Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
SH1 had a "Rescue Button" of sorts, and you might have liked it, AVG. If you ran out of fuel you could end the mission; however, depending on where you were, you might be towed home (nice graphic of a freighter towing a sub), captured by the enemy or "lost at sea". The odds were nicely balanced depending on location at the time, and it added a great sense of fear when you actually had to resort to it.
|
I remember the rescue button. Nice feature.
Probably wouldn't be a freighter though. There were three (?) major classes of tugs in WWII. From memory I think they were AT (yard tug), ATF (fleet tug), and ATR (rescue tug). I think pre-war there was an ATO (ocean-going tug) that morphed into the ATF. As the offensive perimeter was pushed west the tugs followed, basing in the Marshalls and later the Marianas. Battle damage was their normal job, so they had a lot of work other than rescuing out-of-fuel situations. But they were available, presuming the problem was east enough to avoid Japanese land-based air.
I don't know of any boats that ran out due to miscalculation, but there were probably a few that recieved tank damage and lost part of their load while in the patrol area. Pretty dumb to abandon/lose a boat 300 miles west of Midway because it has a hole in the fuel tank.