Stories and Patrol Logs + Screenshots and Videos (merged)

[STEED]

4th patrol out of Pearl 1942 and what a patrol it was, six Passenger Ships now have a new home at the bottom of the sea.

Here's some pictures of No.5 going down, I am a one man Passenger ship killing machine.

[Elder-Pirate]

Originally Posted by STEED

I am a one man Passenger ship killing machine.

STEED the masked passenger ship slayer sails again. HI HO Gato.

[STEED]

[FooFighters]

Hey there fellow captains..

Here some more shots of the soon to be released Tambor sub skin.
I came across some DD's, sank one.. the other one came after me..

[Elder-Pirate]

A way to start:






A way to finish:

[sqk7744]

Nice Spread STEED! "This is your cruise director, the Shuffle Board tournament on the Lido deck will be cancelled."

FooFighters can't wait for the TAMBOR skin, any chance of a SS-200 Thresher one

* Apologies for so many screenies -Finally got to do my first WP with v1.3 and TM

--

Just a lil closer


BOOM


Barnacle Inspection

Ahh, SH4 and the Pacific Sunset

No Pulitzer (always wanted to see this view, but this one below is a mash-up)

A BAD DAY part III

I hope that's not Mush

Generally making a mess of things

[RockNut]

Tried to keep it to a parol report style. Beware, it's long. Enjoy!


------------


Tambor class submarine USS Thresher, first patrol.

Depart Pearl Harbor 12/2/41

Refit at Midway, where we take on one passenger, to be set ashore in Northern Japan. Agent insertion, they call it. Let's leave it a that, for now.

12/26/41
Outbound leg uneventful, no enemy contacts until off Akkeshi, dodging what appears to be several fishing boats as we proceed to the drop zone. Our guest disembarks without problems, but his raft soon capsizes in the surf. We see him swim to shore and signal he made it safely. After that we hightail out of the area. Decide to patrol south along the eastern coast of Japan, towards Tokyo.

12/27/41
Sound contact, possible merchant vessel. Surface to move towards contact at higher speed, repeated diving to establish that we are still closing. Target visually identified as large merchant with composite superstructure. TDC and position keeper work beautifully as we develop enemy speed and course to obtain firing solution.

14:47 ATTACK #1: fired tubes 1 through 4, depth 10 ft, high speed, magnetic detonators, spread as -1.5,. -0.5, 0.5, 1.5 degrees. Observed three hits, tube 2 appears to be a dud or ran too deep. Target lists to port and sinks bow first at 14:51 approximately 25 mi east of Ishinomaki. NAGARA MARU type ship, 7,200 tons.

18:12 SD radar contact, dive to avoid detection

12/28/41
Pearl Harbor alert to possible vessel in patrol area, only 130 nm from yesterdays sinking.
18:01 sonar contact
18:04 second sonar contact - TWO merchants
18:09 SD contact, closing fast, crash dive
Approach submerged, by sound only.
18:45 visual contact on two European style medium freighters in line astern formation

19:03 TORPEDO ATTACK #2a: tubes 7, 8, 9, depth 10 ft, high speed, magnetic detonators, spread as -1, 0, +1 degrees. All three torps hit and detonate, target sinks within one minute. ZINBU MARU type ship, 5,200 tons.

After firing all ahead flank and sharp turn to bring bow tubes to bear on second target. Target evades repeatedly, continued submerged approach, situation becomes confusing at times because of target's wild evasive actions. Cannot develop good TDC/PK solution due to targets constant helming.

19:21 TORPEDO ATTACK #2b: snapshot setup AOB 70, speed 7, range 1000 or less, tubes 1, 2, 3, depth 6 ft, high speed, magnetic detonators, spread as -1, 0, +1 degrees. Target turns sharply towards sub and all three torps hit and detonate in aft cargo hold. Damage insufficient to stop target.

Batteries are seriously drained, decided to surface and use deck gun to finish off target

19:31 Gun attack aborted because of rapidly closing SD contact. Plane spotted, heading straight for us. Evade at periscope depth, no bombs.

19:39 GUN ATTACK #1 after SD shows all-clear. 29 HE rounds in 4 minutes in calm sea sink target at 19:43. ZINBU MARU type ship, 5,200 tons.


19:51 SD reports two contacts, closing rapidly. Crash dive to evade, staying down until darkness, despite low battery. After battery charge, continue patrol south along coast in darkness.

12/30/41

13:05 SD contact, dive to evade.

12/31/41

11:23 Sound contact, warship to SE of our position, moving fast to N, position 40 nm E of Miyako.
12:25 Lost sound contact

13:34 Pearl Harbor alert to possible vessel in patrol area, NW and less than 20 nm from current position. Closing on surface in low visibility, running into two fishing vessels, leads to

14:08 GUN ATTACK #2a small fishing vessel (200 tons) sunk with 4 rounds HE, and

14:09 GUN ATTACK #2b small fishing vessel (200 tons) sunk with 5 rounds HE

Continue on surface towards reported merchant position.

14:12 SD contact, closing, dive to evade and listen for surface ships

14:28 Sound contact, dead ahead.

15:20 TORPEDO ATTACK #3 on large modern composite freighter, tubes 1 through 4 fired at medium range, depth 14 ft, high speed, magnetic detonators, spread as -1.5, -0.5, +0.5, +1.5 degrees. All torps hit well-spaced along target's port side: torpedo #3 hits under the funnel and causes large internal explosion. Target sinks on even keel at 15:27, 33 nm NE off Miyako. NAGARA MARU type ship, 7,200 tons.

Multiple and repeated SD contacts, move E submerged at 2 kts to surface after dark.

1/1/42

Continue patrol to N, retracing the earlier southbound route. No contacts all night and day until

19:45 SD contact, beyond visual range, estimated to fly NE along Kurile Islands chain. Position is 75 nm SE of Nemuro.

Decide to patrol Kurile Islands, going NE from current position and stay out of visual range of land.

1/6/42 Five days without surface or air contacts until

16:00 SD contact, out of visual range, position is 250 nm E of Hokkaido's NE tip.

1/9/42 Depart patrol area to Pearl Harbor, 31 days after leaving same at beginning of patrol.

1/10/42
11:35 SD contact, position 600 nm E of Hokkaido.

1/18/42 Stop at Midway to refuel and take on fresh provisions, preliminary patrol report to base commander.

11/21/42 Arrive Pearl Harbor 8 am, end of patrol.


PATROL SUMMARY:

Fired 14 MkXIV torpedos, 13 observed hits and detonations, one possible dud.
39 round of HE ammo expended.
Four merchant vessels sunk (two European-built medium freighters and two large modern composite freighters).
Two fishing vessels (est. 200 tons each)
TONNAGE ESTIMATE: 25,000 tons
No personnel injuries through combat.
Crew morale excellent, especially after 1st sinking.
No damage through enemy action.
No equipment malfunctions otherwise.

Ratings advanced at end of patrol:
Seaman 1st class Oscar M.D. Price to Petty Office 3rd class, aft torpedo room.
Seaman 1st class Edgar Garrison to Petty Officer 3rd class, forward torpedo room.
Seaman 1st class A.J. Carter to Petty Officer 3rd class, forward torpedo room.
All three will attend the torpedo training course held this month at the base.
Signed:

William J. Cecil, Lt. , commanding officer, USS Thresher



ADDENDUM:
Personal observations and conclusions for future operations.

The appointment to Thresher came on short notice, just the day after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl, and only one more day before departure on patrol. Nevertheless, new crew and captain got along very well.

What was command thinking? To send a fully armed submarine to deploy one agent in mainland Japan? The war was only two days old when I was given the order. That CANNOT be a well planned mission, hopefully something useful will come of it. I regard such missions as futile and a waste of time for the submarine force. Unless agents inserted are in territory held by the enemy and where they can have some local support. I doubt that was the case in our mission - the man appeared to be Japanese American. Maybe he just wanted to go home? He must know some high-ranking officers to pull this mission off.

Torpedoes performed as advertised. Serious issues with depth settings and detonators (impact and magnetic), as reported by many others, did not show on our patrol. Lucky us! And knock on wood!!!

Japanese merchant shipping seems largely unescorted. It appears there is little coordination between surface warships, merchants and air coverage. Lucky us again!!!

The Zinbu Maru sunk by gun fire was armed with a deck gun and heavy machine gun, less than a month into the war. The Japanese must have planned this for a while… Great care needs to be taken in the future to avoid damage and casualties from merchants in surface atacks.

The gun attack on the trawlers was dangerous. With the gun crew on deck we would have been slow to dive in an emergency. However, the deck gun was the only weapon for the purpose because the 20 mm AA gun is useless due to the high fairing of the conning tower. Damn bathtub! That needs to be modified ASAP. We could also use a larger caliber AA gun, say 40 mm, to sink small targets quickly, without endangering the deck gun crew unnecessarily. The 3" gun performed well, the gun crew is excellent!

Rumor has it that Thresher will do some reconnaissance work on her next patrol.

On a sad note: USS Swordfish was lost of Singapore with my cousin as CO. HQ let me see his file: it seems they sunk two merchants near Borneo and then encountered a large Japanese task force off Singapore. Radio traffic analysis indicates they may have damaged a battleship before being forced to surface. His last message sent was 'Forced to surface, heavy damage, gun fight'. May the Lord rest his soul and those of his shipmates, too.

Personal note to my XO: Please get the dock crew to change out the depth gauge in the control room. That gauge reads 'Depth Under Keep'. Dammit! It should say 'Depth Under Keel'. Where did the Navy buy that thing? Rumania or what?

WJC

[Gargantou]

Awsome AAR! Probably one of the best ones I've read, I dream that one day I can either find the time to write an AAR like that myself, or someone makes a super-computer that can analyze my actions and do it for me, anyway, thumbs up!

I know how to get the external camera on.............but when I try to fly in really close to an enemy ship it the camera stops short. But there are alot of picture on this post that indicate other wise.

[sqk7744]

Originally Posted by barthautala

I know how to get the external camera on.............but when I try to fly in really close to an enemy ship it the camera stops short. But there are alot of picture on this post that indicate other wise.

F11 gets you close, but before patch 1.2 you could use Shift+F2 to actually roam (or clip) ships to take a stoll on the decks (we miss this feature) Currently Shift+F2 only lefts you roam inside the sub.

Beery did a nice camera mod that gets you pretty close (included in his RFB v1.31)
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...t=beery+camera

cheers

[Elder-Pirate]

Originally Posted by barthautala

I know how to get the external camera on.............but when I try to fly in really close to an enemy ship it the camera stops short. But there are alot of picture on this post that indicate other wise.

My post #902 for example is all F11, the only closer I know of is "shift + 2" and it's good only aboard your sub in SH4.

Here's a small tutorial from command room to conning tower via "shift + 2".
After pressing "shift + 2" keys, navigate by using the arrow up/down keys for forward/reverse movement and the mouse for all angles. When you press "shift + 2" you will be to the left side & down ( guess your on your knees ? ) from the CO. tilt your mouse up a little and move with the up arrow key.
I'm starting this across from Helms-Man and looking toward the rear hatch ( door ).




Use the up arrow and guide with your mouse toward and up to the hatch. Be Careful Here! Slowly head Through the hatch into a blue field area. Ease up a little to the right & forward ( up arrow & tilt mouse ) and you will see this view of periscope fully down.





Ease up with the up arrow & mouse to this "under control" shot.



Another shot in that area:



Slowly scout around using "up arrow" forward, "down arrow" reverse. If you go through walls you will see "Camera out of area" ( I think those are the right words, but means the same. ) Do not go beyond this area.

Here's a very close shot of the radar.



Here the Radar man is leaning on radar panel



Now back to the command room and a real right in the kisser look at the depth gauge that you can not see very well unless you use the shift + 2 keys.




That's as close as I know you can get with out going through the bulkheads of the sub. As said before F11 key will get you fairly close to any ship within the , ( comma ) and . ( period ) keys vicinity but "shift + 2" is the sub only untill someone can mod it different. Or is it coded ???

[sqk7744]

Nice Tour Elder-Pirate! (exterior Shft+F2 was removed with the v1.2 patch to fix some ctd instances or something, might be hard-coded? -sure do want it back )

[Misfit138]

Boat full of misfits spotted!



Just couldn't resist...

[FooFighters]

Originally Posted by Misfit138

Boat full of misfits spotted!



Just couldn't resist...

Very..very cool

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Misfit138]

Originally Posted by FooFighters

Very..very cool

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Hehe, so you didn't mind that I used your hi-res black S-class skin as a base?

Mine was so crappy