Just finished my first patrol! Couple Questions.

[jerm138]

(questions are prefaced in bold blue, if you don't want to read my entire patrol report)

I just finished my first real patrol where I didn't allow myself to return to a saved game if I didn't like how something went (missed shots, damage, etc.). Playing with all difficulty on except Contacts Update, and Outside Camera (though I only used this to watch explosions, not to cheat.)

I returned with just over 23,000 tonnes under my belt, including 4 merchants and 5 small craft. I still had 4 fish in the aft end, but my fuel tank was on "E" so I couldn't take any chances.

I hadn't seen any convoys the entire patrol until I started transiting home. From the northern tip of Luzon until I went past Manila I found 4 convoys! Unfortunately, I was nearly out of fish and fuel already. The first convoy was 2 oilers, 2 cargo ships, 2 destroyers, and a sub-finder. Pretty hefty escorts, I thought, and I've never done a convoy attack but I went for it anyway since it was night. I kept them on the horizon and raced up ahead on their course so I could wait for them. At no point did they act like they could detect me. Once I got to my ambush point on the starboard side of their track, we were at PD, 1 kt, rigged for silent running and ready to kill. I tracked them on sonar, not wanting to chance having my scope spotted. Once they got within a couple thousand yards (assuming they hadn't changed course) I poked my night scope up to take a peek.

Here comes the first question: When you're looking through the scope as it pokes out of the water, you get the little animation of water running down the lens for a couple seconds. Well, at this worst possible time, the animation continued indefinitely, as though there was somebody hanging on the scope and spraying it with a hose. Has anyone else encountered this bug, and if so do you know how to fix it? I ended up having to use the normal periscope instead of the night scope.

Second question: Even though I took all these precautions to keep from being detected, as soon as I poked my scope up (it was only up for about 5 seconds) the lead escort turned and made a bee-line straight for me. I always read about people attacking escorts, but if they can detect me underwater, at night, rigged for silent, ahead 1/3, scope up for 5 seconds, and just waiting for their approach... what chance do I have for any other attack on a convoy? How do you get close enough without being detected?

Back to the report: I waited a couple minutes to check again and verify my suspicion. Scope up, sure enough... 0 degrees off his bow and closing fast. The rear escort was also headed straight for me, though considerably further away. Seeing that I had probably been detected, I knew the jig was up. I (stupidly) decided to line up for a down-the-throat shot. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but after reading about Mush Morton and Dick O'Kane's exploits on the Wahoo I had to try. I ordered a course directly for him, set torpedoes for minimum depth, made some adjustments to my PK, and waited until I could see the whites of their eyes (ok... not quite that close, but uncomfortably close, anyhow.) I let tubes 1 and 2 go. In my haste, I had made a mistake on my PK, and the fish turned about 30 degrees left, even though we were 0 degrees off each others' bows. Too late to make adjustments and fire two more, the fish wouldn't have enough time to arm. Right full rudder, ahead full.... this is going to hurt. During my botched attack, I noticed that the entire convoy had changed course about 40 degrees to their starboard, which kept me in good firing position. Seeing this as my second chance, I decided to set up for an attack and hope that the first escort run didn't kill me. As soon as he had passed over and missed horribly with his depth charges, I popped the scope back up and mode some super-quick adjustments to the PK, mostly just guesswork at this point. I let 2 fish fly in the direction of a tanker. Crash dive! About the time I was passing the thermal layer, sonar reported "Torpedo Impact!.... Torpedo Impact!" Both fish had hit their mark. A short while later, the sound of his hull breaking up could be heard over the hydrophone... one more flag for us! The 3 escorts harassed me for a while, and made one good hit that caused all sorts of damage in my boat. I thought it might be the end, but we pulled through and fixed the damage without resurfacing. After a couple hours, the escorts returned to their group and I went to the surface for some fresh air and changed course for home. No sooner than the convoy was out of sonar range, I picked up another sonar contact. With only 4 aft fish left and none up forward, I was skeptical but decided to check it out. As I got closer, it became very apparent that this was a huge convoy... several warships and aircraft... about 15 in all... and sure enough, a destroyer headed my direction. Knowing there was no chance of getting a kill under these circumstances, I hid from the destroyer for a while while he harassed me, then eventually slipped away and headed home. I had 2 more very similar incidents that day and avoided them both. I also got attacked by 2 planes, but fortunately they were bad shots. I was starting to feel like the whole IJN was out to get me!

I finally made my way to my new home port at Java to complete my first full patrol.

Which brings me to the third question: I was really hoping to get an AA gun, and possibly radar to find surface ships, but alas there was none available. It's only January, 1942 so maybe it's just a date issue... but when do these upgrades become available? The only "upgrade" I could get was a .50 cal gun which I think I may have accidentally replaced my 5" deck gun with... I really hope that's not the case... I don't want to go to sea without that gun.

Thank you for reading my first war patrol report from the USS Swordfish. I'm headed back out with a full load to deliver to the Japanese.

Here is a memory from my exploits:

This tanker lit up the sky once his cargo ignited.