Originally Posted by Rhodes
10th November 1943 - 14th December 1943
3rd patrol of the USS Paddle.
After a ordinary voyage to the patrol area - north-east of Miako, between Honshu and Hokkaido, for 5 days of anti-shipping objectives,the USS Paddle focused the patrol south of the ordered area.
Weather was clear, no fog or light fog during the night, wind 15 m/s during all the patrol time.
A few days in the area, a task force was detected, 2 destroyers at high speed. Resulted a failed attack since the speed was off, the targets were slower than estimated. Broke off the attack since I could not keep up.
The next night, a strange small convoy detected: one merchant ship and 4 escorts, all small anti-submarine ships (subchasers, trawlers, etc.)
USS Paddle manage to get inside the escorts screen but was detected prior to shoot. All 4 escorts come down on the sub.
After a few minutes escaping on the surface, do to the increasing shells hinting near the sub, I ordered crash dive. Thermal layer was high, at 160ft and after passing it, silent running and hard to starboard.
The escorts failed to detect the sub and the USS Paddle went away, surfacing after a few hours and resuming patrol.
After a few days, in the same location a convoy was detected by radar. After the initial approach, two marus were sunk, but the lead escort - chidori class, detected us and we could not escaped at surface.
After crashing dive and going quiet, they detected us by active sonar ping and drop well placed charges.
When escaping the attack, the charges damage the bulked, aft tubes and propeller shafts. Heavy flooding.
After a few moments trying to get the situation under control, the flooding became uncontrolled, so I ordered the main ballast tanks blow and we will try to escape at surface, since we had light fog,so use the weather in our favour.
(and for some reason the game did had some hic-up and after surface, only I could go outside. The watch crew didn't appeared, like the sub was still below water.)
Ordered all ahead flank, but only got 14kn. Still we lose the chidori and the other escorts in the fog.
By morning (and after reloading the game), the damage and flooding were fixed, but we lost my aft tubes (even with part not showing damage in the damage menu).
The next night, near the same area, another convoy detected. Manage to get near and 3 more marus went down. The mark 18 missed it targets.
Escaped and with no more torpedo in the bow tubes, and the aft inoperable, the USS Paddle returned to base.
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