This is probably the wrong place for this long reply i'm fixing to make, but i've just got through reading the whole post and i think i got some interesting things to say about my patrol today.

I've had this game for about 3 days now so i'm still new, so bear with me. This patrol was run in v 1.3 SH4, realism 94 i think, everything set to hard except i kept external view on this time cause i wanted it on for learning purposes.

Anyway, i start a new career at pear harbor 1941, and receive my sub the USS Permit.

1st Mission, Photo recon of Tokyo naval base. At first i say no way i'm going into tokyo, i'm too new. But then i thought, think of how much a mission like this could help out the war if completed, heh.

I leave dock and set up waypoints to go from pearl harbor, then to midway, then to tokyo. I set speed standard and increased time and arrived near tokyo pretty fast and in the cover of night, plot a short coarse to go up in there to the dock and go half way in surfaced and the other half at periscope deapth. On my map i messed up my calculation of 8nm so that i can take a picture and flee and set up a point i needed to go to that was 800m, and i only realized this because i wasn't even close to that point and realized it would be suicide to go in that close since the ships belly was nearly draggin on the floor.

Anyway figured out that i was plenty close, raised periscope, took a photo and started to make my way out, its early morning and i decide to hop to the surface and get some distance south and recharge my batteries a bit. Some reason my crew neglected to tell me ship sighted, i read the chat box and i was surfaced for a long time and looked soon as i was surfaced and didn't see this destroyer. Getting to the point i hit the time accelerator and noticed rounds being fired at me, i go to periscope depth, in shallow waters and thats as deep as i could go, and i dodge his depth charge attacks by using the observation scope to bank hard just before he ran over me.

This is where it gets good if your still reading this poorly told story.

This destroyer calls in 2 other destroyers and 4 other gunboats that don't drop depth charges, or they never did the whole time. By this time i have gave up on not cheating so i'm using the external view to navigate around and dodge ships.

Destoryer #1 passes over me, i bank hard then continue south after he passes and drops some depth charges, he circles around, i pop up attack periscope, whip up a quick shooting solution and fire out aft torpedo and make a direct hit and he goes down.

Well while doing all of this i didn't see Destroyer #2 commin in for his depth charge pass, and he runs smooth over me, i mean all i had time to do was drop the periscope, his full left rudder and bam, he runs into my tower, ship leaned sideways, screaching of metal rubbing to together, and i just set back in my chair and think GG.

But the destroyer drops his depth charges all the way to the floor and i'm not harmed, lawl. I immediately raise periscope and go for a quick shooting solution on him, hes banking hard and i'm at flank speed from trying to evade, i whip up and quick solution, guess the range and the speed and fire with highe speed torpedo, torpedo turns sharp and hits him right on the tail, just barely, and this just just limps off, not turning back to me, he just left the battlefield, guess the rudder was gone.

By this time destoryer #3 is commin in for a pass, and he wasn't moving that fast and i was waiting for the right moment to hit flank speed and hard rudder, but he like turns on the turbo jets and is on top of me before i had time to evade, another metal grinding experience and he actually hits me with depth charges and knocks some holes on the right side of my hull, he too banks right and i set up for a quick shot, guessing on range and speed i fire and the torpedo is right on, i mean it couldn't have been a more beutiful shot, and the torpedo just goes right through him, either it was a dud and the ship didn't stop the torp, or it messed up and just went too deep, i'll never know.

After this i'm running and trying to evade, i had so ignorantly wasted the rest of my torps taking pop shots and the gunboats (lesson learned) and was outa torpedos not just dodging destroyer #3.

Then all of a sudden like if the game had seen all that i had done decided to show mercy, the destroyer makes a pass from the front and i'm once again hit from his belly and the metal grinding again, he drops depth charges too shallow.

Here is the wierd part, i don't know if he depth charged himself, if one went off in the boat, or of he running into me cause something bad to his ship, but i look back after regrouping and this guy has his nose stuck in the mud and about 1/4 of his tail end is stick up in the air and fire and smoke everywhere.

All of the gunboats, 4 of them, just start circling this guy, and i float off at 1/3 silent running and escape.

Ships all repaired with my hard working crew, i'm about 1/4 of the way back to midway and i run into a lone merchant and sink him.

Now for the sad part, i'm about 1/2 way back to midway and i missed it somehow, but some planes came in and starting bombing me, i crash dive and one drops a bomb and kills me at 50 meters under water. All that work gone, of coarse i had it saved and made it back to home, but still i would've been so great if i woulda made it back without having to have 2 lives.

And i didn't even get a single medal for my heroics that day when i got back :(.

Really long story but i some weird things happened, thought i'd share it.

You may have noticed that a destroyer hitting your periscope will take fatal damage without any damage dealt to you. It makes it possible to take out large numbers of destroyers by letting them hit your periscope on their depth charge runs. Needless to say, the immersion factor suffers.

Now I feel like Ducimus
 

Ducimus, you're right again. I hand over the holy Grail and he says "Yeah, but....":rotfl:

My Red Baron strategy always works. It assumes you always have some targeting error. It cancels the effect of the error by putting you so close to the target it doesn't matter. It's the pistol strategy.

You're using the sharpshooter strategy. It's slower, cleaner and puts you too far from the cool explosions. It demands perfect setups every time. In war that doesn't happen. It works for a stud like you but not for most other klutzes.

My cat can use the Red Baron strategy and sink most every ship she fires on. And that's the other disadvantage of the sharpshooter strategy. You hit ships. I sink em. Many a ship will take a torpedo, increase speed to 14 knots and he's gone because you're too far away to set up for another shot. Admiral Lockwood says it is better to sink one ship than hit three. I'm not in the habit of contradicting him. Of course I'm using Realistic Sinking Mechanics 3.0, so I have to make my ships sink. They don't just explode and sink in seconds like stock SH4.

Ducimus, I'll join you in the self-imposed penalty box if you have room over there.

You're right...I did throw the holy grail back at you. You shouldn't have to assume targetting errors. I don't have targetting errors....and you wouldn't either if you did it RIGHT.

Actually i distinctly remember saying not to fire until closer than 1500 yards.

That has NEVER happened to me...so sorry.

So am I 'quint'.

Yea in real war we weren't exactly limited to 9 viewing locations on the sub either. We were also given much more direct control over multiple aspects of the targetting system rather than just AOB, range, and speed. Newsflash: We aren't in a real war. We are in a situation that demands us to maximize the use of the weapons and options we are given. No need to half-ass it just because you aren't the real captain of a real submarine. Do it right. Sink more ships. Play the game.

Standard speed was fast. The slow speed was removed later.

Ships did fire past 2000 yards sometimes, particularly if they knew they'd not get another try. There are many examples cited in Blair of them throwing a spred at targets at extreme range (usully something overlapping like a convoy or TF). A few even got hits. Obviously this wasn't SOP.

The default game has the wrong arming distance for torpedos, so if you are playing with them properly modded, 500 yards is cutting it close for a 400-450 yard arming distance. Stock game arming distance is 200 or 220m. Way too short.

After determining their fish were screwy, they also fired spreads just to make up for failures. Hit %s without using a mod like hardcore dud torepdoes will always give screwy results (compared to RL). Many of my best setups end with a "klunk!" not a "boom!"

As for targetting errors, yeah, thsi is a failure, IMO. It's too easy to hit, frankly. If you bother to take time, you can hit a huge % of the time. In RL, this would have been vastly more difficult because you'd not instantly know it was one of 6 (8, 10, whatever) merchants. You'd likely have misjudged the displacement, range, etc for lack of data.

I'd like to clone a bunch of the merchants and very slightly alter them, and not make accurate rec manual changes to go with them. Make it hard to narrow most ships past maybe 4 equally good choices, any one of which being wrong would result in a single MOT torpedo missing the target many ranges past point blank.


tater

lol you guys base your pacific theatre realism on a book written by a historian who only specializes in u-boats?

Clay Blair served in the pacific on a submarine (Guardfish).

Silent Victory is an excellent book.

I could equally quote Roscoe, or other tomes I have on US operations in the pacific.

You're welcome to source the statement that US subs never fired past 2000 yards though. Who ever said anyone would fire without trying to determine the range (particularly at extreme range)? Certainly not me.

BTW, he wrote Silent Victory before his u-boat books.

tater

btw...historians know historians...and though he served in the pacific he specializes in German U-boats. I'm not gonna look up anything...I wasn't doubting your facts, I was mocking your acceptance of realism based on Blair's reports. Clay Blair has been a contested voice in World War two history for quite some time now. Most of what he has said reguarding the patrols and tactics of the British Navy are completely false...and have been corrected by both the British government and former British admirals.

Blair is not the know-it-all when it comes to submarining and tactics at sea. He wrote good books with fictionalized aspects based on his personal experiences.

YOU are welcome to look up anything I just said.

Though I am not a NAVAL historian...I don't try to be because I have some personal connections with submarining.

Your second paragraph makes me wonder if you have read Silent Victory. While there is some editorializing there is very little in it that could be even remotely considered "fictionalized", nor does he speak to anything about tactics, other than what was in the Captain's patrol reports. The list of citations at the end of Silent Victory leads me to believe that the man did his research and knew what he was talking about.

Perhaps you have him confused with Edward L Beach Jr?

And as to the statement that US subs never fired at ranges greater that 2000 yds, the facts do not support your statement.

From the Patrol Reports of the USS Batfish...

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 1
Patrol No. 1.
Course: 325° T., Speed 9 knots (pit), Range: 3,400 yards.

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 2
Patrol No. 1.
Course: 325° T., Speed 9 knots (pit)., Range: 3,600 yards

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 3
Patrol No. 1.
Course: Stopped and drifting on heading 100° T., Speed 0, Range: 6000 yards

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 5
Patrol No. 3.
Target Draft: 4', Course: 355° T, Speed: 13 knots, Range: 3350 yd. (at firing)

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 1
Patrol No. 4.
Target Draft: 9'5", Course: 143, Speed: 0, Range: 2670 Yd. (at firing)

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 3
Patrol No. 4.
Target Draft: 9'9", Course: 105, Speed: 0 knots, Range: 2970 Yds (at firing)

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 1
Patrol No. 5.
Target draft: 2', Course: 095, Speed: 9 knots, Range: 2950-2800 yards (at firing)

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 2
Patrol No. 5.
Target Draft: 2', Course: 095, Speed 9 knots, Range: 2855 yards (at firing).

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 3
Patrol No. 5.
Target draft: 12', Course 010°-015° T., Speed: 3.5 knots, Range: 2320-2290 Yds (at firing)

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 4
Patrol No. 5.
Target Draft: 10', Course: 330°, Speed: 0, Range: 2500 yds (anchored), 4800 yds (moored).

U.S.S. BATFISH
Torpedo Attack No. 5
Patrol No. 5.
Target Draft: 10', Course: 300° T., Speed: 7.2 knots, Range: 3750 yards (at firing)

I have many, many more from different Subs if you are interested.

JCC

That must have been why the ship went down, that or he collided with one of the other boats, dunno how often the ai does that.

I said they may...I never asserted anything. I don't fire unless its under 2000 so in relation I was referring to myself.

My approach tactic: Move in at 1/3 throttle at periscope depth then stop at pre-determined distance and fire torpedos.

(I play on 100% realism and still get an incredible hit rate 99% of my torpedos hit their targets what is going on :doh:

Sorry. I was confused by your earlier post...

Most of the attacks I quoted were salvos.

JCC

Many torpedo firings were attempted at 2000+ yards and some with great success. Most skippers (from what I read) considered these firings as long shots and sometimes called them desparation shots. The main idea hear is get in close for a better probability of success. Skippers were told to get in close and firing of torpedoes at great distances was not the order of the day because SUBCOM felt it increased the chance of wasteful expenditures of torpedoes. From my recent readings, the after patrol analysis shows SUBCOM chastising some skippers because a particular attack was poor, too far from target, poor position, should have been submerged at night instead of surfaced. Things of this nature. At any rate, if you read most accounts, the skippers often discribe with detail what the sailors on the stricken vessel were wearing after a submerged daylight attack. So, yes, getting in close was the best way to attack and as a result, many skippers were called aggressive by their crew and not in a negative sence of the word.