How's your current patrol? | Forums

[MWolfe1963]

Haven't started a thread here in so long, so thought I try to think of something. So what's up with your current patrol.

I just started a new career out of Manila. With the JP's landing all around I decided to sit north of the San Bern Strait and ignore all the traffic coming north.

I pick up a contact Dec 11 on a dark windy night. Was a small TF, 3 DD's and one large Minelayer. Wanted the large minelayer, but couldn't get at it.

All through the night I got many faint sonar contacts. I chased one down that turned out to be a US merchant. Bad news for him, another group of 3 DD's found him and took him out. Seems I ran into several small groups of escorts.

Finally got the big contact. With all the escorts about I new something big was coming.
A large invasion force dotting the sky with smoke as far as you can see. I've ID a Maya CA, 2 Chitose plane carriers, ***a, a few large Pass liners, numerous merchants and many DD's. Guessing about 40 ships total.

I've got good wind, so tracking for an attack at midnight. My goal is to attack from a distance, pull out and do a end around why the DD's hunt where I was. If I can make it around and attack the weak flank on the surface I should be able to pull out and pull the same stunt. Going for the Chistose plane carriers and large Pass. ships.

TMO, RSRD. If you ever start the war out of Manila and play RSRD, this is one of the best invasion forces to attack, a nice mix of different type ships you don't often see.

[Blowtanks]

My current career is nearing an end.
I am playing TMOWTW with a couple smaller mods added in.
TMOWTW is not a bad mod, but its one short coming that I can see is that later in the game it wants too many "Agent Inserts" for my taste. I have now had to do 4 or 5 of them in a row, some to exactally the same place. Gets a little tired after a while, subs did little "agent Insertion". They did from time to time help to place spotters on islands, but never on the Japanese homeland.

[MWolfe1963]

I don't think TMOwTW rescripts any of the traffic, so it's possible you may get a lot of those missions with stock, just can't remember.

Well, I sort of blew it, sunk one Chitose, one Nagaru that blew up a DD next to it. I got 3 torps in the other Chitose, but it still going strong and one torp in a Pass. liner moving on.

Came up in the middle of it why well spread out and got several gun shells into the Pass. liner before I got hit, now fighting a out of control dive. Will get it under control. One torp left.
Shocked that I set the M14's at 12ft for the Chitose and two went under the keel..has a 24ft keel...some deep runners.

So off it goes. I'll give chase and see what happens as the sun comes up..once I escape that one pesky escort.

[Mescator]

Very productive. Changed my home port to Fremantle, so this Patrol has been in the area surrounding Borneo. Sunk a Hiyo last patrol here and the merchant shipping is plentiful. Sitting on 33k Tons at the moment thanks to unusually calm weather aiding in targeting and aside from a incident where i nearly lost a Nagara due to duds I've had a very nice run with Dud torpedos. Also been lucky enough to have opportunities to fire from my rear tubes, so i actually have used an extra 7 Mk 14's that i normally wouldn't use.

Sunk two 4400 Ton merchants escorted by 2 Corvettes and a Subchasrer earlier which was nice.

2x Mk 18's and 4x Mk 14's left with a radar contact on the scope, so we'll see what else i can dig up before returning to port.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally posted by MWolfe1963:
Haven't started a thread here in so long, so thought I try to think of something. So what's up with your current patrol.

Yeah, it's been a while for me too. Guess it's about time I layed something down.

I'm running RFB/RSRDC with a bunch of smaller mods/skin packs, etc. It's currently June 20th, 1944 and over the past several days, I've been intercepting and wreaking havoc on the IJN's Marianas (Turkey Shoot) Task Forces.
Current Tally from 2 intercepts (w/end around):
June 17th:
1 Takao Heavy Cruiser
1 Agano Light Cruiser
1 Akizuki Destroyer
June 18th:
1 Takao Heavy Cruiser
1 Taiho Fleet Carrier

Been heading back to Manus Island for more fuel and a refit. 68000k+ tonnage under my belt. Had to dodge a crapload of planes the IJN sent after me. They must've been pretty P.O.'ed after I sank that carrier. Had several hits on other warships too (including 2 torps into a Mogami) but they continued on at speed.

[fireftr18]

I'm currently sailing out of Brisbane. I got my second patrol in a row to the North of Manilla. The first one, It was so target rich on the way, that I ran out of torpedoes before I got there. I'm on the second one now. I sank a couple freighters and an aircraft carrier and have 4 bow torps and 1 aft left and still haven't reached the patol zone.

I running version 1.4 with TMO 1.7.
I am currently in a Gato.
I am using realistic torpedoes. ($&@#$ Mk14s)

[MWolfe1963]

Originally posted by WernherVonTrapp:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MWolfe1963:
Haven't started a thread here in so long, so thought I try to think of something. So what's up with your current patrol.

Yeah, it's been a while for me too. Guess it's about time I layed something down.

I'm running RFB/RSRDC with a bunch of smaller mods/skin packs, etc. It's currently June 20th, 1944 and over the past several days, I've been intercepting and wreaking havoc on the IJN's Marianas (Turkey Shoot) Task Forces.
Current Tally from 2 intercepts (w/end around):
June 17th:
1 Takao Heavy Cruiser
1 Agano Light Cruiser
1 Akizuki Destroyer
June 18th:
1 Takao Heavy Cruiser
1 Taiho Fleet Carrier

Been heading back to Manus Island for more fuel and a refit. 68000k+ tonnage under my belt. Had to dodge a crapload of planes the IJN sent after me. They must've been pretty P.O.'ed after I sank that carrier. Had several hits on other warships too (including 2 torps into a Mogami) but they continued on at speed. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a great TF and battle to do with RSRD. I think they're at least 3 large JP TF during the battle. If you follow the carrier TF long enough it will pass a returning BB TF and you have two TF right together, about 60 ships...wonderful time to attack.

Since the battle of Leyte is coming soon, have you tried attacking the carrier force from the north. I followed it for days waiting for Halsey's plane to show up..and they did. Watched a beautiful battle of US planes attacking in mass and I was throwing torps at the many dead in the water ships they left. Course they robbed me of a few targets.

Fun to watch, need location, let me know.

[LouLewis1967]

Nothing very exciting for me. I'm playing my first career with TMO, on my third patrol. So I'm learning the mod mostly.

First task was an agent drop on the east side of Okinawa. After that I headed south to around Luzon on my own looking for merchants but came up empty. I radioed in for tasking and was sent to an area to await instructions, but the instructions were basically "Ok, you're on your own now, go sink ships". I tried poking around some harbors on Okinawa's west coast but the patrol craft kept me down pretty good. Other than that, nothing juicy. Well, nothing as long as you count the one 7-ship convoy with one escort DD that sent me right straight to the bottom of the sea. But that's what saves are for, right?

[paulhager]

I haven't played in a couple of years - consider me a refugee from SH5. I installed the latest RFB and companion RSRDC and have embarked on a brand new career: Lt Cmdr Archibald Leach, 6 Dec 1941. Boat is the SSN-202 Trout, a Tambor class.

I'm currently up to 25 December and I've reached my patrol zone just outside the Bungo Straits. I'll probably do a more formal write-up at some point.

A couple of additional comments. I played the Midway scenario several times and did the torpedo tutorial several times as well. It took me a while to refresh my memory on how things work. I also played the first several weeks of a German campaign beginning in March 1944 in which I sank a "modern" tanker of >10K tons.

I had forgotten how much better and more challenging SH4 is than SH5. Sure SH5 has better graphics but in every other way it is a pale shadow of SH4. It is a real tragedy that the Ubi folks took such a brilliant series and ran it literally into the ground. I think I may encourage folks over on the SH5 forum to give SH4 a look.

[MWolfe1963]

Nice to have you back Paul, seems I recall you from long ago...

I've yet to buy SH5 for all those reasons..it is a sad situation, hopefully in a few years it'll be a great game...

I use RSRD with TMO, never sent to the bungo that early, course that's RFB. Let us know what you find. I always run into all the large invasion fleets with RSRD and out of torps before I can get to a patrol zone.

Keep an eye out of a large TF with two Chistose plane carriers. I battled it near the San Bern and chased it for 4 days, looked like it was headed for the bungo, you may see it, bout 30 ships total.