i just came back from the raid to Rabaul...
i started the patrol in june 1942, from Brisbane, with a S-42...
Although the coral sea battle had been won, there was a lot of enemy aerial activity, I almost spent all of my batteries charge in crossing the coral sea (there i realized how long it takes to the S sub to recharge
, it takes 5 hours to recharge 1/4 of the batteries....)
When i entered the "Rabaul Bay", i did it at 00:00 and waited the rest of the night surfaced to finish the recharge of batteries.
In the middle of the night i spotted an allied airplane heading for port moresby, also a pilot in parachutes, but landed on the beach...
When the sun came out, (5:45) I went to PD and headed for Rabaul.
No patrolling DD was there
. When I rised the periscope at 2 km from rabaul, the sky was full of fast yellow lights... it was an AIR RAID
This time it wasnt the navy, it was the air force. 2 or 3 USAF Lancasters (yes, i know. but the game is that way...) bombed the ships at Rabaul, most missed, but an oil-carrier merchant was damaged...
I waited for the aircrafts to go away and then started my attack
. I launched 4 torpedos to a heavy merchant in front of me, at 80° from me. sunk in 1 minute, later i fired 2 torps to a medium oil merchant, but both torpedos hit the dock before reaching the ship
. then i recalculated and fired 2 more to the same ship, they hitted the bow of the merchant, but it stayed just fine
. I change target and fired 2 torps to the damaged oil carrier, it exploded and sunk with the stern out of the water, like titanic, but it stayed there... stucked in the shallow bottom.
Finally i fired my 2 last torpedos to a big oil merchant, hoping the would hit the center of the ship and explode the oil and tear in half the merchant, but they hit the bow and the ship didnt sink
...
Then i tourned back at 17:00 (i waited all the afternoon for the damaged ships to sink, but it didnt happened) and retourned to brisbane without problem, i sank 2 ships and damaged 2 others, just 1 remained untouched, a medium freighter that was too far away... I was lucky because the DD went somewere out of rabaul or it was sunk by the planes, but it wasnt there... (no mines nor sub nets-----> Stock ver 1.4
)
Good Luck raiding at Rabaul