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From a Brit
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Real nice work Gunfighter, I like what you've done there.:)
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@sergei
Quote:
,working on anything else ?? |
Haven't got any ideas at the moment, but I'm still thinking so you never know!
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re
deeppsi, just an FYI, Triton wasnt the first to score a kill, was the fire to FIRE torpedos at an enemy ship.No kill was confirmed or recorded.The explosion they heard was actually believed to be a premature explosion caused by the fauly magentic detonators in the Mark 14 torpedo, a very common thing for first couple years of war.
The premature explosions were confused as hits sometimes when skippers unaware of the faulty detonators and following the stay deep and fire on sonar bearings only method, were not able to see the torpedos as they blew up. I forget which boat it was but it was an Asiatic boat out of Manila that scored the first US submarine kill of the war.However, the Triton is a fine submarine, take care of her. |
First ever patrol in SH4
I'm ordered to take command of the USS Tambor and proceed to Japanese home waters. Along the way, I'm to drop off an intelligence operative on Honshu about 100nm northeast of Tokyo. I make the insertion without much incident...but it's hair-raising. The drop off point is just 100yd from a small shore battery! :o On the way out I put two fish into a large tanker sitting at a dock nearby....but she held on floating. A DD was bearing down, so I hustled out of there. We cruised NE along the japanese coast, diving every 20 minutes or so to avoid H6Ks, G4Ms, and pairs of A6Ms! They were, unsurprisingly, everywhere. One H6K was close enough to see us surface, but my gunner managed to shoot up a wing and bring him down. We passed through the cut at the north end of Honshu (Aomori and Hakodate) without finding more targets. Once in the sea of japan, we were awash in convoys. :arrgh!: Our mk 14 torpedoes were....difficult. :damn: Several times, I would just miss ahead or astern. :doh: After several attacks, however, I got them figured out and succeeded in downing a good medium composite freighter. :up: My fuel was down to around 60%, so I decided to head south into the East China Sea. On the way, I encountered several single merchentmen, who now decorate the floor of the ocean. As I entered the new area, sure enough, I got a "patrol these coordinates" dispatch from ComSubPac. I took the crew down there and we cruised around within a few miles of the coordinates for a little while. I'm glad we didn't stray...a radio report came in a short time later of an enemy task force heading right for us!:yep: I carefully plotted an approximate intercept and kept a careful watch...then all of a sudden, the sonarman called out contact after contact...warship after warship. It was late afternoon and, sailing out of the setting sun (fitting, I felt), came a massive force. I managed to make out three pagoda towers and positively identified them as belonging to one Kongo-class and two Fuso-class. There were at least three heavy cruisers, probably Maya-class, in formation, several light cruisers, and around 10 destroyers and two oilers. It looked something like this (making 12 knots, heading approx 060, inbound from the Phillipines towards Honshu, fat dumb and happy, not swerving): .........DD(ASW) .................................................. . DD(ASW) .....................Oiler (CA?) (CA?) (CL) (DD?) (Oiler?) DD(ASW) .......Kongo Fuso Fuso (CL?) (CL?) <====== NE @ 12kts .....................Maya (CL?) (DD?) (DD?) (DD?) (DD?) .........DD(ASW) .................................................. . DD(ASW) After plotting their courses and patterns, I made the decision to go for the lead Kongo-class battlecruiser. The lead ASW ships were set up (as above) with one directly in the lead, weaving back and forth...the other two off the forward flank points of the secondary columns were alternating making ~2000 yard breaks out/away from the battle line to sweep the flanks for submarines. I made the decision to try jumping into firing position as the DD on my side made her flanking run. We ran ahead of the TF to let the sunlight fade and then went to periscope depth and silent running and began gliding in towards firing position. Our timing was perfect...as the DD wandered off 1500yd astern of us and the lead DD wandered around 1200yd of our port bow, we slid in just to port of the bow of the lead Maya in perfect firing position on the Kongo. The forward tubes were low on torpedoes, with only two remaining in tubes 4 and 6. I had to make them count. I fired from about 1100yds and JUST got them in front of the Maya...I saw his prow cut the wake of my second fish! I put a total spread of two degrees on them (one deg starboard on the first, one deg port on the second). They were set to 5 feet, so I could make sure they hit. As the second fish cleared the bow of the Maya (maybe 300yd ahead of me), I dropped the periscope and ordered the chief to take us to 325 feet. The torpedoes needed just seconds to race across the distance and strike their target... we strained with our might, urging our girl to dive for all she was worth. The stopwatch raced down to our estimated time of impact and....BOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!! ...BOOOOOMMM!!!! You could feel the gutteral exultation radiating off the crew. THAT WAS FOR PEARL!!! Not a word or cheer was uttered though. As we dove for our lives, bending our course away from the target's last position, the tension mounted. It was preternaturally silent with the creaking of the hull, whirring of the electric motors, and the increasing disquieting din of a dying warship permeating the space. I looked back and saw the sonarman give an exuberant thumbs up as we heard a massive explosion and the repeated tortured cries of ripping/buckling steel. By god, we'd just sunk something huge! The sonarman called softly "thermal layer!" and we relaxed ever so slightly. Waiting for the pinging to start, it became obvious that all hell was breaking loose on the surface. I could wave my hand generally in the direction of the ruined Kongo sinking into the depths...but there were sounds coming from just..there...and there! Which sounded like propellers suddenly thrashing the water madly and then squealing, crunching, clanging sounds. It sounded like ships were colliding with one another. I can only guess that the battle line, in the fading light no less, saw the lead ship take two fish and assumed there were more inbound. They scattered in different directions and be damned any tin can or light cruiser which got in their way. We heard another ship explode and break up, but the sea was so confused that we couldn't make out what ship or what happened. (I conversed with the sonar operator about this briefly after he came off shift and he just tossed his hands up, saying "skipper, it was a mess, I couldn't tell you what was going on up there but it was ugly!") I kept us down at 325' for another hour, moving along at 2kts away from the task force. We cleared our baffles and then rose to periscope depth. After clearing the horizon with the observation periscope, we surfaced and I let the men relax and celebrate a little bit. We then made our way home and turned in a happy report of 64k tons sunk, 1 34000 ton Kongo, 6 freighters, and 1 H6K aircraft destroyed!!! :arrgh!: |
Good shooting on the Kongo, :yeah: Kind of fun isn't it. :smug:
magic |
heck yeah it was!
I'll admit, I was parked on the external camera, leaned forward, using body english to will both torps to hit. Man oh man, they did...and there were two giant, gaping holes in the Kongo..one just aft of the pagoda tower and one just ahead of the aft turrets. She capsized in about two minutes and sank in about five more minutes. I like the nice touch of the 20 lifeboats :-) |
flounder if you haven't already, learn the O'kane fast 90 attack, it cuts down on those annoying off the bow and just astern torp misses. i don't even use the stadimeter anymore :D.
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if youll check my luckiest man alive thread youll see i have a story of my own. :DL. but i have another :arrgh!:.
December 18,1942 I was trying a new supermod my friend had made.I was in command of USS Angler, a gato sub, with a seasoned crew with high morale and many abilities. it was supposed to actually make your sensorss stop working when heavily damaged. I had just had a bad encounter with a task force. i thought i could sneak in and blow a carrier or heavy cruiser out of the water and sneak back out. I snuck in at 0019 hours, perfect attacking condidtions. i, being dumb, pushed the boat to standard when there was 15 destroyers around. i got within 4000 m of that Shokaku before i hear rapid pinging. i turn my scope and theres a destroyer 400 m away.i had had automatic targetng, and i fired my torpedo at it and immediately i ordered hard to starboard and to dive, but it was too late. he dropped his load with pinpoint accuracy. i used external camera and saw that 5 dc were right on top of me. they knew i was there....time to push to flank. the dcs detonated. immediately 65 hull damage 1 bulkhead destroyed in engine room, starboard propeller 95% damaged, sonar destroyed and multiple sytems hit hard. i had a mod installed that estimated crush depth when damaged. only 100 ft. it would have to do. i dived and ran for my life. thankfully this was the only dd in close proximity so i swerved my way outta that mess. It was now december 21st, 2 days after encountering the deadly task force. i reapired all that i could. the prop shaft would only god down to 40% damage with decreased speed and manuverability. i needed to sail home. i was too damaged to fight any big cats,but i could still take down some smaller vessels. i decided to take a long route home, seeing as how i had 65 fuel left still. i plotted a course that sort of zig zagged back to pearl. 2 days of nothingness was finally rewarded with a radar contact bearing 029 long range. i decide to see what it is, so i dive to periscope depth and push to flank. i reach the contact 20 minuts later. i indetified it as a large oil tanker. i needed this kill. i open my tubes and at 1200 m i fire. i score a direct hit at 7m depth and it mustve hit her soft spot because she split in two. i do a little victory dance and decide to just end this patrol. i delete all my zig zag course flags and head straight for pearl. on december 23rd i get a radar contact. it was bearing 139 and going "very fast" it was no doubt a aplne. i order dive to periscope depth, but i accidentally pressed e and i immediately surfaced. no time to dive. i ordered man the AA guns and waited as it came closer. it was a betty, and it was pissed. i watched on the bridge the aa gunners useless attempt to shoot it down. it dropped 3 bombs, one of which somehow did only 8 more hull damage but destroyed my A scope AND air search radar. as it was going away, my AA gunners hit the betty and it caught on fire. it didnt die, but it wasnt coming back. there was probably going to be lots of those bettys soon swarming me, so i dive to periscope depth and continue. after 2 hours submerged i decide to surface. the calm seas turned into a violent storm. i couldnt see 100 m in front of my ship. i was surfaced for only 15 minutes when all of a sudden i see maybe 10 flashes of light through the darkness. two seconds later i see giant gushes of water beside my boat and something hit us. it hit hard, doing 10 more hull damage and destroying a diesel engine.i realized what happened. my a scope and air search radar were destroyed, as was my sonar, and the mod made it so that i couldt detect anything. i mustve walked right into a task force. i order crash dive and when we wre 8 m below i ordered periscope depth. i knew i couldnt dive with the amount of hull damage. i needed to run. i pushed my engines to flank and ran. it seemed hopeless. they would outrun me. i checked my damage again and noticed my stern tubes werent damaged. i checked my ammo and saw i only was missing one torpedo. i knew then what i needed to do. i needed to knock out the dds one by one at close range.id still be running but as soon as i could get a lock i fired. there were at least 4 dds. 10 flashes of light means wuite astrong force. i needed to make my torps count. no hitting in the stern or bow. i needed to hit them in the middle, where it would really make a difference. the first dd caught up. it was 500m away before i saw it. i got a lock and fired. luckily it was swirving and it showed it gut. the torpeod impacted and in 20 seconds it died. 2 more attempts to destroy me were foiled as 2 dds went down. there was one or 2 left.i only had 1 torpedo. i also had a mod that allowed you to have all torpedoes at the start, and i used it once. i bought a cuite, as it had come back and saved me in that other patrol. i hoped it would have the same effect. i Spotted yet another dd. 700m away. i opened the tube and fired. after i gave the command to fire, i noticed that the cutie had a running depth of 6m too far down. it would miss. dammit. theres nothing stopping it now. 400m away. if the cutie was gonna do something it needed to do it now. and it did. it somehow impacted, however it impacted on the bow. my expiereinces tell my its not gonna go down. it was now 200m with 0 signs of going down by the head. i swirced franticall, however the prop shaft that was destroyed made my effort futile. i was now on top of me. i prayed for a miracle. if you read my luckiest man alive thread, youll see that one dd sunk by hitting my periscope. and oh lord it hapened again. it hit my periscope hard, casuing it to burst into small flames. it dropped dc's, but they missed. i waiuted for 2 minutes for it to sink, but it didnt. i time compressed and now it WAs starting to lean towards the bwo. however, it never sank. it was coming around again. my chances were slim. there was one thing i could do, it was radical and partially insane but i decided to surface and finish it with my deck gun. my crew was seasoned and my deck gun reloaded in 6 seconds.i did it. i blew ballast and asap i manned the deck gun. i swirved it around and fired. miss. the dd responded with its own volley, however it missed too. i checked my periscope and saw it was 1062 m away, and i aimed at 700. i corrected myself and fired again. hit. i kept unloading shell on that dd. the dd however was missing with its volleys. i fired again. hit. but this time it mustve done something, cause the small blazes turned into firestorms. i hit it hard . time to dive. i dived and just as i reached 11m the dd fired and if i wasnt underwater, it wouldve killed me. i time compress into two, and watch it as it goes down. after 10 minutes of massive blazes, i could see the propellers. it was over. it was finally over. i Happily returned to course encountering no resistance, and i breathed a sigh of relief as i entered paerl and docked. i recieved the purple heart and the silver star. they even offered me a new boat, giving me a balao class. and that is my story. sorry it isnt in paragraphs. ive spent so much time typing i cant edit it right now cause i g2g |
Second patrol of USS Tambor, January 1942....
We left Pearl after refitting with orders to deploy to Honshu. I made the decision to stop in at Midway en route to make sure we had the maximum fuel possible on board (last time was too close, getting back to Pearl Harbor under 10%). We shaped a westward course to Honshu, gliding through the clear deep blue Pacific at just under 10 knots. The ship gracefully slides through the large rolling waves and the air is cool and crisp on a series of beautiful, stark, winter days. The nights are bedazzling with crystal clear skies and gods little lanterns just twinkling on and off in their myriad patterns. I allow the whole crew the opportunity to stand half hour watches on the bridge, just to give their morale a boost. It's that beautiful. After several days, though, the pleasure cruise turns to business and the crew sharpen to their tasks. We're within 500nm of Honshu when the radar operator sings out for the first time... "Radar contact, 20nm and closing fast!" We dive to periscope depth and now, truly, we're in the war zone. The men are working well and need little direction from the officers. It's only been a little under two months since we were last in these waters. We report in to ComSubPac when we reach the designated point near Honshu. They order us to engage shipping and keep an eye out for warships. We begin patrolling, dodging below the waves repeatedly every day and cruising for long stretches at night. After three days of this, we've not seen much traffic off the coast of Japan...so I change our course. I order the navigator to plot a course to the Yokosuka harbor and settle in for the two day cruise to get there. As we approach, the weather gods smile on the Tambor and the skies open in an intense rainfall. The ceiling drops to under 1000ft and the air patrols cease. It's impossible to see more than maybe 300 yards at the peak of day...at night, visibility is extremely low. We work our way along the main channel at under 8kts, feeling our way in... As we clear the breakwater, lighting flares and one of the lookouts spots the outline of something HUGE at the dock. We slow and the sonarman can't hear any sounds of escorts anywhere nearby. We creep in on the surface when another flare of lightning reveals the outline of a huge aircraft carrier. I silence the crew and we complete a quick changing of the watch. We then submerge partially to reduce our outline and sound signature and I guide us from the periscope. We maneuver carefully around to a firing position when lightning flares again...and again and again...suddenly it's clear that we're taking fire from somewhere...shells are whizzing past the bridge. :o They cease, but it's clear that someone's caught sight of us...they must be close. We've been spotted so we better make it count! We get turned into firing angle and another bolt illuminates the hulk at nearly 90 AOB (really hard to tell, but it's a good broadside shot!). The tension is mounting quickly as we wait for searchlights or more gunfire. I prep a spread of four torpedoes and get them out quickly. I don't wait to see the results, and begin angling for the breakwater's edge! As we're gaining speed, the torpedoes begin to impact...one after another, four huge explosions. The secondary explosions were too numerous to count and, with the backlighting of her death pyre, we watched that fleet carrier collapse and roll. Scratch one flattop!!! :arrgh!: The egress was...eventful! As you might imagine, the four destroyers who had been moseying around on the north end of the sound suddenly went to flank and headed directly for the Yokosuka naval dock. We made best speed to get around the breakwater and evaded them cleanly...almost... One destroyer (Fubuki, I think, from the outline) was close enough to get a sniff of our sound trail heading away and gave chase...I spotted him charging up our wake with the periscope. His searchlights gave him away. Realizing that he now knew he had a submarine directly ahead in shallow water :stare:... I knew he was flat out. So, I did the only thing I could...I put a torpedo out of tube 7 directly under him in the desperate hope it might do some damage. It went cleanly under him and detonated under his stern quarter... he fell off lamed, but not sunk. He still had a read on our location with his sonar and was sweeping searchlights and occasionally popping a few AA rounds our way in the hopes of getting a lucky hit. As the damage took its toll, he fell off to port and suddenly I had a beautiful target, even in the fog...two searchlights, one at the front and rear of his superstructure bracketing him for me....so I put a torpedo through the uprights and blew him in half! :up: With him gone and no other escorts nearby, I ordered us to the surface and made 16 knots out of the harbor and then out to sea... I was quite proud of my boys when I called in our report to ComSubPac. We're off to Iwo now, where the Intel boys think we'll find some shipping activity. The crew is confident and excited...I hope it lasts! C.O., USS Tambor...out :salute: |
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Running out of money, the Democrats are providing some new equipment to our troops.
All terrian vehicle http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file006.jpg New Bomber http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file005.jpg New AA machine guns http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file015.jpg New Jeep http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file011.jpg Better spotters http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file013.jpg and to save water, all male spa's. http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...24/file000.jpg |
Edit: Sorry for the size. They are just a touch bigger than I had planned. Zooming out in the page will make the whole pic fit in your screen without any blur.
Big Blue http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...Big%20Blue.bmp Dead of Night http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...of%20Night.bmp Full Moon http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...20Moon%202.bmp Moon Over Deck Gun http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...Deck%20Gun.bmp Rising Sun http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...Deck%20Gun.bmp Setting Moon http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...ing%20Moon.bmp Setting Sun Over Oil Slick http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...il%20Slick.bmp Setting Sun Over VIIB http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...ver%20VIIB.bmp Sunny Day http://yoshi.backupot.com/Silent%20H...unny%20Day.bmp |
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Night Gun Action......
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