Close calls w/ base changes
 

Wondering if the following's ever happened to anyone here:

I was out on a patrol in February 1942, managed to rack up quite a few merchant kills and pull off a couple of recon missions. Around the fourth mission I was given, I was told to recon an enemy harbor off Taiwan, so off I went, with about half my fuel remaining. I figured that I'd make this my last mission, since I was also running low on warheads at the time, so I go in, take my pictures, and get out, then set a course for Soerabaja. I was forced to let several merchies pass and didn't bother trying to report any contacts either since command might accidentally send me to take them out, and I didn't want to waste any fuel.

Then, just as I enter the Java Sea on the 25th, I get the message, base moved to Freemantle. Which happens to be over 2500 nm away. And I'm down to about a quarter of a tank left.

Crap.

So, then I'm forced to hoof it down the strait between Sumatra and Java, past The Settlement, south along the western coast of Australia, and I just manage to make it to Freemantle with exactly 10% of my fuel reserves left.

Note to self: read up more thoroughly on when strategic locations changed hands during the war to avoid a situation like this in the future.

I know the feeling. I had a similar issue when I was commanding a S boat... had about 1% fuel when I got to Freemantle.

Well i guess this could have happened in real life too. Good sense of improvisation sir! :up:

That one gets a lot of people.
I always start in a Narwhal, lots of range in it.

Magic

most people like to limit fuel to 50% then head to base to avoid being caught like that especially if in case you get damaged or something that hurts your fuel economy.

I had a really close call in stock. As you might know, there's that annoying bug, where battery recharging never switches off if it was damaged even the slightest bit.

I was rebased to Australia, and I was unaware of this bug. I spent 99% of the trip switching between battery and diesel propulsion and barely made it (the last couple miles were purely on batteries).

After that I learned about the bug, and I kept a close eye on the damn thing. then I instaleld TMO and the bug dissapeared. :)

I've always been pretty lucky with the Change-of-Base. Never been too far away,always made it.

I nearly spoke too soon! October 28,1943,heading back to Brisbane after pulling a Sam Dealy (sank 2 Shiriatsu and one Kagero DDs) as well as 5 Merchants,running low on fuel and......Base shifted to Milne Bay. I had about 10% fuel left,but was only 45nm from brisbane,so was able to fill up THEN head to my new base:D

LOL I once was less than 100 miles from pearl when I recieved a base change notice :doh: