Awesome Silent Hunter 4 encounters
 

I'm sure everyone on here has had at least a few really cool encounters with a task force or convoy before. Anyone willing to share? I'll start.

About a week ago, I embarked on my 10th patrol with my brand new Balao class submarine. I got orders to patrol some area that I don't recall. On my way over there, I ran into a fairly large task force. It had no carriers, but it did have three battleships (Two Fusos, one Kongo), probably 5 or 6 heavy cruisers, and 3 or 4 light cruisers with maybe 8 or 9 destroyers. Hmm…a big task force with some nice juicy targets and here I am fully loaded with Mark 23 torpedoes…whatever shall I do?

I closed in on the front of the task force where the first Fuso class battleship was steaming at cruising speed. I hadn't been spotted yet. Perfect. I let loose with four torpedoes at about 2000 yards. Two of them prematurely detonated since the seas were a bit rough, but the other two found their target and within a few minutes, the battleship was already listing and clearly sinking.

One down, two to go. I repositioned myself for another attack on the two remaining battleships off their port side. The Kongo was directly parallel to the second Fuso, off to the Fuso's right side. While I allowed them both to get a bit closer to me, I looked directly behind me and there was a Mogami class cruiser steaming perpendicular to my stern tubes. Fired off two, both hit and sank the cruiser with a magazine explosion.

Once the Fuso was within 1500 yards, I fired off four torpedoes. Again, the rough seas caused two premature detonations, much to my dismay. But luck was on my side. As the torpedoes swam toward their target at 46 knots, the Fuso spotted the first torpedo I fired, causing it to miss.

However, apparently the Fuso didn't warn his buddy, the Kongo class battleship, about the incoming torpedo. The torpedo that missed the Fuso instead slammed into the Kongo dead amidships and killed the engines. She listed heavily and stopped dead in the water, but didn't sink.

The Fuso, which had successfully evaded my first torpedo, was struck by the second one. I guess luck wasn't on her side because the single torpedo that struck her caused a magazine explosion which destroyed her instantly, much to my excitement.

I finished the Kongo off with two more torpedoes in the starboard side, and I also sank an additional Mogami class cruiser and two destroyers before I ran out of fish and had to call it a day.

I'd love to hear some stories from you guys since I'm new here. Let's hear em! :ping:

Welcome to Subsim, FrankTheTank586. Happy to have you aboard. :salute:

Had an occurrence similar to yours, that happened in late '43 in the Luzon Straits. The weather was terrible, heavy rain, fog and heavy seas. It was late night, radar picked up 8 ships heading SW at 18 knots. Radar range was about 12,000 yds. Started tracking the ships and when they reached about 6,500 yds, I went to radar depth and continued tracking. With the high seas it was difficult at times to maintain contact. When the ships were picked up by sonar, we went to periscope depth. By this time the rain had lessened and the fog was intermittent. Making frequent periscope observations and at 2/3rds speed we headed in towards the ships. At about 2,500 yds a destroyer was spotted dead ahead. A couple of minutes later a BB loomed out of the fog followed by a CA. I was only able to get infrequent fixes on the two ships because of the shifting fog. At 1,800 yds and getting a good observation through the fog we fired all bow tubes at three second intervals. Reversing course to bring the stern tubes to bear and being able to get a good observation through the shifting fog again, all stern tubes were fired at the heavy cruiser. A couple of minutes later four timed explosions were heard hitting the BB. Looking through the periscope I was able to see the explosions rocking the BB through the fog. Then sound reported that there were hits on the cruiser and then we could hear the explosions, but were unable to see the results. At this time sound reported high speed screw heading our way. We crashed-dived to 350 feet and took a couple of close DCs, but took no serious damage. We could hear breaking up noises from the BB, but nothing from the cruiser.

A number of hours after the task force had cleared the area and the DDs got tired of searching for us, we came back up to PD to take a look around. Much to our surprise we spotted the cruiser 5,000 yds off our port beam and dead in the water listing very badly to port. We moved in for the kill and fired our last two bow tubes at the cruiser. I forgot to mention that the fog had lifted in the last couple of hours while we were avoiding the DDs. We id'ed the cruiser as Takao class. Later on I found out that the BB was Nagato class.

That was a fun encounter to say the least. :D

Welcome to SUBSIM :up:

I remember the time I caught the Y in the San Bernardino Strait and got a lucky hit on her props that stopped her dead in the water. After taking the pounding from the destroyers I was able to sink her at my leisure.