The unsinkable freighter

[Platapus]

For the first time I abandoned a mission.. just gave up.

Sh4 + RFB

January 1942 Patrolling off coast of Hokaido. Slim pickins decide to travel south.

Spot lone merchant -- ID as Small old Split Superstructure freighter 2,400 tons.

No escorts, no aircraft easy pickings. Night is falling but for now she is meat on the plate*

Decide not to waste torpedoes on a 2,500 ton merchant so man the deck guns. Fired about 150 shells (the max load) at this ship from range of less than 1,000 yards. Sometimes I manned the deck gun, the other times I used my crew. :arrgh!:

My impression is that about 30% of the shells missed the merchant, 30% impacted above the waterline, and the last 30% were beautiful waterline and below shots. I could clearly see holes at the water line in the hull. But now I am out of deck gun ammo. :stare:

Not only did this ship not sink but it did not seem to be changing course much during the barrage. It was changing a little so I know the ship was "active".:hmmm:

I decided that I needed to use torpedoes. Set up a shot at under 1,000 yards and launch two Mk 14 POS torpedoes. Both impact, both duds. :damn:

Now I have the merchant's attention. Speed increases up to 9-10 knots and she starts zig-zagging wildly. The ol girl seems pretty lively with 30-40 holes in her. :nope:

The zig-zagging makes targeting harder. over the next two hours of real time, I launch 10 (yes 10) torpedoes at her from between 800 and 1,200 yards. Five miss and five duds. :damn::damn::damn::damn::damn:

For those keeping score at home, this makes 12 torpedoes I have launched at this 2,500 ton ship with 7 duds. I only have two torpedoes in my stern tubes. There is no way I will be able to get a better solution while this small merchant with 30 holes and 7 dents is still zig zagging at 10 knots.

I give up. It was already one hour past my bedtime. I hit the escape key and go to bed. :zzz:

Anyone else experience the unsinkable merchant?

*"Meat on the plate" Extra points if you can identify the movie and actor. :|\\

[Deamon]

Try to ram her there next time :D

[Platapus]

Try to ram her there next time :D

Oh I considered it. I really really considered it :arrgh!:

Would ramming a surface ship cause damage to the surface ship as well as to the sub in SH4?

[breadcatcher101]

Sounds to me like you should have been more agressive.:D

I have been through 5 wars and never ran into a ship like that. Do you think it is possible the gang at Ubisoft slipped one in along with the Dutchman as sort of a joke?

That ship should have sunk 100 times over.

[theluckyone17]

RFB nerfed the deck gun alright... if you spread those 30 waterline shots out across the ship, you probably haven't done enough damage to a single compartment for serious leakage. I've got another pet theory that shots right at the waterline don't help much, either. Concentrate those 30 shots to a compartment or two, and get them a bit deeper (so they're not spending half their time out of the water due to wave action), and you might do some damage.

Note that I said damage, not sinking. It takes a lot of deck gun shells to take down a ship in RFB, from what I've seen.

As for the fish... oh gawd, have I ever been in your shoes. Every now and then a ship comes along that I can't hit, for the life of me. I'd swear that my measurements are fine, my calculations are fine, and I've got that target's details nailed down. I never seem to have a problem with the targets I hit :D. But there's always that one ship that just greases by the fish.

Then when I do manage to hit it... dud. Sometimes it'd dud... dud... dud. I wanna sail back to Pearl and wring some pencil pusher's neck. Maybe shove him out the tube instead of the torp'.

What I have been trying lately, though... is several deep breaths. Count to ten. Whatever. Stop flinging defective fish at the target, 'cause obviously that's not going to work. Assuming time/escorts/aircraft/shallow water allow, I'll wait 'til the target is nearly out of sight, then surface. Maneuver around him, and get back out in front. By now, I'll have guessed his (possibly) new course, even if he's zig zagging (he still has an average course he's following). Hopefully he'll settle down, and I can perform a normal attack.

If he's still zig zagging, I plant myself right on the average course, bow or stern pointed at him. Once the range gets down to about 1,000 yards, I'll eyeball a shot by turning the TDC off. It'll still let me (sometimes) reorient the fish by clicking on the send range button. If not, I'll lock onto the target, take a (non accurate) range reading like normal, and then take another range reading where I want the torpedo to go.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't... I let 'em go. It hurts, but it's not worth throwing all my fish at a ship that I can't hit. Call it jinxed, karma, or just mental head games... I'm not going to be able to hit that ship.

[Armistead]

Sometimes it sucks to get a ship full of duds. Hard to believe the deck gun didn't sink it. I only played RFB once, obvious it took more, but about equal to TMO, usually about 30-50 rounds.

If you had sterns left, I would have pulled out of view and done a wide end around. Once you get out of sight, they will usually go back to a straight course.

Ramming would just damage your sub...Once I had a mercant stopped and listing to the point he was almost rolled over. Waited and he didn't go. Mad I rammed him hard trying to push him over. I actually did. He exploded and took me with him.

[Rockin Robbins]

Welcome to a slight taste of what real submariners experienced in 1942. To sink a 1000 ton freighter with a deck gun took well over an hour, hundreds of rounds and a lot of good luck that his distress radio calls didn't bring a buddy out to show you how it's done. Deck guns were for popping sampans, not sinking freighters.

Many, many subs in 1942 and 1943 returned with no torpedoes and no victims. Even in 1944 only one ship was sunk for each 8 torpedoes fired. Read that again. The situation in '43 was so bad that captains resigned their commissions in disgust, thinking it was their skills, not the bad torpedoes, that were the problem. Joe Enright, who later took command of the Archerfish and sank the largest target of the war, Shinano, was one of those who quit in utter discouragement. We were AWFUL at submarine warfare in 1942 and 1943.

Thinking a target should sink with only 30 to 40 shells in it is ludicrous. You haven't got their attention yet.

Perhaps you should reread the S-Boat story that begins the RFB manual. Those of us who love RFB have been there before and that is exactly the experience we were looking for. Frustration is a valid feature of simulation. Looks like it worked. Now imagine the dozens of sub captains who COULDN'T hit the escape key and go to bed and you have a deeper, more meaningful insight into the American submarine war of 1942.

[GulfXray]

Try to ram her there next time :D

I was thinking grappling hooks and sabres....

[talesofvalor]

What is RFB?

[Armistead]

I agree that sinking a merchant with a deckgun is not unrealistic, although it was done many times. Regardless of historic war, how the game function is what were dealing with and we all realize were not being actually shot at.

If a HE shell hit a bunch of ammo stored on board, I would think a ship could go up in flames fast. It really wasn't the rounds of the gun that sunk the ships, but secondary damage caused by the shells. Be nice if the game could better program that.

With TMO 30 to 40 rounds will do it. The 40 now has no effect now, while in stock you could sink a ship with it, almost silly.

[AVGWarhawk]

What is RFB?


Real Fleet Boat

[Rockin Robbins]

What is RFB?
Welcome to SUBSIM! RFB is Real Fleet Boat, one of the "supermods" for Silent Hunter 4. It is concerned with establishing a gameplay balance by making the submarine realistically vulnerable and realistically offensive.

In the case we're talking about in this thread, the stock deck gun came from Star Wars, not a submarine. Real Fleet Boat, through research into actual combat firing rates and number of shells to sink real targets, seeks to reproduce those results in the game. Then people complain.:up:

That's life in the modding biz, where people who spent no effort even to research what they are complaining about tear at the work of people who spent months or years.... ok, they spent at least 15 minutes:har:.... producing the mod that these same complainers were asking for a month before. Modding is a thankless life but some of us claim to enjoy it.

[AVGWarhawk]

Two things on the deck gun:

1. If we could sink a vessel with 20-30 shells, why bother taking torpedoes at all? There is enough shells to sink 5-6 vessels and return to port. For that matter, why bother submerging? Just be a battlewagon:D

2. In RFB, if that merchant had been armed, things for you would have been a bit different. In other words, spending an hour taking shots would not have happened. Best to make short the target is unarmed or it could be a real bad day for the crew.

So, the cannon is really a venue to keeping the tonnage down to historical levels. If everyone came back to port with 100,000 tons while using RFB...the folks at RFB would be getting grilled over this issue. Ok, reduce the number of shells. Well, RFB can't because the shell count is at historical levels. If not, the RFB folks would hear about that issue. So, the cannon was castrated a bit to help balance out tonnages and unrealistic use of the cannon.

In all reality, one torpedo and then 20 some odd shells would have sunk that vessel.

[Armistead]

How many shots does it actually take in RFB to sink a ship and does the loadout matter or connect? I know one torp can blow a loaded ship with one shot, how does the game program the deckgun relative to the loadout? I think it would be better that if a ship is unloaded, you shouldn't be able to sink it al all with the deckgun unless it's a small merchant. However, if it's loaded with ammo, a tanker full of fuel, it should be easy prey.

Also, when you see a loaded ship stack high with cargo, does the cargo itself take damage. I've seen some cargo blow up and vanish with the deckgun, other cargo you could shoot it forever. I assume cargo that explodes is ammo?

One thing I like about TMO, most merchants carry guns. Still, you can stay far enough and shoot them up and not worry about getting hit. I wish someone would program the game that if you're shooting at a ship, they shoot back. If they can't see you, then they respond to nothing. I would think being shot at would be enough info your under attack and to shoot back or evade.

[AVGWarhawk]

Not sure Armistead. Copy and paste this question in the RFB thread. The cannon is secondary to me and I do not really bother with it. I would if I could sink 20 vessels with 180 shells. This is plausible if the cannon was left as is. But would it be realisitic? No. All skippers would have used torps in this attack instance but platapus wanted to try is luck. Personally, if I could, I would leave that cannon back at Pearl.

[Armistead]

Load up the pimp mod...............

[gimpy117]

been there done that... :damn:

[Rockin Robbins]

Load up the pimp mod...............

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/giggle.gif
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/shootingsmilie.gif

[Platapus]

... if you spread those 30 waterline shots out across the ship, you probably haven't done enough damage to a single compartment for serious leakage. ...Concentrate those 30 shots to a compartment or two, and get them a bit deeper

What I have been trying lately, though... is several deep breaths. ...I'll wait 'til the target is nearly out of sight, then surface. Maneuver around him, and get back out in front.


Good gouge there. :yeah:

In situations like this, I think the words of Lt Commander Tommy Dykers, Captain of the USS Jack in 1943 sums up how we all feel

"Damn those exploders... Damn them all to hell!"