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Old 07-24-20, 02:54 PM   #1
Bubblehead1980
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Default One of those "wild moments" in TMO

TMO 2.5 100 realism
October 24 1944
Balabac Strait, Philippines
USS Dace (Gato)

Departed on patrol on September 20, patrolling off Palawan in Area D6. A running battle on a large convoy(13 ships, 6 escorts, most with radar) began at 2200 October 15 and ended at 1800 October 17 hugging coast left 6 ships destroyed, torpedoes expended and low on fuel. Since had not be out on patrol that long, headed to Mios Woendi to refuel and rearm. After refueling and rearming, headed back to patrol area at best speed. Entering Balabac Strait during the daytime (forget exact time in game) on October 24, a storm was raging. Fog, rain, clouds, visibility very low, moderate seas. While about midway through the strait, the APR-1 Radar Warning Receiver began detecting many signals. Then radar made contact on a group of ships heading East through the strait. Judging by the formation and plethora of radar signals, as well as the obvious speed the contacts were moving, was obvious we had a task force of some sort, went to GQ.

Due to weather and speed of contacts, visual ID would be impossible. Decided to shoot on radar bearings alone(the 3D TDC and radar mod incorporated in TMO makes this possible) and would use a spread of six Mark 14 torpedoes, providing a decent chance of hits. I chose a firing point as 2500 yards off the task forces projected track. I closed in on the surface since the storm would prevent visual identification and japanese radar, while a concern is not the best at detecting submarines(typically), so chanced it.

At 3000 yards off the track I decided could fire.As I was preparing to fire, checked radar scope. Noticed the lead escort had fallen out of position and was heading directly towards me. Coincidence? Just an escort making a sweep? I then noticed on the TDC the solution was changing and the main body of the formation was moving off to south slightly, ruining the shot. . Yep, their radar had picked me up and the lead escort was coming to check out the contact.

I was hoping to salvage the shot and use the weather to evade the escort and get in close to the main body(which was in a single file battle line, about 1000 meters or so apart). I also noticed the port flank escort was now heading towards me as well. The lead escort was now just 1500 yards away and closing in on me. Their radar had me. I turned toward him for a zero AOB, for a "down the throat" shot, but never been able to do this without seeing the target lol. In the fog and rain I could just make out his signal light on his mast, so used it as a reference and sent bearing via TBT(in the storm, on the bridge) . Since did not know what was shooting out, I had torpedoes set shallow depth already. Radar now had the closing DD at 1000 yards(normally wait for 650-700 yards in a down the throat shot but since he could not see the torpedoes, I fired two torpedoes and ordered a dive. The boat slide under quickly as the DD roared overhead.The "clank" of the one torpedo hitting the steel hull was clearly audible. Not dud as by Oct 44, the issue was fixed, but the torpedoes did not have sufficient time to make their run and arm due to the high closing speeds of my self at 20 knots on surface and the DD at 20+ knots. The DD dropped a nice pattern of depth charges which exploded above us. Balabac is not a deep strait but we were in the middle so had plenty of water to hide, plus with the storm, not exactly ideal sonar conditions. For good measure, we dropped a decoy at 150 feet. Soon we heard a torpedo explosion and a report of a torpedo impact was made.Not sure what we hit, but obviously something in the battle line as the second torpedo missed the DD during the initial shot. What luck.


Three destroyers dropped some charges in the area, a few came close on one run by chance, then the contacts faded off sonar, they had left the area. Surfaced, hoping for a wounded straggler to finish off but scope was clear. Continued on to the patrol area and few days later, found a convoy of six large tankers with 6 escorts heading North up the coast in shallow water. Attacked October 30-31, sinking four of six tankers and one escort(he moved in front of three torpedoes meant for a tanker) . Returned home November 8. Successful patrol full of tense moments.

Definitely a tense moment attacking the TF and also the bad luck to run into them in a bottleneck but during a storm so no visual id possible. Would have been a relatively easy submerged shot under normal conditions. Pretty intense moment with the DD bearing down on surface when range so close.Tried to load a screenshot, but won't work.

Note: This most likely was Nishimura's "Southern Force" en route to Surigao Strait for the battle on Oct 25. This force left Brunei and transited Balabac Strait then Sulu Sea and Bohol Sea towards Surigao Strait and the last battleship v battleship action in history. I added this force to TMO as part of my traffic update. However, this was chance I encountered it as I was simply making my way back to my patrol area from Mios Woendi.
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Old 07-24-20, 05:14 PM   #2
Armistead
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Haha, yea they will hunt you down pretty fast with their radar, I've had a few sneak right up my arse in bad weather. You're making me want to play again.
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Old 07-25-20, 04:39 AM   #3
easy
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Nice story!

I've just downloaded U-boat missions and ended the very fist academy lesson. (Rounding an Island)
So, there is a lot to come!

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Old 07-25-20, 12:08 PM   #4
Bubblehead1980
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Armistead View Post
Haha, yea they will hunt you down pretty fast with their radar, I've had a few sneak right up my arse in bad weather. You're making me want to play again.

lol they will but running my radar mod, which makes it more in line with the quality of ijn radar, so sometimes they pick you up, sometimes they dont, depends on profile, range, skill of escort. I pull off night surface attacks on convoys with radar equipped escorts on a regular basis, but definitely makes it difficult.

Ah yea, the bug is there, had a lot of fun. Not running RSRD either. I miss it but kept CTD on me for some reason. Finally got it to work but having too much in TMO. The tough escorts keep it interesting along with mods and the traffic changes(such as making convoys hug the coast from Oct 44) making the task force layers like RSRD, follows history with capital ship movements, esp for the BB's and CV's . ) I will be uploading my traffic for the campaign as well as depth charge mod soon.
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Old 07-25-20, 11:29 PM   #5
Armistead
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980 View Post
lol they will but running my radar mod, which makes it more in line with the quality of ijn radar, so sometimes they pick you up, sometimes they dont, depends on profile, range, skill of escort. I pull off night surface attacks on convoys with radar equipped escorts on a regular basis, but definitely makes it difficult.

Ah yea, the bug is there, had a lot of fun. Not running RSRD either. I miss it but kept CTD on me for some reason. Finally got it to work but having too much in TMO. The tough escorts keep it interesting along with mods and the traffic changes(such as making convoys hug the coast from Oct 44) making the task force layers like RSRD, follows history with capital ship movements, esp for the BB's and CV's . ) I will be uploading my traffic for the campaign as well as depth charge mod soon.
Yea, I enjoyed TMO alone somewhat, the constant zig zags were fun, think he did about 10nms with most groups going into course changes and it was more challenging wise, but I had modded TMO RSRD so much to my liking I just stuck with that. Been years since I've played, I guess my last year I spent most my time modding my game than playing it and then just stopped playing after I moved. My PC basically blew the motherboard and I just went to a laptop. I need to pull the hard drive out and save my work somewhere and maybe one day play again.
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