WOOHOO!! I wanted some advice, and finally went ahead without it, but I'll ask now any how as I can always go back. (GWX 2.1, 100%)
What about Key West in early 1942? Are there any places with big US warships around that time?
Due to the fire here, I tossed it and went in on my own during a heavy night storm. I snuck past a 4-masted escort and two patrol boats without any serious problem. I couldn't see squat, but finally saw two 1800t destroyers. So I decided to torp one, but then I got picked up by sonar! The first escort/destroyer was at least 1km away, so I suspect it was one of the inactive ships that had someone manning its hydrophones.
Anyhow, I rushed the shot and missed
, as I was worried about being in water 1-4m deeper than my boat! I started getting out of there at flank, and noticed no pursuit so I slowed to slow, but by then I think the 4-master had gotten my scent. What followed was 15 minutes of dashing, turning, and twisting at flank and slow as I headed for deeper water. I didn't take any hits other than one hit that destroyed tube 6 (alread damaged due to the loading with open door bug) without doing any other damage- not even any flooding.
So I get some great luck, and he seems to lose me after I make a head-to-head pass and go to slow/silent. He keeps steaming away and I lose sight of him. So it's on the surface, blowing balast, and running away at flank. It works beautifully, until 6-7 minutes later, he comes charging out of the raining gloom with guns ablazing!?! Did he have radar or something? I take a beating, get the boat down to periscope depth with all kinds of damage (bent propeller, destoryed propeller, damaged engine, but only minor flooding). I do a little more twisting and turning, catching at least one, possibly two depth charges in the dance. My standard tactic is to try and get behind the boat, running perpendicular to him. After he passes over, I keep turning to keep his rear pointed towards me so long as I'm still heading in the basic right direction (i.e., out to deeper waters). Those extra few angles buy me extra few seconds that buy me extra hundreds of meters. Finally, he's coming at me again. He's trying to make the most dangerous pass- coming up my 180 (this gives him the longest amount of time/distance to drop depth charges on me). So I turn into him, go to flank. When we're about 45 degrees from each other, I turn hard to starboard. When he's about 400m away, I hit full reverse. At 200m, he's almost on top of me, but I'm now moving in the opposite direction he expected me to. This makes him drop the charges in front and to the right of my boat. It also lets me go flank forward and get a nice long run up his tail that gets me far away from his datum spot. I'm now at 40M+ of depth, so I go to slow, turn slightly, and creep away!
So I'm off the coast of Florida again, with 78K to my credit, and 4 torps left. I figure that if I play my cards right, and get some good deck-gunning weather (it's been nothing but storms and 15knt winds since I got here a week ago), I might once again break the 100K club.
