Wish me luck.
 

I have great timing apparently. I returned to Surabaya just in time for my next patrol to start at 00:01 hours on February 27th. Time to have some fun with the Java sea battle and as the title says wish me luck. I'll give an after action report when either the battle is over or i'm sunk. Oh and i'm using TMO+RSRD for those who are wondering.

Good luck Admiral. May your periscope be unspottable, your torpedoes on target and functioning properly. Now go do some good for the war effort.
:Kaleun_Salute:

Well I didn't have a chance to sink a ship as it was an utter rout and the IJN came out on top. It started off well when a few minutes after the fleets sighted each other one of the allied ships scored a direct hit on a IJN heavy cruiser. After that however it was all Japan and we ended up losing every single ship in the ABDA fleet. The Houston was the last one to sink and even though she was completely on fire by that point she still took out 3 destroyers and a Kuma Light Cruiser before a hit on her magazine blew her sky high. The moment I return to base I am going to try and get the entire crew the Medal of Honor as they all deserve it.

What, you missed the large invasion fleet of over 50 ships, now they've landed.......just great.

There is also a large force invading in the harbor right of the Merak label, sort of rear of Merak in the Sundra.. Real nice group

The Java Sea battle was probably always a forgone conclusion. Though the two forces were roughly equal in numbers, the Japanese had the advantage of aerial reconnaissance and their superior training in night tactics, while the Allied ships had not trained together and did not even share the same communications protocols not to mention the same language.

At least in this replay, the Houston took a few Japanese warships down with her. :up:

If she hadn't gotten that hit on her magazine she might have actually survived the fight.

It's a shame the Houston even had to be there. She should have been in overhaul with that rear turret out of action. Java Sea is a sterling example of why the US Navy became very wary of ad hoc political arrangements like ABDA, and of getting involved in defending or even liberating European colonies. Houston crewmembers noted that there wasn't much love from the native population for Dutch rule in Java.

The Houston was sorely missed. The US found itself somewhat short of cruisers by mid-1943 between the losses in the Solomons and so many cruiser hulls being converted to light carriers in the building ways.

You're absolutely right about the fact the Houston should never have even been there in the first place. The fact she was just shows how badly prepared and desperate we were during the first few months of the war.

I know this is a double post which I hate doing but after what just happened to me I have to share this. If I thought my timing for the Java Sea battle was lucky this just proves this I will survive this career until wars end. It started when while attacking a freighter on the surface A plane got the jump on my and nearly blew me in half. Luckily I survived but with the amount of damage I had and the fact that all but two of my gun crew was dead I headed back to Fremantle. However when I got there it turned out my base had been changed to Pearl. Normally this would make me furious seeing as I would have to travel that entire distance and watch my fuel closely. However after doing the calculation I realized if I timed it right I could arrive just in time to be assigned to Task Force 7.1 and get some midway action. Well lo and behold I was able to do exactly that AND I was assigned the patrol Northwest of Midway which means if i'm lucky Nagumo will have to deal with more then planes this go around.

Strange, I don't recall that you would ever get an auto transfer of base from Fremantle to Pearl, unless you docked and requested it...Didn't you say you're using RSRD?

Yep TMO+RSRD. I wonder if it had something to do with the fact that before the patrol started I was upgraded to a Gar class. Still I was able to transfer back to Fremantle after I sunk one of Nagumo's carriers(Only 30 seconds before the dive bombers found them.) and returned to Pear so it wasn't all that bad in the end.