Incompetent IJN Pilots?
 

I've never seen this before (TMO RSRD career):

I completed a useless patrol of the Sea of Okhotsk and received orders to patrol the Japan-Mariana-Truk shipping lanes. I cut through the straight between Rausa and Namuro (nothing in either port). Then headed SW to the coast of Japan to see if I could scare up a potential reef on my way south. I crept into Miyako at 1kt, PD, silent, in the shallows and under the cover of darkness of the early morning. At 4000 yds I ID a Hakusika Maru and an Armed Trawler. The Maru's tonnage is worth a couple of fish! So, I swing the boat around and set up an aft solution for the Maru. I rise to RD, adjust the gyro, let them loose and make sail at 3kts, as I don't want to be in the shallows very long with daylight coming on. Exec confirms the kill. The boys in the aft torpedo room whoop like the idiots they are. And, I smile. 8343 tons for a few hours work and two fish. I'm happy. :smug:

I clear the bay and start back south at 10kts. I'm enjoying the sunrise on the bridge when the scope dope hollers, "radar contact, bearing 130". That's about where we just came from. Likely an aircraft. Time to get the boat wet again. I'll light my pipe later.

Here's the curious part:

The boat has plenty of water under her, and the crew know their job. So, I go to the Free Cam to check out the Maru we sank earlier. We were only about 12 miles away, as the crow flies. So, it'll still render. I zoom the cam up and over the hills between the boat and the bay, when I see an orange flicker in the distance. I know it's not the Maru because it's not far enough away. And, because it's on the back side of the hills!

It's a burning bi-plane! No USN TF around. I didn't shoot him. The bugger flew his charge into the side of the dang hill!!! I've seen ships on fire that I had no confirmable data to explain their demise. But, never a plane! :hmm2:

Anyone else?

I have seen that several times around Rabaul in the stock game. They either are not set to fly high enough or they come down to drop their payload and don't get back up in time.
I had it happen once with a single mission I wrote that started in Pearl Harbor. As you start the mission, it takes the game a minute or so before you get a message (orders) so I put in some planes to fly over so you wouldn't notice the lag and they flew right into the mountain.:88)

Peabody

They crash like all near Rabaul, both sides. If you sit in the strait W of Rabaul where all the allied aircraft come from, they fly in the mountain. However, I guess somethings funny cuz the pilots will launch pink smoke why on land. Slowly as if land is water they will drift to sea where you can pick them up. In 43 when they really come through. I rescued over 40 pilots in two days..got tired of it and went on...TMORSRD..

Funny, the planes will burn on land for days sometimes. At night the mountain side looked like a Christmas tree with all the wreckage.

Similar thing happened to me. I was passing thru' a strait (come remember which one; it's north of Borneo) when radar picks up an incoming aircraft. My standard drill is dive to PD & raise the radar antenna. So I'm tracking the progress of the radar blip on the nav map when all of a sudden it changes into a wreck icon - on land! :rotfl2:

Those old granite clouds, aviator's nightmare since we took flight.

Cumulo-granite!

"Hey, what's that mountain goat doing in that cloud?"

Huh!

Note to self: Next career, head to Rabaul in '43 to see if it works like a bug zapper.

Yesterday i was attacked by a Betty north-west of Truk. The bird did a dive-attack, released it's bombs, forgot to pull up and rammed itself into the ocean. Dec. '41 is a bit early for this practice...

Oi!, more training is needed.

I've had that happen...hilarious:)

I was patrolling off northern Luzon in '44 on a bright and sunny day when I picked up two planes on radar. The little icons went over land and suddenly turned into the "sunken ship" icon. Nice piloting. :salute:

Also, am I the only one to notice this: during the torpedo training mission, there's a floatplane and it always, always crashes by itself.

They're fine tuning their "kamikaze" tactics ...








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:har: G. Larson classic :har: