Stories and Patrol Logs + Screenshots and Videos (merged)

[Snarf]

Too bad I've reached my limit, I wanted to post the map view showing where the H6K started and finished

[TG626]

Downloaded this off killflags.us

Is this really S40's emblem? Did they really drive around with this on the tower - seems like it would be a bad idea from a camouflage standpoint...

Can't find info on either on the net.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Send sqk ( mod author ) message, I am sure he would be happy to answer. Or a bit of research would do the trick.

[mobucks]

My guess is it would be much smaller than that. You can modify these skins with DXTBMP pretty easily.

[TG626]

Originally Posted by ReallyDedPoet

Send sqk ( mod author ) message, I am sure he would be happy to answer. Or a bit of research would do the trick.

I'd expect that since its his mod the author would say yes, and if you read the last sentence, I said I had no luck finding any info on it...

All I've seen are undated photos showing nothing on the hull, or ones shown a large 40 on either the hull, just forward of the conning tower and just below the deck and/or on the conning tower its self which are dated 1930 something or earlier.

[Sailor Steve]

I'm reasonably certain that no US submarine had emblems apart from pre-war numbers and squadron markings. I've seen a couple of photos of subs with battle-flags painted on the tower, but I'm pretty sure they were post-war.

[TG626]

That was my thinking...

[Snarf]

General quarters set, Sir!

[OldWulf85]

Cool Pic !

[CapnDon]

I started a new campaign operating out of Manila in a Sargo. I started before the war and had a routine patrol on the northwest coast of Luzon. I was attacked by a Japanese patrol plane on December 5, 1941, which was a surprise. I returned fire with the AA battery, but no damage, either to Sargo or to the Japanese airplane.

I returned to Manila on Dec 6.

I was then sent out on a second patrol in the same boat to Lingayen Gulf. Enroute, I discovered a large merchant convoy of at least a dozen ship escorted by several DDs. I manage to get into position ahead of the convoy and was able to sink two ships. Then, as the convoy ran overhead, I popped up in the middle and sank two more.

Then, we came under a withering depth charge attack that messed the boat up pretty badly. I managed to slip out to the south after 8 hours of pounding (and no oxygen left). By then, I received orders to bypass Manila and head for Surabaya for refit.

After refit and refueling in in Surabaya, I was ordered on a third patrol off the west coast of Borneo. A lone merchant was heard on sonar. We increased speed and chased it down to discover that it was an Australian merchant. The visibility was bad and we had to close to under 500 yards to identify it. We almost attacked, but given the proximity to other allied bases, we are glad we held the trigger.

After no other luck, we were then ordered back to the waters north of Surabaya to set up a barrier patrol. Not long after arriving, we heard multiple warships approaching. After maneuvering into position, we located a column of Japanese cruisers and destroyers heading into the Java Sea. We set up on the first two in the column, heavy cruisers, and fired four torpedoes from the front tubes. Two hit but did not explode and the other two went wide. I attempted to set up to fire the aft tubes, but the cruisers were moving too fast and it became impossible. The destroyers then pounced and it was difficult to escape given the very shallow waters in the area. At times, while at periscope depth, there as only 30 or 40 feet beneath the keel.

We pushed further north into the Makassar Strait and quickly found a huge convoy heading south. It consisted of at least eight large merchants escorted by two minesweepers and two destroyers.

Visibility was terrible, but we gained visual contact at about 800 yards and manage to quickly sink three of the merchants. The, the DDs pounced and got lucky. We were quickly heavily damaged and one crewman was killed with several injured. Our battery was damaged and it was all we could do but to slip out of there as quietly as possible. We actually ran the battery to zero and then, just bobbed to the surface hoping the distant DDs would not spot us. Fortunately, the sun went down and we sped south to home.

By then, Surabaya had fallen to the Japanese, so we headed for Darwin to refuel, not wanting to go all the way to Fremantle. After refueling and rearming, we headed back into the Makassar Strait to see what may be left.

Another (or the same?) convoy was there and in a heavy storm we attempted two attacks. Visibility was worse than before and we could only gain visual contact at under 200 yards, way too close for torpedoes. I attempted to fire a few shots at shadows in the distance based on sonar calculations, but my solutions were not good and all torpedoes went wide. Finally, I was able to get directly astern of one merchant and match speed and course. They could not see me, so I got about 600 yards astern and fired two torpedoes with zero gyro angle. Both hit and she went down. I was unable to do the same to any others, so, with tubes empty, we headed to Fremantle.

In Fremantle, I was assigned to USS Tambor, a new boat. We took her north to the Celebes Sea. There, we found a lone merchant cruising northwest. Something did not seem right about her, so, again in poor visibilty, we closed until we identified her as an American merchant. I don't know what she was doing there, but she had a long way to go to safety. I wished the Captain good luck and we headed back to see what else we could find.

Four days later two merchants, steaming together, appeared. This time visibility was good and we were able to make a normal approach. We identified them as Japanese merchants with no escorts, so we made a submerged approach from in front and fired three torpedoes at each. Both went down quickly. Surfacing, we sped out of the area as we had already been harassed by Japanese air patrols at least twice a day.

We developed a standard operating procedure to observe the radar track. If the aircraft made any movement toward us we submerged immediately. If we gained visual contact on an aircraft, we crash dived, and then immediately ordered 100 feet once under water. In general, we found we needed to remain submerged for at least a half hour to an hour to avoid detection by the aircraft.

We had no further contacts that patrol and returned to Fremantle with most of our torpedoes aboard. Now standing by waiting for our next orders, but we expect to be sent to the Japanese coast.

[Sniper297]

3rd patrol USS S-35, stock S class except for early SJ radar installed. Departed 20 March 1942 from PHANTOM 42 with orders to patrol Java Sea. Radar contact, one of them stupid troopship "task force" madhouses, with the usual skittering about like waterbugs and colliding with each other. Wasn't in the mood to deal with that nonsense so I turned south to avoid contact. And picked up another one on radar to the south. Turned west to go between them (since they weren't actually going anywhere, just milling around in circles) and found myself flanked by two more of those abortions heading the same direction.

Turned around and headed back toward PHANTOM 42, once I was out of the Celebes Sea stopped engines and drifted for 48 hours to let all them idiots disappear.

Tried again, on entering Celebes Sea picked up another task force on radar - this one turned out to be a real task force with 4 battlewagon shapes in column. 12 torpedoes in an S-boat but what the hell, might as well see if I can sink one or two.

Escort cooperated by getting stupid, at 15000 yards the screen unscreened and started running search patterns to the rear, while the lead escort wove in and out of the BB column until the predictable happened, he got run over. No screen in front, so approached from head on until sighting the first BB, a FUSO, then submerged.

Went deep and found the layer was at 150, came back up to periscope depth.

Waited until FUSO was within 800 yards and fired one at the 3rd BB, waited a 10 count and fired the second at the number 2 BB, then two high gyro angle shots at the leading FUSO. Dove for 200 feet and reversed course to head the same way as the task force, heard 4 hits within a few seconds of each other.

Even with nothing but rated torpedomen for some reason it takes a long long time to reload tubes on an S class, fortunately the escorts were so far behind the task force I had a lot of time. After the first tube was (FINALLY!) reloaded came back up to periscope depth, FUSO sinking, 3rd ship was an ISE who was smoking while ramming a light cruiser, and I almost got run over by a YAMATO with a big hole in her side - hadn't noticed the second BB I fired a single shot at was bigger than the others. Let her have the one loaded fish in the rudder as she passed by to slow her down, fired the second at the ISE and went deep again. Came back up into a ramming party, the destroyers had arrived and were colliding with each other while getting run over by light and heavy cruisers plus the one undamaged BB who was running the other way. YAMATO still running at 4 knots while ISE was DIW, so I fired two more at YAMATO which stopped DIW, then sank half an hour later while I was deep reloading tubes again.

Came back up into a destroyer convention, hit the ISE with two more, kicked out a decoy and went back to 200 feet while running full speed under a MAYA heavy cruiser to give the destroyers something to run into. Which they did.

Dark out now, reloaded the last fish and came back up to fire another into the ISE while dodging destroyers (fortunately there were so many of them they kept getting in each other's way, but I did get one close depth charge which damaged the deck gun) but he just settled a little further without sinking. Eventually had to fire all remaining fish at that ISE before she went down, so total score was 2 fish to sink FUSO, 4 fish to sink YAMATO, six to put that dogged ISE down.

The enemy's score was higher than mine, I sank 3 ships and counted 8 wrecks on the map, so they sank five of their own ships with all the panicky running around.

Real task forces are fun.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice

[Sniper297]

Well, that was apparently a successful patrol, since I was offered "new construction" at the end of it. Since the whole point of the test was to find out if my default bow deck gun mod would work for changing boats during a campaign, I accepted. Got a Porpoise, which ain't actually "new construction" in 1942, but it's an improvement over the Sugar boat.

When testing the "Gone Asiatic" mod I saw that random Japanese planes were occasionally sinking the tenders in my "secret" resupply bases. Doesn't actually affect anything, you can still resupply, but it annoyed me. So I stuck a heavy cruiser in there anchored next to the tender, then added an air patrol with a couple wildcats and some TBD and SBD to deal with party crashers.

So after getting my new Porpoise (which did indeed have a bow deck gun by default) I set out on my 4th patrol, second from PHANTOM 42. Immediately picked up a convoy on radar just north of the base, so I wondered if I could have some fun - run up on the surface and start banging away with the deck gun, can I get the destroyers to chase me 10 miles south into the guns of the Northhampton and under the US air patrol? Nope.

They did chase south for a while, but apparently these guys were dedicated to the convoy, and wouldn't go more than a few miles from their charges, and would break off and return to the convoy. Tried firing some fish at the convoy ships from long range, but same thing, destroyers turn south to chase me, fire deck guns and 40mm at them while running south, they break off and return to the convoy. Gotta admire professional sailors, enemy or not.

After 5 repeated attempts I had sunk all three of the escorts with the deck gun even though I wasn't trying to sink them, just piss them off enough to get them to chase me. So I went in and sunk the 11 merchies with deck gun and BOFORS HE shells, running full tilt boogie and weaving around to avoid return fire from the armed merchants with their stubby 5 inch 25s and whatever that honking monster is that looks like a 6 inch 53 from a light cruiser. Obviously the best tactic is to sink whatever has guns first and let the unarmed merchies run off in all directions, with anything better than an S-boat I can chase them down later. Worked, sank all 11 freighters so 14 ships sunk in one three hour battle with 6 torpedoes (all misses!) and a few hundred rounds of 4 inch 50 and 40mm HE.

[depthtok33l]

My first contact after a few days of patrolling off the coast of Formosa near a port, this could be a big ship, I was so excited!

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Turns out to be a bloody fishing boat.....

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I was going to surface and engage with my deck gun but I was such in a near perfect position for a fish attack, oh well

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He wanted fishes, I gave him one, he's a fishing boat after all

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After he received my precious fish, he somehow broke the laws of physics

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Sayōnara

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice.