Iron Bottom Sound.(pic heavy}

[Armistead]

{lightened several that were very dark, why some look different)

Part 1..

I had finished the battle of Santa Cruz, sunk some large warships, had about 135Ktons. Based out of Midway, but close to Tulagi, I went there to refit. Wanted to check a battle I haven't done. There are several surface battles that take place at GC over a 3 day period. I also got involved in the battle of Cape Esperance earlier.

They liken this battle to a drunken bar room brawl with the light cut off, ships often getting within 1000 yards of each other....Can't imagine what these men really went through.

I'll skip the set up. Large TF comes passed Savo into the sound and takes on a large US fleet. This was a historical battle with terrible loss to both sides, but the US took out a BB. I blew my first attack..bad, sunk one CA, but torps missed the Kongo. Took a beating caught shallow, 46% damage, out of control dive.. A few DD's hunt me why the IJN moves in. I had saw the large US TF the day before, about 4 Northhampton CA's, Atlantas, Somers and Fletchers.

The DD's moved in first, then came the first Kongo.


The US had the edge at first as they crossed the T, taking out the smaller IJN DD's.




Battle rages. I had finally evaded and was trying to work in, but far behind. It was awesome to listen to the battle and watch it from a distance.


The Kongo's big guns really holed the Hamptoms, just no match.




Kongo fires and scores a direct hit in the engines..big hole









US takes hit, but fights on


Not sure how the keel got holed.


Ships sinking in the back....


Nice hits below the waterline. big hole through the bridge..






Anyway, it was a long battle. IJN sunk all US ships. US sunk a few heavy CA's, several DD's..both Kongo's were burning and listing.

[Armistead]

Part 2.

Strange, a few CA's left at hight speed. The DD's set up a wide perimeter why the two Kongo's slowly headed out. I'll skip most my attack, but sunk one and left one dead in the water.

Sinking one..


Took a little more damage, so many DD's throwing with terrible skill, I finally hide below the Kongo stopped.



I was in trouble. I figured the next day US planes would come. These DD's actually snooped in very close, even threw some charges that blew beside the Kongo...I got right under..



Morning came. There were about 7 DD's spread over 10nm's with 3 hanging around me.



Finally US planes showed up, the flak got heavy.



All planes attack the Kongo...those bombs are strong, at 150ft I took mild damage





Direct hits












I was getting worried that the Kongo would explode, so I pulled out and finished it off. Place last two sterns at forward and rear
turrents.


Both hit and it sunk, when it blew it also sunk the DD beside it.



Took awhile for it to sink, I flanked back reverse and hung around.




The DD's then turned to me in force...Thankfully the US planes kept up the attack.



This DD had just made a run on me. Plane scores direct hit and splits it.



Another DD was making a run, so I aim my sub at the split and go through, but DD follows right through why parts of the ship were still exposed above water.




Anyway, the planes over sometime took out all the DD's. I come up after the battle, from a sky view the entire ocean covered with debris. Probably 50 lifeboats still afloat scattered from both sides...got a SS somewhere of both sides mixed together.



I refit and head for Midway, I've had enough...Leaving to the NW the next day I run into another JP TF coming around Savo, this one is 6 Heavy CA's, 3 Furataka's.... I took a long range shot, missed and let it go...back home to Midway.

My guess a total of 24 ships were sunk in the sound, Iron Bottom for good reason.

TMO2 RSRD...cams obviously engaged and used...

[Dignan]

Awesome pics! How do you get into these scraps?

My grandfather was actually in a couple of the Savo Island battles. Not sure which one this was in your campaign but I believe there were two or three "Battles of Savo Island." He never spoke of it much but my father does remember him talking about how once the two opposing columns made the first pass, all hell broke loose. Nobody knew who was on whose side. He was pretty sure they fired on a friendly ship and he knows that his ship (USS Aaron Ward DD-483) received friendly fire. His ship also exchanged fire with the Kongo from a long range towards the end of the engagement before limping out of the battle. Ironically, or not, his ship was sunk in Iron Bottom Sound months later after being repaired from the first battle it was in there.

Great pics. Thanks for sharing them.

[Armistead]

Cool story.

I read a book on the Aaron Ward, an amazing ship. She shot down many planes protecting the US landing force, which is also in the game. She even spotted the damaged JP BB near Savo at dawn and was hit by it. Jap planes were eventually her undoing, but an amazing story. She had about 100 men killed in battle during these engagements.

There were several small and large engagments there from Oct. to Dec 42. Not sure how Lurker programmed these, but he got close enough.The main battle went on for 3 days, Nov12-14, with the IGN coming everynight with the big stuff. I did do battles all 3 nights. I let the last one go, damaged, and face it 235K tons is silly. I wish I would've hung around for the US BB's and watched them that night.

The 2 BB's only came in this night, so that's where the Aaron was. I can't imagine what he went through. Course my Grandfather was a gunner on the Yorktown at Midway. He was put in the dead pile, but found later. He had a terrible thick scar from his groin to his throat from surgery.
Sure miss him.

Just load RSRD and learn your history...much funner than the patrol zone. If you want great sound, load EAX mod, gives these battle some great depth. With surround sound, you would think you're in one.

[Diopos]

Great pics!
Great patrol!


.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Excellent story, Armistead. Very cool SS too. So your grandfather was on the Yorktown, huh? That's awesome. How did he get wounded? Bomb? Gunfire? Alas, we're running out of WWII vets too quickly. A few more years and there may be none left to tell their stories. My own father was on an escort carrier from 43 onward. His ship was involved in a lot of the major offensives (Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Tarawa, Enewetok, etc.). He never really talked about it that much. Too bad. Wish I knew more about him but, that was his way. He never talked about himself.

[Thrair]

Nice one. Sounds like it was a good fight. Truth be told, I miss being able to watch the action, as lately I've been playing with all cams off. Which while good for immersion, also denies me the ability to just *watch* it all go down.

Stories like this are making me think of turning the cams back on, because these screenshots are awesome. Also, nice tactic of hiding under the disabled Kongo. Ballsy, to say the least. :P

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

Excellent story, Armistead. Very cool SS too. So your grandfather was on the Yorktown, huh? That's awesome. How did he get wounded? Bomb? Gunfire? Alas, we're running out of WWII vets too quickly. A few more years and there may be none left to tell their stories. My own father was on an escort carrier from 43 onward. His ship was involved in a lot of the major offensives (Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Tarawa, Enewetok, etc.). He never really talked about it that much. Too bad. Wish I knew more about him but, that was his way. He never talked about himself.

He was a gunner. He died many years ago when I was in my 20's. The second wave attack. He didn't know anything, nor doe's he even remember that day, except breakfast.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Thrair

Nice one. Sounds like it was a good fight. Truth be told, I miss being able to watch the action, as lately I've been playing with all cams off. Which while good for immersion, also denies me the ability to just *watch* it all go down.

Stories like this are making me think of turning the cams back on, because these screenshots are awesome. Also, nice tactic of hiding under the disabled Kongo. Ballsy, to say the least. :P

Cams off is tough, did it for a year. Now I alter. I'll do cams off when nothing much is going on. Try cams off on a big battle like this, it would really take weeks, as you know very slow play.

No doubt cams off my score would've been much lower, but I do the battles for the SS's.

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Cool story.

I read a book on the Aaron Ward, an amazing ship. She shot down many planes protecting the US landing force, which is also in the game. She even spotted the damaged JP BB near Savo at dawn and was hit by it. Jap planes were eventually her undoing, but an amazing story. She had about 100 men killed in battle during these engagements.

That's an amazing story about your grandfather on the Yorktown. Something to be proud of indeed.

It's pretty typical that they didn't talk about it much. As you pointed out, the Aaron Ward had many men killed in different battles so I can imagine it was an intimately personal experience when your ship mates got killed. The Ward was eventually sunk by a Japanese high altitude bomber as you alluded to. He was aboard her that day and somewhere I have a letter from him to a scuba diver who dove on the wreck in 1995 and wanted to talk to survivors. Maybe I'll scan it and put it up here. It is very short, which was typical of my grandpa, but he talks about watching the bomb fall and being thankful it didn't hit the bridge (he was the Communications Officer so was on the bridge a lot.)

The battle I described in my earlier post was the November night engagement. I may do what you say and head there for a patrol to time it with November 1942 to watch it unfold. SHould be interesting.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Dignan

That's an amazing story about your grandfather on the Yorktown. Something to be proud of indeed.

It's pretty typical that they didn't talk about it much. As you pointed out, the Aaron Ward had many men killed in different battles so I can imagine it was an intimately personal experience when your ship mates got killed. The Ward was eventually sunk by a Japanese high altitude bomber as you alluded to. He was aboard her that day and somewhere I have a letter from him to a scuba diver who dove on the wreck in 1995 and wanted to talk to survivors. Maybe I'll scan it and put it up here. It is very short, which was typical of my grandpa, but he talks about watching the bomb fall and being thankful it didn't hit the bridge (he was the Communications Officer so was on the bridge a lot.)

The battle I described in my earlier post was the November night engagement. I may do what you say and head there for a patrol to time it with November 1942 to watch it unfold. SHould be interesting.

You would enjoy it, at night with the sound it really is very historical, obvious we can change that.
I believe the Aaron was a Graves class,,if it's spelled that way. Didn't ID one, not sure if they're in the game.

I used my Tulagi save to go ahead and attack the CA force I ignored before. It made a pass at GC and got attacked by the PT boats.

Nov 14 I found another US TF with two NC BB's leading. It came from Florida Island pass per history. It ran into a convoy of 5 Nagara's and sunk them all.

I couldn't keep up with it. It then took on 3 IJN TF, so another large surface battle. Another Kongo group came, but turned back...

[fastfed]

I dont get it.. I know you have TMO installed.. and Im pretty sure you are not playing "easy" mode.. Maybe you are??

But how do you have external camera? Even the mid level disables it..

[Armistead]

From the TMO support file, might want to read the TMO2 pdf. info, has lots of useful info on TMO, just open TMO documentation. Also make sure you cut the cam on in the office. I play at at 90%. I don't think cams effect difficulty, having contacts on doe's, that way or vice versa. Obvious cams give you an advantage depending on how you use them. As stated, playing large battles I run contacts and cams, if not, it would take weeks of play to get through one day in the game.....

2.) How do i get the next / previous camera back?
The easiest way is to be a big cheater, is open the /data/cfg/commands.cfg in TMO. Search for "
[Cmd50] " Your looking for these two blocks:
[Cmd50]
Name=Camera_on_next_unit
Ctxt=1
;Key0=0xBE,,">"
Page=0x34000000,3714
[Cmd51]
Name=Camera_on_prev_unit
Ctxt=1
;Key0=0xBC,,"<"
Page=0x34000000,3714
Simply remove the semicolon placed in front of the key assignment, and you have the next/previous

cameras back. Note: this will restore the hot keys. It will not restore the buttons on the ordersbar.