peabody
02-28-08, 02:17 PM
Everyone in here has been so good at helping me with answers (even to stupid questions) I have never received a "Read the manual comment!!" The tutorials put together by many of you have helped me learn the game. Since I don't have much help to offer, I figured I would do a "tutorial" on
"How NOT to attack a Task Force".
NOTE: I was NOT using manual targeting, not any good at it yet.
Maybe some beginners will learn from this, maybe it should just be deleted, but either way, here's my "learning experience".
I had been marking all contacts of Task Forces and Convoys and noticed one thing, direction they were headed. It seemed there were a lot that seemed to be headed for Rabaul (a port on the NE cornor of the Bismark Sea)(I'll take that as a point for me-I was right.)
This is the photo I will refer to:
http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Epeabody/SH4/taskforceattack.jpg
Mistake one: Location,Location,Location! The red dot is where I positioned myself, all stop, rig for silent running, 250ft. If you notice I have NO southern escape route. My escape goes NW to NE, comes into play later. The yellow line is the convoys (3 of them) that entered the harbor. I ignored them because I just wanted to try attacking a Task Force. But I positioned myself according to their route facing NE.
Mistake two: The Task Force came in on the blue line. OOps I'm facing the wrong way. Some went in front of me, some behind me. Subs don't turn very fast.
Mistake three: Try to get a heading on an entire Task Force (it was a big one) that is in almost a 90 degree turn. I didn't know which way to go-so I calmed myself down and just picked a direction to point. I chose approximately SW (Lucky guess)
Mistake four: I am watching my map and figure it is about time to take a peek. OH, crud, I am still at 250ft. I forgot to come up to at least close to periscope depth. In Real time it takes a while to get up from 250ft. and they are almost in shooting position.
The Attack even though poorly planned was a success. When the periscope popped out of the water I am staring at a Hiryu Fleet Carrier. I shot three almost immediately. Look to starboard at what is coming and down scope. Since the carrier was so close I don't have any time, there was no long distance target to shoot at first, so as not to alert the destroyers before they hit. Don't have time to wait for #2 to get to me, so I turn hard Starboard, flank, and then after a very little bit of time, hard port. Up scope, Oh @#$%$# while I was doing that the Shokaku Fleet carrier decided to turn to port and is now almost a bow shot. I said what the heck, he is so close I'll take the shot. Dumped three more. Spun my scope around to 180 degrees and as I'm turning I see destroyers coming from eveywhere, so I didn't feel I had time to pick a target, better to life to fight again, so I just let loose with all four stern tubes. I got lucky I got the Taiyo Escort Carrier and Ashshio Destroyer. One hit the Chitose Seaplane Tender and badly damaged it, but it didn't go down. (I found that out later when things calmed down and I looked with the external camera and saw a ship smoking, zoomed in and saw a big hole almost dead center of the ship.)
Down scope, headed under the Task Force at flank, figure at this point they already saw me so I get under some noise and try to get a bit of distance before I go to 1/3 and deep.
Mistake Six: this is basically Mistake one. the destroyers formed a U shape around me. I don't know if this is modeled in the game or just coincidence but they were like sheep dogs hearding me NE. What is NE? A great big Island, and my sub doesn't fly. I know it's not right but I just had to see this (not just blue lines on a map) so I looked at the external camera, it was amazing teamwork. They were DCing behind and East and West and pinging away like crazy, forcing me to go where they wanted me, pinned in with them South, East, West and a big Island North and no place to go.
I did get lucky after a looooooog, loooooog time. One of the destroyers to the West must have thought he detected me because he took off full speed to the East and that left a hole in their defense and I took it. I think I wore out the rudder with all the turns I made that day. Oh, ya that brings up;
Mistake Seven: It was a bright sunny day. So they spotted my scope right away. So, I made a hard turn South before submerging and when I got deep, I immediately turned hard NW hoping I would fool them. Didn't work.
Mistake Eight: After finally escaping I forgot I was still on "Silent running" and "Battle Stations". I used TC to get to the refit ship and suddenly stopped dead in the water. Checked the damage -none. Checked the "depth under keel" plenty(thinking maybe I ran into some shallow water, I notice some white spots don't show unless you are zoomed in, I hit one coming from Pearl one time). My entire crew was sound asleep. :rotfl:
That's my experience with a Task Force. Maybe it will help some of the bilge rats. Not a tutorial on doing it right but how to do it wrong. (But sometimes we get lucky)
So, for all the mistakes, I ended up sinking:
1. Hiryu Fleet Carrier
2. Shokaku Fkeet Carrier
3. Taiyo Escort Carrier
4 Ashshio Destroyer
and damaging the Chitose Seaplane Tender (had to look that one up, didn't even know what it was.)
I will be the first to admit, I would not have been able to use Manual Targeting on this, wasn't time, too many mistakes that slowed things down, but they ended up so close, I think I could have "shot from the hip" and got the first two carriers, they were almost too close.
Peabody
"How NOT to attack a Task Force".
NOTE: I was NOT using manual targeting, not any good at it yet.
Maybe some beginners will learn from this, maybe it should just be deleted, but either way, here's my "learning experience".
I had been marking all contacts of Task Forces and Convoys and noticed one thing, direction they were headed. It seemed there were a lot that seemed to be headed for Rabaul (a port on the NE cornor of the Bismark Sea)(I'll take that as a point for me-I was right.)
This is the photo I will refer to:
http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Epeabody/SH4/taskforceattack.jpg
Mistake one: Location,Location,Location! The red dot is where I positioned myself, all stop, rig for silent running, 250ft. If you notice I have NO southern escape route. My escape goes NW to NE, comes into play later. The yellow line is the convoys (3 of them) that entered the harbor. I ignored them because I just wanted to try attacking a Task Force. But I positioned myself according to their route facing NE.
Mistake two: The Task Force came in on the blue line. OOps I'm facing the wrong way. Some went in front of me, some behind me. Subs don't turn very fast.
Mistake three: Try to get a heading on an entire Task Force (it was a big one) that is in almost a 90 degree turn. I didn't know which way to go-so I calmed myself down and just picked a direction to point. I chose approximately SW (Lucky guess)
Mistake four: I am watching my map and figure it is about time to take a peek. OH, crud, I am still at 250ft. I forgot to come up to at least close to periscope depth. In Real time it takes a while to get up from 250ft. and they are almost in shooting position.
The Attack even though poorly planned was a success. When the periscope popped out of the water I am staring at a Hiryu Fleet Carrier. I shot three almost immediately. Look to starboard at what is coming and down scope. Since the carrier was so close I don't have any time, there was no long distance target to shoot at first, so as not to alert the destroyers before they hit. Don't have time to wait for #2 to get to me, so I turn hard Starboard, flank, and then after a very little bit of time, hard port. Up scope, Oh @#$%$# while I was doing that the Shokaku Fleet carrier decided to turn to port and is now almost a bow shot. I said what the heck, he is so close I'll take the shot. Dumped three more. Spun my scope around to 180 degrees and as I'm turning I see destroyers coming from eveywhere, so I didn't feel I had time to pick a target, better to life to fight again, so I just let loose with all four stern tubes. I got lucky I got the Taiyo Escort Carrier and Ashshio Destroyer. One hit the Chitose Seaplane Tender and badly damaged it, but it didn't go down. (I found that out later when things calmed down and I looked with the external camera and saw a ship smoking, zoomed in and saw a big hole almost dead center of the ship.)
Down scope, headed under the Task Force at flank, figure at this point they already saw me so I get under some noise and try to get a bit of distance before I go to 1/3 and deep.
Mistake Six: this is basically Mistake one. the destroyers formed a U shape around me. I don't know if this is modeled in the game or just coincidence but they were like sheep dogs hearding me NE. What is NE? A great big Island, and my sub doesn't fly. I know it's not right but I just had to see this (not just blue lines on a map) so I looked at the external camera, it was amazing teamwork. They were DCing behind and East and West and pinging away like crazy, forcing me to go where they wanted me, pinned in with them South, East, West and a big Island North and no place to go.
I did get lucky after a looooooog, loooooog time. One of the destroyers to the West must have thought he detected me because he took off full speed to the East and that left a hole in their defense and I took it. I think I wore out the rudder with all the turns I made that day. Oh, ya that brings up;
Mistake Seven: It was a bright sunny day. So they spotted my scope right away. So, I made a hard turn South before submerging and when I got deep, I immediately turned hard NW hoping I would fool them. Didn't work.
Mistake Eight: After finally escaping I forgot I was still on "Silent running" and "Battle Stations". I used TC to get to the refit ship and suddenly stopped dead in the water. Checked the damage -none. Checked the "depth under keel" plenty(thinking maybe I ran into some shallow water, I notice some white spots don't show unless you are zoomed in, I hit one coming from Pearl one time). My entire crew was sound asleep. :rotfl:
That's my experience with a Task Force. Maybe it will help some of the bilge rats. Not a tutorial on doing it right but how to do it wrong. (But sometimes we get lucky)
So, for all the mistakes, I ended up sinking:
1. Hiryu Fleet Carrier
2. Shokaku Fkeet Carrier
3. Taiyo Escort Carrier
4 Ashshio Destroyer
and damaging the Chitose Seaplane Tender (had to look that one up, didn't even know what it was.)
I will be the first to admit, I would not have been able to use Manual Targeting on this, wasn't time, too many mistakes that slowed things down, but they ended up so close, I think I could have "shot from the hip" and got the first two carriers, they were almost too close.
Peabody