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[WernherVonTrapp]

Sorry, nothing glamorous to report right now.
RFB/RSRDC

February 4, 1944
Balao Class
Home Port: Guam
Last assignment: Patrol Japan-Luzon Sipping Lanes

Nothing was found in the barren section of ocean I was sent to patrol for 96 hours. Right now I'm finishing up some harbor raping at Okinawa (Naha, Itoman). Got 50k worth of tonnage so far but, I'm almost out of torps and DG ammo. Will have to refit as soon as this last Merchie sinks.

[corsair15]

March 8, 1942
Tambor Class

Position: (Not sure) about 200 Miles west of Guam.

Right now I'm trying to get in range of a HUGE Task Force. However, during my travels of course I've run into delay after delay. Airplanes forcing me under all day, Subchasers coming out of nowehere; the norm.


Today was different though. As I was trying to close the distance between me and the and task force, and allow myself some time to prepare for the attack, I ran into two airplanes, followed by two escorts. I spotted the escorts on the horizon, dove to periscope depth and waited for them to be in range since they were heading for me; but the AOB was nearly zero, so I couldn't get a great fix on what kind of ships they were. I mistook them for Akizuki's when they were actually Fubuki's. Fired a spread (4 fish).

No hits, I had the wrong range. They spotted my scope and forced me under. I dove to about 300 feet, rigged for silent running already, I increased to Flank, dropped ONE decoy, made a 45 degree turn to port, decreased speed to 2 knots, and got away unscathed. Waited an hour for them to give up sinking me, returned to surface, and here I am.

Bout to have to go back under though, more airplanes.

[clayp]

No matter what I do I cant find any of those big battels.. You have heard of the expression dumber than a rock..Well I prove it..

[Armistead]

I was just in the biggest all around battle ever..Attacked large IJ TF, had two Kongos. I missed them, but got one CA..They went on pass Savo and took on about 16 US vessels, largest Northhamptoms. I was behind trying to get in the fray, but the IJN won it hands down, Kongos just outranked the field..but what a battle.

The IJN limped off, I was able to sink one listing Kongo from the battle and stopped the other dead in the water. DD's worked me hard, about 40% damage. Finally hid under the Kongo.

Morning came, IJN had ships all over spread out. US planes finally show up in mass and attack the BB non stop. Scared, I pulled away from it and finally torped it...It sunk. The DD's then came at me, no doubt they would've got me, but US planes attacked non stop until all DD's were deep six...

Can't beat that. I had just fought Santa Cruz and came to Tulagi to refit and caught this battle...After it was over, dang if another CA TF came in.
I didn't have nothing left in me for it and let it go...

One refit, about 238K tons sunk...woo hoo....with a lil help from the navy...

[corsair15]

USS Tambor
Tambor Class Sub
May 8, 1942
1,000nm West of Midway Atoll
Course 265*


On my way to patrol zone near Honshu. Was forced to return to Pearl after my task force incident yesterday. I couldn't get in range of the Task Force because of the Carrier Group. They sent like 20 Airplanes at me. I shot down 4 of them before I realized it was hopeless; they just won't be leaving me alone. The sad part is that the Task Force was less than 20mi away from me. I tried running on the surface, keeping the AA Gun manned constantly, it was way too risky though. They sent air patrol after air patrol. I managed to sink a Medium European Composite and Huge European Liner that were part of a smaller TF that was trailing behind the larger one. Headed back to pearl because I ran out of torpedoes and (really I wanted an assignment somewhere else, like the Marianas) but that didnt help. So here I am, back on my way to Japan.

Quick question. What is the maximum rank you can attain as a Submarine Captain in this game? I made Captain for the first time last night on the Los Angeles mod (yes it was easy, this submarine rocks hard) but can you make Rear Admiral Lower Half or is Captain the limit for this game?

[Bubblehead1980]

Just loaded up a patrol and finished....

TMO 2.0 RSRD

10 March-16 April 1944

Gato, USS Gurnard

Celebes Sea "Chokepoint" South of Davao Gulf

Returned home with 49,000+ tons sunk.The victims include two Taiyo escort carriers.Also took out one small and two large merchants.I had just two Mark 18's left in stern tubes.

My last four Mark 23's failed to hit a group of cruisers encountered on 28 March 1944 due to range limitations(fired from 4,000 yards, the TF conducted a normal zig during the run(unalerted to my presence) which pulled them just out of range, bad luck, otherwise a Takao CA wouldve been mine.Possibly the Agano CL I fired one of the four at.Ah well.

Made it home to Fremantle on April 16, 1944.

Screenies of the carrier attack:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=175896

[Bubblehead1980]

UPDATE:Screens at the bottom. Managed to get some patrol time in last night with my secondary career.

TMO 2.0 RSRD

USS Shark-Porpoise Class

Pearl Harbor

Left port on 8 December 1941, refueled at Midway, proceeded to area 130 NM South of Bungo Suido.After days of no contacts, not even a patrol plane, spotted a freighter late afternoon of 31 December 1941 at 9,000 yards, moved into position and ordered a DIVE after going to GQ.Plotted out a good track which would have us 1,000 yards off the freighters SW track.Went to 100 feet and ahead Full.Sonar began tracking.After a few minutes slowed and came to scope depth to check target.A decent sized freighter was visible, dropped to 80 feet and ahead full again.After a sonar ping to check range, sonar reported target was at 5000 yards.Raised back to scope depth and slowed to ahead 1/3 for a quick visual.Target changed course to due west! This through us off track , immediately ordered a course change to compensate and began to track speed, target was making 9 knots.After closing to 3,000 yards with a AOB of 120 degrees, identified the target as a Momoyama Maru freighter.Checked the manual, set torpedos 1 and 2 to run at 20 feet for keel shots and opened outer doors.Finally, fired 1 and then followed with firing 2.

34 seconds into the run, heard an explosion, raised scope to see a plume of water, appears torpedo 1 exploded prematurely.Torpedo 2 soon follwed 1 and exploded.After closing in more, fired two more, one of which prematurely exploded, other failed missed due to evasive movements from the freighter.

Not wanting to waste anymore torpedos, I ordered a battle surface on the merchant since seas were calm and the merchant was unarmed(love early war merchants in RSRD) We closed in to just 600 yards and opened fire, holing the merchant along the water line, also striking hits on the command deck(killing the crew) the 20 MM also raked the decks with fire.

After 76 shells, the Momoyama Maru went dead in the water and sank 30 minutes later.

Hanging out here until 10 January then heading for East China Sea, some good convoys leaving Tsushima Straits around 17 January.


While on patrol in the East China Sea...encountered a lone merchant, small one of the Kasagisan Maru Class.Two torpedos prematurely exploded and with heavy seas, deck gun was not an option, attempted an end around but a pesky four engine patrol plane keep me under and lost contact.Patroled around for days in stormy weather, nearly had a collision with an enemy submarine in the weather, ordered the 20 MM manned and fired scoring some hits but the sub soon disappeared and was unable to track.

Found a Biyo Maru freighter and after 3 torpedos failed to explode or prematurely exploded, scored one hit admiships which set off a large explosion, Biyo Maru split in two and sank with all hands(empty lifeboats)

Finally on January 20 made contact with a convoy in the East China Sea.The convoy was large and well protected for an early war convoy with 4 Destroyers escorting and 6-8 merchants and troopships comprising the convoy.

Fighting heavy seas and a DD that came too close, finally by the afternoon was ahead and able to dive.Closed in at ahead full and 80 feet, came to scope depth and slowed for 3 observations to plot course, speed and pick out a target, with just four Mark 14's left in bow tubes and two left in stern tubes, needed to chose carefully.I was approaching from the starboard which had some large freighters but the port side had several small troopships and one large one.After some plotting, I figured I could get within 2000 yards of the big troopship(firing from starboard side) , so identified the target as a Kiturin Maru class troopship.I dropped to 100 feet and slowed to ahead 2/3 and closed in, while evading the lead DD which was criss crossing the path of the convoy.

Finally when plot checked, came to scope depth and was in correct position, only off by 450 yards which could be easily made up in time to fire.Problem was a large merchant was blocking my field of view so could not fire just when planned to, so dropped scope then raised after 1 1/2 minutes to see I had a shot.Opened outer doors and fired two fish at center of target and used the spread knob to send the others to the bow and stern(prefer to fire torpedos as individual shots on different bearings sent via scope to tdc but this was not common until later, its early war so I play with early war tractics, makes things interesting) dropped scope and raised when torpedo run should be up...just after gettng a look at the transport, number one torpedo hit dead center, number two impacted the side but was reported as a dud. Torpedos 3 and 4 hit near their points of aim(somehow got lucky, no premature explosions), leaving the big transport a flaming wreck. I ordered ahead flank in order to get closer and then make a turn to prepare for a stern shot in case target needed a coup de grace shot , however a big transport was about to steam right over me, so went to 80 feet while racing ahead.Soon came back to scope depth and raised scope and to my shock the transport had turn and we nearly collided with it!! I dropped scope and ordered us to 90 feet.

We soon came back to scope depth in time to confirm our target was down by her stern and sinking, we got her.Soon targeted a smaller freighter with stern tubes and fired, both prematurely exploded.We now had a DD rushing towards us, we grabbed a sounding(just 200 feet below our keel) and went to 165 feet on silent running.

The Hatsuharu(sp?) class DD roared over and dropped some charges but none were close, clearly the intensely heavy seas were shielding us, I used this chance to speed up to 4.5 knots in order to slip aaway while the DD's sonar was masked by his own screws.

After several hours, we were clear, out of torpedos, we headed for home.Since used economical fuel settings during the transit from Pearl Harbor, still had 58 percent of our fuel after 42 days on patrol, so we were able to speed home at ahead full(16 knots) arriving 4 Feb 1942 which ended a tiring but successful patrol.The shark is currently without SD radar(chose to not purchase it, most didnt have it early war) which caused some quick dives to avoid planes.The torpedo issues were also trying.

Some shots from the patrol.

[Bubblehead1980]

keep this thread going guys....

[I'm goin' down]

My crew was getting very, very bored, so I sailed them over to Truk lagoon for some action. We headed in via the southwest channel and sunk three stationary merchants, and left a fourth on fire. While the 4th merchant was burning, a subchaser spotted us. Before long two more subchasers plus a destroyer had joined it, and all were laying down charges. Explosions were going off all around. What do to? Under fire, no time, uh, make a decision. Okay, let's head over to the terminal a mile away and moor the boat into one of the slots for Jap shipping. Which is just what we did. We made it, being Depth Charged along the way. Once moored in the slot, the boat remained a periscope depth while the destroyers and subchasers went wild droping their payloads all around our position. Impacts from the explosions were absorbed and blocked by the port's concrete quay wall. The destroyer parked alongside the wall, adjacent to our mooring, for a few hours, trying to flush out out. We stayed silent and submerged. Ultimately, it the went off searching for us. With the coast clear, I backed the boat out of its mooring, turned to the channel we sailed in from, and escaped to open water. Damage repaired, one injured, and four merchants sunk. I think the destroyer sunk the last merchant by accident when he was gunning for my boat.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by I'm goin' down

My crew was getting very, very bored, so I sailed them over to Truk lagoon for some action. We headed in via the southwest channel and sunk three stationary merchants, and left a fourth on fire. While the 4th merchant was burning, a subchaser spotted us. Before long two more subchasers plus a destroyer had joined it, and akll were laying down charges. Explosions were going off all around. What do to? Under fire, no time, uh, make a decision. Okay, let's head over to the terminal a mile away and moor the boat into one of the slots for Jap shipping. Which is just what we did. We made it, being Depth Charged along the way. Once moored in the slot, the boat remained a periscope depth while the destroyers and subchasers went wild droping their payloads all around our position. Impacts from the explosions were absorbed and blocked by the port's concrete quay wall. The destroyer parked alongside the wall, adjacent to our mooring, for a few hours, trying to flush out out. We stayed silent and hidden. Ultimately, it the went off searching for us. With the coast clear, I backed the boat out of its mooring, turned to the channel we sailed in from, and escaped to open water. Damage repaired, one injured, and four merchants sunk. I think the destroyer sunk the last merchant by accident when he was gunning for my boat.

lol thats pretty creative