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Effigy
08-07-08, 08:50 PM
What's the longest you've ever been hunted by escorts?

I started a new career in April 44, in a XXI, with a new captain. I'm recording a journal as I go along, to maybe put together a little diary at the end of his career.

Anyway, my first and only patrol with this career so far, and I've experienced the worst/longest hunt by a DD ever in SHIII. Thanks to my notes I'm able to track the time span of this a bit better, since I was spamming TC quite a bit during this to speed things up. It was approaching 5am (my time) and I really wanted to sleep. :P

The pursuit by this insane DD lasted from April 7th at 19:10 (first hedgehogs and DC's begin to pepper my location after sinking a few ships), until April 8th at 11:52. That's what, like 16 hours game time?

:rotfl:

I did everything I could to shake this monster (only one DD after me). I used the speed advantage in the XXI to try and lose him. Nope. I expended all my decoys using the info I had been reading up on here just the day before. I was running at like 220meters, and with some damage I had taken prior to this convoy, and a few hedgehogs that hit me, this was getting extremely nerve wracking -- being that deep. I tried combinations of everything from dropping a decoy at flank, turning, then hitting silent ---- to various turning patterns while silent to get rid of this pest.

Nothing worked. He obviously ran out of munitions at some point, but continued to ping and locate me no matter what I did. Kept making his attack runs only to cruise over me and start the cycle all over again. During all this he reported me to allied aircraft, of course, and a few bombers stopped by to say hello. When I went topside with external to see what kind of a lunatic this was, I noticed he was on fire, lol. I wonder if the allied aircraft had accidently hit him with a bomb, cause I never even engaged that particular destroyer. Was hoping he'd explode, but alas...as well as having the stamina of a superhuman, he was also, apparently, very fire resistant.

:hmm:

Anyway, not complaining or asking for any tips on how to avoid this kind of a scenario. I think I've already read just about everything ever written on the subject here, in my short time on the forums. Hehe.

I know this far along into the war it's no joke, but I was just surprised at how long this particular hunt lasted (I've always been able to shake them in a reasonable amount of time), and was curious what you all have as far as longest pursuits by enemy escorts.

So, who's been pursued longer? Or have had a particularily annoying (but ultimately came away successful and safe) experience like this? I'm sure many. Would love to hear about em.

Oh, and after reading and enjoying GoldenRivet's 1x patrol, I was thankful that I wasn't on one myself in this particular scenario, hehe.

Task Force
08-07-08, 10:29 PM
three hours (game time) by two distroyers. Just sank there battleship and 8 of there distroyers. Ran out of Torpedos.:up: They eventualy ran out.

UnderseaLcpl
08-07-08, 10:31 PM
The longest ever..... hmm hard to say. Depth charges have addled my brains.

Probably in my last career. Sector AM52 or somewhere near there. I had followed a convoy into shallow water. Already attacked it twice and ended-around each time. I blew my last torpedoes, and remained at periscope depth to dodge the DD's, since it was so shallow.
I spent about 6 hours in 1x, slowly making my way to the deep water and getting run-over by escorts. Then the planes showed up. Fortunately, the escorts were Flower-class with no K-guns, so it wasn't too bad. I just couldn't lose them was all.
I finally got in to waters where I could go deep. Went down to 220 as fast as I could, went silent, and slipped away.

Normally, I don't bother with long cat-and-mouse games. If I try to evade an escort and it refuses to go away, I just torpedo it.

Effigy
08-07-08, 10:59 PM
The longest ever..... hmm hard to say. Depth charges have addled my brains.

Probably in my last career. Sector AM52 or somewhere near there. I had followed a convoy into shallow water. Already attacked it twice and ended-around each time. I blew my last torpedoes, and remained at periscope depth to dodge the DD's, since it was so shallow.
I spent about 6 hours in 1x, slowly making my way to the deep water and getting run-over by escorts. Then the planes showed up. Fortunately, the escorts were Flower-class with no K-guns, so it wasn't too bad. I just couldn't lose them was all.
I finally got in to waters where I could go deep. Went down to 220 as fast as I could, went silent, and slipped away.

Normally, I don't bother with long cat-and-mouse games. If I try to evade an escort and it refuses to go away, I just torpedo it.
6hrs real time? :huh: Damn! I did spend quite a bit of time maneuvering in 1x while I still had decoys to drop, trying to be strategic and all based on what I'd read in threads here. But once those ran out, and nothing else was working - meh, I had to time compress. I was totally fed up by then, lol.

Normally, I'd probably do as you did and engage a stubborn single escort like that. The XXI comes with a stock torp loadout of 2 (or four?) homing torps it seems. But I'd burned through those during the convoy attack, disabling another DD. I'd have given it a shot if I had one left. That said.... This is my first DiD career so I am playing it a bit cautiously I guess. :oops:

UnderseaLcpl
08-08-08, 03:16 AM
DiD is the only reason I put up with a 6-hr hunt. I spent a lot of it reading.

nirwana
08-08-08, 04:00 AM
After taking out some c3s in a convoy a flowerpot chasing me for 6 hrs dropping wabos and ran out of them crying for help from a black swan which dropped about 50 wabos while the flowerpot was confirming my position during the u-turn of it.

After 2 more hrs both trolled back towards their convoy so i guess it was a total of 7 hrs. Since i knew they ran outta wabos i made a 2nd run on the convoy downed the 2 other escorts (1 was a dido) not chased me plus those 2. After i massacred half of the cargos and tankers of the large convoy due to lack of british air support in midatlantic i headed back without eals, any ammo but flak and over 74k t of sunken ships in the log back home.

Though those 4 days gametime action required 6 packs of smokes and 4 pots of black coffee i was exited by the intensity and last but not least by the success of this patrol.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7319/aaaiy2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Chisum
08-08-08, 04:14 AM
3 days ago I still 10 hours on my seat to complete(and escape) my attack on a big convoy, june 1944.
Ok, not all the time in x1 TC but often: full action needs 13 hours in the game !
Finally, 7 DD sunk and also 3 cargos hits for 1 sunk.
It was very fantastic to stay in the game so long time especially after has been two time killed(it was a resumed backup).

Kielhauler1961
08-08-08, 04:18 AM
My worst pounding was way back when SH3 first came out. I had a new kaleun in a VIIB and he made a very clumsy attack on a trooper convoy SW of Portugal. Sank one trooper and damaged another but about five escorts jumped on him and rained down accurate dc's for nearly eight hours. Any which way he twisted and squirmed, changed depth or speed, didn't make a scrap of difference. The boat took increasingly heavy damage and finally sank below crush depth. I had to turn the sound down on my speakers as the constant explosions were giving me headache!