Surprise... Deck gun sinks liner?

[Captain Affenschwanz]

I was down to my last two fish and heading back to Pearl when I crossed paths with two liners, an 18,000+ ton European and an older, 8,000+ tonner. I figured I had a better chanch of sinking the old one, so I fed him the fish. After the fish slowed him down, I surfaced and let my Master Chief Gunners Mate and his striker do their thing with the deck gun. A dozen or so rounds to the water line sent the liner to the bottom. Then, just for the hell of it, I stopped my boat and let the Chief loose on the second liner as it was running away at 19 Kts. Much to my surprise and delight, the damn thing went down! I have no idea the number of rounds this took, but besides the other liner, I had also earlier used the deck gun on a freighter. When it was over, I had one round remaining.

98,000+ tons for my third patrol... Received another medal and a new boat!

On the negative side, I was 2-3 days from Midway when Fleet reported the Japanese were heading there. I pulled into Midway on June 2, loaded fuel and torpedos and then sailed NW looking for the Japanese carrier fleet. Never found them... Gave up and set course back to Pearl on June 7th. Have to wonder if it was my poor hunting ability or the game.

[Rockin Robbins]

I was down to my last two fish and heading back to Pearl when I crossed paths with two liners, an 18,000+ ton European and an older, 8,000+ tonner. I figured I had a better chanch of sinking the old one, so I fed him the fish. After the fish slowed him down, I surfaced and let my Master Chief Gunners Mate and his striker do their thing with the deck gun. A dozen or so rounds to the water line sent the liner to the bottom. Then, just for the hell of it, I stopped my boat and let the Chief loose on the second liner as it was running away at 19 Kts. Much to my surprise and delight, the damn thing went down! I have no idea the number of rounds this took, but besides the other liner, I had also earlier used the deck gun on a freighter. When it was over, I had one round remaining.

98,000+ tons for my third patrol... Received another medal and a new boat!

On the negative side, I was 2-3 days from Midway when Fleet reported the Japanese were heading there. I pulled into Midway on June 2, loaded fuel and torpedos and then sailed NW looking for the Japanese carrier fleet. Never found them... Gave up and set course back to Pearl on June 7th. Have to wonder if it was my poor hunting ability or the game.
I don't believe the Battle of Midway is scripted well enough for you to anticipate where the enemy carriers will be at any given time. The carriers travel at 30 knots. What are your chances of catching up with them? If you gain contact with them, what are the chances that you are in the narrow cone ahead of them from which you can make an attack? Speed is a marvelous defense against submarines.

As far as the deck gun goes, you should have been able to sink ship #1 with 50 rounds or more. The second should in no way be sinkable with less than 250 rounds and 45 or more minutes of shelling action. Load up Trigger Maru Overhauled or Real Fleet Boat and check out the effectiveness of a real deck gun instead of your photon torpedoes. I still love my deck gun with those restrictions. The suspense of pummeling away slowly on the surface when a plane could appear any second to instantly change you from hunter to hunted is priceless!

[AVGWarhawk]

RSRD is scripted for Midway. The US subs were there but not effective. Only one sub was able to sent of some torps but the torps were no good. RR is right though...if you are not in front of the task force and can sit and wait, you are not going to catch up. It is the big one that got away.

[gimpy117]

yeah i deck gunned a liner as well,maybe the speed of them has a factor....scooping in more water or somthing.

[Ducimus]

:hmm:

I better remember to up the armor level on that liner.... just to be sure.

[piersyf]

I think there's something missing in all of this... I agree that either in the notion of a hit point system for ships or the sinking model, a deck gun has it's work cut out for it, but I could guarantee to stop ANY liner with a deck gun (for real) in about 12 rounds. Go for a mobility kill. The 4"50cal gun has a penetration of 3 inches at 3,700 yards using AP. A dozen rounds into the boiler room of a ship travelling at 19kts? I say a dozen rounds because you have to hit and breach the boiler, so pegging the engine room isn't enough, but would you want to be in the boiler room when one is ruptured with a full head of steam? The deck gun was the primary method of sinking merchants in WW1. If it took over 50 rounds for a medium sized ship, that makes no logistic sense. A mobility kill, force the crew to abandon, then scuttle. If you look at any footage of gun kills of merchants you'll notice that one of the first rounds is in the guts and there's a burst of soot from the funnel. A hit to the boiler room. I don't expect this to be modded, but what I would suggest is not to up the armour on that liner. I just put 120 rounds of mixed common and AP into a medium freighter before it went down. My guess is the liner was a statistical fluke that is not outside the realms of possibility. Of course if it happens a lot, that's a different matter.