SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - I Spotted the Ghost Ship South of Formosa

miteymitey · 05-18-08, 08:15 PM

I'm on my 4th patrol of my 4th career. Hadn't seen the Ghost Ship before last night. It was traversing the Luzon Strait on a SE course at 29 knots. 29 knots? I doubt the original ever got anywhere close to 29 knots. But I caught it 5 different times on my radar (within about 36 hrs), traveling a different course each time. Each time I selected it on the map view it would show up as a "Warship" traveling at high speed. Actual Jap warships show up as "Unknown" when selected (when out of visual range). When I finally got it into visual range and locked my TBT on it, the TBT ID'd it as "What is this?". I never tried to fire on it as it showed up as a blue target. Hey, I didn't want to sink some super secret Allied operation designed to scare the Japs out of the area. A guy could get Court Marshalled for something like that.
Kind of cute, the first time. By the 5th time it had become an annoyance. But it definitely put a little excitement into a rather dull period on the patrol. I think it actually worked on the Japs because I didn't see one single merchant ship while it was there, only a couple of destroyers. WEIRD.

05-18-08, 08:15 PM	#38
miteymitey Swabbie Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: East Texas Posts: 11 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Glad It's really there. I'm on my 4th patrol of my 4th career. Hadn't seen the Ghost Ship before last night. It was traversing the Luzon Strait on a SE course at 29 knots. 29 knots? I doubt the original ever got anywhere close to 29 knots. But I caught it 5 different times on my radar (within about 36 hrs), traveling a different course each time. Each time I selected it on the map view it would show up as a "Warship" traveling at high speed. Actual Jap warships show up as "Unknown" when selected (when out of visual range). When I finally got it into visual range and locked my TBT on it, the TBT ID'd it as "What is this?". I never tried to fire on it as it showed up as a blue target. Hey, I didn't want to sink some super secret Allied operation designed to scare the Japs out of the area. A guy could get Court Marshalled for something like that. Kind of cute, the first time. By the 5th time it had become an annoyance. But it definitely put a little excitement into a rather dull period on the patrol. I think it actually worked on the Japs because I didn't see one single merchant ship while it was there, only a couple of destroyers. WEIRD.