Stories and Patrol Logs + Screenshots and Videos (merged)

[R3dakted]

Originally Posted by fireftr18

That is a nice pic. How about that last one from Armistead? That's beautiful.

That Armistead guy .. ? He'd make a great Naval photographer .. !! lol

[MGR1]

Two from the SOM Groups "Soviet Seaway" addon:


Katyusha off the North Cape.


A Leninets wallowing in rough seas - top heavy these minelayers:

"Comrade Commissar! Permission to be sick....!"

Mike.

[Redmane]

I took the boat out on patrol after spending some time with Rockin' Robbin's tutorials on the O'Kane solution.

USS Gudgeon (SS-211) January 23, '43. We had run far to the southeast from Honshu past Sofu Gan, and were in the Dunkers Derp area when I radioed in for new orders. We pulled patrol duty in an area we had just passed through, north of Iwo Jima in Corridor II. A few hours after turning the boat around we ran into bad weather, heavy rain and fog, high seas, the usual pea soup. Early the next morning I was up on the bridge when Sonar called contact on a warship moving fast, and approaching from our port stern quarter to the SSE. Then sonar called another, and another, and another. I ordered the boat to flank speed and turned to a heading of 285 true. A few minutes later I went below to the plotting table in the control room, because by then we had some twelve contacts, all warships, a definite enemy task force headed our way. According to our radar plot they were making about 20 knots. We still had 14 torpedos on the boat, and I would love to make a dent in the IJN's fleet register, but the weather was horrible. We had pulled off two blind attacks before in similar conditions using a radar/sonar combination for the solution, but those were slow moving merchants. What to do? And then I thought "O'Kane!" We had already used the solution with great success while we were patrolling off Honshu a couple of weeks ago, if anything had a good chance of hitting in weather like this, O'Kane just might be the ticket. We had the TF's course and speed from our target plot, it only remained to see if we could get in close enough and use the sonar bearing calls to help us time a target at the firing line. I set up the shot, and we closed the range.

As we approached the TF's course line the XO notified me that radar showed the closest escorts to us had picked up a contact on us and were headed our way. And of course they had radioed this to the TF commander, because the entire outfit had slowed down and started jinking. We ran another calculation of the TF's speed and came up with 12 knots. I wasn't ready to give up just yet. We were close enough now to make our last turn, so I ordered "New Course 251." The escorts wouldn't have any better luck seeing us than we would seeing them, lets find out what happens. Our sensors showed them closing on us from several bearings along the port side, and soon I knew we had a good chance. They couldn't see us, but we could see the flashing of their Aldis lamps through the murk as they approached. Buy now we were nearly there, so I ordered 2/3's ahead, then 1/3, then all stop. The entire task force was flashing at us, if we could stay out of trouble long enough things might pay off. The nearest escort was inside 1500 yards now, still blind to us, but still coming. A short while later we heard the first pings of active sonar. Time for a little more security, I thought, and ordered the boat to radar depth. A quick look at the plot showed we would have a target at the firing line in mere moments. I raised the scope just enough to clear the housing and saw the rust streaked side of a jap destroyer filling my view. "Dive the boat! Back Emergency" I hollered. I'm not sure how close it was, but we escaped with no damage whatsoever, and I still wasn't giving up on that TF. "Ahead 2/3's, periscope depth!" We hadn't gotten too deep, and the rough sea had saved us so far from an almost certain depth charging. We got the boat up a little higher, 57 feet and I could see through the rain and fog once again the Aldis lamps of the TF. Six tube doors were already opened and all the Mrk 14's in them were set to high speed. With the aid of those flashing lamps I watched the hazy silouette of a ship pass the firing line: "Fire 1... Fire 2!" A few moments later we heard the impacts and then a tremendous roar as the ship we had hit exploded. Another Aldis lamp, another ship's outline: "Fire 3... Fire 4!" Moments after that, my heart almost stopped. "Torpedo is a dud, sir!" but then "Torpedo impact!" and again the roar of an exploding warship reached us.

I thought about another shot, but decided against it. We had 2 fish left loaded up front and two of the tubes we'd just emptied would stay that way until we rearmed the boat. We still had 4 loaded aft, and two reserves, so we would be in good shape for the patrol we still had to do. "New Depth 400', Rig for Silent Running," I called, and we motored quietly away to the SSE. I can plainly state that at the time I had no idea what type of ships we sank, but when I checked my log I found an entry there for 1 Takao and 1 Maya class heavy cruiser.

O'Kane Rocks!

[theelite1500]

Early 1942, near Kobe Harbor...

We entered the inlet. All was going well until we ran into a patrol. We sat on the bottom of the bay with a destroyer and a gunboat right on top of us, slowly inching forward as to not be detected again. Minor damage sustained.

1:00 AM, Kobe Harbor...

We escaped the patrol without any further mayhem. We did brief scouting of the area to find out what will soon be at the bottom of the harbor. 2 Fuso battleships and a cruiser would do (I forgot the class, as this was several months ago.) The 2 BBs were parallel to each other, about 1 NM apart. We positioned ourselves perpendicular to the ships, and fired all 4 aft tubes and 5 fore tubes. The 4 aft torps all exploded. One Fuso down. 4 fore torps hit, but one was a dud. The fifth one missed by a matter of feet, before smashing into a nearby destroyer. One destroyer down. I was preparing to finish off the second Fuso when, BOOM! The ship went up in a fireball. I moved in on the cruiser, then fired 2 fore torps. I think I hit it in the sweet spot. One cruiser down.

3:30 PM, Hiroshima Harbor...

We decided to take the long way out. In the harbor was a Fuso and a Hiryu. With only 6 torps left, I had to weigh my options heavily. I chose the Fuso, because I was pretty sure it had a higher tonnage. "Flood the tubes! Prepare to fire on the Fuso!" I was about to give the order to fire when I thought to think what would have a bigger effect on the war effort. I couldn't choose what would be better: to bask in the fame of having the most tonnage in the navy, or to change the war.It really was a hard choice. After much consideration, I made up my mind. I shifted the scope over to the carrier, and fired.

It wasn't so bad, after all. My commander was proud of my choice and gave me a shiny, new Gato!!!!

[Redmane]

June '43 took command of USS Balao (SS-285) at Perth-Fremantle and headed out on patrol. We had an agent to drop off near Singapore of all places. After we made our delivery, we spent a couple of tense days sneaking past Singapore through all the shallows there and made it to the South China Sea, then ran the Pallawan Passage over towards Manila Bay. Nothing much was moving except for the occasional search plane. We turned south, ran down the Mindoro Strait and we were about 30 miles off the southwestern tip of Panay when we made contact with an enemy TF speeding up behind us from the north. Their track lay just a couple miles off our starboard side, and after getting the boat turned toward it I began to look for what we might have coming. To my wondering eyes, 2 fleet carriers were lined up in the center column of the TF, making it the first carrier TF we had yet encountered since the start of the war. They were moving along at 21 knots and flanked by heavy and light cruisers. Once we had verified their speed we dropped the boat down to radar depth and closed up on the course track, setting up a 70' constant bearing attack angle. I was hoping we could bag both of them, the leader was a Hiryu class the second was Shokaku class. But no matter what, we were gonna get one of them. They were moving so fast I didn't even try for a divergent spread on the torpedos, just unloaded 3 at the Hiryu, then waited a bit for the Shokaku to reach the firing line and emptied the last 3 forward tubes on her. Just as I did so, the Hiryu must have spotted the inbound torpedo tracks, because the TF sirens started wailing. Too late so far as she was concerned, all three torpedos hit and detonated, and after a few moments, so did the Hiryu. I'd forseen the possibility of the alarm being sounded since the water was fairly calm, so before launching the last three topedos I'd reset the solution speed to 17 knots, but it wasn't quite enough. The Shokaku managed to get turned enough to dodge the topedos aimed at her, but we weren't too disappointed, because a Maya heavy cruiser was next in line beyond the carrier, took two of the torps, blew up and sank. We had finally meet our first carrier TF and cut it right in half, at least so far as it's carrier element went.

[Luno]

[Redmane]

Bummer.

[Redmane]

Just managed to do something I've been trying to accomplish since learning about the constant bearing method of fire control for torpedos, widely known here at Subsim as the "O'kane Solution." This method allows a skipper to use the same solution for two different targets. A particular example would be the lead ships in different columns of a convoy. We were patroling in the Sulu Sea, and had entered the eastern approach of the Balabak Straits, planning to pass through and patrol the South China Sea. We were in the first area of shelving bottom, but still with about 380' of water under the keel when we made contact on a 5 freighter convoy also heading west into the strait. I was thinking of getting out ahead of them, tracking them 'til they got through, then attacking if an opportunity arose in deeper water. But when they zigged back our way the position this offered was too tempting, so we closed up on their track and got into place. I set up a 75' angle on their track, so the shot was set for an AOB of 65' with a 10' shoot line. A Biyo Maru was leading the far column, and a Hakusika Maru the near column of the convoy. All 6 forward tubes were open with torpedo speed set to high and depth to 10'. The Biyo came into view and I waited 'til the kingpost of her aft cargo mast was under the aim point before shooting the first fish, then lauched the next 2 using divergent point of aim, working forward to get a nice spread. She must have seen the incoming torpedo tracks shortly before the first impact, because while I was waiting on the Hakusika to get well into the aimpoint, sirens started to sound. Rather than wait and miss the chance I fired the next 3 tubes in quick succession, a plain old longitudinal spread at the big freighter. By this time the first slavo had gone in, all torps hitting at or near their aim-points on the Biyo. She was sinking after the second impact, so the 3rd hit was just overkill. A few seconds later all 3 of the second salvo impacted on the Hakusika. She took a few moments to start sinking, and by that time the escorts were closing, searching with active sonar. We crash dived for the bottom, pinging for depth as we went so as to avoid grounding the boat. Once below the thermal we dropped back to 1/3rd ahead and put some full rudder to it, getting a bit off the line we'd been on making all that noise during the dive, and started to level off at about 350' We took some pretty good close barrages, but only minor damage. One of the engine room bulkheads was sprung and minor flooding ensued, but it was quickly repaired and pumped dry. We did have to make a couple of short dashes at high speed to avoid some of the remaining attacks, but the surface was rough which made evasion much easier. The same barrage that sprang the bulkhead also damaged one of the 20MM AA-guns and injured some of the fellows in the engine room, as well as messing up the boat's paint job, but all that was taken care of later.

[joefremont]

October 44 off Luzon Island. I headed into this area after getting the radio message that an American task force was headed into the area and requesting available units to sweep the area. That evening I saw a large task force heading east and toward me on radar but the formation was in a line which I had only seen allied ships do so I stayed on the surface until I had eyes on one of the lead DD's, and it was a Fletcher class. Since it was friendly I stuck around to watch them pass before continuing north on my patrol.

The core of the task force was five North Carolina class BB's and a Tennessee class BB. Now I forgave them when on my last campaign I sank 5 Ise class battleships total when only two ever existed, but I never saw more than two in any one TF. But how can they put five North Carolina's in the same TF when there were only two built.

End of rant, Carry on.

PS: I am using an unmodified game.

[CaptainNemo]

[fireftr18]

Cool shots CaptainNemo. Especially the one with the sinking ship in the background.

[Luno]

Great shots Nemo

[joefremont]

A sight to gladden a sub commanders heart!

Came up to periscope depth near a medium size task force and saw to my amazement, the first line of ships going away from was a Akitsu CVE and then two Shokaku CV's. I quickly opened all tubes then fired three MK14's at the far CV, waited 30 fired three Mk14's at the middle CV and then hard to starboard. The view to the CV's was blocked by the CVE but all six fish found there targets. By the time I was ready to unleash my rear torps they CV's had disappeared below the waves and a DD was pinging at me hard 1000 yard way closing fast. Fired one mk18 at the DD and the other 3 at the CVE. Dove down to 350ft heading away from the TF. Switched to the external camera to enjoy the show. All four fish hit there targets.

I just wish that as the CV's roll over those nicely lined up aircraft would slide off the deck.

[Luno]

Nice job

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I was in convoy heaven, fought 3 large ones as they pass through the same area, just shooting at big ships.

This TYPEAB with his 6 Y guns was being a bug, so I timed him as he passed a large Pass. The torp set deep went right under him into the big boy. Look and you can see the escort already splitting from the explosion.


Then he buckles...lol


And one heck of an explosion





One torp, two kills....

Awesome, love when this happens, esp if it was not on purpose lol.