Freudian
10-30-09, 05:17 PM
I'm a SH4 noob, playing about my 4th patrol in February '42 out of Java, in my little S-boat. This patrol is my first one using manual TDC, all the realism boxes checked except the auto-map and the event cam. This is all vanilla SH4 v1.4 so far.
I'd been driving around the Sea of Java for a while, merrily dropping a handful of freighters sailing around alone, and had three Mark 10's remaining. HQ had just instructed me to take photos of Singapore and I plotted a course. Barely an hour later I started getting SD radar contacts approaching from the southeast... first two... then two more... then more, and more! Ducking to periscope depth, I risked a glance up as two of them flew near my boat -- two Val dive bombers. A carrier group?
A few hours later, all the planes came back going the opposite direction, obviously converging on a point about 25 miles southeast of me. I decided that pictures of Singapore were less important than a chance to hurt a fleet carrier, so I ordered a 180 in hopes of finding the carriers.
Sure enough, at about 2000 to 2015 my deck watch reported a contact. In the dark I could see multiple shapes, mostly bearing down directly on top of me! From periscope depth I watched them approach, making out the outlines of at least three flat-tops in the group. I picked out the most obvious shot I saw and tried to classify it -- a Hiryu-class, it must be, the island is on the left -- worked out the course and speed off the chart, and waited for the group to stumble right through my firing solution. I was going to be about 800 yards from the Hiryu, I had plenty of night, and everybody appeared to be driving straight, blissfully unaware of me.
As the TDC said the carrier was 1500 yards out, I stuck my scope back up to check the solution one more time. That was not the correct thing to do: a destroyer very, very nearby immediately lit me up with sonar and started charging at me. Oh, hell...
I shot off all three torps (the firing solution be damned, maybe I'll at least wound something) and immediately ordered a flank-speed dive with a turn under the task force. Unfortunately, this is all in the Sea of Java still - depth about 100 feet - so I didn't exactly have lots of maneuvering room or a layer to hide under. Miraculously, one of the torps actually did hit an object. Even more incredibly, the event cam shortly showed me that Hiryu carrier listing over and sinking - from one Mark 10! Awesome.
But the escorts didn't like that. The depth charging that followed caused some flooding, and my little S-boat settled at 109 feet, with much crashing of metal, onto the sea floor. This, apparently, was a very bad thing to do: electrical motors destroyed, diesel engines destroyed, props destroyed... uh oh.
Sitting motionless on the bottom, the DD's tossed more depth charges at me, but not very accurately. The boat took more damage and crew were injured, the periscopes were destroyed, the deck gun, just about every other system - but eventually, most things got repaired. Eventually the escorts wandered off again, and I blew ballast and bobbled to the surface in my wounded little boat.
But I've got a big, big problem now. Apparently we can't repair any propulsion systems at all at sea. I'm stuck a few hundred miles from home, I can't do anything except radio "Out of torpedoes!" back to base...
(Oh, also. I reported the task force when I spotted it, got orders to attack... and apparently dropping a fleet carrier doesn't count as "engaging the task force," the mission objective is still incomplete. HQ *******s. And they still want me to go to Singapore.)
I would hate to have that fantastic encounter end in abortive failure because I can't invent a way to move my boat.
I'd been driving around the Sea of Java for a while, merrily dropping a handful of freighters sailing around alone, and had three Mark 10's remaining. HQ had just instructed me to take photos of Singapore and I plotted a course. Barely an hour later I started getting SD radar contacts approaching from the southeast... first two... then two more... then more, and more! Ducking to periscope depth, I risked a glance up as two of them flew near my boat -- two Val dive bombers. A carrier group?
A few hours later, all the planes came back going the opposite direction, obviously converging on a point about 25 miles southeast of me. I decided that pictures of Singapore were less important than a chance to hurt a fleet carrier, so I ordered a 180 in hopes of finding the carriers.
Sure enough, at about 2000 to 2015 my deck watch reported a contact. In the dark I could see multiple shapes, mostly bearing down directly on top of me! From periscope depth I watched them approach, making out the outlines of at least three flat-tops in the group. I picked out the most obvious shot I saw and tried to classify it -- a Hiryu-class, it must be, the island is on the left -- worked out the course and speed off the chart, and waited for the group to stumble right through my firing solution. I was going to be about 800 yards from the Hiryu, I had plenty of night, and everybody appeared to be driving straight, blissfully unaware of me.
As the TDC said the carrier was 1500 yards out, I stuck my scope back up to check the solution one more time. That was not the correct thing to do: a destroyer very, very nearby immediately lit me up with sonar and started charging at me. Oh, hell...
I shot off all three torps (the firing solution be damned, maybe I'll at least wound something) and immediately ordered a flank-speed dive with a turn under the task force. Unfortunately, this is all in the Sea of Java still - depth about 100 feet - so I didn't exactly have lots of maneuvering room or a layer to hide under. Miraculously, one of the torps actually did hit an object. Even more incredibly, the event cam shortly showed me that Hiryu carrier listing over and sinking - from one Mark 10! Awesome.
But the escorts didn't like that. The depth charging that followed caused some flooding, and my little S-boat settled at 109 feet, with much crashing of metal, onto the sea floor. This, apparently, was a very bad thing to do: electrical motors destroyed, diesel engines destroyed, props destroyed... uh oh.
Sitting motionless on the bottom, the DD's tossed more depth charges at me, but not very accurately. The boat took more damage and crew were injured, the periscopes were destroyed, the deck gun, just about every other system - but eventually, most things got repaired. Eventually the escorts wandered off again, and I blew ballast and bobbled to the surface in my wounded little boat.
But I've got a big, big problem now. Apparently we can't repair any propulsion systems at all at sea. I'm stuck a few hundred miles from home, I can't do anything except radio "Out of torpedoes!" back to base...
(Oh, also. I reported the task force when I spotted it, got orders to attack... and apparently dropping a fleet carrier doesn't count as "engaging the task force," the mission objective is still incomplete. HQ *******s. And they still want me to go to Singapore.)
I would hate to have that fantastic encounter end in abortive failure because I can't invent a way to move my boat.