Stories of Lt. Lunkhead

[swdw]

Ok all you tonnage experts, time to "fess up". A recent post where one of our members was getting discouraged made me realize that we need to share the patrols and engagements where everything "went wrong". This encourages the people learning the ropes and makes them realize they aren't the only ones that have problems.

But of course, we'd never make such goofy decisions, so enter Lt. Lunkhead. You all know him. He's the guy that noses in at critical moments and gives commands and makes decisions the we, of course, would NEVER do.

So share a few of your less stellar moments for those learning submarine warfare.

[swdw]

In the spirit above, I'll start.

We were on patrol off Singapore when the lookouts spot a lone freighter. Being low on fish we moved in for an accurate shot. Fired 3 fish and one hit and the other 2 were duds.

We were pretty frustrated by this time with the Mk14 so we moved in to take her out with the deck gun.

So Lt Lunkhead takes the con as this doesn't require any great seamanship. We move in and start plugging the freighter, trying to make the hull a good facsimile of swiss cheese. The freighter starts heading towards the shoreline at top speed. After about 20 rounds, the lookouts pick up aircraft coming in fast.

Lt. Lunkhead orders up a flank bell and hard right rudder and I think he's finally getting the hang of this. About that time we see 3 aircraft coming in and decide it's time to get below. So Lunkhead orders a crash dive . . . . . in 60ft of water. I guess he forgot that water gets shallower as you get closer to shore (and we'd started chasing the freighter in only 160ft of water).

After hitting the bottom at flank speed our patrol was . . . . shall we say, cut short.

So ended the 2nd patrol of the USS Tambor. The crew and Lt. Lunkhead escaped and I understand he's been assigned to another boat. He's a hard man to kill that Lunkhead is.

It was a nice day in the Celebes Sea when we received word about a large enemy task force heading in our direction. A course for intercepting was quickly plotted and soon smoke on the horizon was sighted. ComSubPac got informed and ordered to engage. We got in a nice shooting position and fired of a 4-spred against a Ise. While shooting, a destroyer somehow got the smell of us and came "bone in the teeth" towards us. All ahead flank, make new heading 340° and then a twitching finger ordered to surface the boat. Emergency dive was ordered quickly, but to late. When the bow broke the surface, the Ise opened up, hitting the two most forward compartments just as the boat was diving again. Now the bow is pointing almost directly down, both engines are at flank backward and my stern is just above the surface.
That the Ise blew up isn't easing my mind much.

[AVGWarhawk]

One patrol I was surfaced firing away with my cannon. Felt like I was at the carnival. I was about 200 yard off from the target having a good old time. The target finally exploded, cheers all around for about a second before, "Medic!" was heard throughout most of the compartments. Then, "torpedoe tubes damaged", "radar damaged", "radio damage", "hull damaged"...you get the picture. All hands lost on the boat. I find that distance can be your friend in situations like that.

[Quillan]

So, I'm on my second patrol in my Balao out of Pearl Harbor, searching for enemy ships just off the east coast of Kyushu, when the SJ radar picks up a contact moving in my general direction. I run a plot, calculate course and speed, plot an intercept, and move in front of it. As it is daylight, I submerge and lie in wait for it. After a while, a small old split freighter flying a Japanese flag comes into view. I double check my course plot, range to the firing point, speed of the target, and other such things. When it reaches firing position, I fire a single Mk XIV torpedo, figuring that one will be fine. BOOM! Targeting was great, torpedo hit and was reliable, but it didn't go down.

I quickly adjust the scope over and fire a second shot at it, but my hasty guesses as to new AOB and speed are off and fish #2 passes in front of the ship. Now, Lt. Lunkhead takes over. Thinking the merchant was unarmed, because it was a small ship and no gun was seen through the periscope while taking the shot, he orders a battle surface. Needless to say, the deck gun was on the rear of the boat, and even though the freighter was on fire and listing heavily to port, the gun crew was on the ball. Before we even get out first shot off, the crew is screaming MEDIC!. I take 3 hits before I can order us back underwater, and by that time the water pouring in the holes made by the gun eventually prove to be unstoppable. I did wind up getting the message "She's going down, sir!" right before we went after her.

[Sailor Steve]

swdw, not to barge off topic, but I think you just solved a year-old problem: what to call SH4's version of Bernard. Many names were suggested, but I think Lt. Lunkhead is PERFECT!

[Midnight Hunter]

This was one of my first patrols and quite the doozy...


I had left pearl in my s-class and was heading for a patrol of China Sea.. after scoring a couple of small merchant kills with deck guns we carried on. The "aircraft spotted" came out of nowhere, and being sometime around midnight, was unexpected to say the least. Well Lt.Lunkhead decided we should add some Zero's to our kill list and ordered the AA to open fire, but little did Lt.Lunkhead know, we hadn't had an AA rig outfitted to our boat. Needless to say when the BOMBERS (not zero's) made their attack run, we paid Davey Jones a rather quick visit

[M. Sarsfield]

Lt. Lunkhead is always too frugal with torpedoes on my boat. I keep having to remind him to fire a few extra fish into the spread. Luckily, when he orders battle surface, he's smart enough to maintain several thousand yards of distance between the boat and the target and usually takes control of the deck gun to ensure better accuracy.

He has put our boat into the bottom on one occasion when he forgot to check the depth.

[Platapus]

My saddest story was with SH3 but the same mistake can be made easy with SH4

Normally I only use the attack periscope. One time I tried using the Obs scope. Very little differences. Back to attack scope

Sneaking up on a merchant, slow speed, attack scope used only for a few seconds and lowered. Just like in school.

Merchant suddenly veers away and an escort is coming straight for me like he knows where I am.

Leveling off at depth and having time to kill while the escort is taking its time to kill me. I found out what the problem was.

I ...uh... kinda forgot to lower the observation periscope

I was so used to using the keyboard command to auto lower the attack scope that I used it instead of the command to lower the obs scope. Lowering the attack scope twice does not compensate for leaving the obs scope up

Makes it hard to sneak up on a merchant with the scope up.

Moral of the story is that ALL the scopes need to be retracted if you wants to sneak up at peri depth.

[M. Sarsfield]

Moral of the story is that ALL the scopes need to be retracted if you wants to sneak up at peri depth.

Lunkhead has learned to use the Periscope menu on the toolbar during an attack so that a quick glance shows what scopes are raised or lowered.

[Rockin Robbins]

After escaping swdw's real short crash dive, gmuno's short gun battle with a BB and AVGWarhawk's close encounter of the worst kind, somehow Lt Lunkhead wangled a transfer to the Kraken. We had just abandoned ship on RFB when Beery bailed out and were trying out TM. Lunkhead figured this was a great time to check out WernerSobe's new sonar-only targeting technique. We join our correspondence with Ducimus after we all washed our shorts, cleaned the decks and aired out the boat:

OK, I'm playing with destroyers again. Here's something different. I was stalking radar contacts in fog, driving rain, 10 m/sec wind, overcast and daytime. Visibility is about 450 yards, sometimes less. I'm shooting torpedoes on sonar only and just sank 2 freighters that way, six torpedoes, 5 hits, thank you WernerSobe! Lunkhead seems to onto something here. Maybe all those incidents were just unfortunate accidents?

Two more radar contacts running six knots north, freighters, right? So I gave Lunkhead the con for sonar only approach. He set up ahead, 1000 yards off track and waited for stern shots. "Hehehehehehehehehehe!" Lunkhead gets on your nerves when he giggles like that. Watch the radar until they're a mile away. Submerge to periscope depth and acquire 'em on sonar. Wait for the bearing to be about 350 and it's time to start pinging. Ping. Ping. "Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!" Stuff it Lunkhead. Get him!

Sonar: "Target speeding up. Approaching fast!" Hmmmmmmm..... That's not very freighter-like conduct...
"Lunkhead, you idiot, you just pinged a destroyer!!!!! I have the con! Oh, @#$@#$%@!!! crash dive." At 110 ft or so hit full right rudder pull back to ahead 1/3 at 180 or so and straighen out the rudder. Ahhhhh a nice thermal layer, rig for silent running, hit the RPM at exactly 1000 RPM, the quietest (that isn't exactly 1/3 throttle, by the way Ducimus) and just wait to slink away.

"Somebody load Lunkhead into a torpedo tube and GET HIM OFF MY BRIDGE!!!"

Three minutes later here's that high speed freight train overhead and he's dropping ashcans right on top of me. Good thing I'm at 260 and have some time. Full left, ahead emergency for a couple seconds and back to 1000 RPM. The event camera came on so he must have been pretty close. He didn't ping once.

Lets go down to 300, change course 90º, lalalalalalalalalalalala. Freight train again. Here comes the depth charges. Right on top of me and I slink out again because depth is my buddy.

This has happened four times now in a 45 minute period. From the beginning mr destroyer has not pinged once. Unless he has Superman up there using his x-ray vision, this is totally impossible. I'm in lousy sonar conditions with a great thermal layer above me, silent running trying both 1000 RPM and your ahead 1/3. He follows me around like a good puppy dog.

Sorry Ducimus, that's way out of the line of possibility. Methinks the AI needs some tweaking. Even in GWX they have to ping you to find you running silent at 1 kt (although these depth charges don't seem as deadly as GWX).

Other than this event, I really have enjoyed TM. Coming from RFB I didn't really expect to, but it seems to me reality is well served here if you ignore Superman up there and Lunkhead down here. Have any kryptonite?

And that's the way it was: July 27, 1943.

[Ducimus]

Lt Lunkhead took the con during a depth charge attack once.

*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

LT Lunkhead, "That wasnt even close! Stupid tin can".


*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

Lt Lunkhead, rolls his eyes.

*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

Lt Lunkhead, " That jap is in the outfield. This is too easy".


*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

Lt Lunkhead, "Ok, this is boring.... Chief of the watch, helm to starboard a constant 9 degrees, ill be in the wardroom. Let me know when this joker gives up".


*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

Lt Lunkhead goes to the wardroom, stretches out and takes a nap.

15 minute later..

*Swish *swish *swish**BAAM *BAAM *BAAM* *BAAM *BAAM *BAAM*

I'll let your imagination fill in the rest.

edit:
@ RR, there was a bug where sonar ping wasn't audible. Its fixed now.

[swdw]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

After escaping swdw's real short crash dive, gmuno's short gun battle with a BB and AVGWarhawk's close encounter of the worst kind, somehow Lt Lunkhead wangled a transfer to the Kraken.

It's not hard to figure out how he keeps getting reassigned . . . Rumor has it the guys engaged to Admiral Nimitz's niece!

[Captain Dave]

Lt. Lunkhead spots 2 Takao heavy cruisers and a Fubuki destroyer while off the coast of Borneo. After a few minutes the cruisers start zig-zaging. The destroyer is soon heading straight towards us. He's lined up perfectly at 180*, so we put a fish in his bow. He veers off and hides behind the cruisers. Later when we're occupied with the cruisers he sneaks in the back door. Bad move, another fish ends his day. So, Lt. Lunkhead decides to surface and watch all the pretty fireworks from the bridge. Unfortunately he forgot about the cruisers. They put 3-4 shells in us before we could get under the surface. Down we go and there's no stopping until it's all over.

That Lt. Lunkhead ends up with a medal. Go figure.

[Zantham]

So I'm cruising along east of Australia in my shiny IX-D2 when I get a nearby taskforce contact. Do some quick plotting and set an intercept course that should get me in line with lots of time to spare. Arrive at my destination and wait for the sonar contacts to show up. Eventually I start getting nice blue and green sonar bearing lines.

Now I'm playing on low volume cuz its kinda late and don't want to wake everyone up. I deside to pop up the periscope and take a look, when I notice the lead destroyer is already beelining towards me. Kinda odd he saw me in light fog at 6000m out. I had turned on silent running, and there's no way he should have been able to detect me that far out. To make matters worse I notice everyones shooting at me, even the battleships.

So I pull the scope down and start maneuvers, their sonars shouldnt pick me up very well at this distance, so I don't bother crash diving or getting under the layer. So I'm pulling some nice fancy maneuvers to throw the destroyers off. Then I notice... somehow I'm taking damage!!

Pop up the periscope and take a quick look, the destroyers are much closer now, and the entire taskforce is loosing all their guns at me. Pull the scope down again and try more evasive maneuvers. I look at my dialog box... and notice I'm STILL taking damage.

Then it clicks. The green lines aren't sonar bearings... they are radar-detected bearings. I had very carefully waited to ambush the taskforce... on the surface