Finally A Task Force! Why NOW??

[Commander Gizmo]

I just finished offing a huge (and I do mean huge) convoy with my 1939 destroyer and am parked in AM waiting for the next convoy to drop in for a visit. As expected, I soon find a sound contact heading my way. I excidedly wait for the reports to come in. How many this time boys? Can we end this patrol early and get some R&R?

"New sound conact! Warship! Blah Blah Blah"
"New sound conact! Warship! Blah Blah Blah"
"New sound conact! Warship! Blah Blah Blah"
"New sound conact! Warship! Blah Blah Blah"
"New sound conact! Warship! Blah Blah Blah"

What??! Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I decide this is worth breaking the external camera rule and having a peek. Zipping over a short 20 clicks I find a task force -- and not just any task force! Six Tribals, three Didos, one Renown, and the bloody Hood! :o

I have been playing SH3 GWX for years and never managed to catch a task force of any size within near firing position and now the frigg'n Hood is about to sail right over the top of me and I've got two torpedoes and only half my ammo supply for a mere five 15cm guns! I can't even dive to get a close look! :damn:

To add insult to injury: they aren't just sailing somewhere nearby. They are on a collision course for my boat.


One silver lining though. It seems that in light of my very successful campaign against the merchant fleet (1,800,000 tons in Nov, 1940) the Brits have sent out their finest ship to hunt me down. :arrgh!: I know I took on the Rodney and won, but the weather gave me the upper hand and it was alone. I don't think I am brave enough to take on these guys.

[Sonoboy]

Be more aggressive?

[Commander Gizmo]

So, I'm part way into my assault -- you didn't really think I'd let the Hood get away, did you -- and all of the Tribals are at the bottom. Their puny efforts made me laugh, though they did manage to score a hit on my radio antenna and remove it. Now how am I supposed to call in the air force? It also now occurs to me that my guns are unlikely to pierce the armor on the water line of any of the capital ships.

Since this is my last action before putting into port again, I plan to expend my last two eels against the Hood. It is 9:08 AM, so it's gonna be a long wait for nightfall, so I have three options:


Give up and head back to Wilhelmshaven while I still have just enough fuel left (this is supposed to be a mission to return to base from Lorient).
Wait until dark and attack quickly and make a run for it, then repeat until whatever damage can be done is.
Zig and zag until all five cap ships run out of ammo. Uh, that might take a while... How much ammo do they carry anyway?

At the very least, I have to slow down the Hood. I am driving a destroyer built for attacking cap ships after all. By the way, did you know that quad AA guns with AP ammo are fantastic at removing guns from ship's decks? If you can get close enough that is...

EDIT: Oh, and I should probably mention that it is perfect weather (wind speed 1 knot, clear skies).

[Rothwell white]

Sink em all !!

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Its days like this that i enjoy to mock the guys above me.
"Diiiiiive now m*thaf*cka! Dive if you can!":har:

[Commander Gizmo]

http://img5.imageshack.us/i/destroyer01.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4830/destroyer01.jpg
vs
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9289/hood01.jpg

I opted to wait for the cover of night and then sneak in close and launch torpedoes in the hope that the Hood would slow down and be a single target. I went in about 1:00 AM, when the night was as dark as it was going to get (which wasn't much!).

I lined up for two separate shots by getting directly in front of her and pointing my nose directly at her bow. This way I could fire a straight shot with minimal chances of being seen. I was also figuring on most of her guns being unable to point forward with some being disabled from the torpedo explosions under her bow. Who knows? I might even get lucky and hit the ammo depot. I snuck in to within 4000 meters and fired both magnetic eels running fast.

Unfortunately, she spotted me just after my fish got half way there. Her subsequent zag made my torpedoes miss and therefore the battle was already over. I, however, was apparently oblivious to that fact. Instead I ordered all guns open fire and manned the machine guns myself to do as much damage as I could while running away at flank (36 knots).

I've never seen such a thrilling and terrifying sight as three Didos, one Revenge, and the mighty Hood let loose all their might against my tiny destroyer. Wow!! What a show! Only a video would do it justice, and I'm afraid no such software is installed on this system.

My escape strategy seemed to work as I did make it away without a scratch. Seeing as how they had such bad aim when shooting at a target over 4000 meters away, I decided to just duke it out with her in a naval artillery match why not?

The battle lasted all night with me -- well I'd like to say pounding, but it was more like quietly mentioning my presence -- the Hood and the other four ships lighting up the sky. It is truly amazing that these ships can fire such a volume of ammunition and turn the sea around me into a white cloud of vapor while still not scoring a single hit!

Feeling like testing my boundaries in this no save game mission I went ahead and charged in to 3500 meters to see what kind of damage I could do at close range. Or more importantly, what kind of damage they couldn't do.

Well, surprisingly enough, the fire control of a battle ship can hit things a lot better when they are sitting right in front of the guns than when they are running around at 36 knots on the horizon. Ouch!

After unloading about 4000+ rounds of ammunition and nearly 5 hours of time, I decided all the damage I could do was done. Not to mention the bit that I suffered.

I paused just out of their visual range to snap a few screening of the resulting carnage. The result of the battle? My hull is down to 35% and... well, I think the Hood might need to touch up her paint job next year.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2466/destroyerdamage01.jpghttp://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9307/destroyerdamage02.jpghttp://img3.imageshack.us/img3/4275/destroyerdamage03.jpg

You should see the other guy...
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/6237/hooddamage01.jpg
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3963/hooddamage02.jpg

I somehow managed to damage her forward guns so that they were unable to raise above the position shown here. They just made giant holes in the water in front of her bow.
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/3079/hoodbrokenguns.jpg

I also removed quite a bit of the equipment and guns from her superstructure. She needed a little house cleaning anyway. There is much more room to stroll around the deck after my remodel.
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2692/hoodmissingguns.jpg

The vast majority of my shots landed below the water line towards the bow. I have quite a crack crew of highly decorated and well trained gun operators. I don't think she even noticed the machine gun fire.

Well, I'm off to Lorient for yet another resupply and refuel before trying once again to head back to Wilhelmshaven. It sure would be nice if bdu would tell me to just return to Lorient from now on, but alas the Brits don't seem to want to tell me where they hid my radio. Darned unpleasant of them.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Surface raiders have all the fun :shifty:

(By the way, what mod is this? Chinese 47's Warship mod?)

[Dissaray]

I've never seen such a miss matched fight go so well for the underdog. The last time I herd a story like this it ended with the destroyer coming back with nothing above deck where the bridge and the rest of the superstructure used to be and the ship was being piloted by a guy standing over a hole in the deck shouting directions down to the engen room. The damnd crazy thing is they were heading back into the fight.

I would have gone for the "**** You!" score and trained all guns on the bridge personaly. I might not have been able to sink a ship that large with the armerment left over but I would be the only destroyer captin in the fleet that could say that I made an attack run on the HMS HOOD, survived, and on top of all that I killed their captin! Surely that would win me a few drinks at the club.

What mod is that by the way? I haven't seen one that lets you have those funny looking subs before.

[Commander Gizmo]

The mod is WSM 3.0 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=157060), which is fantastic by the way.

I have quite a few other mods installed and plenty of custom tweaks to art and sound. I didn't mess with the ship's strength and armament. I guess I just took advantage of the right conditions. I was surprised to see my boat survive when the water all around me was exploding. I guess GWX did a great job of removing the laser guidance for the guns. I only hit them because my gun crew is fully decorated, experienced, and promoted.

I also use a few tricks. I take full advantage of my destroyer's slender shape by running very nearly straight for my oponent with just enough angle to get the rear guns in line for a shot. I keep a standing order to hold fire until all guns are aimed and I am as close as I dare under cover of dark/fog/weather and then open fire with all guns in an old fashion broadsides attack. I occasionally man the main guns myself if my crew seems too inept for the task.

It also helps more than you'd think to fire your machine guns at them manually, although aiming can take some practice. I have found that the quad AA, and even more so the double heavy flak with exploding AA shells do wonders for removing unnecessary items from their deck. They seemed oddly inadequite for removing the Hood's guns though. hmm....

I got close enough to make the first shot manually and remove key parts of the ship on a few occasions. They have a hard time firing at you after you remove their main guns or fire control towers.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Sweet, I'll have to try this. Chinese has made a lot of progress since I last came by here. :yeah: