Well... I didn't expect that!

[CoruscatingFox]

Sorry about the length, didn't think I could type this much...

I'm currently running TMO 1.9 with RSRD... most realism on except manual targeting (makes things way too tedious and seems a little unrealistic to me... I'll just have my crew do the dirty work ) and external cam for eye candy.

I started this career at Pearl at the beginning of the war... USS Triton, Tambor class. I rarely start out of Pearl since I find starting out of eastern or western Australia to be far more interesting.

Anyway, I set out to Midway, where I topped off my tanks and headed to my patrol area south of Bungo Suido. I spent about 15 days patrolling the lanes out of Bungo with no sightings except a destroyer patrol, planes and a *bunch* of sampans. I headed north along the coast and started watching the Kii Suido lanes... but after 15 days again the only thing I had seen was sampans. I was getting a little impatient at this point so I headed for a small port on the coast that I could get within firing range of while still being in deep water... after infiltrating at night and closing in it proved to be completely empty. Heading south again I decided to hang out south of Bungo Suido again. After getting sound contacts on three warships, I made an approach just to find another destroyer patrol. Figuring my torpedos would run deep I left them alone and continued the patrol.

Two days later I got another warship sound contact. Seemed like another three destroyers, but at this point I was getting frustrated at the lack of contacts and decided to approach anyway and maybe hit one with some magnetic shots. I stayed a ways off their track, being a little wary of their detection capabilities.

They came into view when I was about 3500 yards off their track. One destroyer up front... and... ... one flattop... two flattops... and that seemed like all. I IDed them as two (!) Shokaku Fleet Carriers escorted by only one destroyer. I was pretty giddy - the last time I've even seen a Shokaku was almost 3 years ago playing stock. I was afraid to close to closer range lest the escort hear me. Since this was a long torpedo run, I set them all to Contact and between 10-15 feet figuring they'd run 10 feet deep. I opened all tubes and turned parallel to their course just in time for them to approach 90 AoB. I fired a spread of tubes 1-5 at the lead carrier, and 6-10 on the trailing one, all in quick succession at a large gyro angle. Luckily enough there were no circle runners. The fish closed in... the carriers started to weave... and then... *Dud* *Dud* *Dud* *Dud* *Dud*. 5 hits on the lead carrier for 5 duds. The second salvo missed aft of the other carrier, however, one torpedo hit its stern for yet another dud. Now I really didn't have much option but to pull away deep at 1/3 speed as the destroyer searched for me fruitlessly - they didn't realize I had fired from so far away. I pointed my stern at them and slunk away.

At this point I was really determined to sink those dang things. As soon as the nearest destroyer was 9000 yards away I surfaced, switched to standard propulsion and headed away at flank. It was the middle of the day, with glassy seas, but I was not spotted. I began to start an end-around at 20 knots.

Not too long afterwards I got an SD contact, 25 miles and closing. Now I was worried - if there was one thing that would spoil this it would be planes. I watched the blip as it approached and it seemed to be zeroing in on my last known position... which by now was quite a distance away. This plane got as close to as 10,000 yards but never spotted me. Good thing I had surfaced when I did! I continued paralleling the task forces last base course. By this time I got a sound contact which later proved to be a second trailing destroyer escort lagging behind the pack. I played a high-speed surface cat and mouse game with this destroyer for a couple hours as it weaved back and forth, sometimes closing to within 10k yards of me, but I always kept it to my stern and I wasn't detected.

Finally, over 110 nm southeast of my initial attack, I got a sound contact - another destroyer. Soon after two sets of heavy screws popped up. It seemed that the lead destroyer was now trailing the carriers! It was quite obvious that they were zig zagging, which really only helped me now as it reduced their base speed. I finally got in position ahead of them, dove to 100 feet, and ran at flank to within 1500 yards of their course. Sure enough, they were heading right for me, with the destroyer pulling up the rear. I readied all bow tubes to 10-15 feet, this time setting them all to magnetic. As they approached my bow I fired tubes 1-3 at a range of 700 yards into the leader and 4-6 at a range of 1100 yards into the trailing flattop. #4 was a premature but otherwise they all ran true and detonated. Both started to list, as I went ahead flank and hard starboard rudder to bring around my stern tubes. Within 20 seconds the first carrier began to sink - the second was still listing. By now I could see the destroyer approaching at speed so I put a single stern tube into the second carrier (which was now listing at least 35 degrees), which hit its submerged flight deck and set off a huge explosion which sent it down. I observed how the ships' flight decks were both devoid of aircraft... perhaps lucky as if they had launched planes I would have been kept deep and unable to intercept. I seriously considered setting my stern tubes shallow and trying to send the approaching destroyer down, but soon figured I was getting a little greedy so I scrapped that plan.

I dove at flank speed to 240 feet and went silent running - over the next three hours I crept away completely undetected from the one, and then two destroyers as the lagging one finally caught up. Afterwards I decided to head back to Pearl as while I still had 7 fish left, my fuel was running pretty low. When I got back I had 56,000 tons of warship for... a bronze star... oh well. This still has to be my best patrol find out of playing TMO for almost 2 years.

I may start out of Pearl more often now.