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Old 07-19-17, 09:56 PM   #1
Contemplative Flame
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Support A Unusual Situation and A Thrilling Read

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?

Last edited by Contemplative Flame; 07-19-17 at 10:04 PM.
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Old 07-19-17, 11:05 PM   #2
cj95
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I don't have a solution, but thanks for an exciting story.

I say round the crew up in rubber boats, grab yer cutlass's and carry on with a boarding action. Avast maties!



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(beyond that you might be able to save here...and then edit the save to simulate repairing the damage but I don't have the technical knowledge to tell you how)
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Old 07-20-17, 01:36 AM   #3
Contemplative Flame
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cj95 View Post
I don't have a solution, but thanks for an exciting story.

I say round the crew up in rubber boats, grab yer cutlass's and carry on with a boarding action. Avast maties!



.
(beyond that you might be able to save here...and then edit the save to simulate repairing the damage but I don't have the technical knowledge to tell you how)

LOL that would be something! The poor tanker crew would just be like "what did we do to deserve this"? I wish there was some sort of abandon ship button that could at least give some closure to your story, like: "S-18 fought a large IJN task force in the Java Sea on blah blah blah and after much fighting and a valiant effort at repairs, had to abandon ship on the surface. They were picked up by a PBY 2 days later and brought back to Australia for reassignment." That would be really cool and would definitely help sim immersion.

I'll have to see if anyone has any interesting ideas...though I believe I'm just gonna have to reload.
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Old 07-20-17, 07:30 AM   #4
Rockin Robbins
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Sir, you have survived, only to die. There are many repair operations impossible to execute at sea, and propeller shafts are one of them. A grand battle though!
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Old 07-21-17, 03:12 AM   #5
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How far are you from land?

Maybe a simulated castaway type situation? Surely in real life you're going to be drifting somewhere?

Also is the radio transmitter out?

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Old 07-21-17, 07:49 AM   #6
Rockin Robbins
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cj95 View Post
How far are you from land?

Maybe a simulated castaway type situation? Surely in real life you're going to be drifting somewhere?

Also is the radio transmitter out?

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That's interesting. I don't think that boats in the game drift.....something to research!
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Old 07-22-17, 06:52 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins View Post
Sir, you have survived, only to die. There are many repair operations impossible to execute at sea, and propeller shafts are one of them. A grand battle though!
Well damn...and here I was thought it might be possible. Well I have continued on in an alternate timeline pretending this never happened so I guess that's that....


Quote:
How far are you from land?

Maybe a simulated castaway type situation? Surely in real life you're going to be drifting somewhere?

Also is the radio transmitter out?
I was about 50nm due south of the edge of Borneo, about 100nm north of Java, both currently owned by the Japanese at this point in the war. Radio is not out so I could theoretically call for help...if only the game modeled such things.


Quote:
That's interesting. I don't think that boats in the game drift.....something to research!
I think it may. There are times where I was completely stopped waiting in ambush or waiting for a change in weather to finish off a crippled target, and it seems I drifted a bit from where I originally positioned myself.
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Old 07-22-17, 11:41 PM   #8
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well...Like I said I think your only option is editing the save game to remove damage....thus simulating "oh hey we finally got one of the shafts turning".


If your use it to simulate being rescued, or drifting, then I don't think it counts as cheating per se.
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Old 07-25-17, 02:43 PM   #9
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Indeedy. If you look hard at those repair values between a damaged (not destroyed) bulkhead and your propeller shafts, you'll notice that little "health" meter will read some form of fraction (.85, .99, etc.). Your prop shafts will read 0, which means they are fully knackered and need repairs at port.
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