Pussycat escorts

[SSI01]

I've run into an interesting situation in SH4 others may have encountered. If you've had a rough patrol and then run into this situation you may not want to complain, it could be a badly-needed break.

After landing an agent at Dalian, China I have been ordered to proceed to the E. China Sea and engage enemy merchant shipping. In the northern reaches of the ECS, just south of the Korea Strait, I detected and reported an enemy convoy w/escorts. COMSUBPAC msgs back saying escorts are priority targets and I should engage. OK, evaded initial detection, went deep, and broke toward convoy. Used convoy noise to mask approach as much as possible. Went to periscope depth and fired torpedoes at two merchies thinking this would draw DDs toward me. Sank one, damaged the other. Amazingly not one of the three Japanese DDs (can't remember type, don't have game open right now) showed the least bit of aggressiveness and searched for my boat on outskirts of convoy. Even putting boat (Porpoise) at 35 feet to expose shears didn't result in them becoming apoplectic and charging down my scope.

Time is February 1942. I don't have realism settings set very high, I'm afraid. Although, in the past this made absolutely no difference, they would do their best to rattle the crew's eyeteeth with DCs. Any idea(s) for the lack of aggressiveness?

[merc4ulfate]

The game sets varying levels of crew eliteness. Some are new crew and simply lack the aggressiveness and or experience to know how to hunt. Elites will come after you. There is no way of knowing how they are set.

In real life you had some surface skippers who played a conservative approach and decided it wasn't worth hunting a sub because they were most likely going deep to hide so stay with the convoy and do not leave it unprotected because they knew of the wolfpack tactic of the German and may have feared that.

Some who were more learned would adopt an approach of you can't get away from me and would sit there and listen for you to run your engines for 18 hours just waiting for you to give yourself away and depth charge you.

[Crannogman]

Are the DDs in line behind the merchies? For whatever reason, destroyers in formation tend not to be curious about the source of incoming torpedoes

[Pigboatcook]

Originally Posted by Crannogman

Are the DDs in line behind the merchies? For whatever reason, destroyers in formation tend not to be curious about the source of incoming torpedoes

I've seen it both ways. In the 'Slot' I took a hipshot at a column of 7 and they all hounded me. Then again I took out the CL in a hunter-killer group and her five babies acted like they never noticed mother-goose was gone.

(TMO/RSRDC)

[Lazarus95]

I've seen it both ways too, I once hunted down and engaged a huge enemy task force in the strait between Borneo and Celebes during my first war patrol. Managed to sink a 16,000 ton fleet carrier, the only ship that came after me was a seaplane tender. All their destroyers and cruisers just kept on sailing away. Then there are other times where I will sink a troop transport and the 2 escorts come down on me so hard you'd think I had just sunk the emperors personal yacht.

[SSI01]

Thanks guys. Love the war stories. In the end I managed to get two of the DDs that must have been novices. Interestingly the other three remained on the outskirts of the convoy (p & s) and astern - well astern in one case. So far no organized enemy ASW tactics seem to be displayed although I'm sure that will change with time.

I've left out the a/c I've encountered. My personal policy is to dive and evade rather than remain on the surface and shoot it out. I am curious about one thing, though - in your experience, does frequency of air patrol in a given area indicate importance of the area to the enemy (hence frequency of convoy or merchant activity), or is it random?

[Crannogman]

There are 3 different airfield sizes, and they seem to generate different types of aircraft at different frequencies. At least with the NMMO airbases, the biggest airbases are in the home islands and Singapore and/or Hong Kong. There do tend to be a lot of merchants near these places; however, it's a lot easier to move a shipping lane than an airfield, and places like Truk tend be under-protected

[CDM]

I hope your significant other isn't monitoring this thread.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[thegrindre]

Originally Posted by SSI01

Thanks guys. Love the war stories. In the end I managed to get two of the DDs that must have been novices. Interestingly the other three remained on the outskirts of the convoy (p & s) and astern - well astern in one case. So far no organized enemy ASW tactics seem to be displayed although I'm sure that will change with time.

I've left out the a/c I've encountered. My personal policy is to dive and evade rather than remain on the surface and shoot it out. I am curious about one thing, though - in your experience, does frequency of air patrol in a given area indicate importance of the area to the enemy (hence frequency of convoy or merchant activity), or is it random?

Personally, I've found it to be random. There are areas or sections that the enemy will fly around just to be a pesky nuisance.

[SSI01]

CDM appreciate your concern, however, she's used to my brand of humor after all this time.

I should mention I bagged another DD a couple of days ago off the NE tip of Formosa, chugging right along head up and locked on a straight easterly course. No attempt at evasion and presumably his passive sonar wasn't being used because he didn't turn down the incoming torpedo's track to make things interesting for me. It's early March 1942 and these novices are amazing.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by SSI01

Time is February 1942. I don't have realism settings set very high, I'm afraid. Although, in the past this made absolutely no difference, they would do their best to rattle the crew's eyeteeth with DCs. Any idea(s) for the lack of aggressiveness?

Are you playing stock?

In any case, IJN escorts shouldn't be too tough at the outset. They will get better, though. It really depends on their crew ratings; novice crews are clueless.

[Armistead]

If you're playing stock, expect unrealistic escort behavior, visuals, shooting ranges, etc...

Many values connect deciding how escorts behave toward you, how long they hunt you, etc... Mods vary these at varying levels.... Get some mods, have 3 Type C escorts dumping on you at the same time from all angles.....

[SSI01]

I'm only running the OTC mod for 1.4, with patch, plus ship pack 1 and hull numbers.

It's mid-March 1942 and I've just run up against my first surface HUK group, one DD, one subchaser (Chidori?) and of all things a gunboat. After detecting via sonar three warships at high speed where previously there had been only one normally encountered (except around convoys, of course), I figured these guys had been sent out by the head shed to deal with my depredations. They made a beeline for my general area, then slowed down, spread out and began executing figure-8s in the water. I was too far away to detect pinging and figured they had gone passive so went deep and quiet, and motored out of there. Will get a hundred or so miles away and wait a couple of days for them to get tired and then leave before I return to what appears to be a pretty good area - NE of Formosa.

[les green01]

i ran in to 2 dds and the Yamato and theses dds are dropping them on the money