Best patrol so far !!!

[SteamWake]

Ill try to keep it brief.

Finished up my best patrol ever last night (took three days real time)

First I was assigned to patrol the china sea which was fairly un-eventfull except for a un escorted huge liner which we drooled over and ate for lunch. The usual dive at daybreak to avoid the air patrols

Upon finishing our patrol of China Sea we were told to persue merchants south near the phillipines. Took us about two days to get down there and upon reaching the area settled in. It dident take long before we stumbled into a merc convoy. We raidioed in a report and were instruted to attack. We set up and waited. In brief a couple of freighters and liners went down and we spent the next 6 hours evading the escorts.

Around 2am the following day we surfaced and radioed in a patrol report. Shortly thereafter we were instructed to patrol a bit further south just west. The trip to the patrol area was unremarkable with the exception of one very close call from a pair of Sunderlands.

As we approached the patrol area (within 80km) again luch was on our side and spotted another convoy. We radioed iin the sighting and were instructed "Good find return to base at your disgression". Well at my disgression eh !. Plot a course to intercept the convoy !

4 fish left in the bow tubes 4 in the stern. All were fired with the exception of one when the escorts were closing.... fast ! Crash dive ! full left rudder get her down get her down fast !. As we passed 250 feet the depth charges rained down.. BOOM the ship shook but no damage ! "There setting them to shallow" my sonar man told me ! and we slinked off in the depths as the Japs desperatly, frutilessly searched and bombed. About 10 hours later they finally gave up and we lost "sight" of them. 3 more ships down.

We waited till 12am to surface and report I blinked in amazement at the 57,754 tons ! A cheer raised up from the boat when I told them "were goin home !".

We took the "scienic route" through the phillipenes and cruised back home. One stop at a tender for refueling. Once again the men cheered when they felt the boat lurch foward at flank. "Not long now" was heard throughout the boat.

Upon reaching home at Pearl we were rewarded with an "upgrade" to our boat to "reduce its profile" and commendations and medals for the crew.

I left it there and look foward to our next patrol !

All told 4 assignments completed 57K tons sunk and a reward.. Everything worked as intended. Some very tense moments interspersed with hours of boredom. Everything worked as was intended.

Pretty damn good game. :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice:up:

[U-Bones]

I need to get out more. I don't think that kind of tonnage exists in the Solomons for the entire year of '42...

[SteamWake]

I have to admit the number of contacts was a tad absurd.

Im going to look into the mods to reduce that. I play with map contacts on and the "reduced" traffic mod yet at one point there must have been at least a dozen contacts on the map.

[AVGWarhawk]

Before I go for a mod take the map contact and click it off. I use this and I have reasonable tonnage and contacts. I also use the less radio traffic mod. Sometimes I go for days without a contact or sighting. Seems a bit more realistic to me.

Anyway, your patrol is much like mine are, getting missions and new orders as you progress. Very cool.

The game is very good when it all seems to come together like this patrol:up:

[SteamWake]

Before I go for a mod take the map contact and click it off. I use this and I have reasonable tonnage and contacts. I also use the less radio traffic mod. Sometimes I go for days without a contact or sighting. Seems a bit more realistic to me.

Anyway, your patrol is much like mine are, getting missions and new orders as you progress. Very cool.

The game is very good when it all seems to come together like this patrol:up:

Even if those contacts arent "shown" on the map arent they still there ?

What Im trying to say is there are too many ships out there period. Ive seen on the map like 5 different task forces and as many convoys at the same time.

[AVGWarhawk]

Before I go for a mod take the map contact and click it off. I use this and I have reasonable tonnage and contacts. I also use the less radio traffic mod. Sometimes I go for days without a contact or sighting. Seems a bit more realistic to me.

Anyway, your patrol is much like mine are, getting missions and new orders as you progress. Very cool.

The game is very good when it all seems to come together like this patrol:up:
Even if those contacts arent "shown" on the map arent they still there ?

What Im trying to say is there are too many ships out there period. Ive seen on the map like 5 different task forces and as many convoys at the same time.

Well yes, the ships are still there but, you do not see the red square on the map of a ship/convoy 500nm off. With contacts off on the map, you basically will see the red square but only on ships 10-20 nm from you. You also have to depend on your men on the bridge to spot them and your sonarman to hear them. Click off the map updates and you will find targets a little more harder to find. Honestly, with the reduced radio mod, I get a radio message on a convoy maybe twice each patrol and most often to far away to do anything with. Give it a go!

[SteamWake]

I do have the reduced radio mod.

Maybe it dident "stick" but these dozens of contact are more or less within 300km of my current location.

Maybe its because I forgot to select a difficulty other than "easy" on carrier creation.

Maybe easy gives you more things to bump into.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have the game set on hard. No map update checked. I seriously do not see very many contacts with this set up.

[OakGroove]

Even with map updates unchecked, there are still enough contacts transmitted to make it a target rich environment. Without imposing restrictions on your gameplay, or using mods to counter the frequency of occurance, it's quite easy to rack up tonnage. Just finished my 1st patrol post 1.2 on 100%, VH, in an S-Class.
Result:
[Log Entry 0]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 119° 48' E, Lat 4° 41' N|Medium Modern Composite Freighter, 4469 tons
EntryTitle=December 25, 1941, 21:01
Date=19411225
Time=2101
Categ=0

[Log Entry 1]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 119° 58' E, Lat 4° 42' N|Large Old Split Freighter, 8313 tons
EntryTitle=December 26, 1941, 09:04
Date=19411226
Time=904
Categ=0

[Log Entry 2]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 119° 38' E, Lat 4° 57' N|Medium European Composite Freighter, 5213 tons
EntryTitle=December 28, 1941, 18:16
Date=19411228
Time=1816
Categ=0

[Log Entry 3]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 119° 44' E, Lat 4° 49' N|Medium Old Composite Freighter, 3946 tons
EntryTitle=December 29, 1941, 10:50
Date=19411229
Time=1050
Categ=0

[Log Entry 4]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 119° 34' E, Lat 5° 27' N|Medium European Composite Freighter, 5191 tons
EntryTitle=December 31, 1941, 13:29
Date=19411231
Time=1329
Categ=0

[Log Entry 5]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 117° 15' E, Lat 7° 43' N|Medium Old Composite Freighter, 4008 tons
EntryTitle=January 2, 1942, 05:57
Date=19420102
Time=557
Categ=0

[Log Entry 6]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 57' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Mutsuki Destroyer, 1772 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:31
Date=19420107
Time=1531
Categ=0

[Log Entry 7]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 57' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Mutsuki Destroyer, 1772 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:35
Date=19420107
Time=1535
Categ=0

[Log Entry 8]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 57' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Mutsuki Destroyer, 1772 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:37
Date=19420107
Time=1537
Categ=0

[Log Entry 9]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 56' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Large Old Split Freighter, 8241 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:41
Date=19420107
Time=1541
Categ=0

[Log Entry 10]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 55' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Medium European Composite Freighter, 5402 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:45
Date=19420107
Time=1545
Categ=0

[Log Entry 11]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 56' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Mutsuki Destroyer, 1772 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:46
Date=19420107
Time=1546
Categ=0

[Log Entry 12]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 55' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Medium Old Composite Freighter, 4066 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 15:55
Date=19420107
Time=1555
Categ=0

[Log Entry 13]
Type=0
EntryText=Ship sunk!|Long 104° 55' E, Lat 1° 22' N|Medium Modern Composite Freighter, 4473 tons
EntryTitle=January 7, 1942, 16:03
Date=19420107
Time=1603
Categ=0

:hmm:
Now off to the mods section :arrgh!:

[AVGWarhawk]

@oak,

Darn impressive. I do not see that many contacts. In the Celebus Sea. More in the Luzon area as it should be.

[Quillan]

AVG, at Hard and with the reduced radio traffic mod, some areas I find are still ultra high traffic zones. The East China Sea makes a good example. If I spend a great deal of time in that area it'll be swamped with contacts popping up, both convoys/task forces and single ship contacts. However, it runs in spurts. I'll got a bit with little to nothing, then a day or two when it looks like the map has the measles because of all the red spots.

[AVGWarhawk]

AVG, at Hard and with the reduced radio traffic mod, some areas I find are still ultra high traffic zones. The East China Sea makes a good example. If I spend a great deal of time in that area it'll be swamped with contacts popping up, both convoys/task forces and single ship contacts. However, it runs in spurts. I'll got a bit with little to nothing, then a day or two when it looks like the map has the measles because of all the red spots.

Exactly! Celebus Sea, very inactive. Luzon somewhat active and should be for the vessels jacking back and forth to Manilla. The South China Sea should have gluts of targets:yep:. I have only been there once and it was target rich. I guess it all depends were you are sent and year, etc.

Do you have map update turned off?

[Chock]

Nice post and a good score on tonnage if you have all the hard settings on, Steamwake.

One thing puzzles me though, you say you had a couple of close calls from Sunderlands? Does SH4 have friendly fire in it, or was that a typo?

[Quillan]

I expect he's still caught in the Atlantic war, or he's actually referring to one of those Japanese sea planes they use.

AVG, no, I don't have map contacts off, so I'll see more than you do, but it's still a lot of stuff in that area.

My current patrol suddenly developed into one crazy mission tonight. I'd been out almost 2 months from Pearl, made a trip down to the Solomons, over to Exmouth for a refuelling and then heading north for my patrol station in the East China Sea. All I'd sunk was a destroyer, 2 fishing boats and a medium merchant. I got a radio report of a task force heading south towards the Banda Sea. Well, what do you know? I'm in the Banda Sea heading north, so I headed up to try and intercept by running on the surface all day. Luck was with me as no Japanese aircraft found me, and my SJ radar picked up the task force right after dark. I submerged to try and approach when they changed course. Once I had their new course, I broke contact and made an end around to get back in front, and I now knew the composition of the TF: 2 Fuso BBs, 1 Kongo BB, 3 Hiryu CVs, 2 Mogami CAs, 2 Naka CLs, and assorted destroyers! No way was I letting this get away.

On the second approach, near dawn, I got in a good position and fired all 6 bow tubes, half at a Fuso and half at a Hiryu. Both went down - I hit a magazine on the Fuso and it went up in a huge fireball. I maneuvered into the main body and let the rear tubes out at another Fuso. One missed or was a dud, three hit, and it turned out those knocked out an engine and gave it a heavy list to port (seriously, I came up on it later and 1 of the 4 screws wasn't turning. I didn't realize the damage model was that detailed). It couldn't make more than 4 knots so the rest of the TF left it behind. Once they'd separated enough I reloaded tubes and finished it off.

Then, while heading north the next day, radar picked up 2 ships running in tandem. I decided to investigate, and what did they turn out to be but a huge European liner and large old passenger carrier! Both down with 4 fish. Several days later I'm nearing the East China Sea when I stumble into another small task force: 4 Fubuki destroyers guarding a troop ship, another large old passenger carrier! I had to hit it with 4 torpedos to take it out, but it went down too. So, I've been out for over 2 months now, I have 3 torpedos left, I still haven't made it to my assigned deployment, and I've sunk an insane 129,000 tons of shipping on one patrol.