FotRSU: Going off the reservation

[Mios 4Me]

Assigned to hourly diving practice off southern Honshu, I've instead gone hunting off Hokkaido, where the cold seems to keep most of the mosquitoes away, and encountered a wealth of targets. Faced with another five day stint of daily CO2 headaches off Tokyo, I went south instead, intent on tanker convoys out of the Makassar Straits and on the route north to Halmahera. Other than expending a great deal of torpedoes at one particular anchorage along the way, though, I didn't encounter a single ship between Japan and Midway via Darwin. There were planes though, oh yes.

Is this a major difference from stock or did I have remarkably bad luck?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

Assigned to hourly diving practice off southern Honshu, I've instead gone hunting off Hokkaido, where the cold seems to keep most of the mosquitoes away, and encountered a wealth of targets. Faced with another five day stint of daily CO2 headaches off Tokyo, I went south instead, intent on tanker convoys out of the Makassar Straits and on the route north to Halmahera. Other than expending a great deal of torpedoes at one particular anchorage along the way, though, I didn't encounter a single ship between Japan and Midway via Darwin. There were planes though, oh yes.

Is this a major difference from stock or did I have remarkably bad luck?

incredibly bad luck.
convoy college is a major passage area for all types on convoys.
makassar strait is another major route to/from Dutch East Indies.
as you headed north from Darwin, you would have crossed a couple of routes going to Palau and then Rabaul and then Truk/Eniwetok.
that patrol must have hit snake eyes on all of the convoy spawn percentages.
too bad for you-ooo.

[propbeanie]

If you are seen or detected, the airplanes will hound you if you do not alter course and or speed. They know where to look for you, and that you can only get so far in the dark... After submerging for a while for an airplane, if they come right back at you, it might be necessary to stay down at 150+ for the remainder of the day, unless sonar finds you something, and even then, you have to remember that the airplanes can see your boat beneath the waves. The calmer and clearer the weather, the easier that is... But one nightfall hits, surface, Ahead Full, turn off all radars and do a 90 away from where you are. As day starts to break, submerge for the day down below 150+ again. Once night hits, again do Ahead Full and maybe change course a bit back to where you were going. Once daylight hits, go and be careful on the surface again. If you torpedo something, you might have to skedaddle again... Lather rinse repeat. As for not seeing any traffic, could be a combination of sighting reports, and / or bad Save data...

[Mios 4Me]

Thanks for clarifying that; I'll default to 75 meters' depth.

Perhaps I should check some assumptions:

- if I can ID a plane, it has probably detected me at that point as well
- if I can't, it hasn't.
- if I happen to surface after one whose type is clear has passed over but who does not change direction, I haven't been spotted.

Edit to add: restarting from a save point near a certain fleet anchorage, the torpedo magnet mentioned earlier, I ran three more patrols. On the one down the Makassar Strait, I eventually encountered a single convoy in the large shallows below Balikpapan. The other two, shadowing the merchant route 16 from Makassar to Palau, yielded no convoy traffic (one errant DD however), though I did find and sink the third Yamato class BB, all on this one patrol. Despite almost 200k tons sunk, there was no commendation.

Is there any chance this convoy drought will continue on the next patrol?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

Thanks for clarifying that; I'll default to 75 meters' depth.

Perhaps I should check some assumptions:

- if I can ID a plane, it has probably detected me at that point as well
- if I can't, it hasn't.
- if I happen to surface after one whose type is clear has passed over but who does not change direction, I haven't been spotted.

Edit to add: restarting from a save point near a certain fleet anchorage, the torpedo magnet mentioned earlier, I ran three more patrols. On the one down the Makassar Strait, I eventually encountered a single convoy in the large shallows below Balikpapan. The other two, shadowing the merchant route 16 from Makassar to Palau, yielded no convoy traffic (one errant DD however), though I did find and sink the third Yamato class BB, all on this one patrol. Despite almost 200k tons sunk, there was no commendation.

Is there any chance this convoy drought will continue on the next patrol?

glad you had some success!

let's keep in mind that this is a game that is simulating what happened during the war. with those table stakes..............

traffic patterns will remain relatively the same throughout the entire war. what changes is the deflation of the IJN sphere on influence from the high-point of Mid-1942 to the low point of post-Saipan. there will always be traffic from SE Asia to Japan and from the Dutch East Indies to Japan. any historical convoy map will provide this intel. i believe that clicking on the either the radio or the phonograph provides a traffic map.

what will change is the number of ships (decreasing) and their range, as the balloon of the Greater East Asia Sphere of Influence slowly deflates.
within SH4 there are several date ranges for convoys:

Dec 1941 to Feb 1942
Mar 1942 to Aug 1942
Sep 1942 to Aug 1943
Sep 1944 to May 1944
Jun 1944 to Sep 1944
Oct 1944 to end of war

these dates are the checkpoints where traffic is redefined.

hope this helps. good hunting!

[propbeanie]

Another thing to remember about FotRSU, is that as the US subs developed better, more deadly tactics, the shipping lanes moved somewhat, so you might have to go in closer to the Chinese coast for Singapore to Japan traffic, or it might be that things completely dry-up to Guadalcanal, and then to Rabaul, as most everything goes to submarine (Rat Transport). Of course though, as I said, once detected... and again, if none of the above applies, did your Save folder get corrupted?

[propbeanie]

Comments in "Orange":

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

Thanks for clarifying that; I'll default to 75 meters' depth.

Perhaps I should check some assumptions:

- if I can ID a plane, it has probably detected me at that point as well
Depends upon the plane and conditions...
- if I can't, it hasn't.
Depends upon the plane and conditions...
- if I happen to surface after one whose type is clear has passed over but who does not change direction, I haven't been spotted.
Depends upon the plane and conditions...
Airplanes are captives to their "Loadout". If they have bombs, they will attack if they see you. This would include having "fake" bombs, such that they turn and then attempt to strafe your boat. In either case, they do report your position etc. If they have no weapons to attack with, but do observe you, they do not turn, but they do still "fone home" and tell their buddies about your location and direction of travel. "Let's see... 10 knots, headed north, they'll be off of Rabaul in 16 hours..." Anything that gets within roughly 6.5nm will see you almost without fail, and of course, the faster you go, or if you happen to change direction and create a bigger rooster tail, they can see you much farther. Don't forget about the times where your deck crew doesn't "see" something until after you get the "We're under attack, sir! - We're taking damage, sir! - Medic!" Another little note on that is that a submarine sighting seems to be as important as a BB, so you will eventually have at least 7 airplanes "knocking on your door", if you are within range of an airbase. This does include carriers of any sort, including the float plane tenders.
Edit to add: restarting from a save point near a certain fleet anchorage, the torpedo magnet mentioned earlier, I ran three more patrols. On the one down the Makassar Strait, I eventually encountered a single convoy in the large shallows below Balikpapan. The other two, shadowing the merchant route 16 from Makassar to Palau, yielded no convoy traffic (one errant DD however), though I did find and sink the third Yamato class BB, all on this one patrol. Despite almost 200k tons sunk, there was no commendation.

Is there any chance this convoy drought will continue on the next patrol?

There should be no Yamato anywhere near Makassar or Balikpapan, if that's where you were for that. Brunei and Tawi Tawi... As a note on that, the Yamato and Musashi are not "Random" in the game. Those are "scripted" events, reflecting some semblance of historical journeys, as was requested by quite a few players. The game however, will not take them off of the Roster until the date of their actual demise, which would be the Battle for Leyte Gulf (Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, 24 October, 1944) for the Musashi and for the Yamato with Operation 10-Go 7 April, 1945. Even at that, the game would probably over-run any attempts at controlling an RGG with them by date... so the possibility exists that they would show up on September 1, 1945 if allowed to... If you find all of the instances of their travels, you could sink they a hundred times, and the game would keep re-producing them. It is the nature of the game, and is not easily controllable in SH4. As for "awards", the game is set to lower awards for sinkings. While important, doing the assignment is more so.

[Mios 4Me]

Yamato and Musashi were anchored unescorted at Tawi Tawi and the third Yamato (#111/unconverted Shinano?) was anchored at Palau with a few lethagic escorts. Having converted the Archerfish's forward torpedo room to that of a Tench, I had just enough Mark 16s to sink all three.