Part 5: More Like the BULLSHIT of Scapa Flow (and other assorted comedy)
I'd like to think that the first four updates have given everyone a clear picture of the early war in SH4. Targets, especially unescorted ones, were so in abundance that the U-Boat forces referred to the era as the Happy Times. Well, technically, according to Wikipedia, it started after France was knocked out of the war and they were based out of its west coast, but you get my point: shit's a little easy, and it's meant to be. Silent Hunter games feature increase in difficulty and changes in the overall situation as time goes on, more or less accurately portraying advances in technology and tactics as the war went progressed. I was sort of planning to kill off Cleve so I could showcase other time periods, especially post May '43, because patrols during 1940 will be more or less the same as what we've already seen. Boring. There's nothing more routine at this point than ordering your crew to deck gun a lone merchant.
As I ponder what to do about the situation, Cleve receives some terrible news! While we were last at sea, some cunt named Gunther Prien sailed into the British port of Scapa Flow and sunk the HMS Royal Oak, a Revenge class battleship while it was docked up. What's more, he was received as a hero even GREATER than Cleve and was awarded with the Knight's Cross personally by the man himself, while our Knight's crossed was REVOKED through error.
THIS SHIT WILL NOT STAND
I know now what we must do. The fuhrer has only one favorite.
We're ordered west of Spain once again, but we're going rogue. To Scapa Flow!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_Prien
Prien is now referred to as the Bull of Scapa Flow. It's interesting to that note that he sunk a ship from Panama, you can see it at the bottom of the page. So those cunts have been playing me for a fool! My revenge will be as Cleve himself - made out of titanium. Wait, what
I actually made it all the way to Scapa Flow when I realized I had once again forgot to add external camera, so I restart the patrol patrol because this shit's gonna be tough to show properly without it.
We're forced to dive to avoid aircraft a few times along the way, due to proximity to England, but it's unexciting. Aircraft aren't much of a threat...yet.
It's about 11:20 when we arrive at the shown position. That should be enough time to get in and out. I debated to myself the best way to enter. Directly south of Scapa Flow is the widest entry point, but it's also almost certainly patrolled nonstop. Conversely, the few east passages are much tighter, but it seems less likely to me that they'd have a constant patrol on them. If there was one however, we'd have no chance of slipping by. I take the southern route.
Ship spotted. Turns out to be a patrol boat instead of a destroyer, thankfully, and I can't even see it myself because it's so fucking dark. The poor visibility works to our advantage now, but ultimately it's not ideal for what I want to do. I'll explain why in a moment. I'd also like to point out that the depth here is only 16 meters, and Prien did this in a Type VII, which is smaller and more maneuverable than the type IX we're in. If we get forced to dive at any point by a destroyer engaging us with cannons, we'll have no choice but to destroy it, because there is no fucking way we're going to escape in 16 meters of water. Multiple destroyers would be certain death.
Bringing the ship as close to land as I'll dare to go, I avoid the patrol boat easily.
Another one spotted. This one appears to be an elite individual. But really, I have no idea what elite patrol boat signifies. Silent Hunter games feature different experience levels for the crews of AI vessels, and at the beginning of the war most of them are quite shit, which explains why we haven't nearly died more often yet. But it's never denoted in the ship type.
Looks like he's currently heading west. The other patrol boat should be due east of us now. So I set course northeast, figuring I'll probably be able to slip between them without too much trouble.
Turns out I'm correct, and we end up here. And this, my friends, is why a night blacker than Wesley Snipes is not our friend. Preparing for this patrol, I loaded all steam torpedoes, no electric. One of the reasons for that, of course, is I'm just sick of electric torpedoes. But the second reason is if you set a steam torpedo to slow as shit mode, it has a range of 12.5 kilometers. Right now, we're 11 away from the port, meaning if we could see anything we could already be firing these bad boys and turning around, ensuring an easy escape. We'd be long gone by the time the torpedoes traveled 11 kilometers on the slow setting.
But now we have no choice but to creep closer. Crew spots another ship that I'm unable to see. This one is...
http://a.imageshack.us/img686/1003/snap349.jpg
Oho! It's identified as a Repulse Class battle cruiser. Now, I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that the term battle cruiser was essentially interchangeable with battleship. The Hood, for instance, was a gnarly ship with armor as thick as a battleship, yet was classified as a battle cruiser, or referred to as a "fast battleship." Plus, look at the tonnage on that bad boy. 48360? For comparison...
That's the piece of shit Prien sunk, a solid 20K tons less important than a Repulse. It also ran on coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_class_battleship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renown_class_battlecruiser
Now, we could shoot now, but it feels a little cheesy to fire at and destroy a ship I can't see. I get closer.
God visibility is shite. As it finally comes into view, it's only about 3000 meters away. I set the torpedoes to fast, just in case it's manned. Don't want them seeing the torpedoes and trying to get away. This does mean, however, that this attack in no way resembles my original plan, but since we haven't even seen a destroyer so far, I reckon we'll make it. And here I thought Cleve was gonna die.
Each torpedo is aimed at a slightly different part of the ship, to maximize flooding. After they're all away, we turn and head back the way we came.
Next screenshots taken with external camera voodoo.
I'd have to loved to stay and take pictures of this dude sinking, but capital ships sink very slowly, and I had to pay attention to important things such as not dying.
Also,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ae_aZ6546A starts playing on the gramophone as we sail away from the scene.
When we nearly get to the choke point, and I've yet to lay eyes (real eyes, not magic watch officer eyes) on a patrol craft, I decide that we'll be perfectly okay and get complacent. As I'm sitting around masturbating furiously and patting myself on the back...
God fucking damn it. Since it's behind us at an odd angle for the deck gun, I fire at it with the flak gun, probably to no real effect. It pulls up ahead though, into deck gun sights. I control it myself, because this CANNOT be fucked up. As long as it's alive, it'll report our position to any hostile ship nearby.
After just a few shells, it turns to disengage, but that's unacceptable. I'm not sure what the AI would do exactly, but it could easily shadow us and guide other, real ships this way. Just a few more...
Excellent. Oh wait
This is like that thing I was talking about. That's a destroyer on its way to where we were last reported, but we've gained a little distance in the mean time. Let's hope he doesn't see us/catch up.
He fades out of sight. Phew. I wasn't looking forward to fighting a destroyer in 16 meters of water. Confident that we've escaped (for real this time) I take one last look at the flaming wreckage we've left behind and we're off.
48361 tons
35 tons
I lolled
Anyway, 4 torpedoes for 48K tons. That's some incline.
I start heading towards our patrol point. Some routine sinkings occur along the way.
Sigh, another one. In an attempt to amuse myself, rather than deck gunning these guys, I try to sink the next one with a perfect keel shot. You may have noticed that the identification manual includes "draft." That's how deep the ships bottom, or keel is, in the water. Now, slamming a torpedo into the side of a ship is all fun and games to be sure, but word on the street is that the most effective way to sink a ship is to use a magnetic detonator, then actually shoot the torpedo UNDER the ship a meter or two. When it passes under the lowest part of the keel, ideally, the magnetic detonator will sense it and go off, ripping open the whole bottom of the ship.
Dud. Rage. Not wasting another torpedo on this fool, deck gun time.
What's with that dude on the left, pointing this finger around?
No, the ship isn't that way...Oh I see, he's playing Krauts and Indians and that's his gun.
Out of ammo!?
He goes to reload...I'm glad my crew are such winners.
Anyway another ship down.
I try the keel shot thing on the next lone merchant. Seems to have worked.
It takes a little bit, but he sinks without further encouragement from the deck gun.
Some uneventful sailing around, then...
I tried to take some external camera pics of it, but it's too hard with the poor visibility. Anyway, it's pretty freaking big. Problem is though, it's sunrise, not sunset. Visibility is only going to increase, so no surface raiding. But since I was sort of hoping to die anyway, I have a fun idea to keep it interesting.
We'll attack the escorts! Then the convoy will be at our mercy.
I charge in and get their attention. Currently, we have two destroyers, one up to the left, one to the right. Definitely a little suboptimal, but what're you gonna do? Anyway, most convoys we've seen so far have had what, 2-3 destroyers? And they're early war experience with early war tech. I think we have a shot at fighting two at once.
Now, there's no point in attempting to properly figure a firing solution on an alerted destroyer. They're small, they're fast, they turn quickly and they turn constantly. More experienced destroyers will often see the torpedo coming for them and turn long before it manages to hit. Really, all you can do is get them coming straight at you bearing 180 or 0, or get them really close, moving perpendicular to you. It's all done by feel.
In that screenshot, the destroyer was zigging back and forth constantly. I fired as he was zigged left but began zagging right, hoping he would continue to turn into the torpedo. Complete failure, it misses by a mile.
uh oh
That, my friends, is a depth charge! So good to finally put a face to the name.
It's a good thing I didn't attempt to crash dive. The charges were, miraculously, set deeper than our boat. But we're not gonna keep getting lucky like that. Better step up my game.
The destroyer that was bearing left of us before is just now arriving on the scene. Unlike his buddy, this dude's a hyper genius and is running directly at us. So with a little maneuvering, he get him bearing exactly 180...
Well, the torpedo was fired when it was exactly 180 anyway. Also, you can see another destroyer behind him. That's not the one that just depth charged us - he's circling around waiting to do another attack run. That's a brand new one. We've got three on us.
He tries to turn away, but far, far too late. One down.
There's our other buddy. He'll circle around, til eventually he's close to bearing 0. I didn't screenshot it, but I fired another torpedo at him.
It misses, terribly. Fuck him.
The destroyer in back of us gets closer. Unlike the other one, he's changing course repeatedly. If I don't at least ward him off with a torpedo, it'll be another depth charging for sure, and I don't think we can really count on getting THAT lucky a second time. I fire as he begins turning left (his right) into bearing 180, hoping that he'll continue turning into the torpedo.
That was a glorious shot. Hit him right amidships. Now, just this last guy to go and that convoy is ours.
Alright, behind us now. Still turning wildly, but hey, I just pulled one of these off.
I honestly can't remember how badly I fucked the shot up at this point as I didn't screenshot precisely when I shot it, but needless to say it misses terribly and now he's getting dangerously close. I can't take it.
ALAAAAAAAAAAARM
I order the soundman to follow the nearest contact, which is obviously the destroyer in this case. He's bearing 258, so he's passed over us now and has dropped charges. Amazingly, none of them hit. I start getting back to periscope depth as hear the sound man call out his bearing, ever closer to 0.
By the time we surface, he's way the fuck over there, bearing 65. Missed the shot. Also, we have a bug that refuses to let me put the observation periscope down.
He goes out a bit then turns around. Alright, surely we got him this time...
Once again forgot to screenshot the firing of the torpedo, but it misses. Good god, this guy is indestructible. Almost as if he's Cleve's long lost brother. He drops some depth charges, but he's too far. Nothing comes of it.
He then circles around behind, I fire, aaand...miss.
Oh dear
ALAAAAAAAAAAAAARM
The bullet is dodged once again. We just cant seem to fucking hit each other for the life of us. Almost as if we're two undefeatable ubermensch locked in a neverending battle.
Or maybe we just both really suck at aiming our respective weapons.
Alright, he's circling around now. Hopefully he'll get close to bearing 0 before he turns toward us for another attack...and he does. I'm pretty confident that I'll get a hit this time, but just in case, I launch three torpedoes at slightly different times to ensure that this is over.
The first one hits. Rage. Waste of torpedoes. But wait, what's this!?
Look close. Real close. To the right of the destroyer? That, readers (Trash) is a LIFE RAFT! Surface!
Hey look, it's one of those other torpedoes I fired.
NO FUCKING WAY
I feel as though I should post some sort of funny picture to express how I feel about this, but I don't think anything will do. This whole LP, I've been looking for life rafts to machine gun at the request of readers. Now these are the first we've seen, and one of them gets nailed by a torpedo that wasn't even aimed at it. I don't even...that's also the first time, of course, probably anybody ever has torpedoed a life raft.
IT IS TIME
Well, was. The first time I went to machine gun them, I held down fire and spammed my screenshot key. For whatever reason my computer didn't like it and I blue screened. Very, very thankfully, I saved after the last destroyer was hit. Which means I got to witness the life raft getting torpedoed again.
dohohohoho
Anyway, we go to catch up with the convoy, and sight another warship...
He also belongs to the "sail in straight line" school of thought.
He was so close when the torpedo hit, his momentum still carried him above us.
Alright, back on track!
We spot another warship. I documented this one even less than the last, but I managed to hit him with just one torpedo again. I almost thought that something fucking stupid happened, like the destroyers somehow "respawned" after I had to reload due to blue screen. But really, like I mentioned earlier, this convoy is quite huge. It makes sense that it'd have many escorts. We picked the wrong convoy to pull this bullshit on.
We've now taken out 5 destroyers. I catch up the convoy and spot...more warships. A corvette this time. They're even smaller and wimpier than destroyers, but usually have ASW.
I grab his attention. He comes at us, but...
Before I have the chance to shoot, he simply turns away. I have no idea why, we were getting pinged. He knew we were there. The only thing I can figure is he had some sort of AI script that required that he stay close to the convoy rather than run off to engage u-boats. In any event, to regain his attention, I surface and fire at him long range with the deck gun.
Nailed him with the first shot. Nice. But he doesn't turn around...
He pretty much just keeps going in the same direction, maintaining the same range from me, and simply allows himself to be deck gunned to death.
Now we've sunk a warship, however puny, with a deck gun. This patrol has it all.
Our remaining torpedoes. This was a pretty shit idea, all in all. So many torpedoes were wasted destroying the relatively worthless, low tonnage destroyers that could've been spent on juicy delicious tankers. Oh well.
And we're STILL not done. Another corvette. Good lord
Comes straight at me. Brilliant.
Job done, internet won...wait. He isn't sinking.
I had another pretty good shot on him, but I didn't want to waste another torpedo, figuring he's probably going to sink anyway, given time. But he doesn't. He doesn't even come in for any proper attack runs, he just circles our periscope firing his guns at it. Rage. Well, this has gone on for long enough.
I manage to hit him again, but it's a dud. Brilliant. We're not going to have any fucking torpedoes left for the giant convoy.
Alright we got you this time.
That taken care of, I approach the convoy once again, fully expecting to find the next is an endless series of escorts, but am instead greeted first by a merchant. Could it be? Was that corvette the last of them?
Yes!
The convoy erupts in an orgy of death and destruction (ammunition permitting).
I try to help this last one along with the flak gun, although I have no idea if it helps. It does sink eventually.
In total, 4 tankers were sunk, all 8K+ tons, and one cargo ship. Forgot the tonnage. Maybe 4-5?
Passage home is, once again, uneventful.
Look at that tonnage. If we used our torpedoes on real ships, this patrol would've been through the roof.
Knight's Cross, fuck year!
But as I get into the office, nothing works. My crew is all fucked up, I can't load any torpedoes. Once again, I have to reload from outside, and redock...
God fucking DAMN it, WHY?!?!? Will we never meet the fuhrer? But really, I don't understand this bug.
We've been promoted as well, but I don't think it actually serves any function in Operation Monsun. In stock SH4 U-boat Missions, increasing rank would give you the ability to command various ships and aircraft. Initially, you could command scout aircraft to help you find targets, then light cruisers, then a pocket battleship, then I think a whole damn task force. Well, not anymore.
Still no interesting upgrades or crewmen to put on, but one of our existing crewmen leveled up and received a special ability. Thing is, you don't choose what ability they get. I don't know if it's completely random or what, but more often than not, the crewman will receive an ability that requires him to be in a compartment that he's not good at. This one requires the Control Room, which isn't so bad. He's got very high leadership, even if his specialty isn't command. Switching him with the command officer lowers efficiency by a little bit in both areas, but it's worth it to dive faster, and reduce flooding speed. Could save our lives when aircraft become more plentyful/dangerous.
At this rate, with just one more patrol we should beat Kretschmer's record before he even gets close to it.
Anyway, seriously, if any of you dudes LP something, name a character Cleve and try to get him killed. After this, I'm willing to guarantee that it won't work. He's truly a god among men.
