Introduction: Groundpounder trying out his sea-legs.

[Marinesko]

Ahoy all. First I want to thank all of you who have made videos and PDFs on subjects such as manual targetting and plotting. I am a newcomer to the genre, and naval warfare for me is sort of a last "frontier".

Thanks to your videos and tutorials, within three days of buying the game(I haven't had a lot of time to play), I was already able to start manually targetting in the training scenario- trying different methods(e.g. spread vs. three/four torpedoes in the same hole) and generally pounding the crap out of the Mogami. Tonight I started my first patrol and thanks to another tutorial video on here I was able to intercept and take out my first merchantman manually. Truly, every hit via manual targetting is more satisfying than any kind of kill in other wargames(although any catastrophic kill on a Tiger in Combat Mission: Barbarossa is always nice).

What I wanted to ask, is if we could have a thread of "Stupid Questions" for those like me who are new to naval warfare. Most of the training threads deal with targetting issues, but I am looking for more basic stuff about navigation- how to do a patrol, slipping through destroyer screens and attacking convoys, that sort of thing.

What do you think?

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

People ask questions they think are stupid all the time. We try to keep the number of stickied threads to a minimum, but if one of the moderators thinks it's a good idea, who knows?

Meanwhile, ask away. You'll always find help here.

[Marinesko]

Here's one of my questions. As I said, I just started my first patrol(Phillipines, 1941). So far, so good, I've sank one ship already. Now I see reported contacts(reported by radio gram to the West and North West Phillipines, just one ship each, no convoy or group. As I understand(I have the Russian version of the game), the mission is to attack the enemy landing force. Since this is my first mission, I am wondering exactly what they mean by this, since there seems to be ships in two directions, quite a ways apart, and how much do I need to sink for this mission to be complete? Also, my mission objectives say head to some "starting point", which isn't necessarily anywhere near the reported convoys.

I realize this question may seem overly dumb but you have to remember that I am using the Russian version of the game so occasionally something is lost in translation(Russian is my second language, not first).

[Frame57]

You will get radio reports often on convoy and task force locations. Those are not your missions. However if they are relatively close to you then by all means go get em. In order to complete missions you must comply with your orders. Generally an orange star will be on your Navigation map which is where you must go. A star with a flag means you go to that location and sink about 10,000 tons of merchant shipping. You will get notification when this is complete. A star with binoculars means you go and patrol around that general location for about 48 hours. You do not have to sink anything to complete it. Completing missions is paramount for you to gain renown which you can spend on ugrading your sub.

[Etienne]

Just a note - When you are patrolling an area (The star with the binoculars), you have to stay within 50 miles of the star for 48 hours, or the timer starts over.

I usually drop a circle centered on the star and patrol inside this.

Also, there's no penalty for not completing an objective, you just don't get the renown. Lots of reasons to ignore them : Way too far, not enough torpedo, plain insane (I got "Photograph Yokohama harbor" once. It was... Dicey.)

Have fun, and don't be affraid to ask questions!

[Ping Panther]

Welcome aboard, Marinesko!
:salute:

Good hunting!
:ahoy:

Ping.