Usn Surface Mission #5

This mission is almost suicidal. You're given an old tub that has one propellor, so it can't pivot. Best to realize this before the subs release their fish at you. That's why I had to restart.

You're at the helm of a DE and you've got lots of friendlies to your north and pairs of enemy subs south, east and west.

I say go for the sub(s) in your bow's nearest direction. Start the engines at flank, select, the nearest sub you're on approach to, select all your guns and click fire. The subs will dive pretty fast but you may get a hit. When the first sub goes below surface, have your gunners fire on the second sub, still topside. It will dive, too.

Two subs in close vicinity to each other, heading right at you. You can expect a double spread of fish to head your way. You'll best outmanouver them by going to external view.

Now is the time to start dropping charges. I'm guessing that I damaged one or both subs but no kills for me. Your ship manouvers poorly compared to these subs.

At some point, another pair of surfaced subs will come into range and fire their deck guns at you. Turn to face them and have your guns fire back, all this time being careful of the two subs that you've been dropping charges on until now. It was here that I had another spread sent my way, with one fish hitting me. Between the torp and the deck gun hits, my hull status was at about 40% and my speed reduced even further.

Somewhere around now the planes start rolling in. Make sure you've set DEFEND AA GUNS and DECK GUNS. The weak biplanes that manage to make it past your pals, should drop like flies from your gunners. Not to worry.

Now it was at this stage that I began to appreciate the other friendly destroyers. They were through destroying the subs in their vicinity and made their way to my direction to start pummelling the remaining subs nearby.

At the end, I didn't sink a single sub myself. The last sub was sunk by another destroyer's 5 inch deck gun when it surfaced quickly after a long time playing, about 1000 meters away from us.

The destroyer tend to move in a close formation. Mind your distance and watch your and their direction to avoid colisions.

Of course, no citation or promotion for me but I'm moving on. stop:

No one gets any sympathy from me in the latter stages of the US Surface campaign. Let me explain...

The US Navy, realising either my incompetance or that I was a fifth-columnist from another faction, never saw fit to promote me beyond the command of a DE until after completion of the entire campaign. Fortunately, I rather like the Buckley class...but some of those later missions (where the briefing says you are in a destroyer) are damn tricky in a DE!

/bux