Submarine School Refresher

Kpt. Weyprecht · 08-02-21, 06:48 PM

I've always been more attracted to the Atlantic theartre but since SH4 seems to be running easier on my working laptop (through Steam and Proton, on Fedora 34 Linux) I decided to give it another try and I loaded FotRS. Now it's been years since I last played a subsim so presumably I just got rusty (muddy?). But still, I remember approaching a British convoy bound for Gibraltar, on surface, escorts in sight and unaware of me, lining up tor a 45 degrees (or was it 60?) zero-gyro angle shot and firing four torpedoes, one per ship, then evading on the surface...
So here I am in the convoy attack training mission I've been trying for some time. I had a moderately good initial plor for the convoy on a 335 course. I decide not to approach directly but to shoadow the convoy until really dark, surface, overtake, refine my plot and then penetrate from the front. By the time I was in position ahead of the convoy they had zigged to 200 course but still I was able to dive deep under the front escort, get behind it unnoticed and line up for a shot. When I stick my night scope, the ships are turning back to the 340 track. I start swinging the boat, trying not to get run over by a Maru. But before i could bring the tubes to bear, I notice a white speck, clearly a bow wave. There was a destroyer, most probably the front escort, racing toward me. I don(t know if i got spotted because of my sloppy periscope discipline (but it was dark, in real life it would brobably be too dark even for the HP scope, and I was going slow) or my maneuvering got me detected by sound. I suppose I should have gone deep for maneuvering, but being back up in time requires quite a lot of "nicety of timing" as Ben Bryant would say.

And that's the EZ version of this mission. Times have changed...

By the way, I ended up picking a copy of Dick O'Kane's book on his patrols in Wahoo. I read his Clear the Bridge years ago but don't remember enjoying it that much. the book on Wahoo is really compelling and has this over-the-shoulder feeling you could see their plot and figure the knobs they're turning. Great read.

08-02-21, 06:48 PM	#1
Kpt. Weyprecht Gunner Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Paris, France Posts: 97 Downloads: 89 Uploads: 0	Submarine School Refresher I've always been more attracted to the Atlantic theartre but since SH4 seems to be running easier on my working laptop (through Steam and Proton, on Fedora 34 Linux) I decided to give it another try and I loaded FotRS. Now it's been years since I last played a subsim so presumably I just got rusty (muddy?). But still, I remember approaching a British convoy bound for Gibraltar, on surface, escorts in sight and unaware of me, lining up tor a 45 degrees (or was it 60?) zero-gyro angle shot and firing four torpedoes, one per ship, then evading on the surface... So here I am in the convoy attack training mission I've been trying for some time. I had a moderately good initial plor for the convoy on a 335 course. I decide not to approach directly but to shoadow the convoy until really dark, surface, overtake, refine my plot and then penetrate from the front. By the time I was in position ahead of the convoy they had zigged to 200 course but still I was able to dive deep under the front escort, get behind it unnoticed and line up for a shot. When I stick my night scope, the ships are turning back to the 340 track. I start swinging the boat, trying not to get run over by a Maru. But before i could bring the tubes to bear, I notice a white speck, clearly a bow wave. There was a destroyer, most probably the front escort, racing toward me. I don(t know if i got spotted because of my sloppy periscope discipline (but it was dark, in real life it would brobably be too dark even for the HP scope, and I was going slow) or my maneuvering got me detected by sound. I suppose I should have gone deep for maneuvering, but being back up in time requires quite a lot of "nicety of timing" as Ben Bryant would say. And that's the EZ version of this mission. Times have changed... By the way, I ended up picking a copy of Dick O'Kane's book on his patrols in Wahoo. I read his Clear the Bridge years ago but don't remember enjoying it that much. the book on Wahoo is really compelling and has this over-the-shoulder feeling you could see their plot and figure the knobs they're turning. Great read.