How Realistic is This?

[Schlippittz]

So, I'm playing 1.4 stock, it's April of 1943, and I'm patrolling off the southern two Home islands (Kyushu and Shikoku). I keep running into these single, unescorted large merchies in the same 200 sq mi area. I downed a large passenger liner, a large composite freighter and a large tanker in almost the exact same spot in the span of 2 1/2 days. That doesn't seem too realistic to me. Is it? It's not much of a challenge. Sure, it gives me an opportunity to hone my noobie ship-killing skills, but it's kinda nice when the outcome isn't a forgone conclusion.

If this is not realistic, I'm assuming that a mod or mods will fix it. I'm a bit wary of loading up something like TM or RSRD, cos I'm still a super noober and don't want the game to get too hard too fast. Does something like TM make the game itself harder?

[edited to fix pre-coffee typos]

[Honkas]

I noticed something similar when I played last night. First two unescorted merchants and then another one a bit north, all having the same course. A bit further north though there was a very large convoy also on the exact same course north! I'm thinking that perhaps they left these slower ships behind or something like that, don't know if that be the case.

Fun note: When I was engaging said convoy a pair of unescorted US merchants appeared and got blown to hell by the convoy's cruisers and DD's! :D

Truly a whole mess of unescorted ships and the reason to why you shouldn't send such!

[longam]

Stock 1.4 is a shooting gallery past a certain point on the map. You can empty your ammo before you even reach your destinations.

The Run Silent Run Deep campaign or Trigger Maru changes all of that to a more realistic game. But beware that there might be missions where you hardly see anything.

[AVGWarhawk]

You can install Run Silent Run Deep alone. You do not need TM or RFB. All it will change is the traffic. It is a great mod and the end of the shooting gallery stock game.

[kylesplanet]

Hate to just repeat what everybody has already said but RSRD is a must in my book. It really changes the game for the better and really makes you appreciate finding the large targets.

[Schlippittz]

Well, after this patrol is over, I gotta load something.

I get a report of a convoy headed southeast of my position, within 20 miles, so I decide to spend the newly fallen night checking it out. 3 DDs and 2 large passenger liners. I didn't get as close as I would have liked, but I let a salvo of 3 fish go at each liner. I get one impact on one of the liners while a DD cuts in front of my other spread and takes one amidships, one in the bow and sinks. I go deep and silent, and wile I'm escaping to the northeast, I get two new contacts headed NNE and about 8 miles away. It's two more passenger liners headed in the opposite direction of the southbound convoy...and they're unescorted.

That's a bit silly. :hmm:

[Rockin Robbins]

I'm running RSRD and I have multiple escorted convoys everywhere in September of 1944. One time I was tracking three of them at once by radar. The sea is crawling with more traffic than I've ever seen stock or in Trigger Maru. Coming home with less than 30,000 tons is almost impossible. I might do it this time because I'm playing footsie with the DDs, but I'm up to 26,000 tons even doing that with almost half a load of torpedoes left. The typical convoy is three or four merchies and four or five escorts.

It's much more dangerous than TM by itself, because of the multiplication of escorts, but more fun so far.