Quote:
Originally Posted by propbeanie
Glad you like the look and feel of the mod. What type of "Insertion" do you have, and to where? I went through and tried to limit some of those 2nd missions, similar to what you get at the Beginning, to where you get only a select set of missions for your 2nd patrol, so long as you don't stay out too long for your first patrol...  |
Second patrol assignment was to take a 6-man squad and drop them on Leyte maybe 30-50 miles south of Manila harbor. On leaving Surabaya and before getting to the deep waters of Makassar Strait, lookouts spotted an IJN Fubuki DD heading WSW. I turned towards him and went to PD (out of range, of course) just to see what was what. Sonar soon picked up multiple warships, reported as "closing". I thought they should be going away, so despite the near presence of the DD raised the scope for a quick look-see. Holy Crap! There was a Maya Class CG heading straight for us, now going due South. Behind the Maya were two escort carriers, another Maya, and several light cruisers, all surrounded by DD's. No way was I going to pass this up. I surfaced enough to use the radio, sent a contact report, and went immediately back to PD, apparently unnoticed. Must have been rookies on the near DD (Thank you!). Orders came to attack the TF without endangering my primary mission. Easier said than done.
As the Fubuki closed and then passed, I turned to the NE to gain some space between us and the line of bigger prey, turning back to the WNW in time for a shot at the carriers. It was pretty dark by then, so when I raised the scope no one spotted it. I was lined up perfectly on the Maya, but I swung the scope to the right for the lead escort carrier. Bingo! I fired two Mark 10's at her front quarters and dropped the scope. When the stopwatch showed about 10 seconds to end of run, I raised the scope and thought I picked out the second carrier and fired my remaining loaded torps. Down scope, turn away to ENE and head to 160 feet on silent running. Heard four explosions in rapid succession and started congratulating myself for sinking two escort carriers (about 30k tons) on getting the "she's going down" message.
However, in my haste I had retargeted the first carrier, so she got all four torps. That's ok - one was a pretty good kill for an S-boat. Funny, the escorting DD's never found me. No pinging, but they did depth charge the hell out of the spot I had fired from - bet they killed a lot of fish. We snuck away undetected and when out of sound range surfaced and continued our run to Makassar Strait. Before getting there, we spotted a Fast Merchant, also on a WSW course, and out of range of our now reloaded tubes. On a hunch, I again turned North and went to PD. Sure enough, when I raised the scope there he was, now on a due South heading. One torpedo in the bow quarter and she blew herself to bits. Must have blown her own bottom out because she went down in about 3 minutes. The rest of the mission was routine.
Dropped off the Army squad on Leyte around midnight right in front of a village. Something I noticed about that - I don't always get the "ready to launch raft" message if I approach on the surface, even after stopping. So I always submerge about two miles out and make my run in, stopping and surfacing about 600 yards from shore. I always get the launch cue doing it that way. I'm not saying it's a flaw - just pointing out that a way to be sure to complete the insertion successfully is to approach the launch point submerged, stop, and then surface.
The rafts behave much more like they should, and the insertion team makes for shore as they should. Don't know if you changed any of that, but it was never so smooth in prior versions of any mod. I like it!
Btw, on the way back I ran into a few more merchies to add to the total, expending all 11 torpedoes. A very successful patrol, that ended at Perth/Fremantle. Made one more patrol with some success, and I'm getting ready for my fourth, this time out of Brisbane.
Sorry for running on like this, but I had to tell someone!
