New objectives?

[jimmbbo]

Originally Posted by Greystone

For what it's worth, I've found that sneaking into an enemy harbor to be the best of the available missions in terms of offering a respite from the doldrums of wandering around looking for something to sink. It provides a chance to get some tense excitement out of the game. At first I was intimidated by the very thought of such a mission, but now look forward to them.
First, make sure your sub is equipped with radar. Get as close as you can to the harbor entrance without being detected and save the game, preferably when it's dark enough to erase all evidence of daylight. Then start heading into the harbor; your radar will let you know who's where in order for you to avoid detection.

Gave this tactic a try on the Manila carrier photo mission... By judicious use of radar and periscope depths and working around the detection circles of the four DDs in the harbor and escaping past them on exit it worked a treat...

[Sailor Steve]

I'm still trying to find my old link, with no success so far.

The bottom line is that there were only fourteen photo recon missions in the entire war, and every single one was against Pacific islands scouting enemy ship numbers prior to invasions. Not one U.S. sub was ever assigned to photograph a Japanese harbor, let alone a major naval base.

[propbeanie]

Sailor Steve is correct. I also cannot find my link from where I found the list - hard drive crash took me out. But this is one thing that we've been researching for FotRSU, and one boat took pictures of Wake Island just after it fell. However, the camera was not "authorized" to be on the submarine, and was not part of the mission. The "techniques" were copied for later use though. Of the thirteen other missions, they were all panoramic type sets of beaches and defenses of same, for the potential landings areas. Each of those missions would have "sets" of islands to do, and would generally take a submarine a week to 10 days to complete. One of those (USS Burrfish) involved an actual landing of a recon party on a couple of beaches, of which 3 of 5 men were lost and captured by the Japanese, and the island consequently was not invaded. No other recon landings were done. One mission was not completed, due to the boat being lost to unknown causes (Sargo Class, SS-193 USS Swordfish at Okinawa). The planners would take the aerial fotos and the sub photos of an island, and be able to get reasonably accurate contours models of the intended landing areas, sometimes with the gun emplacements. The only time pictures were taken of ships was if they were in the process of sinking - in the open ocean - for "proof of deed"... Generally speaking, if they saw a ship, the main idea was to sink it, or at least try to... As a little side-note, some of the photo recons involved use of a moving picture camera. No mention that I've found of what size was used. Watch the FotRSU thread. When RR goes to do the full release, we plan on having a write-up of that research we found...