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Originally Posted by CobraDriver
Ya just gotta love it when a plan comes together.
Get a ping on the guy, plot distance, course, get speed, plug in the data and wait for him to commit suicide by crossing my mark. :rotfl:
Launch 1 or 2 and revel in the flames. Now THIS is fun. 
I know it must be old hat to alot of you but the moment you see the light, it's a beautiful thing. 
SH4 ROX!!!!
CD |
I agree with you a 100% on this! I recently returned to SH4 after a long time away from it. Before I usually played the auto version with some attempts at manual, but this time I decided to try manual targeting in a more serious manner. The first couple career attempts were miserable failures with me basically missing nearly everything unless it was exceptionally close. I was about to give it up again.
Then I saw the video on the Dick O'Kane approach and thought it sounded reasonable, and worth another try.
I started a new career with an S-Boat out of Manila. First assignment, go do photo recon in one of the port areas. I got to the port area and kept getting closer, but couldn't get the observation periscope camera to light up for use. Finally, I was within 1.5 nm of the port at periscope depth with about 80 feet under the keel when I hear a destroyer approaching fast from one of the side angles. I turn the periscope and he roars right over top of me - shortly afterwards I hear that nasty sound we all dread, and the graphic for a sunken ship shows on my map. Rats! Not again!
But no, the crew is reporting damage but we aren't sinking. The destroyer has sunk... what? Apparently we were just shallow enough that he hit the deck gun and it acted like a can opener the length of his hull. He tore off both the deck gun and the AA gun, but no other damage to the sub.:rotfl:
There being no other destroyers around, I moved into the harbor a couple times looking at every ship, about 6 of them, trying to get a picture, but to no avail. So finally I torpedoed one of them from about 600 yards and ran for the sea. I'll bet the destroyer was probably the one I was supposed to photograph!
So there I was again, a submarine failure -
Didn't get credit for sinking the destroyer even though my deck gun took him out.
Incomplete on the photo mission.
Sank a small freighter but not much of a challenge at 0 speed, 0 degrees, and 600 yards.
Word came over the radio about a large convoy a long distance away, so I ran for it as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I attracted the attention of several aircraft, with no AA gun, and the escorting destroyers as I got into long range, about 15,000 yards. The resulting delays put me at an awkward angle and a bit short of the convoy.
Remembering what was in the Dick O'Kane video, I set up the TDC and everything else for a an approach by the convoy from the starboard side. The sub was ready to fire at 15 degrees, torpedoes set for 10 feet, and speed of convoy guess at 10 knots. Unfortunately I wasn't close enough to the convoy to actually see it and the destroyers responding forced me to dive earlier than I wanted.
I was running from the destroyers, while trying to guess the range to the convoy. On the map all I could see was LOTS of little black lines all grouped together. At about 80 feet depth, with the battery below half power, and no solid idea of the range, the S-boat stopped and sat for a couple minutes as the black lines approached 15 on the compass.
When the shortest black line crossed the mark -
Fire # 1! Wait 5... Fire #2! Wait 5... Fire #3 Wait 5... Fire #4!
That's it for the S-Boat, no more front torpedoes and no rear ones. Time to run! I sure hope one of those things hits something! The sub headed deep and a bit later I hear from the Exec:
Torpedo Hit, Sir!
Torpedo Hit, Sir!
Torpedo Hit, Sir!
Torpedo Hit, Sir!
On my nav map a sunk ship shows up, and the message pad shows it to be an 8,000 ton Large Old Split Freighter. I never did actually see the convoy and sank the largest single victory with manual targetting - thanks to Dick O'Kane!
Sorry for writing so much, but the magic of it all still thrills me!