Tell us what you are up to in your current campaign...
 

I saw a thread like this in SH 3 forums so figured I would try to start one here.Share with the community your current career, patrol.Include info such as homeport, patrol area, tonnage, mods(TMO, RFB) and an account(can be a summary if youre not long winded like i am lol) of most recent patrol.Screenshots are welcome.Everyone enjoys a good patrol story so share!

I'll start out with my last patrol and my upcoming patrol.I play two careers to keep things fresh and alternate every patrol.I currently have a career out of Fremantle in 1942(started in January) with USS Skipjack, Salmon class.

My last patrol began in late May 1942 , I was assigned to Luzon Straits, I went through the Indian Ocean and transited the Sunda Strait into the Java Sea then went up past Singapore off the Indochina Coast and patroled there for a almost two weeks.I spent most of my time dodging planes but did find a small Haruna Maru tanker, which took 6 torpedos to sink due to repeated torpedo failures.I then transited up the coast past Hainan Island, forced to travel submerged during daylight at 4 knots due to heavy air cover and slower dive time of the Salmon class(too many close calls and matches early war tactics to stay under so I do so in early war careers) While en route to Luzon Strait we spotted a 4 ship , 1 escort convoy moving at 12 knots, most likely leaving Formosa Straits.Targets were only at 9,000 yards when spotted and seas where heavy but went to GQ, dove and went to 100 feet for high speed run, the escort couldnt hear me due to the heavy seas.I soon found myself 1400 yards from two large freighters and two small freighters, I aimed two torpedos at each other large freighters, 3 prematures and one hit on a Momoyama Maru.The DD came roaring in so I went to 250 feet.When I surfaced an hour later, heavy rains, fog and seas, without radar, lost convoy even after a 24 hour pursuit down their possible courses.Continued on to Luzon Strait, made two attacks on a long merchant but all 8 torpedos failed, then heavy air cover kept me from following up the attack.The next couple weeks had no contacts.I found a Task Force in Luzon Straits, two heavy cruisers, three light and two Kongo BB's.Was only able to get to 5000 yards, fired all remaining fish, which missed, it was a long shot.Out of fish and down to 40 percent fuel after a couple months at sea, I turned for home via the east coast of Philippines, past Halmahera and Timor to Fremantle.Encountered a lone small taihosan maru coastal freighter off Leyte Gulf, used deck gun to sink her.Arrived home on August 28, 1942, 3 months to the day since we left Fremantle.Tonnage wise and missing, patrol was disappointing but enjoyed it.

Next patrol is with USS Parche, Balao Class out of Pearl Harbor for Fourth War Patrol , will leave for Area 5 off Japan on January 11, 1945.


Luckily I left the external camera on for this patrol and got these shots of the Kongo I had targeted.

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/p...685/Kongo2.jpg
http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/p...685/kongo1.jpg

I can't say, I've been ordered to maintain radio silence on this patrol.:salute:

:hmmm:

I guess i'm giving SH5 the bird by trying to make a sister mod to TMO for U boats :O:

I like choices, SH5 doesn't give me any, and SH3 is too old for my tastes. But if i were to seriously play for once, you'd bet your butt my ass will be driving something with 6 tubes forward, and 4 aft! :03:

I've just bought the 1.5 update, installed it and patched FOTRS 1.3 over on it, along with some own fixes I made for it already (fixed broken crew rank system, custom depth settings for crash dive order). I'll use this for my story-like manual, as most of you out there seem to play 1.5 and FOTRS doesn't change that much in the gameplay.

My new career is off Manila '41, I'm shipping some crates with new flags to the front line on the Phillippines to raise troop morale (or something).
USS Searaven, of course. Sargo class sub. (Which reminds me, I may have to fix the conning tower upgrade again in this version.)
Can't really say I like the new crew screen display, as it kind of hides the basic skill symbols I always use for crew management in the first place. But found a way to work around that already. The harbor seems pretty empty though, I almost got no new crew to chose from.. 10 to 20 people were there, but they looked either horrible or refused to work for me ("too many officers", never got that one before, especially with actually that few officers onboard. Do PO's count as officers nowadays, too?)

I'm more than half way there and the only ship I've seen so far was a US tug boat, so I guess I'll be heading back at flank speed to reinforce Luzon ASAP.
Let's see what this has in store for me and my crew, maybe I'll get a chance to make room in those torp rooms so I can stock up on food.

And you radioed in to tell us you must maintain radio silence? Shades of Groucho Marx!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW1nC56E3KU

LMAO Steve! :har:

Anyhow...

I started in Manila in '41 with the USS Nautilus (Narwhal's sister ship). Met a huge invasion force right off the bat and sunk two heavy cruisers. the next three patrols we're cloak and dagger missions mostly with little contacts, but recently found a Jap sub and finished him off with a salvo of three torpedoes.

photo op mission
 

The Admiral wants photos of naked sunbathing women. I told him that we could not find any.

p.s. delete pic of woman changing because Gunfighter sent me images from my signature which had been missing. sorry men.

I'm on my second patrol, 0% realism as this is my first bash at the game, my first patrol i sunk 19K with a little damage in return. A medal for me and three for my crew. Currently i'm due north facing a convoy which is due to pass over me so I can get in and attack, I'm thinking of moving away and attacking at night. I have also done some research and found that the German WW2 ace sunk 475K ish over one and half years and so I need to get at it a lot more!

I'm thinking about atttacking a Jap task force for serious tonnage, are they dangerous?

Last night I was on my third patrol with RSRD_RFB when my crew spotted a single merchant at dawn. I had already sunk two others but it's been a week since our last action. Well it's about time I thought.

It took a few hours to set up the attack, submerged and wait. She took two fish but was taken too long to take on water for my taste. So a third fish went in for the kill. Sure enough she started to flood. Her decks were awash and I foolishly surfaced to gloat on the final demise. Well those boys must have had their wet gear on because the began blowing me to bits with canon fire.

Sure enough we both sunk. Yes, I saved just before the battle but I think I'll let dead be dead and continue with my Battle of the Baltic career for awhile.

Sailor Steve
/And you radioed in to tell us you must maintain radio silence? Shades of Groucho Marx!

Shhhh, I must be goingggggg!:03:

yea never a good idea to surface when close unless youre SURE as in report from crew that shes done. I remember reading in CLEAR THE BRIDGE by Richard O Kane that a merchant kept firing her guns as she sank into the Yellow Sea in June 1944 after TANG torpedoed her.

Recently had my arse handed to me just in the Luzon area late Dec 41. Found a nice convoy, couple large freighters troop ship and some small freighters, and a mess of escorts. I thought if I went to about 280 feet cruising at 1 knot in a Sargo class I could slip past the escorts and pop up in the middle of the fun. I thought the escorts had passed and started creeping up to PD, about 240 feet the pinging started all around me, sneeky buggers had me on hydra-phones and were sitting and listening, waiting :shifty: we held our own for about 10 minutes trying to evade, did the yo-yo thing till the flooding would not let us yo any more. The moral of the story make sure you double check that you ordered SILENT RUNNING :damn:

Marshall Islands
 

Currently patrolling Marshall Islands out of Midway (100% realism). Sank a merchant and was feeling pretty good about myself when we got bounced by a couple of Rufes near Kwajalein. The watch sighted the aircraft but damned if I could see anything 'till suddenly two aircraft came out of the low cloud, talk about a surprise! The crew reacted quick enough on the crash dive command however and no harm done. Luckily the Rufes weren't carrying any bombs.

I'm a bit torqued on this patrol though as I was handed a new sub with my promotion from my previous patrol and.....they forgot to install the surface search radar (which I had on my old boat), WTF!?!?. It makes things a tad more difficult.:O:

very nice, what mods are you using?

Just finished the battle of Phillipine Sea and went on the next patrol. I found TF58 near Saipan and for the heck of it followed it for over 1000 miles. It went around Palau and was attacked by several squadrons of JP aircraft. It was fun to sit back and watch the big BB's, Iowa, NC, and over 30 US warships duke it out with JP aircraft.

Later, maybe looking for me a small group of DD's came into range, the Iowa sent them down in a minute.

I did learn one thing, nothing explodes like a NC BB, no doubt the largest and brightest explosion in the game, then it sinks in a few seconds like a brick. One JP hit it with one bomb and boom. I saved and being the bad guy sunk a few myself, so if you get a chance to sink a NC BB, do so.

This is the first second...what happens next it fairly amazing in game. Once the explosion took out a Essex Carrier 500 yards away...

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/u...104635_140.jpg