Clayp, I feel your pain
 

Clayp, I was reading about your troubles shadowing that convoy, and was thinking "Poor guy, hope that doesn't happen to me". Well, as you may guess, nearly the same thing happened last night.

Working out of Manila on my first patrol of my first career, in about twenty days of solid patrolling, I've managed to find one whole Japanese freighter, a small composite one in the Java Sea. Of course she was zigzagging, and because of this, I porked my setup and three fish I fired at her missed. I'm doing the TMO/ROW mods, using 100% realism. Not wanting to waste any more of the government's money on torpedoes, I decided to surface and sink her with my deck gun. No problems there, at least my gunners are worth their salt.

So, I'm no longer a virgin, and things were looking up. I stopped at Surabaja to rearm/refuel, and then headed north to patrol the Makassar Straight. The seas were rough, very high waves and I was fighting a gale force headwind. Lo and behold, my watch crew shouts a warning "Warship sighted, 002, long range!"

I ordered flank speed and the chase began. What started out as a lone IJN destroyer, turned out to be a huge convoy, looking like it was headed for the Celebes area, or perhaps Leyte. I ended up staying up way past my bedtime last night, as I spent the next two hours desperately trying to overtake this convoy, which was inconveniently heading nearly parallel to my original course. I could not coax more than 9 knots out of the old girl, because of the wind & mountainous waves. Oh yes, the chase started out at around 19:30, so the approaching darkness was making it difficult to keep an eye on the convoy.

Eventually, I decided that I wasn't going to catch the convoy until the seas calmed down, so I ordered a dive to 60ft and took a bearing on the convoy, with the thought of tracking it via sonar until the seas were calm enough to over take the convoy. Unfortunately, sometime during the night I guessed wrong on the convoy's course, and I lost them. Of course, in the morning the seas calmed down and by sunrise, it was smooth as glass, and the S-37 was able to do 12 knots at flank speed. But, alas, the convoy had slipped from my grasp. Crushed and disappointed in my performance, I went to bed....a dejected and forelorn captain.

But, tomorrow is another day......

Ditto
 

The exact situation happened to me. I was in a storm and couldn't see 100 yards. That's when this convoy came by with six merchies and four escorts. I was playing the stock game then, so I sailed right on through the escorts, stuck myself in the middle of the convoy and couldnt draw a bead on my own shadow! I sailed in the middle of the convoy for a day and a half and posted just like you did, "What do I do now?" I got about as helpful suggestions as you got. It was the most frustrating experience I've had in the game.

You did the right thing, stuck in there and searched for answers. Sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you get the shaft. Sail away and find more targets. A collision at sea could have ruined your whole day!:up:

But keep the chin up. You're undefeated until they sink you!:rock:

Yes this :yep::up: You won't be sunk here clay, we got you covered ;)


RDP

Fork over $100 and I'll shadow you and sink 'em for you, whaddya say? Hell, I'd even sink RDP for ya! I'll be fun!:yep::lol:

Mods LOCK THIS THREAD NOW!!:yep: I feel the heat of another Flame War! In fact it'll break a record for 4 locked threads in one day!:yep:

Sometimes when playing you have to realize that weather, broken sub, fast moving convoy or any cause just might have your crew sit there watching your fat prize sail away. I have often sailed away in my head down knowing I will not get the chance to sink a few.

Clayp you can PM me anytime you like! You know I will do what I can to help you out. :up:

Don't let the words of one person stop you from playing this wonderfull game. I am facing many of the same issues you face being a new guy here, but I have found that 99% of the community members are beyond helpfull. Starting from scratch on such an advanced sim can be frustrating to say the least.. feel free to PM me as well, I have gone through many of the growing pains you are experiencing and may have some tips and tricks that you can benefit from. :up:

Ditto what AVG says!
 

Hey, some of the youngsters are just a bit full of themselves and are in full strut mode. Anything I can help with PM me and we'll figure it out. We're here to help. You have a lot of friends on Subsim. Don't let one unfortunate comment shut you down. Count up your supporters. I see six of them right here and more are lurking.

Listen to some of the suggestions here clay, folks are willing to help.


RDP

It was my fault and I do apologize whole heartedly to ClayP. I sent him a pm about it but I figured I should make it public to the rest of the community. I sometimes forget that the medium we use never lets us truely convey the sincerity or conversely the lack there of, to others, as say face to face or via telephone. I truly hope ClayP reads this and the pm and considers this to be water under the bridge.

Good on ya, 1480. It's so easy to mis-perceive someone else's post. I whole-heartedly salute you for apologizing. Hopefully clayp will accept it and we can all gather around for a big...

GROUP HUG! :()1:

I got the 1st round of Rhinelanders and Makers Mark shorties instead :arrgh!: .

I just had that happen in a PM! Update to number of clayp supporters: 7 and growing! And I count 1480 as supporter #1. Good deal, 1480. You figured out what was going on and didn't hesitate to make things right.:up:

Big of ya 1480, but does this mean I don't get any money?:lol:

Clayp, if you counted the number of ships and convoy contacts lost by real skippers before radar trying to outguess where the enemy was going, you'd find you're in very good company.:up:

If you totaled the number of aborted attacks by real skippers because of bad weather, loss of visual and sonar contact at the last moment, or bad guessing as to the convoys base course, you'd again be in some really good company. :yep:

What made the sub aces wasn't infallibility, it was persistance in being willing to shake off a bad situation and go into the next one with a positive outlook about their chances in the new engagement.:arrgh!:

So keep your chin up, there's always a new chance to do well looming over the horizon.

And we're rootin for ya all the way!:rock:

As for us SH4 players. here's an example that shows a bad day can happen to anyone.

I picked up a task force and was in a great position. THe task force was only doing 14 knots, so I took my boat in an end run at flank as I was drooling at the chance at a battleship or a couple of cruisers.

Stoopid me, I forgot to check the local sunrise time. I wsa just about in position where I could dive and make a submerged approach when I was silhouetted by the sunrise only 5000 yds from the convoy. Even with a crash dive I was holed by a couple of destroyer rounds and had some critical damage to deal with. Thankfully the TF escort only dropped a few DC's and left as the hull was damaged and she probably couldn't have taken much more.

So for an all night run, I got zip, didn't even get a torpedo off, and now had a damaged boat that could only make 14 knots top speed instead of 20.

This is the same boat that later jumped a convoy of 6 freighters and 2 escorts and made 2 seperate attack runs. Of course because I use the RFB mod I had 3 hits for damage to the freighters, 4 duds, 4 under runners/ gyro failures and 3 prematures. No sinkings:damn:

Not exactly what I would call a stellar performance. At the end of the patrol I'd exhausted all my fish and scored one sampan and one small composite freighter that I had to finish off with the deck gun because only one torpedo hit and exploded and I was out of fish.:nope:

Yet, this is the same person on another patrol that snuck into the middle of a TF and sank one BB, one CA and damaged another CA.

So having a bad experience doesn't mean you're a bad player, it means you had a bad day. Keep playing, and on the bad days, go have a beer and a pizza.