First Sinking

[Zeus_Faber]

After eleven days on patrol, LCDR Jonah Friday of S-36 has bagged his first freighter. At first, Friday submerged to set up a torpedo attack; then, realizing that the freighter was unescorted and it was the middle of the night, he surfaced and engaged with the 4"/50 cal. gun. Scratch one Japanese freighter, 3200 tons. Better than nothing, right?

Ron

[Leighthekiwi]

Originally Posted by Zeus_Faber

After eleven days on patrol, LCDR Jonah Friday of S-36 has bagged his first freighter................ 3200 tons. Better than nothing, right?
Ron

Absolutely :-) Congratulations.

[pdiddy]

Congrats! You're done for now. It's addicting!

[merc4ulfate]

Excellent choice to save the fish.

[Admiral Halsey]

Congrats on your first kill mate! Don't worry about the small tonnage as most of the ones you'll run into are 6000 and under. Hope you aimed for the waterline and didn't use to much ammo taking her down though. I try to have the shell splash in the water just before it hits the ship so the hole is fully underwater.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Zeus_Faber

Scratch one Japanese freighter, 3200 tons. Better than nothing, right?

Don't worry about the small tonnage as most of the ones you'll run into are 6000 and under.

Say what?!

Since when is 3200 tons small?

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by TorpX

Say what?!

Since when is 3200 tons small?

Compared to most of the other ships you can sink it is.

[Spraug]

True, in SH 4 the ships are rather large. TorpX' point was, I guess, that in the war, most of the ships were actually this size range (2'000-3'000t).

So, congrats, job well done! Some boats sunk less than that in their whole operational life time. And good choice about using the gun. Another inaccuracy of SH 4 (it's a game, so what the heck) is that in reality torpedoes were scarce at the beginning of the war, so you would have gotten praise for your choice of a surface attack conserving fish.

[Zeus_Faber]

The part I didn't advertise is that I went through a LOT of shells. I fired off a few rounds with only a couple of hits; then I retired to the bridge to let the gun crew handle it. They fired for some time before it occurred to me to tell 'em to aim for the hull. When I did, they fired round after round into her upper works. When I got a bit closer to the target, I told them to aim for waterline, and the target was sunk in short order. It didn't help that I was zig-zagging to avoid return fire. There is definitely a learning curve to this sim!

Ron

[Crannogman]

Originally Posted by Zeus_Faber

The part I didn't advertise is that I went through a LOT of shells. I fired off a few rounds with only a couple of hits; then I retired to the bridge to let the gun crew handle it. They fired for some time before it occurred to me to tell 'em to aim for the hull. When I did, they fired round after round into her upper works. When I got a bit closer to the target, I told them to aim for waterline, and the target was sunk in short order. It didn't help that I was zig-zagging to avoid return fire. There is definitely a learning curve to this sim!

Ron

Oftentimes you can be a lot more accurate than the gunners

[merc4ulfate]

I prefer to manually target ships. It is much more effective than allowing the crew to do it.

They also will not fire if sensor set ups have then unable to see the target even though you can see the target silhouette in dark or hazy conditions. I have had nights so dark they see nothing at all but I will fire at radar bearings fairly close in order to start a fire then I can see the target better and finish it off.

In storms and fog I can make out silhouettes or again fire at radar bearings while the crew would not be firing at all. I have sank merchants and destroyers like this because once I have a bearing and range on radar and I see I am hitting the target through fire glow and sound I can hammer at them while staying out of their visual range.

I have had destroyers tailing me in storms and while they can go faster than me their closing rate was slower since I was at flank speed. I would fire at them this way and get sinkings before they could close in on me enough to fire. If they did close faster I would maneuver away and get some distance in a turn or lose them and find another target.

I will also fire torpedoes at radar bearing or sonar bearings only during storms and dark conditions. Within 1000 yards it is not that hard to hit a target crossing your bow or stern.

[Spraug]

Originally Posted by merc4ulfate

They also will not fire if sensor set ups have then unable to see the target even though you can see the target silhouette in dark or hazy conditions. I have had nights so dark they see nothing at all but I will fire at radar bearings fairly close in order to start a fire then I can see the target better and finish it off.

Nice tactics! While I wasn't that smart (so far), I also prefer to shoot manually. Once you get the hang of it, you're actually better than your crew. I usually shoot at the engine room until I get one secondary explosion and the I shoot at the waterline, distributing equally along the target length. Sometimes I focus waterline shooting at the area of the propellers, though I don't know if that works all that well. And I still need way too many shells, too.