Just wondering what others view as the toughest escorts they face in SH 4? Mods versions etc do not matter, just the toughest escorts YOU have faced.

Personally, I find the Akikaze in TMO to be a real pain.I added some of them in the campaign as escorts have ran into them outside of Bungo Suido.They are tough even when set to veteran instead of elite, they can lay down a real nice pattern of depth charges and cause problems.They have no killed me off but caused plenty of damage and hours or evasions.

I may be wrong but as I remember duci only put one Akikaze in TMO and that is Bungo Pete.
That is in 1.63 and he may have changed that later.
I haven't found Pete yet or should I say he hasn't found me.

I did have a lot of trouble with two Akazuki one time, replayed the save maybe 10 times and never did beat them.
They were right on me first pass and every pass and never missed. I tried everything in the book but nothing worked.
I went 0 for 10 that day.

Another time I had two of them pin me down and one came over me dropping DCs stop and than back up still dropping DCs.
They went off right under her and did no damage, I was at 360 feet so they went off deep. I did manage to get away from these two.

Magic

Magic, Ducimus did put only one Akikaze in the game, but I added more as escorts in the convoy layers for all years, 2-3 convoys for each year have least one Akikaze as an escort, plus in 1944 to the end of the war added them escorting single tankers(cuts down on the easy kills of lone tankers and important large merchants, a valuable ship like a tanker would have had some type of escort, has made the game more fun and challenging)They are still pretty rare ran into them a few times, they are toughest escort i've encountered in any version of game or any of the mods, as said they have never killed me but came close, luck and a little skill i suppose.

Yea Akizukis were the one DD in stock game I always dreaded.In TMO they are kinda weak in early years due to lack of y guns, only stern roller racks, but the later war Akizukis are tough and will def give a run for money.Plus, they are large, almost light cruiser looking to me, tougher to sink than the others.

I had one akizuki ram me at PD. Convinced by the amssive damage done to the DD and the number of explosions and fire comming from the gun turrets that it was out of commission, I decided to surface (this was a mission not a campaign) and that DD was still quite alive..and man can it lay down the cannon fire. I got off a few deck gun shots but it killed me in 20 seconds. I've gone gunning with DD's before, they usually don't fire that rapidly nore are they that acurate esp at night..but this thing..I don't think it missed from shot one and had one hell of a fire rate.

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and man can it lay down the cannon fire

Heh, I went and looked up this gun. 3.9in (100mm) and had a rate of 20-22 shells/minute
Akizuki's had 8 of them in 4 turrets.
So at broadside you're taking 160-168 of these a minute.
They were also the first class to have radar, although it doesnt say if this was search radar (my guess) or fire control radar.

can the silent hunter code even support such a fire method?

Fire Control Radar was an exclusive trademark of the US Navy and even Sony couldn't steal it in time for World War II!

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Fire Control Radar was an exclusive trademark of the US Navy and even Sony couldn't steal it in time for World War II!

This is correct, not that anyone needs me to second it but, the US Navy was far ahead of all other navies in the usage/developement of combat applied radar. The Japanese radar, though effective in locating a ship out in the open seas, was significantly inferior to anything the US had developed. In a large group of ships or near small islands, it was hard for the IJN to distinguish between friend or foe. Small islands could appear like a groups of ships to their radar. They lacked the PPI (Planned Position Indicator) which basically was that small round scope with the sweep hand. The PPI would basically lay out a map in front of the radar operator, showing the details of any islands and differentiating between land and ships. It would even indicate larger ships, thereby identifying larger, possibly capital ships. The IJN air search/warning radars were much more effective, by contrast, than their seaborne search radars.

BTW, the toughest escorts I encounter are the ones I'm trying to evade at any particular moment.

I wish there was a way to make IJN ship based surface radar less effective in the game, because it was inferior and even surfaced us subs were able to close in close and attack on convoys under the care of radar equpped escorts.

In TMO it is nearly impossible to attack a radar escorted convoy on surface, i 've done it successfully but its much more difficult than it would have been in RL.Basically, have to let them pick you up then haul *** out of range, then rush in on the now zigging merchants while the escorts are off stooging around and attack before they fall back into the convoy, not easy and makes for some interesting moments but possible.

My solution has been to make it via the mission editor where not every convoy after oct 44 has radar equipped escort, has made night surface attacks after 1 october 44 possible.

And Wernher, I find some escorts rather easy,even in TMO enough that I often think they should be called the Francis-Class DD lol

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the Francis-Class DD lol

In that case, you might just want to call them "PeeWee-Herman" class escorts.

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Fire Control Radar was an exclusive trademark of the US Navy and even Sony couldn't steal it in time for World War II!

According to a recent chapter in my "History of WWII Radar" book, the use of the proximity fuse was also something that was exclusive to the U.S. Navy and, a technology originally abandoned by the British, though we immediately shared our technology with them.
The Oslo report gave early indications that Germany had begun experiments in the use of proximity fuses but, my book indicates that it came to no useful fruition in the German armed forces. Mostly due to the German High Command lacking any understanding of, or interest in the field.
It is most likely through use of the proximity fuse that many U.S. Historians agree, the 40mm Bofors was "by far, the best anti aircraft weapon of WWII".

I think the Matsu is..with K guns, Y guns and double roll offs it lays one mean pattern. The type A-D's with six Y guns are tough late war.

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And Wernher, I find some escorts rather easy,even in TMO enough that I often think they should be called the Francis-Class DD lol

As a post script to your previous comment, bubblehead, I seem to have lost my edge in evading escorts.
I remember once, ambushing a TF from a less than optimum position (that's putting it mildly) and then succesfully evading no less than 9 DDs who were all on top of me.
Now, I have become somewhat adept at firing my torps and evading w/o ever being detected in the first place. I'm sure there's a high degree of luck involved here but, I rarely get pinged. As a matter of fact, the DDs usually never even come close, that is, unless I'm not paying attention to the game.

Werner I been pretty much playing it the same way, working hard to get into a good firing position at long range 2500+ yards. Taking my best shot and then getting out of Dodge undetected.

I'm in July '43 now. 5th.patrol. and haven't had more than a handful of DC dropped in my direction.

Bubble finely convinced me to try a surface attack, daylight but very heavy weather viability at 300 yards or less. Set up two vector shots at about 2700 yd. and shot by radar/sonar only. 5 hits of 6 torps and hit flank and got the heck out of there, the escorts never had a clue as to where I was.
1 Zinbu Maru 5200 T and 1 Kiturn maru at 6700 T down. However I was not fortunate enough to sink an Essex carrier.

Earlier got two Hakusika Maru's at 8200 T each using two vector shots from 3000 yd. but with the scope.
Going to be a very nice patrol, at least so far.

I love vector analysis solutions, even used gutted's little tool, works good.

As far as tough escorts go I just haven't run into any recently. I assume that will change soon enough and Duchi's evil DDs will catch up with me.

Magic

Fun shooting in storms by radr/sonar on the surface.
I'll never forget I did that to the Yamato. Course I didn't know what it was. I hit it several times. I don't use auto load, so loaded torps and came back to the bridge and she came out of the storm at a perfect angle, but too close to shoot. Not fun having the Y shoot you on the surface, those big 18's turning, glad they missed the first salvo, but still took 80% damage before I dived and she vanished in the fog.

Smartest thing I did was come back to the surface right away and ran from the dd's, cause they would've easily finished me off dived. Still one came close enough that I saw it.

I couldn't catch the Y, seems we matched speed, but I did take some wild long range shots with M14's.

Suppose that I am aggressive but I tend to get in really close with steam torpedos, so they don't have time to turn.When I have electrics ill shoot from 2000-2500 yards or so if possible.

I attack and worry about DD's later unless I have 200 feet or less below keel, then I am a bit more careful, will try to wait for night surface if situation permits.

In TMO the escorts are a bit francis like in less than optimal sonar conditions or if you go really deep until the end of 43, but i've had a few in 42 and early 43 give me a hard time.I usually run the little mini mod ducimus put out a while back "harder escorts" when im playing 41-43...after that the AI is tough enough alone.

Maybe i'm a candidate for the funny farm, but i enjoy the fight