Attack on ships at port....what am I doing wrong?

[chowderhead62]

So I received a mission to drop an agent in Panang....I snuck in at night and dropped the agent, evaded two subchasers, and on my way out there were a number of large ships docked in Panang. I snuck in under cover of weather and fog and put one of the large ships dead in front of me. It wouldn't let me target lock the ship until visible, so I tried two things. 1) Firing torpedos straight ahead and it looks from the target map they went straight ahead, but none of them hit the target....I didn't get dud messages they just exploded beyond the target. so then I tried waiting until I could actually get a target lock, which I did and then fired, to no avail. Any ideas? Could it be mines in the harbor? a sea wall? I can't seem to figure it out!

Sincerely,
One suck ass Captain.

[cdrsubron7]

It could have been defective torpedoes that run deeper than set. What was the date you were playing at?

[marqkhi8407]

Perhaps the depth of the torpedos were deep. And how many yds were you away when you fired?

[Aktungbby]

marqkhi8407!:Kaleun_Salute:

[Crannogman]

It's hard to say, although I do seem to recall similar & inexplicable misses when attacking ports on occasion. Depth does seem to be trickier, perhaps "docked" ships ride a little higher out of the water (although that seems unlikely). Where were you in relation to the harbor? What mods are you using (different mods have slightly different harbor set-ups)

[chowderhead62]

Torpedos were set at fast and at standard depth (like 5 feet). Running with TMO and RSRD for mods. Because of the fog I was not able to lock at 1000 yards, but still shot anyway. And then when that didn't work I moved in until I was able to lock and that was just like 300 yards or so. That didn't work either.

[torpedobait]

My experience going over a number of years with TMO-RSRDC is that 500 yards is the minimum for a torpedo to arm. :salute:

[Jimbuna]

Set to the shallowest depth and allow 500 yards.

[Rockin Robbins]

And remember, when you finally do get hits, if the boat just grounds and doesn't go entirely under water you don't get credit for a sinking.

[chowderhead62]

OK great. Thanks for the tips everyone!:up:

[Bleiente]

Who is so stupid, as big as a destroyer to enter a boat in an enemy port? :rotfl2:

[J0313]

Who is so stupid, as big as a destroyer to enter a boat in an enemy port? :rotfl2:

Nobody wants to hear your crap about who is so stupid. Why dont you keep it to helping the guy with his problem. I know quite as few people that have raided more than a few harbors and besides its a game for gods sake. Just rememeber Scapa Flow dude.

[Bleiente]

Um ... I wanted no one hurt or even insulting.
The fact is though, that one must be pretty stupid to control a 2000t + submarine into a port.
And do not come to me now please Prien's U-47 (Type 7B), which had only 760 / 850t.
If you do not see the difference in detail and approach, I'm very sorry ...

Greetings :arrgh!:

[Crannogman]

I think, when you say "stupid," you must mean to say "talented," because it takes skill to work a big boat into a harbor and sink some ships. On the other hand, he's still smaller than almost all the other vessels in the harbor that he's trying to sink, and they got in there just fine....

[Bleiente]

In my view, it is actually not wise to break with such a large boat in a harbor.
No responsible CO would favor such an action ... because hanging off many lives as well as the boat.
Those who ignore this as a commander, is either stupid or extremely selfish.

[Crannogman]

Considering how open the 3D harbor models tend to be, there's not really a lot of "inside" the harbor anyhow. Protected anchorages like Tokyo and Pearl are the exceptions. IRL, breakwaters and torpedo nets made harbor attacks much more infeasible.

Incidentally, although most mods put the Penang harbor on the Malay mainland, it was located at George Town on Penang Island. Will have to make note of that

[J0313]

In my view, it is actually not wise to break with such a large boat in a harbor.
No responsible CO would favor such an action ... because hanging off many lives as well as the boat.
Those who ignore this as a commander, is either stupid or extremely selfish.

Well like I said, Its a game. Your not a CO of anything. So telling somebody they are stupid For playing a GAME the way they want to is WRONG.

[Berserker]

A lot of times the target is stationary but in your scope look for funnel smoke...Then look to the left in the periscope station and check for speed of target...In some harbors you will have torpedo magnets,a nice fat kiturn maru that has been put their just to make you waste torpedoes.:timeout:.The modders have a wicked sense of humor!!:haha:

[Bleiente]

Well like I said, Its a game. Your not a CO of anything. So telling somebody they are stupid For playing a GAME the way they want to is WRONG.

Na was not meant that way - so forget it. :arrgh!:

[Jimbuna]

Well like I said, Its a game. Your not a CO of anything. So telling somebody they are stupid For playing a GAME the way they want to is WRONG.

Na was not meant that way - so forget it. :arrgh!:

:ping:

[Rockin Robbins]

Raiding harbors in the game is a very different operation than it would be in real life. In real life harbors would be much better protected with sub nets and shallow draft gunboats with depth charges which would be basically impossible to torpedo.

In addition, harbors were carefully guarded with air cover and submarines at the shallow depth of a harbor are very visible from the air even when submerged.

In real life the approaches to the harbors were mined, the channels altered from expected norms and grounding the sub was a high percentage proposition on the way in or out. If grounding happened you had 70 to 80 dead men.

However, stationing yourself outside the harbor was much safer, while all the boats in the harbor had to enter or leave, putting them at your mercy. It just didn't make sense to enter the harbor in real life.

In spite of that, Commander, later Admiral, Eugene Fluckey of the Barb, late in the war when submarine after submarine was returning to base with a full load of torpedoes, entered a Chinese harbor, sank some small vessels, shelled the town and hightailed out of there at more than full throttle, chased by a patrol boat they didn't get a decent shot at. At any point they could have grounded the vessel and 80 men would have become fish food, but he successfully avoided grounding, being shot by the patrol boat, headed off by sampans or attacked by planes. Fluckey received the Congressional Medal of Honor for that.

Should tell you how difficult and dangerous that little foray was. And that is why harbor raiding, as a general rule with only a couple of exceptions, didn't happen in the Pacific.

[Crannogman]

Even then, my reading of that Fluckey raid suggests it was more of an anchorage, and not ships tied up at piers etc. To a great extent the game is limited by flat seabeds that allow a sub to approach fully submerged almost to the shore everywhere. Sandbars, shoals, and other hazards are nonexistent. IRL, a lot of the "navigable" coastal waters are barely deep enough for a surfaced fleet boat - Midway is actually a prime example

[Rockin Robbins]

Fluckey had to navigate more than 20 miles of water too shallow to submerge, uncharted, mined, and attack 20 anchored warships from the surface. Shooting all his torpedoes but four stern ones for possible pursuers he hightailed out of there hitting the all-time speed record for a fleet boat, 23 knots, two DDs chasing him. Fluckey couldn't submerge for over an hour as he charged out of there dodging and colliding with sampans hoping that a mine didn't have his number.

Whatever you want to call it, this, for the first time, penetrated Japan's secret anchorage and killed the assumption that the ships were safe there. Fluckey got credit for one troop carrier sank. Visiting Nam Kwan Harbor in the 1990s he found an eyewitness who credited him with at least three sunk.

[AVGWarhawk]

Fluckey had to navigate more than 20 miles of water too shallow to submerge, uncharted, mined, and attack 20 anchored warships from the surface. Shooting all his torpedoes but four stern ones for possible pursuers he hightailed out of there hitting the all-time speed record for a fleet boat, 23 knots, two DDs chasing him. Fluckey couldn't submerge for over an hour as he charged out of there dodging and colliding with sampans hoping that a mine didn't have his number.

Whatever you want to call it, this, for the first time, penetrated Japan's secret anchorage and killed the assumption that the ships were safe there. Fluckey got credit for one troop carrier sank. Visiting Nam Kwan Harbor in the 1990s he found an eyewitness who credited him with at least three sunk.


All true!

[Kapt Z]

Fluckey's adventures with BARB really deserve a great movie!

Not only the crazy harbor raid, but the guy sent a landing party ashore and blew up a train! He also tinkered with launching small rockets from BARBs deck!

Anything to keep your crew from getting bored....

[Rockin Robbins]

Operating late in the war when nobody was sinking anything, Fluckey and Barb sank the highest amount of tonnage of any American sub of the war. When he died, Fluckey was the highest decorated veteran of WWII. He an his crew earned it.

My strategies in Silent Hunter 4 are almost entirely derived from Fluckey's book Thunder Below. He was a maverick who could have been crippled, had he worked for any commanding officer but Admiral Lockwood. In Christie's fleet he would have been made a failure.

[U505995]

Killing ships in port is what you're doing wrong if you ask me. Where is the sport in that?

[AVGWarhawk]

Killing ships in port is what you're doing wrong if you ask me. Where is the sport in that?

None really but it is fun to evade any patrol boats and sink a vessel. :D

[chowderhead62]

Wow this thread turned lively! Well as mentioned, I was on a mission to drop an agent, and was on my way OUT of the area past the harbor when I saw the targets of opportunity and thought "hey it's dark....why not?". And once given the good guidance from this group of 500 yards and set to shallow....low and behold I sank 3 merchants and a destroyer all for good measure. Had to lick a few wounds (my AA gun was destroyed), but all in all a good days work.

And yes....this is a game...it's fun to try things and see what you can or can't get away with. And it gives you an understanding of what those brave men had to do to get the job done. Isn't that really what it's all about?

[AVGWarhawk]

Yep! It is fun to try and gain access to a port. Much more fun when it is left a smoldering mess.

[lukterran]

Ships in the ports seem to be much higher in the water than the ship ID manual states. Run torps very shallow. Also pay very close attention to the ship location. Some ships are planted between docks and your torps will hit the dock and not the ship. These walls in the water you will not be able to see through your periscope unless you are very close.