Advice on sinking Yamato
 

I've been playing SH4 off and on for quite a few years and therefore lurking here for as long. I really appreciate all the valuable info posted. It has always come in handy and made the game more fun/enjoyable.

Most of the time, I find single merchants with occasional merchant convoys with a few escorts of some sort or other and have no problem taking out the merchants.

2 days ago, I get a report that heavy IJN units are headed from Truk to home waters SSE of Tokyo Wan. I immediately reverse course and head that direction at an SOA to give me a day to paddle around waiting on the task force. Normally I can never find them, until recently when I discovered a way to get better sonar contacts when in TC (but that's another story).

Anyways, I get a contact and discover that the convoy includes the Yamato, 2 Hiyo carriers, 3 Kongo's and 4 DD's traveling at 18 kts. I tried a long range day attack at 8000 yds which missed as I figured (probably saw the slow Mk14's coming in and turned). So I reloaded and figured I'd advance ahead of them until night time. Since the moon wasn't up yet, I couldn't see anything over 6000 yds away. When I get closer, I get detected and they start zig zagging. I'm so close to Tokyo Wan at this point that they'll be in the harbor by the time the moon comes up.

I'm running V1.5 with the OTC for TMO and RSRDC mods. Any advice on how to crack this tough nut. I'm so excited that I've finally found the Yamato and some carriers, but am clueless how to get a shot on them.

Welcome to Subsim, renegade. Happy to have you with us. :salute:

There will be other people along with probably better suggestions but at least when I play I've found that you have to have some luck involved and you need to be out in front of the task force when you discover it. That makes maneuvering to get a shot much easier. Of course you won't always be in the right position most of the time so you have to play it by ear and react to their movements. The odds of getting in a shot at any particular time is probably 70-30 at least for me. Once they know you're there you can mostly forget about getting a shot of one of the big boys. :D :up:

Thanks cdrsubron, I'll await further advice. On a side note, I'm wondering what will happen after I fire my last 10 torps and then can't complete the anti-shipping objective I was distracted from. Any idea?

Ahoy@renegade_

:salute:

If it is rare for you to ignore your Objective, nothing bad should happen.

You could always rearm and refuel and head back out and complete it.

Happy Hunting!

I would try it the same way as cdrsubron. Try to get set up so that when the task force comes toward you, you're inside the screen. Get at least 100 feet below the thermal layer, go silent, and wait. When the lead destroyer passes over you, hope you're not detected. If you're lucky, then go to periscope depth. Line up your shot. Unload all six tubes, each torpedo in a different spot. Circle around the opposite direction your target is heading to line up the stern tubes. By the time you're lined up, you may know if you need to fire them. If you do, unload again. Crash dive as deep as you dare, then go silent and get out of there.
If you're detected before you can come up to periscope depth, go as deep as you dare, go silent and get out there.

This is also a great time to use headphones with the volume turned up. :yeah:

Thanks aanker, i completely blanked on being able to re-arm/refuel at other ports.

I tried something similar to that but at periscope depth and about 3k yds perpendicular to the lead escort. He's hanging really close to the formation and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to come to periscope depth from below the thermocline before the Yamato passed my firing angle (using dick-o-kane method). When I pop my scope they are already weaving and flashing lights at each other. I'll try it again below the thermocline and see what happens.

I did manage to get some torps on it tonight though by approaching from the opposite side (escort is hanging at the back of the formation on that side). From 8500 yds out at twilight I could see silhouettes still. 5 hits out of 6. I'm not sure why #5 missed since it wasn't the first or last that I fired and had them all set to 24-25 feet. I didn't even need to dive after firing. It looked like they were completely baffled where it came from. The escorts sped up to the front of the formation right by me 4k yds off their starboard side. The first torp started a small fire on the bow. The others seemed to not be far enough back toward the rear magazines to do anything spectacular. She seems to be running lower in the bow now. It's hard to tell that far out (I only use the event cam), so I'll have to slip out and do an end around to lay some more torps on her.

Thanks for the advice. I'll be practicing all sorts of techniques using this save point.

After half a dozen attempts I managed to sink the Yamato at twilight. It took 6 torps to disable it and then 4 more to finally put her down. I put one under the front turret and because I fat fingered my keys and was hitting the Q (open/close tube door) instead of W (cycle tube) The other 5 ended up being from the stack back to the hanger deck. I think that last one must've damaged the propulsion system because she went dead in the water with about a 10 degree list. I went deep and silent and waited for the escorts to sail away. They hardly even tried to find me.

Honorable Captain, the Yamato just went BOOM! and is now dead in the water.

Get back to your station and steam on, we are one and a half hours out of port and I have some warm sake waiting for me!

Yes, honorable Captain.

Well done Commander!

Happy Hunting!