What should I do....
 

In my lil S boat, just attacked the Port Moresby invasion force as the battle of the Coral Sea is going on somewhere. Sunk 5 merchants and headed home with one torp left...Target Spotted...It's the Shoho light carrier...well escorted headed my way...What would any good skipper do...

Playing this career no cam no contacts and no saves...maybe I should ignore it...mmm, NOT. I believe the DG can take out light carriers, sunk one before with it after two torp hits.

I've ran into the Shoho invasion force before, but this time found it in a different location no merchants, just 4 escorts.

Wish me luck. Torp will probably dud.

Edit...
Dang, those weren't DD's, 4 Furataka Heavy CA's., just one DD. I don't recall the Shoho in reality in a TF with 4 CA's. I know it led the invasion of Tulagi, then left the invasion force and headed south as the invasion force landed at Tulagi, but attacked by the Yorktowns planes. I'll have to study and see what the TF of ships was as the Shoho was all over the place duing the battle of Coral Sea....only problem is, it's ID in incorrect in the book and no measuring points, so hoping for a fast 90, but calm waters.

Sounds like her to me. :)

Sounds like the group to me. Just thought they split after they landed at Tulagi, but I guess the CA's stayed with her. I always go looking for the Shoho during Coral Sea. The last time I sunk it it only was with two escorts, but near Tulagi on May 4. Another time it was with the pass. ships. This time it was south, more in the position where the US sunk it.

I missed it with my one torp. One of the escorts sensed me and the group was at all different speeds and no way to stad it since it's off in the ID book.

I was waiting on it in calm waters over 6000 yards away, dived and silent, when the lone DD came very fast ahead of the group. I was still far enough off it's track, so the lone DD stopped about 2000 yards in front of me and cut it's lights on. The Shoho came fast while the CA's went slower zigging. Course they saw my one torp in the calm seas.

So we head home with a nice score for a S boat.

Groups cannot split. The only way to have a split would be to have two groups running in parallel with each other in the editor. This could possibly confuse the AI if they are in close proximity.

I've considered this in the past as a way to use random groups to properly simulate IJN spacings, but it wasn't all that important, so I didn't finish testing the idea. (the idea would be to create one group, then have the automated campaign editor calculate offsets for all the waypoints for a new group). At Midway, for example, you'd have the CVs in several groups. Each CV would be a group of 1 CV, and 1 DD in line astern with a few hundred meter spacing. The 4 CV groups would run parallel courses in a square with 7 km between them. Then you'd need a lead group (might fudge that with 3 units 2km abreast, else wed need 4 single ship groups)... as you see, it gets complicated in SH4 to make ships move in realistic groupings.

Great idea, but the amount of work...whew, but maybe large TF in historic battles.

You'd have to write a script that would keep the angular offsets of the groups, regardless of heading. It's easy to displace a group by 7000m SOUTH, for example, but you'd need to actually have one group 7000m at bearing 90, one at bearing 180, and another at 135 degrees. A PITA.

And they might never be able to come or go from port for all that work (though you could change them to line astern I suppose to that.... Hmm.

Another solution may be to kill a convoy at a specific time and then to revive one minute later in another configuration.
What do you think?

Little confused at what I saw tonight. Used my save and started over after my attack for another chance at the Shoho. So I again chased the Port Moresby invasion force sinking 4 ships and chased it for 4 days over 300 miles. I lost it once and found it again. It had 3 DD's that were in formation when I first found it, but then just shadowed around it in different directions after one of my attacks. At one point they finally took off north and left the invasion force which still had several escorts. On sonar I picked up faint contacts not reported and headed that way. Lost sight of the 3 DD's, but had em on sonar. I finally got a contact, single, foggy, but was a minelayer headed my way fast, so I dived. Why evading it I got another contact which turned out to be a single Furataka CA. I couldn't attack it, but finally left the minelayer. I went off in the direction of the CA still faint on sonar. I dived to check and still had the group of DD's and the CA north.
Heading that way the CA changed directions and yet another contact, 3 Furataka's, Shoho, one DD. The first 3 DD's sort of joined in for a time.
They all finally got in formation and took off NNE 17kt's leaving in left field.
The DD's trailed behind, but went with them.
So back south I go.

So confused, 3 DD's left a formation they traveled with for 3 days, went north and joined the Shoho group. Also that one Furataka alone also joined the group.

Don't recall ever seeing this.