[Karle94]

Originally Posted by TBear

Abit of topic, but the ship are in

(trying to get my external harddrive to work with me to get the screenshots, but i just have to tell the story)

Because of the tweaks im working on im running a test mission that is based on my campaign. My beta tester have been grantet to add some bits n pieces so the map or ships are realy never the same.

Today i fired up the Furusaka, testing some damegde zones and the dials. I sail to the normal test area and shoot abit on the static ships there.

Doing this i get attacked by carrier bourne planes, i set heading towards the course they came from and i get radar contact. After some nervous scouting i find it to be a friendly taskforce consisting of Fuso and Kongo and some escorts. Our of boredum i simply set heading and speed to mach theres and follow them. They do get engaged by allied planes, but its not monster attacks, and even the Furusaka claims a few airkills.

Night comes, around 0113 i get more blips from radar the taskforce starboard screen begins to zig zag, but no realy visible enemy.

General quorters, to the UZO scout the horizon. Nothing. Now the inner screen begins to zig zag and the 2 destroyers to the outmost starboard begins to turn and speed up. I floow them closely, but now rain and clouds are making it hard. I begin to fear the "fog bomb" the situation where you kinda rams the enemy but cant see them.

I go down the lists. Crew is ok, weapons ready all man on the ship are prepared. Not the Inner line with me begins to zig zag. I just go abit down in speed and stay on course, following them. Port side outer and inner screen begins to zig zag, something is deffently going on, but no sign on any enemy activity. I have to admit that this second i could give a damn about the Furusaka and dreamed my way to the ship passing me, right there not 150m away on port side Takao came steaming, close followed by the maya.

No matter what i like cruiser power changed heading and followed those two. The came up along side the Fuso and Kongo and stayed there like angry dogs protecting there owners.

Manual check of radar and there was alot of blips, my radar guy had desided to drink Sake and stop giving me notices, so there i was jumping between radar station and the bridge/UZO. Im beginning to feel abit scared. All this fleet activity but no sound other than the rain and the waves and the massive ammount of horsepower being pounded out to the propellars of the taskforce.

Atleast the ship are responcive, and i know she can put up a fight if needed. Taksfoce changes course, keep zig zagging Destroyers leave and come back, but nothing feels calm, the intence feel of battle clouded everything.

Beginning to get more ship sightet reports. Go to the bridge and to my fear the weather have turned to the worse. I can barely se the maya 500, infront of me and simply have to go to the radar fall back abit and follow the takforce from there.

Ship makes a monster shake a huge impact, reports of damedge comes in and looking at the damedge screen i can se that the forward deck took a gigantic hit. I jump up to bridge and can hear gunfire all over. Water from shells spray the Furusaka and infront of me i se the maya explode in a huge fireball.

In the UZO i scan 360, all i se are grey hulls, cannonfire and impacts. Report come in enemy ship sightet. I just tell all guns to fire away, in this weather i cant say what are what. I follow the barrals of the guns and try to maintain a broadside towards the enemy ship. More enemy ship reports come in, now the fight have turned gigantic. I can se when the battleships fire the main guns, but there are way more battleship cannons going of than we have with us. Mogami race to portside right infront of us i have to evade to avoid hitting it hes firering away but are getting hammared big time, i sail away from the incomming fire on him to avoid running into the allied ship shooting. I get a visual on a ship to my NNW, its big, but cant say if its friend or foe. My gunners make the choise for me.

I target, dial in torpedoes and fire them, now im getting hit again, i evade with a starboard turn and then i realice what i just have done. I have put my broadside at 500-600m to the broadside of a texas class BB, he notice and he fire.

I look at the muzzle flames and know this is it. The Furusaka shakes cant even say how many times i get damedge reports, within 3 seconds im at external looking at the Furusaka explode and sink.

I didnt get to sink any ships, but i had awsome fun. Just realy hate that i dont know how the outcome of that battle was. But from my bridge and what i saw, IJN was the loosers.

This is why i love surface ships. You cant duck and hide, you have to face the enemy and try to outsmart him

TBear

That eally sounds like fun. Huge surface battles ala Battlestations. I tested my New Orleans. Parked her outside the Jap coast. Shot down some planes. That´s when I discovered this large modern tanker. I turned to engage. The ship goes to general quarters and opens fire. Few. I´m looking at the ship from the outside. There´s some waves, nothing huge, the ship moves about 1-2 feet up and a little sideways. Few clouds in sight, it´s darkening, with a dark grey color. Moments later I see rain at the top of the screen. Suddenly it pours down. If that was´t enough, the weather again changed, for the worse. This extremely thick fog appeared out of nowhere. Even though the tanker was so far away I could´t see it before the fog came, my spotters never lost it. I kept firing at the tanker as the distance slowly shrank. After 8-9 hits the tanker sank and exploded. Because of the bad weather accuracy was somewhat low. It took me 21 minutes from start to finish. I have a video, going to post it here when it´s uploaded.