[Contemplative Flame]

Hello Skippers,

So I had an interesting dilemma that occurred. I haven't played in some months, just gave my campaign a whirl the other day finally (using RFB for 1.4 btw). I've been in an S-boat since December 1, 1941 and despite being the best guy in the Asiatic Fleet I still haven't gotten a Porpoise, Salmon, Sargo, etc. But I digress...here I am in the middle of the Java Sea on patrol, and I spot a huge Task Force.

1 Fuso, 2 Ise's, numerous heavy cruisers, light cruisers, a whole mess of destroyers (different classes), and a few oilers to boot. Now, usually I'm elated to find such forces (and especially when COMSUBPAC orders me to attack it as I will get more renown for doing what I was going to do anyway), but in an S-boat it's tough because I can't go fast enough to do anything. Even on the surface, with the batteries not being charged, I barely do 12 knots. Submerged I think I can do 9 knots, but that's at flank speed and sounding like a train barreling down a tunnel.

Nevertheless I try to stay on the surface doing flank as far as I can on a diagonal intercept course (they were to the South of me heading East), but I get a little too close to the picket destroyers (the game was being odd about submerging and kept popping me into and out of diving as I tried to go down - I forgot to mention that the water isn't even 100ft deep here in the Java Sea so maybe the AI was trying to compensate or something?). So here I was trying to dive coming in diagonally from the North on this huge, early-war IJN Task Force, but suddenly star shells go off and few shots start winging by me. To make the damn AI move faster, I order a crash dive even though know we're in less than 150ft of water as I plan to level it off before 100 and just use this to get into safety.

As I do this, I pivot my sub back and forth in a zig-zag to avoid the shells as best I can, and also to throw my 4 torps downrange in the general area into and ahead of the convoy (maybe 7-8,000 yards off - too far for fast Mark 14s [and yes, I know S-boats are only supposed to be able to fit Mark 10's but somehow the game let me fit Mark 14's in the tubes after a patrol or two, maybe an overhaul in port?]). I figured it's a long convoy and there's dozens of ships out there, maybe I'll hit something. With all these destroyers right on top of me I won't get another chance to engage, right? Well..yes and no.

They start hunting, pinging away, rolling off depth charges and firing K-guns. So far so good, and I evaded several attack runs (it's hard to escape 3-4 destroyers in shallow water under 100ft deep). I'm doing fine, until one just gets too close. I'm turning to port as far and fast as I can to avoid the incoming depth charges, but the last one of the string clips my tail as I do so. It was single hit to the starboard-side propeller and dive planes. Immediately all hell breaks loose and flooding begins. I check hull damage, and it says only 2% damaged. The Engine room crew as well as my entire, fully-staffed repair team should be able to do something about it, right?

The main bulkhead there is damaged, and both propeller shafts as well as the dive planes seem destroyed. In essence, the port propeller turns somehow, unlike the starboard one, but I'm unable to make any speed. So, with going to the surface equaling death, I do something I don't usually do - ground the boat. I settle down on the seabed in about 95ft of water right near where they nailed me, having used what momentum I had to go further. Staying as silent as possible with major flooding and repair operations underway, I hope they won't find me.

It works! But...the flooding goes critical and the whole Engine room appears completely flooded. This is where the game gets odd however. Nothing else appears to be damaged...the batteries, engines, etc. The crew isn't dead...in fact beyond the point where it appears "completely flooded," they eventually get it under control and begin pumping operations! Now at this point I'm not going to question a gift-horse, and I just go with it. I begin to worry about how to surface with my rear dive-planes basically blown off. This is an S-boat, so I do not have any blow ballast options (I think historically they had much of their ballast tanks converted to extra fuel storage so they could actually be somewhat useful in the vast Pacific). The destroyers have mostly given up and are a sullenly steaming away, unaware that I was lamed, a true sitting-duck only a few thousand yards away for hours and hours.

It has been night, and somehow the XO surfaces the boat as the sun comes up with no blow ballast option. Idk what happened but we rose into a glorious rising sun (not a good omen, I know) to find....a hit! I had forgot to mention that out of the 4 torps I threw out in those first few frantic moments, 2 had hit something, a 50% success rate at extreme distance going blind. I have no idea what the first one hit, and I suspect it must have been one of the big-boys who just took it like a man and kept going, because nothing was left behind limping. But, the second torp severely damaged one of the oilers. It blew up just underneath his rear keel, just forward of the propellers. He's sitting perfectly half-sunk, half in and half out of the water. If you took a cross section from the side, he really is halfway gone as the water perfectly bisects his cabin diagonally, and his stack's top (it's aft) is just beneath the water's surface. But...he isn't actually sunk! It's not listed. He will never get away, ever, but the game hasn't counted it yet. He'd been like this for hours too. The rest of the task force had just sailed away and left him for dead!

The issue is...I still can't go anywhere, not even 6,000 odd yards over to finish this guy off. The Engine room is pumped, bulkhead in one piece, and overall hull damage at only 6%, but I can't make my damage control party work on either of the propeller shafts or the dive planes. As I said, I can crank up the engines no problem, and the port propeller appears to visually spin, but I can't get any forward motion. This may be a bug or something, as the damage screen lists both as completely red, along with the rear dive planes.

So, ironically, here we both are, hunter and hunted, an oiler and an S-boat, a Japanese sailor and an American, within clear line-of-sight of each other, equally maimed. We're roughly parallel to each other, our bows facing slightly Northeast. I can't go anywhere, but neither can he. If I cannot fix my propeller shafts, do I basically consider myself dead? Lol, there is no abandon ship option. There is no way to call for help. There is no way to get towed in. This Jap and I are just sitting here glaring at each other. Should I just restart from the last save and try it all again? This seems far to thrilling to just erase, particularly given the heroic actions of the Engine room crew in seemingly, impossibly saving the boat, but I see little other choice...Is my boat irreparably crippled?