Manual TDC - It rocks

[daft]

Restarted the war with the desire to FINALLY (after playing subsims since before SH1) take the plunge and learn manual TDC. Took command of USS Triton and departed for the coast of Honshu for my first patrol. Topped of the fuel tanks at Midway and headed out. Conducted routine trim dives (they seem to improve diving times) on the way to the patrol area, but encountered very few aircraft and stayed on the surface for the most part.

As we arrived in the assigned area it seemed deserted. A few sampans bothered us, but we kept the deck gun secured in order to keep our presence a secret. The days were mostly spent submerged to avoid detection and on a few occations we chased sonar contacts, but they all turned out to be sampans.

On December 29th we we're released from our assigned area by ComSubPac and decided to patrol north towards Hokkaido in an effort to find some targets. Two days later the lookouts spotted two freighters heading north, too far away to identify. Immediately rang up flank speed in order to make an end around.

As dawn was approaching fast we kept a keen eye out for Japanese aircraft as we quickly overtook our targets, believed to be a large lodern split accompanied by a small passenger ship. At about 9AM the freighters suddenly veered off to the west spoiling our attack. We again began chasing to get ahead of the targets.

This was accomplished just before noon, and we submerged about 1500 yards from their projected track. Our TDC-party had a good solution in all respects but the speed of the target. They seemed to slow down and speed up again untill we were about 2500 yards from them. At this point they seemed to be stopped.

We crept closer in at 1200 yards we opened the outer doors and let fly the first two fish. Both aimed at the passenger vessel. However, the targets got under way again and both torps missed, probably to the aft. Dialed in a 6 knot speed and fired two more at the same target. Both missed, this time ahead. It was obious we had over- estimated their speed and therefore we fired two more (the last from the bow tubes) at the troop transport with a 2 knot speed setting.

Both ran true with the first one hitting just ahead of the bridge structure, tearing a large hole in the hull, clearly visible from just over 1000 yards away. The second hit just where it was aimed, smack bang under the funnel breaking the targets back and setting off several secondary explosions.

We quickly switched targets and brought our stern tubes to bear on the freighter. He didn't seem to have speeded up so we kept the speed setting of 2 knots. AoB just under 90. Two torps aimed at just below the funnel and the aft part under the engine room were let loose after a few minutes of speed calculations (just to make sure).

Both hit accurately and sent our second target to the bottom. We expended eight torps, but I'm still very proud of my first "real" sinkings. Manual TDC really forces me to approach this game in a whole other way. No more TC-ing until I reach my firing position. Approaches have to be handled delicately and with great care in order to result in a sinking. Sure, the chronometer is broken and the stadimiter gives faulty values, but what the heck. It's till a whole knew gameplay dimesion for me.