Turn 12: Vignettes from a war

1 — 8 March 1942

No real overarching theme or narrative for this week. Instead, here are glimpses of some of the stories that have unfolded over the first three months of the war.

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USS Trout (SS-202)

Remember Trout? She kicked off the war for the Silent Service on 7 December by turning up a Diligent Escort as the very first target revealed in the game. She was damaged in the encounter, but escaped with her life—barely. She remained on station near Midway for another week (per orders) but returned to Pearl on Christmas Eve.

She remained there, under repair, through January, and put to sea for the Marshall Islands on her second war patrol on 8 February. That patrol was brief and fruitless; she encountered no enemy shipping and returned to port just ten days later.

She commenced her third war patrol on 26 February, again bound for the Marshalls. Just this week, she was finally able to fire her first torpedoes of the war—and she made them count. In her first encounter with the enemy since being damaged in the opening hours of hostilities, she hit (but failed to damage) one small freighter and then sank a second. It was only a 3,000 ton score, but given Trout’s difficult war career to date, it was a meaningful contribution.

Turn 7: Thresher vs. Japan

22—31 January 1942

The week got off to a good start, at least, with the repair crews at Pearl and Fremantle both doing excellent work. Six boats were under repair at the end of last week. All except one (the woebegone USS Cachalot (SS-170)) has been returned to active service. Maybe that horrible “damage bug” we had during the early weeks of the war is under control now. Knock on wood.

Not to belabor the negative, but Cachalot’s situation probably warrants some mention. She began the war laid up in Pearl Harbor, finishing an overhaul. Unlike her real-life counterpart—who got underway on her first patrol in the middle of January—my Cachalot has languished in port for the entire war to date. Not only has she failed to return to the fleet, she has failed to so much as make any perceptible progress toward that goal. {In game terms:  she began the war in Pearl’s “R3” box, i.e., the most seriously damaged classification. She has failed every single repair roll so far. That’s seven straight failures, each one of which had a 50% chance of success.}

Making a strong bid to become the blog’s new cover girl...

Repair successes notwithstanding, not many boats were on station to patrol this week—but two who were scored successes. On 24 January, the somewhat (it must be said) inauspiciously named USS Plunger (SS-179) executed a textbook-perfect approach and attack on a 3,000 ton maru. {She rolled a perfect 0-9 for To Hit/Damage; awesome, but I wish I could have saved that roll for a cruiser or something.} The next day, USS Thresher—yes, Thresher—scored her third kill, which also happened to be a 3,000 ton merchant. No one else has a second yet. Causing trouble has evolved for her from being a habit (as I described it earlier) to being a lifestyle. Surprisingly, though, she’s still just in second place on the tonnage list (which further illustrates what a big deal Gudgeon’s success was at the beginning of the month).

Those two kills brought our overall score up to 12 ships sunk for 57,000 tons. That, of course, leaves me needing to bring in another 33,000 to pass the first career milestone at the end of February. What follows is way more analysis than you are likely to want to read about my chances for successfully doing so.