Picking up Survivors

[SnowCajun]

I think I'm missing something here, wouldn't be the first time I guess. Getting old is hell! Here's my question, how do you pick up survivors? Can you pick up Japanese as well as American's. Sometimes I see a survivor icon like a ship icon on my map, but can't see a soul in the water at all. Toss me a clue please!

Thanks,
SnowCajun

[Torplexed]

You can't pick up the Japanese ones although some American subs did fish Japanese survivors out of the water in real life. Would be cool tho. Get military intelligence points for getting them back to base alive.

[Reaves]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

You can't pick up the Japanese ones although some American subs did fish Japanese survivors out of the water in real life. Would be cool tho. Get military intelligence points for getting them back to base alive.

All nations avoided it as the nature of submarines doesn't allow having enemies on board.

Very cramped quarters means your crew would probably murder the poor SOB before RTBing.

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by SnowCajun

... Here's my question, how do you pick up survivors? Can you pick up Japanese as well as American's. Sometimes I see a survivor icon like a ship icon on my map, but can't see a soul in the water at all. Toss me a clue please!

Thanks,
SnowCajun

Picking them up is easy, it's locating their precise position that seems tricky. On the map, you'll sometimes get a "survivor" icon (blue is friendly, red is enemy, just like ships). The trick is, sailing to that icon doesn't mean you'll necessarily arrive at the exact spot where the survivors are. This seems to be some sort of bug.

Anyway, like Torplexed said, you can't pick up Japanese survivors. In the case of the friendlies, sail toward the survivor icon. Once you get to its general area, look around from the bridge for reddish colored smoke on the water - there's your survivor. There may actually be several of them. Sail toward toward the marker smoke until you get to within about 500 yards; once you get to him (he'll be bobbing in the water near the smoke and - at night especially - may be hard to see), open the binocs tab at lower left. Look at him through the binocs or the TBT and when the crosshair is over him, the "rescue survivor" life-saver lamp will light up at lower left of the screen. Click it and the survivor is rescued.

[Torplexed]

In August 1944 the USS Stingray picked up four survivors from the Japanese light crusier Natori torpedoed and sunk by the USS Hardhead about ten days before. All were young about 19 to 23 years old. They were quickly adopted by the crew and were eventually given the names Uncle Donald (their former superior officer) and Huey, Dewey and Louie, (the enlisted men) Having grown found of them the crew actually protested their rough treatment by the Army when they were taken into captivity after docking in Darwin.

Still...it was a rare event for the most part.

[woodstock74]

Originally Posted by Reaves

All nations avoided it as the nature of submarines doesn't allow having enemies on board.

Very cramped quarters means your crew would probably murder the poor SOB before RTBing.

The Barb picked up a Japanese survivor and used a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese to garner intelligence out of him in regards to mine field locations and depths while they partolled off of Hokkaido in the Sea of Okhotsk. As in the other case mentioned above, the captive became part of the crew and by all accounts was universally welcomed.

[Powerthighs]

Just finished Silent Victory and there were quite a few instances of submarines picking up Japanese survivors.

[jazman]

Tang picked up a survivor, and they called him Firecracker, and some of the crew (not at O'Kane's instigation) trained him to answer "10,000 tons" when asked about his ship's tonnage.

[DeepSix]

Sorry for piling on the tackle, here, but...

Jack picked up two survivors on her 4th patrol (Apr.-May '44). One of the two jumped overboard immediately after being brought onboard, but another in the water climbed up to replace him. And Calvert's comments are interesting:

We had read of other submarines getting valuable information from prisoners picked up after a sinking. We did not. Perhaps we lacked anyone with real language skills.... Kent Lukingbeal, however, did his best.... He learned that the name of the vessel was Dun Sai, that it had carried eight men, that it had a radio on board, and that they thought the job of the boat was to watch the Balintang Channel and report traffic. They stubbornly repeated that the man who knew all these things was the captain and that he had drowned. Not the first time this ploy had been used.

Since their real names were difficult for us, we called the one in the forward room Freddy and the one in the after room Adam. They seemed to like these names and answered to them freely. But what they really liked was the food. At first they couldn't believe it, and then they couldn't get enough of it. They had been living on a diet of rice and salted fish for so long that we were worried that our relatively rich diet would give them trouble. It never did - not one bit. They began noticeably to gain weight.

They were anxious to work, and teh men in charge of the torpedo rooms set them to polishing the brass, of which there was plenty. Before long, when you entered the torpedo rooms, you were blinded by the wall of brightly polished brass and bronze around the torpedo tubes. When that was done, they started on every other piece of shinable metal in the rooms. Our torpedo rooms, with only one lonely electric fish to store, soon became relatively palatial living spaces....

[At the end of the patrol, Freddy and Adam] were taken off the ship by three U.S. marines who did not treat them with the amused kindness our sailors had displayed. The marines' language toward the prisoners was rough and unmistakably unfriendly. I remember one of them following Freddy up the forward torpedo room hatch as he got ready to leave us. The marine was not happy with Freddy's lack of alacrity, and he jabbed him hard in the butt with his bayonet.

[Reaves]

Great stories and of course every now and then it did happen when the captains could. It would have been very hard to sink a troop carrier and just creep away knowing what lay above but it just wouldn't have been possible to bring them aboard.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by jazman

Tang picked up a survivor, and they called him Firecracker, and some of the crew (not at O'Kane's instigation) trained him to answer "10,000 tons" when asked about his ship's tonnage.

Darn Jazman, you beat me to the post! I think the bloke was korean:hmm:

[Captain Vlad]

Wish we could pick up the survivors. Little extra renown for a prisoner or something.

I hate leaving the little fella bobbing up and down in the water. Lifeboats can fend for themselves, but I'd rather pick the guy up than leave him for the sharks. Could use the AA gun on him of course, but that's just not how I roll.

[SteamWake]

Ill try to answer the OP's question.

No you cant pick up opponent survivors (though it would be nice).

To pick up friendly survivors goes something like this.

Look for a blue icon near the patrol area star on you map. Check the 'time' of that particular plot if its old try to find a newer one they 'poof' after some period of time. Haul butt to that general area. Scan the horizon for red smoke. Note that the red smoke will be close to but not AT the map marker it could be on any compass point and distance varies. Sail close to the red smoke, really close. Look through your binocs in the area of the red smoke till you either see the survivor, or the crosshairs in your binos turn red. Sometimes the actual survivor is obscured by the smoke but the crosshairs will turn red anyways. When they do turn red click the rescue icon. A few moments later the smoke should dissapear and the survivor has been rescued. Note that the binocs need to be 'trained' on the survivor, if the red cursor 'lock' is broken youll have click the rescue icon again.

Repeat untill you get mission accompliished.

Think this is tedious ? You should have tried it before the red smoke was introduced in 1.3

[-Pv-]

SW's insructions are right on. The blue map markers show the location the pilot 1st landed in the water. They drift the same as lifeboats, but the contact on the map stays in it's original location. I've not found consistancy I can depend on when it comes to the age of the contact though I suspect it's meaningful. I've seen new contacts not pop any smoke, and old contacts still putting out smoke an hour later. I go for the smoke as finding them without it is almost impossible.

The TBT provides the most magnification so once I get close to an area where one or more pilot contacts show on the map, I use the TBT and keep moving along possible contact locations until I spot the smoke, then ahead full to get close to the pick up location before the pilot goes "poof." It takes about 6 pickups to satisfy the mission. The smoke is a little less visible night so you have to be a little closer to it but not that much compared to day.

One of the challenges is your pilots are dropping like flies so you have a lot of chances to fulfill the mission all the while the area is thick with enemy aircraft because it's an air battle area. Funny how we were able to win the war with a friendly to enemy aircraft loss of at least 10 to 1. Just joking. The devs are giving us lots of targets so we can fulfill the mission, but very unrealistic.
-Pv-

[captiandon]

Humm I might be seen as an evil captain then. I have a habbit of sinking the lifeboats it adds one ton and one boat to my sinking record. Mostly its the destroyer Life boats thought.