Captain's Log December 1941 (with questions)

[Egmont]

New Player

FOTRS (Latest)

No other mods, open for suggestions

Playing on HARD


1941 USS Plunger (Porpoise Class)



Reduced crew to 50 of the highest skilled Seamen I had available, moved some guys around. Drastically reduced my overall starting crew of 82?



After the first patrol mission I find the Japanese floatilla returning from Borneo near the Balabac Strait. It is night, the Plunger is undetected. Up close, some of the warships appear already damaged. Perhaps they took some offshore fire during the invasion?


Manually fire off all front four torpedoes, hitting the Takao Class Heavy Cruiser (15,870). Then I run deep and watch the Hydrophone. The fleet continues north, leaving the Cruiser behind for dead. I finish her with two aft shots and 1 more front tube on a multiple pass.


Later, two smaller freighters are discovered entering Sulu Sea, A Fast Merchant (9980) and Medium Split Freighter (4037). Firing 3 front tubes at Fast Merchant, hitting twice, one dud. The chase begins for her, but the Split Freighter has decided to just rest still, not run, not engage, just sit there.


Returning back for the Split Freighter, Plunger fires torpedoes at a zero speed ship. Did something go wrong here?


All said, the first mission lasted less than 2 weeks at sea before down to 4 remaining torps. Refit at Manila just before the city fell to occupation.


The next mission was also at Celebes, but here is where more things started getting weird. An engage option on a Greek Freighter in the Sulu Archipelago? Then I come upon two more ships, but I can't tell if they are friendly or not. This Celebes-Sulu area has plenty of friendly contacts at this time, but some ships I can't tell who they belong to? One ship I pulled up within 300m to see what flag she bore - it was blank, like a silvery sheet - no national affiliation. I surface and she opens fire?


So what's the deal with identifying ships? I have 'no contact' turned off, is this the reason or is it the mod? I'm new to the mods.


Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the story.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Egmont

New Player

FOTRS (Latest)

No other mods, open for suggestions

Playing on HARD


1941 USS Plunger (Porpoise Class)



Reduced crew to 50 of the highest skilled Seamen I had available, moved some guys around. Drastically reduced my overall starting crew of 82?



After the first patrol mission I find the Japanese floatilla returning from Borneo near the Balabac Strait. It is night, the Plunger is undetected. Up close, some of the warships appear already damaged. Perhaps they took some offshore fire during the invasion?


Manually fire off all front four torpedoes, hitting the Takao Class Heavy Cruiser (15,870). Then I run deep and watch the Hydrophone. The fleet continues north, leaving the Cruiser behind for dead. I finish her with two aft shots and 1 more front tube on a multiple pass.


Later, two smaller freighters are discovered entering Sulu Sea, A Fast Merchant (9980) and Medium Split Freighter (4037). Firing 3 front tubes at Fast Merchant, hitting twice, one dud. The chase begins for her, but the Split Freighter has decided to just rest still, not run, not engage, just sit there.


Returning back for the Split Freighter, Plunger fires torpedoes at a zero speed ship. Did something go wrong here?


All said, the first mission lasted less than 2 weeks at sea before down to 4 remaining torps. Refit at Manila just before the city fell to occupation.


The next mission was also at Celebes, but here is where more things started getting weird. An engage option on a Greek Freighter in the Sulu Archipelago? Then I come upon two more ships, but I can't tell if they are friendly or not. This Celebes-Sulu area has plenty of friendly contacts at this time, but some ships I can't tell who they belong to? One ship I pulled up within 300m to see what flag she bore - it was blank, like a silvery sheet - no national affiliation. I surface and she opens fire?


So what's the deal with identifying ships? I have 'no contact' turned off, is this the reason or is it the mod? I'm new to the mods.


Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the story.

it's FOTRSU.
the designers turned off the auto-identifying aspect of SH4 such that we do not automatically see which contacts are friendly and which are enemy. in the Stock game, friendlies are automatically Blue and the enemy Red.


regarding your crew, i also prefer a smaller crew but you have to have more qualified PO's than ordinary seaman or your boat will not perform well enough to accomplish anything. although, it appears from your story that you are doing just fine.


keep going and good luck.

[Egmont]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

it's FOTRSU.
the designers turned off the auto-identifying aspect of SH4 such that we do not automatically see which contacts are friendly and which are enemy. in the Stock game, friendlies are automatically Blue and the enemy Red.


regarding your crew, i also prefer a smaller crew but you have to have more qualified PO's than ordinary seaman or your boat will not perform well enough to accomplish anything. although, it appears from your story that you are doing just fine.


keep going and good luck.

Hey Kaleun,



Great! Thanks for the reply. I was wondering about the crew size, also I would like to see some promotions take place, and I remember last time I played I couldn't do that, too many officers was the message.




Plunger is making toward the Thailand Sea. Auxiliary Cruiser Toro Class (11450) and another Split Freighter (4131) spotted and sunk at the 9N113E area. The war is on.





Yeah, I'm okay at the game, but I'm certainly having a tough go at this ship identification stuff. It's very realistic, and much more difficult. I like it. I just can't imagine taking a distance shot anytime soon unless I'm absolutely certain the target is enemy.


You're exactly right about the crew and performance levels per section. I'm running with no repair team and 2/3 or 3/4 per section. Assigning both weapon skilled CPO's to deck gun when surface fighting.



I'm hovering between 50-65% efficiency in all sections except maybe 80% on watch. I read a post somewhere talking about crew sizes and 50 is the number they mentioned for a Porpoise Class. You can imagine how shocked I was when I loaded up and saw 82.


I'll be in real big trouble if I take even a little damage, so avoiding that at all costs.


About that Greek Ship in Sulu. I mean, I like a good Tzatziki as much as the next guy, but seriously. AND I get the engage target option?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Egmont

Great! Thanks for the reply. I was wondering about the crew size, also I would like to see some promotions take place, and I remember last time I played I couldn't do that, too many officers was the message.

AND I get the engage target option?

...ok, the too many officers thing. the Ubisoft designers divided the crew into three levels: Officers, Petty Officers, and Unqualified Seamen. buried in one of the activity files are two numbers that limit your quantity of the first two levels. if you know how to use Notepad and want to change the level-limits, let me know.


lastly, what-the-h is the "engage target option"?


good luck and good hunting!

[Egmont]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

...ok, the too many officers thing. the Ubisoft designers divided the crew into three levels: Officers, Petty Officers, and Unqualified Seamen. buried in one of the activity files are two numbers that limit your quantity of the first two levels. if you know how to use Notepad and want to change the level-limits, let me know.


lastly, what-the-h is the "engage target option"?


good luck and good hunting!

Engage target option is the window that shows up when "ship spotted". Sorry, getting the lingo down.


When it triggered for a merchant of friendly nationality, also a long-long way from home, I thought it might be a bug. But then a pretty funny bug, I wish I was recording at the time. But perhaps this was a had to be there moment.


January 1941 Action Report:


USS Plunger (Porpoise Class)
Captain: Veqryn Beil
Last Radio Contact: Leaving successful patrol in Gulf of Thailand


Two additional enemy freighters engaged and sunk on separate occasions - Split merchant (7390) and a Hansa Freighter (7827).
No base reassignment after the surrender in Manila, had to improvise. Plunger docked in at Serabuga.
Medal earned: Pacific Campaign Honorary (not found in medal box on desk though)
3 promotions granted to Engine Bay Seaman 1st class members, making them specialized PO's. Replaced a watchman with a promising recruit met at port.
Next mission is a 5 day patrol east of Celebes.


Personal reflection:
I'm feeling a little bit wondering... Not having an assigned port, I'm just going through the motions of refitting where convenient, and perhaps I'll just have to get used to changing the name on the door to my office when in town.

Plunger has recorded just over 60,000 tons in 3 completed orders and 3 end patrol docks in a little over a month.



Should I be refitting or ending patrol?

I picked end patrol to receive new orders.


Also, where is the spotlight on my sub?

[propbeanie]

After about 40-50 days, you should be ending patrol. While the SH4 game doesn't do a very good job of crew stress, anything over 50 days in real life would be pushing it. FotRSU will give you radio messages for certain circumstances, such as "Cavite Naval Base is under attack and being bombed", "Cavite Naval Base is no longer in service. Re-fits can be performed at the Manila docks"... "Marivelles has been established as the only re-fit location in the Manila area" (or however they are worded). You should also have a message such as "All Asiatic Submarines are hereby ordered to the Malay Barrier at the end of their current patrols", so nothing that says "Surabaya is your new base". You have to look at the anchor symbols of the Allied Naval Bases for one that is slanting, which is your new "Home Port" - for now. As of now, you'll go from Manila to Surabaya to Fremantle only. At some point in the future, and add-in mod might be available to other routing, but that will be a while, if it happens.

As for the ship with the white flag, and one that appeared to be possibly neutral, be very careful of them. The Germans, and then the Japanese employed "Auxilary Cruisers", which were ships disguised as merchants, sometimes flying flags of neutrality, but having their decks bristling with guns, and sometimes a scout plane. Cheeky tricksters... The idea was to lure a submarine in close, which would then surface for battle stations deckgun, and find to their horror, that the "merchant" was actually a warship.

[Mios 4Me]

I still chuckle whenever I think of the Delhi Maru, Japan's first (and only?) attempt at a Q-ship.



Sunk on its maiden patrol by a sub, if I remember my Blair correctly.

[Sniper297]

Yep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Swordfish_(SS-193)

Scroll down to 1944.

[Egmont]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

After about 40-50 days, you should be ending patrol.

As for the ship with the white flag, and one that appeared to be possibly neutral, be very careful of them.

And here I thought it was a bug. Nice stealthy tactic. Thanks for the patrol timing offering. Coming from Freemantle now, with travel to and from operational area combining 2 weeks, that leaves me with just over a month in combat zone. I'll try and keep that in mind.


MAR-APR 1942 Update


USS Plunger (SS-179)

Asiatic Duty
Captain: Veq Beil

New Base: Freemantle/Carnac


Operating mostly between Java Sea, South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand while fulfilling missions in the quieter Celebes Sea.



Came upon a US air assault vs. a lone Auxiliary Cruiser Toro Class Just north of Surabaya. Could've been following me from Java en route to temporary port. Boy, was she in for a surprise!



Cruiser too occupied with the planes, Plunger assisted with 4 MK9s, 3 hits, to her port. She took water as I negotiated an aft shot. Auxiliary Cruiser Toro (11,450) sunk on March 9th. Nice to have some coop battle going. Plunger credited with the taking, but in that situation I'm not sure I could've handled her without the fighters.



Additional targets:


Gulf of Thailand

Medium Modern Split Freighter (2791)
Medium European Composite Freighter (4199)


South China Sea

Medium Split Freighter (4225)
Hansa Freighter (7737)


Celebes Sea

Ada Maru Freighter (5248)
Composite Hull Structure Freighter (1455)


Brought a couple guys into the fold from Freemantle.



Replaced an Engine Room Seaman 1st Class due for promotion to PO for a Seaman 3rd class with higher Mechanical rating. Also replaced a Seaman 2nd Class for a Seaman 3rd Class with higher Leadership rating for Control.


Crew is shaping up nicely, running at 50.



Two Gunnery CPOs have the morning watch over front and aft torpedo rooms, and the deck gun when needed. They brought down a fishing boat recently, but I think we're going to stop doing that, even if they are all spies with radios directing flight paths.

[Egmont]

Originally Posted by Mios 4Me

I still chuckle whenever I think of the Delhi Maru, Japan's first (and only?) attempt at a Q-ship.



Sunk on its maiden patrol by a sub, if I remember my Blair correctly.

Welp, I can't complain, but I ran into to one of these "concealed weapons ships".
Doubly smart merchant captain, slowed down entering my rear fire window. two torps, one missed ahead and one just caught her by the nose. Not seeing any guns I called for the deck gun and was obliterated in about 15 LOOOONG seconds once surfaced.
I was remembered in Naval History.
8 months at sea, 4 patrols, multiple completed missions, 3 enemy cruisers and 22 merchant vessels totaling 157,809 tonnage sunk.



Captain's Medals:

3 Navy Cross
1 Purple Heart