| Henchman |
04-02-07 08:41 PM |
My first experience with Coastal Artillery
I am quickly learning to re-think my tactics in SH4 as opposed to SH3. I absolutely love the mission variety in SH4. In the Atlantic, my whole career centered around hunting down convoys and avoiding destroyers - every patrol was basically the same. I certainly never really had any reason (other than sightseeing) to get near the enemy coastlines.
In my last patrol of my new career which involved dropping off an agent near Tokyo, I discovered that my old SH3 sub skipper intuition was more than simply lacking - I nearly got my whole crew killed.
With the cloak of night I sneek into to Tokyo Bay - my only worry is a lurking destroyer, but I was able to sneak passed it undetected. Everything is going well and I successfully deploy the agent. With my orders completed, I decide it is time to rack up some tonnage and spread a little christmas cheer around Tokyo Bay (It's late December 1941). I sneak over near port of Yokuska where the lone destroyer is patroling. My plan is to take out the destroyer first, then have a nice little turkey shoot in the harbor...
Things get interesting immediately. The destroyer spots my periscope as I move into position and it charges right at me. I panic and launch a couple of torpedos at him. I catch a lucky break as one of them strikes his bow and turns the destoyer into a magnificent fireworks show. As he is the only warship within the immediate vicinity I surface the boat to gloat over my victory and to prepare for what I expecct to be little more than target practice in Yokuska Harbor. However, within seconds, I hear a shell whistling past the conning tower. Huh? I see muzzle flashes coming from the shoreline. Coastal Artillery!!! Their exsistence had'nt even occured to me but here they were, and I'm caught exposed and surprised.
I order periscope depth but I'm too slow; 3 shells slam hard into my boat. Half the crew is wounded and several systems including my electrical engines are destroyed. They also leave terrifying gaping holes in my hull and the flooding is massive. My half-dived submarine starts to sink like a rock and I am forced to blow the ballast tanks before I hit the shallow bottom. It works, I bob back up to the surface. My diesel engines are still working but my engine crew are too wounded/shaken to start them up. I replace them with a group of fresh (non-injured) torpedomen. My diesels fire up and I begin a terrifying 2 hour escape out of the bay at flank speed.
Amazingly I make it out of the coastal artillery range alive!! Most of the crew are back to normal again except for a few badly injured souls (No deaths so far). Damage control teams have fixed everything that can be fixed and I'm cruising along at a respectable 14knots at Full Speed... Not bad considering the damage I just took. Suddenly my hope turns to gloom as I notice the sun appear over the horizon. I realize that I'm about to find myself barely off the coast of Japan - in daylight - in a submarine that can't submerge. I plot out the shortest route that I can find that will take me away from aircraft range (thanks for the handy poster map ubi) and I prepare myself for a busy day.
Sure enough, the first couple of aircraft show up within minutes of sunrise. They proceed with one of the most incompetent attacks in the history of naval aviation. One of the zeros simply crashes into the water during the attack run. The second one get's peppered by my AA during his approach and makes a dazzling fireball flyby before crashing into the nearby waters... Student pilots perhaps? It's too early for Kamikaze pilots. Less than 5 minutes later another flight shows up. They drop their load with much better professionalism and accuracy, but they miss nevertheless and my gunner shoots them down on the 3rd pass. 10 minutes later another flight shows up, then another, and another and another.... the day goes by... There are intervals of 5-20 minutes between these relentless air attacks. I coun't 20 downed aircraft as I finally limp out into the big dark void of the pacific. I only take one serious hit during all this which kills my best gunner and takes out my deck gun. My AA gun survives, although I have to repair it about 3 times for minor damage due to strafing runs. My AA ammo is completly exhausted.
The rest of the patrol is an uneventful cruise back to Pearl.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I'm just very excited about this game. The masssive airstrikes I had to endure seem a bit unrealistic - almost arcade like, but on a whole it was very exciting. I'll try to remember to take some screenshots on my next adventure.
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