Maybe it just wasn't meant to be

[Aur0ra145]

So after years of playing SH4 on and off. I finally decided it was time to give manual TDC a try.

So I turned everything up to full realism (except for the event camera) and loaded into the practice torpedo attack mission.

Everything is going fine, I line up the shot, set my spread and fire three torpedoes. I see the first two fire straight and true, then the third one just sorta veered off coarse. Meh, I made note of it, but focused on watching my torpedoes proceed toward the ship.

After a bit I decided that I should should actually try to find the third torpedoe. So I closed the event camera until it was tracking on the third torp. Behold, the stray torpedo was about to strike something, which just happened to be me.

Crash dive. Sadly, not in time. The torp struck my conning tower. Failed mission. Game over.

So yeah. I think I'm the most unlucky person in the world. A circle runner on the training mission! And at that. it was my first try with manual TDC.

[White Owl]

Weird... the only circle runner I've yet seen was in the torpedo training mission. It missed me by about 5 feet.

[Rockin Robbins]

I had my first circle runner on my very first test run of a brand new Dick O'Kane manual targeting exercise. I was checking out some really non-standard ways of running the TDC and wasn't sure what the result would be. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a circle runner in the game. It had never happened to me and never came up in a Subsim discussion that I knew of.

So I'm wondering what's going to happen when I input a bearing without a range, press the fire button and got my very first circle runner. For awhile I thought it was the procedure and not just bad luck. After discussion with my partners in crime I ran the exercise again and it worked perfectly several times in a row.

So yeah, a circle runner really makes you think about the meaning of life, death the universe and everything!

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by White Owl

It missed me by about 5 feet.

Maybe you changed course a little bit, or was it a sideways current? All circle-runners i've seen come right back at your tail.

[White Owl]

Yes, I was trying to shoot while moving. Close call.

[Bubblehead1980]

I had one exploded close enough to conning tower in 1942 (Porpoise Class) it flooding the conning tower and destroyed the bulkhead.Evacuated crew to control room but boat never did perform the same due to the flooding(water wouldnt pump out)

Made it home though...

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Made it home though...

I always thought that our subs should be more fragile. Sometimes I come back with ridiculous amount of damage that, as I am sure, would mean "the end" for a RL sub.

[Platapus]

I must be either lucky or oblivious.

I don't think I have have never had a circle runner..... At least I did not know it was.

How do you know you have a circular runner? Other than the confirmation due to impact

I have had many many many.......many torpedoes miss but I chalk that up to the error behind the periscope not to circulars.

Does the game tell you about circulars?

[magic452]

The game won't give you any sort of warning on circle runners, you gotta watch out for them yourself.

I myself am both lucky and oblivious
The only circle runner I've seen was "Torpedo is a dud sir" call when the torpedoes were only 3/4 of the way to the target. Took a look on the attack map and sure enough there was a "Dud" laying next to my boat.
Lucky? It was a dud.
Oblivious? I had no idea it was coming.

Magic

[Radio]

Just had a circle runner in SH4 playing a T-Type Boat in the WDAD med campaign. I watched the torpedowake dissapear in the periscope and thought "Where the heck did it go?" and when lowering the periscope i saw something around 50 yards in front of me underwater ., luckily i had ordred slow back just before....

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I must be either lucky or oblivious.

I don't think I have have never had a circle runner..... At least I did not know it was.

How do you know you have a circular runner? Other than the confirmation due to impact

I have had many many many.......many torpedoes miss but I chalk that up to the error behind the periscope not to circulars.

Does the game tell you about circulars?

Well, if you had one and you're still alive then oblivious must be working for you! You sure you want to change anything?

There is a second map, different from the navigation map. It's the attack map. On it you can see the projected path of your torpedo and the time to impact. After you fire the torpedoes you can also see where the torpedoes go. It is great for detecting the rare circle runner.

Your crew says nothing when you have a circle runner. I think real sonar operators had something. Your crew says nothing when the torpedoes run normally. In RL the sonar operator had the duty to report "running hot and straight" or whatever they were doing. Oh, well.............

Now, how do you get to the attack map? That's a tricky one. If you are running the stock game then there may or may not be a keyboard shortcut. If you're running RFB, the RFB crew sees no value at all in the attack map and did not include it in their documentation and disabled any keyboard access. You can still get to it through the button bar. In TMO, where reason reigns, the attack map is available directly with the F6 key right beside the nav map F5 key. Certainly that is where it belongs.

The attack map is essential in letting you verify your torpedo setup before you fire, just as real targeting teams used is/was, telemeter slide rules and common horse sense to verify TDC solutions. If there was no agreement with verification, skippers didn't shoot and neither should you!

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Platapus

How do you know you have a circular runner? Other than the confirmation due to impact

I had a confirmation of this phenomenum when I savegamed after firing a spread, then got blown to pieces a minute after that. Being no escorts around, and submerged, I thought "how could this freigher be shooting at me? Have they seen me somehow, even underwater?"

I reloaded the savegame and watched the action from outside camera mode. The torpedo wake was there, clear as day, circling around me. Then it was a matter of following with free camera it to see me get blown once again.