Battle of Leyte Gulf

[skirich]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

my apologies for jumping in here late....
skirich, are you playing a career in October 1944 or are you playing a single mission built around October 1944?

Its a career that started in 1941.
I was playing a typical patrol, finished it and went to a tender base to get refueled. It was mid October 1944 and I realized there is a famous battle I can join, Leyte Gulf that started around 23-26th of Oct 1944. I was near the right spot, just got a refill at a sub tender, and had time to get to the designated areas and sure enough its been true to history, dates, battle groups and locations.
Its been exciting as hell to try and take out these battle groups.
As I am just about to hit fire I realize how hard my heart is beating and laugh. Totally immersed.

[skirich]

Not giving up.
This time I was made, early, so I found a deep hole and made a run for it.
Smack dab into the center of the central battle task force.


Went dancing with several destroyers but I'm too deep for them to get any depth charges to hit hard enough for damage, well other then the deck guns, which are made out of plastic evidently, since if you look at them the wrong way they get broken.


Still, no love. The destroyers kept me busy while the main force steamed farther than my range.


I did manage to surface and send a salvo of 6 torpedos towards the yamato but she evaded them. Sooo close.


I tried that trick of calling in a convoy report at day break and it worked back on Ozikawas battlegroup.

Worked on the Ozikawa force. I received a message about a minute later saying good find and they would send an attack force. Not those words, It was Navy Cryptic. The skys where filled with fly boys 10-20 minutes later attacking the battle group.
It was easy pickins to hit the ships that didnt sink.


Now I have to try that on the Central force with the Yamato.

[skirich]

Well I gave up on taking down any of the central battle group in the San Bernadino Straights.
No matter how I tried, I just couldnt penetrate the group to get close to the yamato, and I only had 6 fore and 8 aft torpedos. Not enough to pick off some of the outer ships to make a difference before the group steamed off. Oddly that was also very historical according to the accounts. I wonder if that was coded like that.


I did however return to an earlier save where i made contact with the two southern groups in Leyte.

I stuck around and waited till they got their keesters handed to them by our fleet and were on the route back home.

Picked off every capital ship.
That last Kongo class I didnt even surface. I was so close I ran under the ship at 225 feet.
I kept the periscope up and watched as the ship passed directly overhead since the daylight was midday and I had clear water.
As I passed I began surfacing to 90 feet. The minimum for opening tubes. When I had a perfect 90 degree shot, I lead the angle of attack by 5 degrees and let loose 3 aft torpedos from about 400 feet.
I could see them travel. All hit. Kongo sunk.

I thought for sure I was a gonner though after the last Kongo and Fusa battleship and two Heavy cruisers went down.
The remaining 6 destroyers, 2 light cruisers and 2 heavy type destroyers all found me. At least I thought I was a gonner as they circled me in like a war party around a fire. They seemed like they had endless supply of depth charges too. Made me think I was too greedy in trying to get that last Capital ship by paying for it with the sub.

I was down to 1 Mark 18 fore and 3 Mark 14 aft. None of which was loaded since I was running silent.

I couldnt surface without running into a ship.

It was tense, and exciting.
I used the trick of turning into the destroyers and going under them at 400 feet since they have poor sonar directly under and just behind them.
That dance lasted for quite a while, several hours of game time with heavy depth charges and severe damage to the sub.

I made a break when all the turning got their ships bunched up and almost made a few collisions.

At 400 feet and 2knts they didnt hear me at all.

When I got 5 miles out I surfaced to 30 feet and called in an air strike.

I sat their as no less than 8 different air force groups with 5-7 planes each came buzzing to target the group still circling in the spot they thought I was in.
They sunk 3 ships before the group turned and ran homeward.

As I surfaced and plotted a course out of Leyte Gulf I noticed our planes on the map not moving in the water.

So as a hunch I went to one and there was the sign of a survivor smoke signal.
so I picked him up and thought, maybe there was more. There were so many planes.
So I turned and made a sweep of the last battle area and I got 6 more survivors.

Now that was cool.
I'd play that battle all over again.
I would have given anything for 6 more loaded torpedos fore.

[propbeanie]

Kuhl.

I do wish the game would count you picking u survivors though, even if you don't have a "pickup zone"...

[skirich]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Kuhl.

I do wish the game would count you picking u survivors though, even if you don't have a "pickup zone"...

Yeah that was sort of anti-climactic not to even get a note about it from home port. But, I would still do it, for the realism.
There were so many downed planes during this battle. To be honest, since I called in the strike force, it was heart wrenching to sometimes come across a smoke signal and there is no survivor. Either I was too late or they didnt make it.

[MrMojok69]

How do you call in an air group?!? I had no idea you could do this!

[propbeanie]

You use a "Contact Report", where your crew has identified several ships in a group (you'll see the notifications in the text box), you lock-on to one of them, and send a "Contact Report". You have to be close enough to "see" them, yet not so close that they can see you. If there is a CV group, or a land-based air group, close enough to your location, you'll see them, generally no sooner than about 15-20 minutes, usually longer. You'll notice that skirich mentioned coming up to 30 feet, and you might get one out at PD, but usually radar depth is better (42-47 feet), or on the surface...

[skirich]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

You use a "Contact Report", where your crew has identified several ships in a group (you'll see the notifications in the text box), you lock-on to one of them, and send a "Contact Report". You have to be close enough to "see" them, yet not so close that they can see you. If there is a CV group, or a land-based air group, close enough to your location, you'll see them, generally no sooner than about 15-20 minutes, usually longer. You'll notice that skirich mentioned coming up to 30 feet, and you might get one out at PD, but usually radar depth is better (42-47 feet), or on the surface...

To add a little more to this, here is my MO.
If I notice a group lingering, or I am chasing a group, or I just escaped from a circling group of warships hell bent on depth charging me, I run at periscope level and ID at least 3 ships. Then boogie out of there to about 4-5 miles. Which is about the limit of view my periscope can still see the targets and lock on.

I make sure I am absolutely perpendicular to the group so when I surface I present the smallest profile to them. Less of a chance to get picked up by sight or radar.

At 30 feet depth, the radio antenna is exposed and can send transmissions. The conning tower watch deck is above water and I can exit to the deck, and most of the rest of the boat is still under water.

I lock onto one ship I I.D'ed already using the presicope and the send Contact Report button on the Log Book is now active. Click it once and submerge to periscope depth.

About 1-5 minutes later you will receive a reply.

Warning: I have gotten two different replies and it appears to be random, or maybe based on which ship I I.D'ed. I suspect if its a juicy target you will get the ... Nice Find, Sending recon and reponse force to intercept, return to base when possible.


I have also gotten the .. Nice Find, now go sink them, reply and now I have a patrol task on my log to complete. (Thanks Pearl)


Anyway, I noticed when you get a reply that an intercept force is coming, if you linger in the area at 30 feet with radar on max, you will get many more flyboys coming in for the destruction. If you leave the area you dont get many at all. It appears there is a mechanic in the game that uses your radar to find them (at least thats what it felt like, maybe the radiomen are directing).


If you are good with external camera use, you can zoom into the battlegroup and watch U.S. planes dive bomb, strafe, and drop torpedos at the ships.
Just remember to search for survivors afterward, or go in for the kill of any remaining enemy ships since they are busy with aircraft.

If you read up in the thread (or maybe it was a separate thread) you can see how one time I was deep in trouble, being chased in a shallow straight by 3 destroyers that were closing and shooting the big guns at me. I called in a contact report on them, and 15 minutes later as they reached about 3000 yards out from me an aircraft task force of about 7 planes flew right over my head and nailed the lead two ships. Sunk them on the second pass. I turned and engaged the lone destroyer and sunk that one easily as it was already on fire, but still moving.

As propbeanie mentioned, you will need to have one of our CV groups nearby to get that kind of response. This all happened during the battle of Leyte Gulf, which had numerous CV's from the U.S. fleet nearby.

[propbeanie]

... I hate it when they look like a Viking funeral pyre and keep on doing ASW on ya...

[MrMojok69]

SWEET! I knew about the contact reports but I thought they were basically useless. I will be trying this now as soon as I can.