I Survived a GUN DUEL with a Destroyer!!

[JayW.]

I was taking the convoy course of the Submarine School first off and without the European uniformed convoy system, it was very hard to predict how the ships will behave and manruver.

As the course began, I ordered a a course of 50 degrees starboard and went on the bridge when I saw an escort destroyer coming towards me full speed at 345 degrees to port. I crash dive and level at 221 ft. Then, I adjust my speed to 0.5 knots while silent running. By this time, I sounded general quartars. I just waited for the trash cans to drop but fortunately, the destroyer passed by without dropping any depth charges.
The convoy finally arrived on the scene and I kinda expect them to move left or right of me. They did the unexpected - they went over me. Without any good position to fire my tubes, I did a combat surface and used my deck gun on a tanker before the destroyers can come. Two of them were off my port side some 10,000 to 9,000 yards busy with depth charing the area and one is on the opposite side of the convoy about 10,000 yards off. Within seven rounds, the destroyer on the opposite was barreling down towards me. With the tanker burning a little, I redirected my crew's fire on the destroyer and scored excellent hits before I crash dived and dived to 207 ft. One trash can managed to damage slightly my decoy launcher and my triple A guns.
Then, with my rotten luck, all of my forward torpedoes miss the destoryer. But, my luck altered for the good. With tube No. #1 reloaded minutes later, I scored a hit on the tanker after manevered perfectly between the tanker and the destroyer (which was coming in range broadside with my stern tubes). Guess what! Scratch one destroyer. The tanker remained afloat and still moving.
While forgeting the other two destroyers, I surface and started to ravage the convoy with my dech gun.. I came nder fire but can't located the source of the incoming fire. I thought it was one of the merchants sporadically firing it's deck gun. I guess I played SH3 too much. Anyway, all of the sudden, my submarine pitched sharpy and violently to port and turned my head to starboard. To my surprise, there it is - a destroyer. I immediately ordered my crew to fire at point-blank range. The destroyer's gunner control was lousy. It did score one hit as I pulled away to port. The result was the destroyer went down burning and I continued to sink ships with my deck gun and with light casualities.

Well, it is my story.


JayW.

[gnirtS]

I sunk 2 destroyers in the same convoy in thick fog (visibility about 400m) without a scratch.

Also sunk a large frieghter in same convoy with the destroyer watching me.

All with deck gun.

The AI isn't great at times.....

[GakunGak]

You should make some movies with fraps and post it to youtube...:rock:

[Capt.LoneRanger]

I had a quite good gunner and attacked a convoy surfaced. I gunned down 3 destroyers without getting even a hit from a smaller caliber gun. The advanced AI immediately stopped all other vessels in the convoy. :88)

[nattydread]

Boo! Sounds like the DDs and sub damage model needs better coding.

[WFGood]

I manged to maul a couple of them last night without severe damage. Fog really seems to throw them off. It was actually very exciting. I too had run out of torpedoes ravaging a convoy and had surfaced to finish off two large modern merchants. The escorts had stayed pretty much to the outskirts of the convoy until I surfaced. Then they charged at about 12 knots. The Minekaze must have ammo stores on her upper deck because I have hit two of them forward of the bridge with gun fire and had them explode.http://members.cox.net/jaimegoodwin/SH4Img@2-4-2007_23.11.24_609.bmp

[WFGood]

Boo! Sounds like the DDs and sub damage model needs better coding.

I am not sure if it is a matter of damage coding but rather tactics. Remember DD's, DE's and FF's were called 'tin cans' for a reason. They had very little armor protection to allow them greater speed. Deck guns were put on submarines for exactly this reason. If a submarine was too damaged or in too shallow water to allow diving, the deck gun was a means to allow a fighting chance against an escort until diving was feasible. The problem is that the escorts rarely act appropriately. In other words they do not fire their main batteries or use their speed advantage. A surfaced submarine stern to is a very small target to hit when it is maneuvering, but a destroyer CBDR (constant bearing decreasing range) at 12 knots or less provides an inviting target which can be seriously damaged or disabled before it gets in close enough to ram.

In another post I postulated that there is a global setting or 'bug' in which all vessels in a convoy conform to the slowest speed. Hence when a ship is damaged the entire convoy slows to 2 knots in response. (I have noticed, however, that when you fire at and hit another target, the stupor shrugs off, and the convoy speeds back up again. It seems to be a repetetive cycle.

[tater]

I fought 4 DDs the other night on the surface (there were another 4, plus a BB and 2xAVA and a CL a few miles ahead, too). I got away, all 4 DDs were sunk.

The DDs did fire their main guns (all in 2 gun turrets) at me. They even hit me a few times.

The DD damage models are absurd. Yes, they were "tin cans," but so is a bloody submarine. 1 gun to over a dozen in the fight I had. As it is, a couple of AP rounds will set most DDs ablaze. It needs tweaking.

[apache_longbow]

I got a "new" gato 1943 after some nice patroll on another old boat. I did get a radar hints about a medium convoy with 4 escorts. I did sink 2 ship and was at periscope depth and was close to a 3. cripeled targed. Then a destroyer turned 90* and strait ahead for me. he come behind a freighter. i manage to crash dive and emergeny rudder to stabord before he ramemd me.
his 3 m8's did turn on me to and i hade to go deep. I did try to stay ouder a thermic layer at 200ft but I got so heavy dmg that I barly manage to get my boat going slowly upp. I was free of fishes in forward torpedo roms and got 5 fishes left stern. But aft torbedo rom was a mess. I hade to gamble all on one card and hit flank speed and set a course 300* and told the crew to use the dec gunn until the last banana on board was used to kill the destroyers. I got 2-3 good hits on me but I manage to destroy 2 estroyers and cripe a 3. one. The 4. one hade gone a big sirckle and lost me from sitht becouse of all those burning ships at night.
My crew was in "battle station" status and rep. crew was working 24/7. I did manage to get away from the conwoy becouse they did go about SE course and I did go NE cource.
At daylight I cous see the dmg on the sub:

- 3 big holes on the port side, aft torpedo shafts, torpeo rom and engine rom.
- one of 2 proppeler shaft destroyed
- rudder destroyed and I am heading right to tokyo :huh:
- max speed is at flank speed 5 knots
- If I submerge I will go to the bottom with the nose first in a big dive.
- radio destroyed.
- ++++ other stuff.

So I am in a bad situation, I can't change my couse from going directly to japan, My top speed it 5 knoths on surface. I can't dive at all becouse then i am getting one ticket right to the bottom of the ocean floor (3300 feet +) have 300 rounds left on my AA gunn, 5 torpedos left that I can't use aft torpedo rom is destroyed. I got ounder air attack 5-6 times a day and night's. I have tryed to rep the boat for days but I am stuck.

So I need a sugestion ho to get out of that mess, I am south of Guam and helpless.:cry:

[Banquet]

Boo! Sounds like the DDs and sub damage model needs better coding.
I am not sure if it is a matter of damage coding but rather tactics. Remember DD's, DE's and FF's were called 'tin cans' for a reason. They had very little armor protection to allow them greater speed. Deck guns were put on submarines for exactly this reason. If a submarine was too damaged or in too shallow water to allow diving, the deck gun was a means to allow a fighting chance against an escort until diving was feasible. The problem is that the escorts rarely act appropriately. In other words they do not fire their main batteries or use their speed advantage. A surfaced submarine stern to is a very small target to hit when it is maneuvering, but a destroyer CBDR (constant bearing decreasing range) at 12 knots or less provides an inviting target which can be seriously damaged or disabled before it gets in close enough to ram.


I'm no expert and you sound like you know your stuff.. so I won't disagree with you :D

Having said that I'm highly sceptical that a submarine could duke it out with a DD with it's deck gun and win.. DD's were indeed known as tin cans, but because of their thin armour shells often used to pass right through causing little damage (other than the hole of course!) A hole in a submarine is likely to be rather more serious than a hole in a DD. Not to mention a DD might have 8 guns to your 1 and it's crew be better trained in surface action than the sub's crew.

Weren't deck guns intended to finish off merchants anyway? They were supposedly used for that purpose in the Atlantic campaign (and even then barely used)

[WFGood]

Yes, a round from a cruiser or battleship would probably go right through a tin can, although the escort ships of Taffy-3, like the Samuel B. Roberts, were absobutely destroyed by larger caliber fire. Even if it goes through without exploding it causes great damage. The shell hitting the ship knocks out a large plug of hull which splinters causing massive casualties and damage. I am by no means saying that a submarine would willingly engage a DD in a gun duel. I was just saying that it would be possible to succeed if you were darn lucky. As far as the reason for deck guns on submarines, here are some quotes taken from some docuements.

it was reasoned that a submarine in a head to head gun battle with an enemy in possession of equal (or greater) firepower was at serious risk. Any enemy hits on the submarine which could impede or prevent her ability to submerge was justification enough to avoid a surface gun action. (Which absolutely supports your argument and concerns.)

"They could be riddled with .30 and .50 caliber machine gun bullets and holed several times by 3 or 5 inch shells and remain afloat like a box of Swiss cheese". (talking about Sampans) More often than not, a submarine's deck gun was of greater value for overall morale than it was for combat effectiveness. A submerged boat that was damaged by an enemy surface vessel could, as a last ditch effort to survive, surface and engage in a gun battle, although with the odds generally stacked heavily against it. The deck gun was the ultimate weapon of last resort and it has been suggested that the 3, 4 or 5 inch guns (used for both anti-aircraft and surface actions and typically located abaft of the the conning tower), was therefore justified. This was the actual thinking behind the placement of deck guns on submarines. It was a weapon of last resort to give a boat a fighting chance if it had to be on the surface. It was skippers like Mush Morton, Dick O'Kane, Ramage, etc that also used them as offensive weapons, but that was never the intention.

[Banquet]

Yes, a round from a cruiser or battleship would probably go right through a tin can, although the escort ships of Taffy-3, like the Samuel B. Roberts, were absobutely destroyed by larger caliber fire. Even if it goes through without exploding it causes great damage. The shell hitting the ship knocks out a large plug of hull which splinters causing massive casualties and damage. I am by no means saying that a submarine would willingly engage a DD in a gun duel. I was just saying that it would be possible to succeed if you were darn lucky. As far as the reason for deck guns on submarines, here are some quotes taken from some docuements.

it was reasoned that a submarine in a head to head gun battle with an enemy in possession of equal (or greater) firepower was at serious risk. Any enemy hits on the submarine which could impede or prevent her ability to submerge was justification enough to avoid a surface gun action. (Which absolutely supports your argument and concerns.)

"They could be riddled with .30 and .50 caliber machine gun bullets and holed several times by 3 or 5 inch shells and remain afloat like a box of Swiss cheese". (talking about Sampans) More often than not, a submarine's deck gun was of greater value for overall morale than it was for combat effectiveness. A submerged boat that was damaged by an enemy surface vessel could, as a last ditch effort to survive, surface and engage in a gun battle, although with the odds generally stacked heavily against it. The deck gun was the ultimate weapon of last resort and it has been suggested that the 3, 4 or 5 inch guns (used for both anti-aircraft and surface actions and typically located abaft of the the conning tower), was therefore justified. This was the actual thinking behind the placement of deck guns on submarines. It was a weapon of last resort to give a boat a fighting chance if it had to be on the surface. It was skippers like Mush Morton, Dick O'Kane, Ramage, etc that also used them as offensive weapons, but that was never the intention.
Thanks, interesting info there :)

A sub would certainly be harder to hit than a DD and, as you say, as a last ditch weapon it would no doubt be used, possibly to great effect.. If we had a topic where 1 person in 20 had managed to sink a DD and get away that would be fair enough.. but I think sinking up to 4 DD's with the deck gun is a little overdone. I seem to remember SH3 had the same problem initially.. can't remember if it was patched or modded to more realistic levels.

btw, you speaking of Taffy 3.. have you read 'Tin Can Sailors'? (forget the author) that is a great read!

[ParaB]

It's been the same in SH3. It's a nod to the "casual gamers".

I actually managed to sink light cruisers with the deck gun in both SH3 AND 4...so much for realism. ;)

In reality a Destroyer would blow a sub out of the water. It's well known that a sub is an excellent torpedo platform but a terrible artillery platform. SH3/4 does not really simulate this. Many of the SH3 mods fixed this when they made the sub much more vulnerable to gunfire.

[WFGood]

It's been the same in SH3. It's a nod to the "casual gamers".

I actually managed to sink light cruisers with the deck gun in both SH3 AND 4...so much for realism. ;)

In reality a Destroyer would blow a sub out of the water. It's well known that a sub is an excellent torpedo platform but a terrible artillery platform. SH3/4 does not really simulate this. Many of the SH3 mods fixed this when they made the sub much more vulnerable to gunfire.

Absolutely, a submarines small beam makes it very unstable on the surface and very susceptible to suface waves. In fact the first part of the document I quoted above states, "Initially, deck guns were considered by many to be an extraneous and dangerous piece of hardware for submarines at the beginning of the war. Principally, the reasoning was that a submarine is basically a poor platform for a deck gun."

I think you hit it on the head with the nod to the casual gamer. It is a theoretical possibility to do it, but I doubt that any sane skipper would even attempt it unless it was an absolute last resort. In game we can surface inside a convoy to finish off a merchie with escorts a few thousand yards away. I doubt that any skipper with the lives of his crew in his hands would ever make such a decision, but that does not make it any less fun.

[U-Bones]

It's been the same in SH3. It's a nod to the "casual gamers".

I actually managed to sink light cruisers with the deck gun in both SH3 AND 4...so much for realism. ;)

In reality a Destroyer would blow a sub out of the water. It's well known that a sub is an excellent torpedo platform but a terrible artillery platform. SH3/4 does not really simulate this. Many of the SH3 mods fixed this when they made the sub much more vulnerable to gunfire.

Actually, most of the SH3 mods I know about ended up with Subs that were very buff on the surface. I basically quit tinkering with SH3 for that very reason - I felt the engine was impossible to balance well.

Everything else being equal (which they aren't), a DD, or even a weaker DDE simply has an incredible surface firepower advantage over a Sub and IRL is the reason subs didn't surface near one unless that was their only chance to live. It is a mismatch.

[nattydread]

Ok lets be real, the DD would have more than just its main guns to use against a sub. Its smaller caliber weapons with much higher rate of fire would essentially shred the gun crew leaving the sub's deck virtually unmanned. The well trained deck guns would range the sub in a few salvos and begin landing lethal hits in no time. Multiple DDs engaging a sub should be a no brainer.

Yes the deck gun was a last ditch attempt for giving the sub a fighting chance, but a "fighting chance" is usualyy seen as giving you a hand-gun in a machinhh gun fight. Yeah you have a fighting chance, but your not really expected to come out on top. The deck gun gainst a DD is to buy you time, not for you to dominate a fight. The hope is that you can slow his approach, get him guessing, get a couple of licks in and take as many of their crew down with you if you cant get away.

A sub engaged a DD if it had no choice in the matter and it was never with the belief they really stood a chance. Thats why many subs put the gunon its aft deck, the sub was attempting to run and used teh gun to maintain seperation from the DD until it could dive. The splashes of water and rolling induced by DD rounds hitting close by, plus small caliber weapons peppering the deck would make any sub running a flank speed a difficult gun platform to make accurate shots with.

A prolonged surface gun engagement against a sub and DD should result in the death of the sub excluding the occasioanl lucky hit that may cause a catastrophic damage to the DD. Yes, the DD shouldnt come out unscathed either, but it should be nemesis of any surfaced sub.

If you think a DD can go up easy, what about a sub that crammed from bow to stern with an assortemnt of fuel oil, torpedos and batteries.

[Sailor Steve]

Ok lets be real, the DD would have more than just its main guns to use against a sub. Its smaller caliber weapons with much higher rate of fire would essentially shred the gun crew leaving the sub's deck virtually unmanned. The well trained deck guns would range the sub in a few salvos and begin landing lethal hits in no time. Multiple DDs engaging a sub should be a no brainer.
I pointed out some months ago, in response to an SH3 thread about surfacing behind corvettes and sinking them before they could bring their single 4" gun into action, that Nicholas Monsarrat told a story about a u-boat surfacing behind a corvette only to have a lookout spot them immediately, even though it was quite dark. The corvette didn't get turned around in time to bring the 4" gun into play, but the multiple AA guns and small arms killed every u-boatman who got onto the deck, until finally one came up with a white sheet for a surrender flag.

[tater]

Good points. I think it is a nod to the casual gamer, too. The big issue is not that it's possible to be effective, but that it is really likely to be effective. In my example above I had no choice. S-18 boat, no fish, damaged so I could not submerge, TF hugging W coast of Luzon. It popped in front of me and i was screwed, lol. Or so I thought. I was ~1000 yards abeam of a DD when his searchlight hit me (I was trying to sneak through a line of 4 DDs).

Honestly, at night in any kind of rough sea, I think gunning down DDs in game is far more likely to succeed than wasting fish on them. Which is just plain wrong. Sure, the chances of sustaining damage that won't let you submerge is too high for comfort, but I think if it was this easy in RL, they'd have beefed up subs and had them gun on the surface. I notice that the deck gun is not affected by the setting to realistically model the pitch and roll of the deck like the TBT is. That would help even things out.

The DDs seem overly flamable, too, though exposed DCs and TTs do make them vulnerable in RL.

[minsc_tdp]

Interesting stories. I put 4 torpedoes into a DD, then surfaced and put about 30 rounds aiming at the waterline, and he still sunk my undamaged boat within 4 or 5 hits.

[panthercules]

Bah - destroyers? no challenge - last night I went toe-to-toe with a Mogami class heavy cruiser in my Porpoise during the torpedo school mission - shelled her from ranges of 1,500 to 4,000 yards until my armor piercing shells ran out, bringing her to a halt but not doing much else visible to her - then rammed her twice at flank speed, then pulled up right along side of her while raking her with my flak gun (killed all the little crewmen running all over her) and destroying all of her secondary and tertiary armament with my HE shells. Couldn't find my grappling hooks to board her, so I finally got tired and headed off. According to my damage reports, my boat only suffered some minor damage to my deck gun (that was repaired along the way), radar and flak gun/bridge area - some crew looked wounded in 3D view but didn't register as such on the crew management screen - all this despite being hit several times by shells from her 8" guns.

It was only after about an hour had gone by and I had pulled away a few thousand yards and decided to dive that my boat apparently realized how mortally wounded it really was and it completely imploded at about 100 feet.

Now that was realistic :rotfl:

[nattydread]

Wow, they let you ram her twice at flank speed? You should have looked like a banana dropped off the roof!

These subs are like Moby Dick ramming a whaler!

[WFGood]

btw, you speaking of Taffy 3.. have you read 'Tin Can Sailors'? (forget the author) that is a great read![/quote]

Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by John Hornfischer? Yes, it is a great book. Those men were extraordinarily brave and devoted to duty. It is a shame that so many of them perished in the water after the battle. It must have been agony waiting for rescue that was not coming.

[WFGood]

Ok lets be real, the DD would have more than just its main guns to use against a sub. Its smaller caliber weapons with much higher rate of fire would essentially shred the gun crew leaving the sub's deck virtually unmanned. The well trained deck guns would range the sub in a few salvos and begin landing lethal hits in no time. Multiple DDs engaging a sub should be a no brainer.

Yes the deck gun was a last ditch attempt for giving the sub a fighting chance, but a "fighting chance" is usualyy seen as giving you a hand-gun in a machinhh gun fight. Yeah you have a fighting chance, but your not really expected to come out on top. The deck gun gainst a DD is to buy you time, not for you to dominate a fight. The hope is that you can slow his approach, get him guessing, get a couple of licks in and take as many of their crew down with you if you cant get away.

A sub engaged a DD if it had no choice in the matter and it was never with the belief they really stood a chance. Thats why many subs put the gunon its aft deck, the sub was attempting to run and used teh gun to maintain seperation from the DD until it could dive. The splashes of water and rolling induced by DD rounds hitting close by, plus small caliber weapons peppering the deck would make any sub running a flank speed a difficult gun platform to make accurate shots with.

A prolonged surface gun engagement against a sub and DD should result in the death of the sub excluding the occasioanl lucky hit that may cause a catastrophic damage to the DD. Yes, the DD shouldnt come out unscathed either, but it should be nemesis of any surfaced sub.

If you think a DD can go up easy, what about a sub that crammed from bow to stern with an assortemnt of fuel oil, torpedos and batteries.

I absolutely agree. It should result in the sub losing 99.5% of the time. I have only read of one sub versus corvette surface action, and it was an Italian submarine which was damaged. The submarine lost, but it was a close run thing. The British ship was also extensively damaged. I think that would be what would make the difference. A surface ship has much more reserve buoyancy and room to absorb damage. A submarine with its mass under the surface cannot take damage and expect to stay afloat very long.

I am by no means stating that a submarine is an even match against an escort in a surface action. I am simply presenting the documentation and theory behind the addition of deck guns to submarines. I think that being able to take on 4 DD's which are part of a task force is highly unrealistic, but there is nothing to say that it takes away from the game. There is a lot in the game that is unrealistic, but if everything was completely realistic, most people would probably not enjoy the game as much. 99.5% of the game would be cruising around looking at empty ocean, and patrol tonnages of 10,000 tons would be the norm.

[tater]

The strength of the DDs probably has a fair amount to do with the type. COnvoy escorts early in the war are usually Fubuki or Mutsuki types. They are ~1200 tons. Get an Akizuki, and you are facing a ship more than twice as large, they were huge DDs.

tater

[nattydread]

Im all for the arcade option, but at 100% Realism, i expect a realistic experience. They gave us options, if they are going to be worth their salt provide the full spectrum, give us the option to determine what is fun for us.

I would personally embrace 10,000 ton sorties. Im so tired of the 1,000 ship contacts I get per mission.

Its like they totally forgot to input the variables for the higher realism settings.

[NephilimNexus]

The low-level early Nipponese destroyers are tragically fragile little things. I found that about three good AP round shots in between the funnels will start a fatal fire on them every time. Mind you it a while for that fire to spread out enough to actually reach the ammo and blow it into toothpicks, so the best tactic is to fire off about five rounds (tops) and the crash dive. Then you just gotta evade and wait for the flames to catch up with them.

Their gunboats are even more wimpy. You can sink those with just a few HE rounds - they're too weak to make using AP a valid tactic as it just goes in one side and out the other before it even detonates.

[Mylander]

Definitely a "nod to the casual gamer". A sub that engages even one DD in a gun duel, let alone multiple DDs, should be dead, dead, DEAD.

Imagine my surprise today when I whacked 2 DDs with my deck gun without sustaining even a scratch. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Definitely needs modding by someone much smarter than I am. Casual gamers. have at it, but I like a lot more realism. Isn't it great we're all different?

Mylander

[tater]

BTW, the AI's skill level makes a substantial difference in the outcome. As does the sea state. The devs desperately need to tie the deck gun to the difficulty setting for realistic pitching of the deck. The gyrostabilized deck guns are such an EZ mode crutch right now I think I might stop using them myself, and only let the crew use them. Sad, because it's fun, but it's just too easy.

A good test of the real capability of the DDs is to see them set at veteran or elite AI. Then they hammer you pretty badly. Hitting merchant escort DDs is a joke since they are at best set to "novice" AI level (some are even "poor" which is absurd for a fleet DD in the IJN).

LOL, my avatar turned into the "wild night in bangkok." I had a few wild nights in bangkok, but drag was never part of it, hehe.

[akdavis]

BTW, the AI's skill level makes a substantial difference in the outcome. As does the sea state. The devs desperately need to tie the deck gun to the difficulty setting for realistic pitching of the deck. The gyrostabilized deck guns are such an EZ mode crutch right now I think I might stop using them myself, and only let the crew use them. Sad, because it's fun, but it's just too easy.

A good test of the real capability of the DDs is to see them set at veteran or elite AI. Then they hammer you pretty badly. Hitting merchant escort DDs is a joke since they are at best set to "novice" AI level (some are even "poor" which is absurd for a fleet DD in the IJN).

LOL, my avatar turned into the "wild night in bangkok." I had a few wild nights in bangkok, but drag was never part of it, hehe.

Yes, you can still take way too many medium/large caliber shells without being blown to pieces, but the AI setting is key. The Mogami in the training mission mentioned above has her AI level set to poor. This turns her into basically a zombie. You can surface and not even be noticed until you attack. Even if you are noticed, she'll only lazily engage you. It'll be pure luck if any of her shots connect.