Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Wreckless
Had a really good patrol in the Nautilus with over 26K sunk, all for naught when I ran out of fuel 39nm short of Midway.
Had it all planned out to where I still had about 5% fuel left. But those pesky IJN seaplanes would not leave me alone. I thought I was safe from them being in the middle of nowhere, but no! I had to crash dive 3 times and use up my fuel staying submerged.
Bummer.
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Ouchh. Hopefully you saved after leaving patrol area (if not, always should) and can reload, try different route/speeds. If I recall, I typically cruised around in Narwhal at about 8.5 -9 knts when conserving fuel.
I assume when you say middle of nowhere, where en route Midway North of Wake and Marcus? Wake Island and Marcus Island have airbases most of the war, so the large flying boats and G4M(BETTY) provide pretty decent coverage between the two bases. Key is to not be detected, if they do not detect you, prob have to dive briefly twice per day, sometimes less, if they detect you, well they will hound you based on course and speed when made contact. Best is to take a completely opposite course for at least 24 hours undetected, sometimes more. Of course, when watching fuel, can be difficult.
By mid 1944 the airbases are inactive so rare to get contact. This was done to represent the isolation of these islands by submarines and they were routinely bombed by carrier air strikes (used as practice for new air groups/carriers) and quite a few B-24 strikes from Marshalls, Midway, and later Mariana Islands as well. Basically, airfields became untenable at that point.
With Donation Narwhal, have to watch fuel closely ( I assume using the donation Narwhal?) , as you found out, she does not have the sea legs the other boats do. Other boats have more fuel simulating the real life modification used by fleet boats, where a large ballast tank was converted to fuel tank, this fuel was consumed en route to area, then flushed out after a few dives, converted back to ballast tank by the time reached patrol area.
This modification was implemented by TMO creator Ducimus, to replace the "Special Ability" which provided extra fuel. Honestly, one of my favorite modifications made in SH 4. I used to get pretty annoyed when read reports/memoirs by skippers , fleet boats cruising at 15.5-16 knots (Ahead Standard) to and from areas, having plenty of fuel to patrol for 20-30 days and return, but in the sim you'd burn fuel up very quickly. Nice in most cases to not have to cruise around pacific at harbor speed lol.