Hornet's Nest:Stirred

[Bubblehead1980]

TMO 2.5 w custom mods/traffic

June 28 1942
Area D4 South China Sea
USS Permit SS-178 (Porpoise Class)
100 realism, Contacts on and cams off.



After a a somewhat 32 days since departing Fremantle and entering her area via Sunda Strait, Java Sea, Karamata Strait, couple close calls with aircraft (no SD radar yet, did not equip since most Fremantle boats lacked this for much of 1942) dodging surface patrols in the chokepoint areas, sinking a lone SEIA MARU of 7590 tons, received a contact report at 1010 hours about an enemy task force 100 NM NE of me, heading w at 18 knots. Did some plotting and headed there at full speed. At 1542 made visual contact near 6 55 N 109 10 E on task force. Pagoda masks of four Japanese battleships were visible in distance, with numerous destroyers(14-15 of them) do not recall this task force when I revamped the campaign traffic, going to look int it )

Closed in and became obvious due to Permit's max surface speed of 18 knots, could only match the TF current speed but not pull ahead far enough for a submerged approach and attack at close range. Opted to try for a long range torpedo attack on a Nagato Class BB at center of the battle line. Would in a position to fire at dusk, limiting visibility and chances of the DD screen spotting the torpedo wakes.

At 1734 as was preparing for a turn north to dive and attack from 7000 yards, a single engine floatplane suddenly appeared out of the direction of the task force. At first though were not spotted as it did not change course nor attack, but suddenly large shells splashes landed near us and could see DD's heading our way. Also noticed the BB's were firing at us as well. Executed hard turn to port to show stern to formation and ordered a dive.During the dive, two near misses occurred. While the ship was not holed, damage was done in the engine and astern torpedo rooms from the near misses.

At periscope depth could see seven destroyers heading in our direction "very fast" as sound reported. Seeing a perfect set up for a "down the throat" shot,...I chose the closed Kagero which at 1000 yards began a fast "zig" but nothing a spread could not handle. At 600 yards I fired four Mark 14's from bow tubes and went deep. As we passed 84 feet, TORPEDO IMPACT reported (external cams off on so did not see it) . Then heard two more torpedo explosions but believe were premature explosions, other missed. The DD was obviously damaged as it was close but did not drop depth charges. As we "ran silent, ran deep" to Permit's test depth of 250 ft the remaining two close DD's came in pinging and laid down several patterns of charges, went to 275 feet. Soon, sound had numerous other DD's in area.

What followed was probably one of the worst depth charging have experienced in in SH 4. I am assuming their skill levels were to set to elite and combined with nearly ideal sonar conditions, helped them beat Permit up. Over 9 hours with some small breaks of usually 5 minutes(love the depth chargewater disturbance mod) , while I assume they were listening, my sub was forced 350 feet(100 ft below test depth, did not want to risk any deeper), Every piece of equipment suffered some degree of damage. Periscope head for conning tower scope was destroyed, electric engines 2 and 4 were damaged seriously( 88 percent) There was water in the crew berthing , conning tower, and after torpedo rooms (manageable) which caused us to sink to 387 ft. The escorts were relentless, to say the least but appears to have eventually lost contact for good.

At 1755 heard multiple large explosions and groans of a ship sinking. Appears the Kagero Class Destroyer we torpedoed had finally sunk.


After nine(nerly ten) hours under water, with much of equipment still damaged, water still in the crew berthing being pumped out, enough time had passed since last contact to go for a look at periscope depth. Dark and difficult to see via the scope, did spot six destroyers stationary, listening, , closest was 6500 yards.They were waiting, so went to 250 ft and gave time until was 10000 yards away from plotted positions. During this heard some DD's start up and dropping depth charges in distance. After couple hours, we surfaced, 12.5 hours after diving while under attack and began repairs.

Definitely stirred up a hornets nest, rarely seen such competence and aggressive behavior by escorts this early in war



Update: Opened up the Japanese Task force layer for 1942. This was one of the few random groups I left in the layer, has low probability of spawning once a month. Apparently a type put 42 generic destroyers as escorts(lol) of four BB. Thus why had so many, if had SJ radar would have seen them . Issue has been corrected lol

[propbeanie]

lol - good thing for "testing", eh?... lol - one of my favorite recent incidents with FotRSU involves being off Wake for the landings, and no one shows... - They held an invasion, and no one came! To top it off, the Betty flock that is supposed to come bomb the place was just flying around like a bunch of gnats, no bomb dropping, and no AA fire from the ground... All that is now prettied up and almost ready... Good luck with the finishing touches! Looking forward to its release!

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

lol - good thing for "testing", eh?... lol - one of my favorite recent incidents with FotRSU involves being off Wake for the landings, and no one shows... - They held an invasion, and no one came! To top it off, the Betty flock that is supposed to come bomb the place was just flying around like a bunch of gnats, no bomb dropping, and no AA fire from the ground... All that is now prettied up and almost ready... Good luck with the finishing touches! Looking forward to its release!

Lol nice. Yes, this is why try to play patrols through each year of war in various locations to test much as possible. Make sure things are spawning etc. I left very few random groups in the task force layers, especially for capital ships such as BB, those were all added in using tabular record of movement from combined fleet and some other sources. But decided to keep a few random's in to keep things interesting, after all, sure we don't know every movement made by these ships. Point is to make encounters with such targets rare, thus more appreciated, and if player manages to bring one down, its a huge achievement. BB's are tough to sink now, especially the Yamato. This group has such a low chance of spawning was surprised to see it and was like I don't recall adding that many destroyers lmao.

I was pleased to see my changes made for an interesting experience...tough escorts in early war but not impossible to escape utilizing correct tactics, depth charge mod representing the type 95 used in first half of war worked well, and has consistently done so. Beat my sub up , could potentially overwhelm critical systems and cause loss of boat(has before) , vs the one charge causes catastrophic damage that instantly kills the sub, that was rare and pure luck aid now it is in the sim.

Later war, the Type 2, same thing but it packs (much as real thing did) more of a punch, more hit points, so it causes more damage. I changed the depth precision setting so the patterns are more accurate, did this to reflect the improvement in ASW by japanese. One thing I noticed, is when am really deep say 600 plus feet, a charge goes off close, it can cause the death blow, that does not happen at a shallower depth at same distance. I suppose this is the sim modeling the different effects the explosion has at different depths?