Finally taking a December 1941 cruise with the new RFB January patch, no radar hotfix (no radar!), RSRD and a partridge in a pear tree. Found two targets so far, lone merchies off Camranh Bay. Results of torpedoes, set at 5' or under. Five passed under target :rock:, no duds, three hits, two on one and one on the other, both together 5791 tons. Both sank in a short time. Both had engines shut down after hit. They sank within 20 minutes of being plugged.

Lock on the surface was good and solid, even at 5 miles. Through the periscope can still come unlocked it isn't any worse than the stock game and encourages you to be careful during the setup. I didn't have any trouble setting up either a Dick O'Kane or a conventional check bearing attack. I am using TMOplot and TMOkeys with map updates on, manual targeting.

Looks like a slam dunk success to me! Night operations are a challenge, just like they should be! I was galavanting with decks awash within 2000 yards of the enemy. What a blast! RFB 1.52 is a winner.:yeah:

Heh. I'll toss in a patrol report, too.

I peeked back in a few days ago, saw that RFB and RSRD had been patched, and the bug bit me again. A quick download, and I started another earlier war career. Like RR said, no radar (determining a target's speed is not fun). I play without the external camera, since it makes me lazy, even though I like the eye candy. Mainly, that means I can't follow my fish to see why I missed.

Got sent around the coast of Luzon. Ran into an invasion force. All the merchies were stretched out in a straight line, with one escort close in at its nose... the others, branched off at its sides. Just three in the front half of the convoy. I sat in front of the convoy 'til nightfall, then moved in. Guessing the nature of the convoy, I skipped over the first merchie, a large freighter. Fired four forward fish off at a large old passenger ship. Three hit, one dud. A quick 'scope peek showed it burning. I turned 180, and fired four aft fish at the second liner, right behind the first. One hit, three duds.

Unfortunately, I got lazy... and got a kick in the rear from the real world. I was listening on my headphones (wife got tired of hearing explosions), plugged into my 5.1 surround sound speakers. When I do this, it cuts channels. Most notably, the center channel, where all the pings get played. Doh. :damn:

I got nervous watching the hydrophone screen, realized what happened, and pulled the headphones out & off. Pings. Go figure. Lots 'n' lots of pings.

16 DC's later, I manage to slink off, pride hurt. But for a 9k liner, I'm not going to complain.

After I completed my last objective, I was turned loose. Headed up to the west coast of Formosa, finding nothing. Started patrolling the east coast, along that line of islands towards Japan. Found a large composite freighter, in rough weather. I can use that as an excuse, since I fired off all four forward fish at it. Each missed. In a fit of frustration, I fired off all four aft fish, too. Missed with those, too. Maybe the weather threw off my measurements, my tower broached in the rough waves, maybe the target saw 'em coming and dodged. Whatever... final result, they all missed.

While my crew reloaded all eight tubes, I ran around the target again. This gave me time to breathe and relax. Patience, young grasshopper, and all that :shifty:. The target quit constant helming, and settled on a specific course & speed. I manuever into position, doublecheck the firing solution, and let all four forward tubes go. Breathe. Wait for it. Relax. Visualize the torpedoes flowing to the target, and providing a beautiful display of pyrotechnics.

Dud.:yeah:

Dud.:D

Dud.:shifty:

Dud.:stare:

:nope:

At that point, I figured that somebody bigger than me has decided that this freighter will live to deliver its load. I gave up, and agreed. With only four torp's left (the external aft stores), I headed back to Manilla to end the patrol.

13 miles from port, I get the radio message to switch my base of operations to Java. :rotfl::har::har::damn:

You didn't name your captain Dan Daspit did you? You have just had an experience akin to his one in WW2 on the Tinosa. He fired all of his torpedoes at the largest tanker Japan had at the time and had all but two duds. Then he had to go deep to avoid the DD that came out of the harbor to tow it to safety and later watch it slip away. His incident started Lockwood on the road to fixing the dud problem.

[Bureau of Ordnance]

This was obviously your fault, because if you set up your attack properly, the torpedoes would have hit the target.

[/Bureau of Ordnance]

:smug:

BuOrd. Acronym for Big Ugly Overweight Raunchy Dipsh*ts....CH

Oooohhhhh.... dem's fightin' words. :yep:

Actually, I've got to look the bright side. My hydrophone operator has good ears, as he apparently can hear the dull thud as the torpedo hits the side of the target. If not for that, I'd have said I had missed the shot.

At that point, the TDC would've been the next thing to be fired out the tubes...

Anybody else notice an issue with the medium tanker?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4ApKZeYcXx...kerProblem.jpg

The port hull appears to be missing (darn Jap's working on transparent aluminum? :D).

Yeah, I missed him. Got some out of the large convoy that followed him, though. And, for the record, one of 'em was a Large Modern Composite Freighter, with one torp in the bow. I was surrounded by about 40 ships (including an escort) around March of '42, just north of Java. About the same time Java should've been being overrun. I just popped up in the middle of the convoy, which had been alerted to my presence by one of the escorts. They were constant helming, so I just took pot shots off, figuring that if I missed my target, I'd have a good shot at hitting something else. I did manage to miss another LMCF entirely, and had a dud on the one I sank. I definitely hit a small passenger which did not sink, and I got another hit on what may have been a medium modern composite freighter. If I had missed it, the hit would've been on another small passenger behind it. In either case, neither sank with the one single hit *shrug*. I won't complain.

Edit: Erg. The image shows up, but only if you've got my blog open in another window ('Cause it's hosted off my blog). I'll figure out how to fix it later... for now, look at http://theluckyone17.blogspot.com. The pic is the only posting so far... kinda hard to miss. Hosting the pic was the major reason for getting the blog:damn:.

Just got my hands on the latest patch (been gone for a while), and it's simply fantastic. Stunning graphics, improved FPS (for me in Pearl, anyway) and all kinds of little miracles. Sank 2 ships so far, both came to a dead stop after being struck, first sank less then 30 minutes after impact and the other 15 min after.

Seriously, you guys don't just take steps forward, you make leaps. :yeah:

No complaints here, keep up the good work! I'm of to play some more. :salute:

Oh I am sure the Submarine force came up with some good ones during the war for the BuOrd. :yeah:

Strange I have the same (Maybe) missing graphics, this is also apparent in the museum as well, I just thought it was a low draft type tanker seeing that the decks might obviously in a storm be awash, but then the main part of the deck is appreciably higher, so i thought it was just designed that way.

A quirky boat design?...For shallow inland seas and lakes?

Deep Six

Not seeing this, can you post a screenshot?

I've got the full size shot of it saved... I'll see if I can't clip it and keep the original resolution. Gimme a few.

Update: Alrighty. Assuming I got imageshack right...

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/756/m...problemdv4.jpg

And for the close up, detailing the problem:
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5310/closeuprz0.jpg

See the missing textures towards the bow, left side of the pic? It's been a while since I played with any sort of modelling, but if my memory serves me correctly, it's like the normal of some of the polygons building up the hull are reversed, causing the texture to be displayed on the wrong side of the polygon.

That's a Paula. I'll have a look at the model.

That is just the way the Paula's Foc'sle looks:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o.../SH4/paula.jpg

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...SH4/paula2.jpg

Heh. It looks funky.... 'cause it is funky :D