TMO + RSRD 1943 and yet to see a convoy?

[Piggy]

Not sure if this is normal but Ive done 7 war patrols out of Pearl/Midway all of which (except 1) have been in Japanese home waters or the Japan Truk/palua supply routes but Ive yet to come across a convoy.

All my sinkings are against lone merchants and Ive only ever been DC'd once (that happened on my first patrol near the bungo straights)...

Not that Im complaining about the lack of DC's but a little excitement is needed...

My next patrol has me going off Palua again... maybe this time?

[AVGWarhawk]

I get a convoy every now and then. Japanese were not big on the convoy like was seen in the Atlantic. You will find them though.

[Ducimus]

The Japs ran convoys, they just weren't as big as allied convoys, and they didn't start running them in earnest until a bit later in the war. Nor did they have the industry to replace their losses.

As for convoys in RSRD, you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

[Armistead]

You can look for my thread "Convoy SS", shows where many are and I've only listed a few of those I've been in. I can spend each patrol fighting large battles or attacking one large convoy after the other. It helps to know history, where invasion forces landed, shipping lanes, ect. All the large battles are scripted and it's just knowing where to be at the right time.

[Piggy]

Aye, thanks for the hint there armistead, I'll keep that thread for the future

I know its hit or miss sometimes, I tried to get into the battle of the coral sea last night using historical maps, I thought I was in the right position but never saw a thing.

I'll just keep running my original career and hope the brass sends me decent areas.

[Armistead]

Coral Sea can be hard to find, but I'm sure I have a shot of it..

I assume you understand PC lag also means a ship,s are near. So it you notice lag, check you're sonar, you can hear further than your sonarman early war...too long to explain, but it works.

Some battles are easy to find. You certainly want to try the large battle of the Philippine Sea...I have some SS in that thread. The battle of Leyte is easy, just sit in one of the straits of Surigao or San Bern and they'll come to you. I prefer the Surigao, cuz several US TF attack and you can sink a bunch of wounded leftovers.

The patrol star usually just puts you in a shipping lane where you'll mostly get singles or small convoys.

Another thing you can do is take SS of flash messages for convoy movement for later use. That way you'll know where to be. For instance I know 3 large convoys are coming through Formosa august of 44, so I can always be there if I want to fight 12 dd's and 20 merchants in 70ft of water...fun way to die.

You'll learn. The best convoy is probably the Java invasion force...50 plus ships, plus 2 other large convoys near it...

[Piggy]

Yepp Im up to speed on the lag = Lots of ships thing... for once lag is good

Also found a bunch of links in another thread to study, its a big ocean the pacific but I'll find a TF once of these days.

Cheers

[jerm138]

The best convoy is probably the Java invasion force...50 plus ships, plus 2 other large convoys near it...

I believe I just attacked this one (or a similar one). Late February, 1942, about 100 miles NE of Singapore.

I thought my hydrophone was screwed up because I had a green light over about 90 degrees of area, but couldn't see anything. I closed in on it and it turned out the convoy was just that big! At least 50 ships. I took out 2 merchants and damaged one the first night, and sunk 2 more the 2nd night, then I was out of torpedoes so I slipped away and headed for home. I picked up another large convoy on sonar shortly after but couldn't do anything. Finished the patrol with 5 merchant kills, and 1 Jap Sub kill... not too shabby.

In hindsight, I should have run deep and silent to position myself directly under the convoy, then come up in the middle of it and wreak havoc from both fore and aft tubes at the same time at close range. That would have given me better cover from the escorts too. Live and learn, I guess.

[Armistead]

I think the java convoy comes from the other direction, I caught it near Jolo, near Tawi Tawi and chased it to Java, where it turns and basically heads back. But there is two other larger convoys near and that is the right time, Feb 42.

[Bubblehead1980]

That's RSRD for you.Not being negative because I like RSRD but the down side of the realism is there are only so many convoys and they are only spawned once.Although I think the lack of them in certain areas does not follow history.

Places like Marianas, Carolines and Palaus are rather dead in 44 and should be booming from everything i've read.

[Gilbou]

I just installed TMO and its patch
And well. Three patrols. Nothing.
I just did shoot down a fishing ship and that's it.
No merchant, no convoy, nothing.

I could always find ships or convoys before TMO and it's cool but since it's installed I don't see nor hear any ships.

[Armistead]

The main thing with RSRD is to know some history. There isn't one patrol that I go out on that I can't find a large convoy. Sometimes I get skunked looking for something new. I got one pattern down to the point it was one large convoy after the other, but got boring, so found other groups.

Almost every Island or nation the JP's took over, there were large invasion forces, almost all of these are perfectly scripted. If you start at Manila, all you got do is head North and you're gonna find a large invasion force. There are several that surround the philippines as the war starts, one near the San Bern S8's with 4 nice Chitose's. and about 20 ships...fun to sink. I still haven't took on most invasion forces.

If you go sit on your patrol star and hang around there, you're not gonna find much.

Every large battle and many medium to small battles are well done. With some major surface battles you can get in. Stock sucks.

Palaus aren't dead early 44, but was correct for no heavy traffic about summer on, but you can find some large convoys coming in from the NW. After the large battle of Philippine Sea in June of 44, there was no real traffic left in Palau.


If you want large convoys, they travel from Shanghai to Hong Kong through Formosa all the time. Just don't waste your torps on the singles, they will come.

Another good thing is the TF traffic, like the late war ISE leaving Singy. The Shinano coming out. You can catch the Midway battle group in the bungo at the right time.

I simply wouldn't play without RSRD. Obvious you play it a lot, you learn all the patterns, ect, but you can always find other things. I finally found the Carrier group raiding the Indain ocean early war near Christmas Island, one I've been trying to find forever.

[lurker_hlb3]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

That's RSRD for you.Not being negative because I like RSRD but the down side of the realism is there are only so many convoys and they are only spawned once.Although I think the lack of them in certain areas does not follow history.

Places like Marianas, Carolines and Palaus are rather dead in 44 and should be booming from everything i've read.

I guess you didn't bother to read the "readme" in the first post of the RSRDC Thread. You "need" to re-read item 2

[Gilbou]

But where do you find information about where the ships are ?
Inside the game I looked at the map that shows commercial routes, and I have been around those several hours and I didnt see any ship except one Sampan in three patrols

The mod is great but I play the game to have fun. Spending several patrols and hours just looking for ships, after a few hours of gameplay it's no fun at all, I just bored myself to death.

I guess this mod is not for me. It looks good, it adds a lot of good things especially the buttons for weather and such, but I am not very interested in stuyding history in detail just to find ships. I just wanna spend 2, 3 hours to play and not 10 minutes of gameplay hunting a ship or convoy over a 3 hours game session (I am more on the side of the game albeit not arcade type than the ubber simulation). I just wanna be on my boat, go around and find some ships and not have to search for historic details to know where to go. While I can accept this if I want to participate in big naval battles, for simple commercial convoys it's not very interesting to me (where's the fun in going where I know something is going to happen and what I'm going to find there ? I want to find a ship or convoy by surprise, and have to shadow it until I can attack... To carefully plan how and when I'm going to attack and then evade the destroyers).

It's sad. I'm gonna have to play without the mod to have fun, and I liked the mod for all the good things it provided. But clearly I'm having no fun with it spending hours going around without finding anything and I am not really interested in pre-planning that would just ruin the fun of finding something.

[Piggy]

Well Patrol 8 was quite different!

After being sent off Guam for a while I decided to refuel at Darwin and head up the makasar straights for the south China Sea. Sunk 7 ships in those straights alone, headed for convoy college and downed 5 more.

No convoys sighted but this was a lot more action then any of my other patrols. Seems things are picking up... this was early 43.

My next patrol has me going to the north of the home islands... I dont expect to find much up there but it is a quick run down to Tokyo bay and/or Bungo, which should bring some targets.

Pitty though, I keep getting the heads up intel messages about convoys and Im always in the wrong place or too far away....

Edit: @Gilbou, dont give up on the mod, vanilla is just silly really. I suggest adding RSRD for TMO... Its much more fun when its realistic. There are always spots that will have ships, sit outside the bungo straights and you'll eventually get run over by one. Or, as per my last patrol in the Makassar straights, the gap between formosa and the Phillipines is always busy as well.