulled up to the Tender must've been PRICELESS.

[Elektroniikka-Asentaja]

So, you're saying that gun duels with Elite sub-killers isn't a good idea?

I understood that it was the opposite of this, heck, he sunk an enemy in a fair fight :D

I've had almost same angle with S-boat too, unluckily it was my front tubes that were removed from the ship so I was "ass in the air" there in less than 100 NM from Java and wondering how can I get back to port as I'll hurt my nose in the shallow.. :hmmm:


I just rammed Sumatra, nothing major.

http://thedailyllama.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/u-boat.jpg?w=500&h=319

Getting stranded is an art, I usually just hit the very small sand plants that don't show in map if not zoomed enough :D