I've got a bit better with the cat-n-mouse game. In the Gar, at Kiska, I tried to attack an incoming transport and didn't realize the lead one was an escort.
As I was getting my "textbook" shot setup (so that it could be duly ruined by those wonderful whacked out torpedoes smoking crack) the destroyer detected me. It coulda been any number of things: my periscope, my wake (I was only at about 55ft depth) my engines (backing up at Emergency speed . . . yeah . . . like I said, I thought he was a freighter) whatever, he came at me.
I fired all 10 torps at him and they went spinning off like 5 year olds letting go from a merry go round . . . no hits.
The little depression in the bay at Kiska is in the 300 ft-Plus depth so I went deep and he did bomb me a bit, but little damage. Thermal layer at 85 feet so I realized I could speed around deep and he couldn't tell where I was.
I backed out toward the northeast, let off silent running, reloaded, and spent another couple hours real time slowly edging closer and observing him doing his laps. Finally all my (mostly dud and screwball) torpedos spent, I retired to Midway. I did sink something along somewhere on that mission with the deck gun though.
Love/hating the dud rate in the Soup: I hit one big ass freighter with 4 of six shots (the other two just plain missed). This was one of those rare instances where I had six torpedos that did NOT veer off to port and/or go into a circular run.
Torpedo missed sir.
Torpedo was a dud sir.
Torpedo was a dud sir.
Torpedo was a dud sir.
Torpedo was a dud sir.
Torpedo missed sir.
I don't know if the actual rate of non-defective torpedos is exactly historic or not (I'd say it is in the ballpark of 70% either duds or screwball . . . I try to mitigate the premature detonation and deep running by NEVER using the contact+Influence setting and ALWAYS setting depth to shallowest possible). So for every ten torpedoes I fire, and assuming a a 50/50 hit rate . . . I get one hit.
Not sure if that is historically accurate or not, but it does convey the "quality" that the crews had to deal with, and it makes the game surprisingly interesting. So probably 75% of my sinkings are achieved almost exclusively with the deck gun.
Elsewhere in the news: I managed to infiltrate Rabaul harbor (I had sank a harbor patrol there with the deck several weeks earlier and not sure if they just decided it was pointless to replace him or what . . . no ASW patrols in the harbor) slipping past the radar-duided sub-nuclear cannon positions by hugging the southern shore of the harbor for 2/3 of the total distance (at night) at flank speed then going to periscope to sneak in the last third.
I began this operation at just after sunset, and exited the harbor just at sunrise:
Got lucky and had very few duds in that raid. Sank everything in the harbor except for a subchaser that was hiding behind the western pier.
That was fun!
After that raid, I headed back to Tulagi to rearm, and then proceeded on to my patrol area west of Okinawa. Spent several hours in a storm fiddling around evading a ****less harbor patrol and trying to sink a large modern passenger liner that was parked at a perfect right angle to the north of the pier. Not a single effective torpedo in that entire set (Gar so I forget the total number 20?): mostly screwballs that veered off to port but perhaps half-dozen duds that made contact but didn't explode.
Visibility was under 750 yards with this night-time storm so in desperation I finally tried to lure the escort into a running gun battle. He couldn't find me and kept lurking on the edge of visibility (radar made this possible). I managed half-dozen hits (expending probably 30 shells) with a 5" 51Cal (very slow loader), which seemed to reduce his enthusiasm for pursuing/patrolling but didn't sink him.
I went back to periscope backed up almost right into the liner. moved away just to the edge of visibility, surfaced and peltered him with my last 35 shells: Sank him after about 20 hits!
That patrol netted me a new Balao class sub (nice to get in summer 1942
)
Great soup!