Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieLyons
Well, I'm a sucker for punishment! And, the period I'm most fascinated by is the early war period. So, it'll be back to the Asiatic Fleet in an S-class boat.
What is also fascinating is the immediate pre-Pearl Harbor period, 1940-41, in the Pacific. The Roosevelt administration was sure that a showdown with Japan was coming, just not sure of exactly when and how it would start. But they got the basics right -- the Japanese offensive southwards. (The one bit they missed, of course was Pearl Harbor.) But they were already committing resources to beefing up defences across the Pacific, in the minor outlying American island territories like Wake, Midway, Palmyra, etc, and securing the maritime lines of communication to Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand.
But what I've never heard about is what sort of operations the USN's submarine force was doing during that time, apart from sending extra subs to the Asiatic Fleet. The AF, especially, had a mission to protect American interests in China, especially in those areas affected by the Sino Japanese conflict. So AF subs were deployed to Chinese waters and ports on many occasions from 1937 to 1941. Presumably some of these included intelligence gathering to identify and record IJN forces engaged against the Chinese. (For instance, in October 1938 the British Royal Navy very cheekily sent the light cruiser HMS Birmingham unannounced into Amoy harbour, where a Japanese fleet of seven battleships, eight cruisers, plus destroyers and minelayers were deployed, most of which had never been seen by western observers because of Japanese naval secrecy since the 1920s. Every sailor on board who had a camera, or who could make decent sketches or drawings, lined the gunnels to record every possible detail of the Japanese ships, who's crews had most definitely been caught with their pants down!)
There were also the Japanese occupations of the Paracel Islands in April 1939, and their involvement in the Spratlys from July 1937 leading to their occupation in March 1939, both in the South China Sea, the latter immediately adjacent to the Philippines. Surely the AF must have been interested in reconnoitring what the IJN was doing there.
Similarly, the USN knew about Japanese naval deployments to, and naval facilities, in the Marshalls and Carolines and other island groups of the Japanese Mandate. Apart from the submarine "war patrols" from Pearl Harbor to Midway and Wake in 1941 in the weeks before the Japanese offensive, I do wonder if there were any intelligence gathering missions sent to reconnoitre such locations in 1941 especially.
These could be interesting scenarios to play out in any pre-Pearl Harbor campaign starts in the next update to TMO. I've always felt it is very artificial that the game starts only on 7 Dec 1941. At the very least there should have been an option for a pre-war training campaign.
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You are a sucker for punishment for sure, esp in the S boats in this updated mod lol.
Early war fascinates me as well, it was a interesting yet, depressing time frame for submariners though. I found it boring in original version (stock and all other mods) because AI was so easy, but changed that up in the update, AI is tougher, but not on the level of say later war ijn escorts. While I love early phase myself, I would encourage you to not miss out on other parts of the war in this update though, really is a lot of excitement and challenge. The ability to pull off historically accurate night surface attacks really brings 1944/45 alive. The revision to traffic in campaign, the ULTRA's on different ships etc. Just a lot to see and experience. Not sure if you read my post from earlier, but that was two attacks on a convoy in Jan 1944, sample of it.
Real run starts in mid 1944 when japanese started running the major North/South convoys in a Alliedesque fashion...10-15 ships, 4-5 escorts, sometimes escort carriers, often time land and sea based air cover. With the night surface attacks, can get inside the convoy now undetected(in most cases), attack from within, as many boats did.
Well, it was pretty apparent we would have to fighting Japanese in early 20th century after they defeated Russians are Battle of Tsushima.(glorious victory it was) and even more so by the 1930's so they reinforced overseas territories within realm of 1930's i.e. depression era budgets. Pearl was considered safe, out of reach of attack. Those who tried to raise the alarm were shut down. If I recall the Admiral who protested to Roosevelt about moving fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor was fired or "retired".
I agree though, always though SH 4 should had option to start at least one month before Pearl Harbor. A pre pearl harbor start mod came out sometime ago but it was just a few days before the war started and has not been updated in quite a while. So building on that concept, there will be a pre war campaign start in next mod.
Campaign will begin in June 1941 and new construction/seal trials for Tambor/Gar class will begin January 1941, west coast, maybe even east coast if have time to work the east coast in. Career starts will be for boats out of Pearl and Manila.
Attacks on Pearl Harbor and Cavite are scripted in, worked fine. A lot of work getting that part in lol
Prior to war, player has a variety of objectives from simulated defensive war patrols in area of Hawaii, Midway, Guam, Philippines, to participating in fleet problems with carrier and battleship task forces, homage to the original "fleet boat" concept. Also, some orders to observe japanese shipping in home islands, and in their overseas territories with orders to remain undetected.
Propensity for hostility from Japanese units will be unpredictable as one may spot you and ignore you, other may attack you (accomplished same method as the US Friendly Fire in the mod). After oil embargo takes places in August 1941, tensions rise and higher propensity for hostile actions, which increase even more so as time goes on. Remember, this is 1941, before SD radar is available, so staying on the surface in daytime and remaining undetected, is almost impossible. Adds a lot to the challenge having to operate in the pre war-early war doctrine of submerge by day, surface by night when in enemy areas.
Some fictional license (I've never read about this happening but figured could bring some variety) will be taken with limited special missions, inserting intel agents in places like Truk etc other parts of Japanese mandate, and then recovering them after X amount of time (pick them up in raft, can be rescued like a downed pilot) or being sent to recover them, as were previously inserted by another boat. Some photo missions (not hollywood, photo Tokyo Bay though lol) may pop up. I do have a one for S Boats to visit Shanghai area for a port visit, as they used to do prior to start of war in 1941 when Japanese took over completely. "
I've played through June -December 1941 start of war once out of pearl and once out of manila to test, worked well overall, few things need to tweak, couple patrol objectives want to add, but it worked well. Obviously the pace is slower since not at war but is challenging from trying to always remain undetected in area, esp if trying to send contact reports on enemy task forces. Possibility of sighting their newest fleet carrier when out on sea trials in 1941 or the new battleship (Yamato) not aware of it (based on historical records of ship movements as are most of the major warship movements in the TMO Update) , is possible as well. Yet, can only document and send report, shadow, no attacking, unless you are attacked and even then only if in self defense.