Clayp, I feel your pain

Slick Wilhelm · 03-11-08, 12:02 PM

Clayp, I was reading about your troubles shadowing that convoy, and was thinking "Poor guy, hope that doesn't happen to me". Well, as you may guess, nearly the same thing happened last night.

Working out of Manila on my first patrol of my first career, in about twenty days of solid patrolling, I've managed to find one whole Japanese freighter, a small composite one in the Java Sea. Of course she was zigzagging, and because of this, I porked my setup and three fish I fired at her missed. I'm doing the TMO/ROW mods, using 100% realism. Not wanting to waste any more of the government's money on torpedoes, I decided to surface and sink her with my deck gun. No problems there, at least my gunners are worth their salt.

So, I'm no longer a virgin, and things were looking up. I stopped at Surabaja to rearm/refuel, and then headed north to patrol the Makassar Straight. The seas were rough, very high waves and I was fighting a gale force headwind. Lo and behold, my watch crew shouts a warning "Warship sighted, 002, long range!"

I ordered flank speed and the chase began. What started out as a lone IJN destroyer, turned out to be a huge convoy, looking like it was headed for the Celebes area, or perhaps Leyte. I ended up staying up way past my bedtime last night, as I spent the next two hours desperately trying to overtake this convoy, which was inconveniently heading nearly parallel to my original course. I could not coax more than 9 knots out of the old girl, because of the wind & mountainous waves. Oh yes, the chase started out at around 19:30, so the approaching darkness was making it difficult to keep an eye on the convoy.

Eventually, I decided that I wasn't going to catch the convoy until the seas calmed down, so I ordered a dive to 60ft and took a bearing on the convoy, with the thought of tracking it via sonar until the seas were calm enough to over take the convoy. Unfortunately, sometime during the night I guessed wrong on the convoy's course, and I lost them. Of course, in the morning the seas calmed down and by sunrise, it was smooth as glass, and the S-37 was able to do 12 knots at flank speed. But, alas, the convoy had slipped from my grasp. Crushed and disappointed in my performance, I went to bed....a dejected and forelorn captain.

But, tomorrow is another day......

03-11-08, 12:02 PM	#1
Slick Wilhelm Mate Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 60 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Clayp, I feel your pain Clayp, I was reading about your troubles shadowing that convoy, and was thinking "Poor guy, hope that doesn't happen to me". Well, as you may guess, nearly the same thing happened last night. Working out of Manila on my first patrol of my first career, in about twenty days of solid patrolling, I've managed to find one whole Japanese freighter, a small composite one in the Java Sea. Of course she was zigzagging, and because of this, I porked my setup and three fish I fired at her missed. I'm doing the TMO/ROW mods, using 100% realism. Not wanting to waste any more of the government's money on torpedoes, I decided to surface and sink her with my deck gun. No problems there, at least my gunners are worth their salt. So, I'm no longer a virgin, and things were looking up. I stopped at Surabaja to rearm/refuel, and then headed north to patrol the Makassar Straight. The seas were rough, very high waves and I was fighting a gale force headwind. Lo and behold, my watch crew shouts a warning "Warship sighted, 002, long range!" I ordered flank speed and the chase began. What started out as a lone IJN destroyer, turned out to be a huge convoy, looking like it was headed for the Celebes area, or perhaps Leyte. I ended up staying up way past my bedtime last night, as I spent the next two hours desperately trying to overtake this convoy, which was inconveniently heading nearly parallel to my original course. I could not coax more than 9 knots out of the old girl, because of the wind & mountainous waves. Oh yes, the chase started out at around 19:30, so the approaching darkness was making it difficult to keep an eye on the convoy. Eventually, I decided that I wasn't going to catch the convoy until the seas calmed down, so I ordered a dive to 60ft and took a bearing on the convoy, with the thought of tracking it via sonar until the seas were calm enough to over take the convoy. Unfortunately, sometime during the night I guessed wrong on the convoy's course, and I lost them. Of course, in the morning the seas calmed down and by sunrise, it was smooth as glass, and the S-37 was able to do 12 knots at flank speed. But, alas, the convoy had slipped from my grasp. Crushed and disappointed in my performance, I went to bed....a dejected and forelorn captain. But, tomorrow is another day...... __________________ "Nein! I did not have sex with that fraulein"