Turn 15: The end of the beginning

24—31 March 1942

USS Gato (SS-212)

Perhaps that title is a bit of an overstatement; perhaps not. More on that below.

The fourth month of the war drew to a close with a lukewarm performance. Most notably, The Troublemaker found her groove again. She had a disappointing (and scoreless) third war patrol, but her fourth was brief, violent, and successful. On the 24th, she attacked a large and heavily defended convoy in the Marshalls. She first brought down a 2,000 ton transport, and then an 8,000 ton oiler. In so doing, she has re-established her place alone at the top of the leader board, in both ships (5) and tonnage (24,000) sunk. She is presently heading back to port to rearm.

The total score for the week was 12,000, with USS Permit (SS-178) contributing the remaining 2,000. For the war, we are standing at 188,000—a good, solid total for the end of March.

And with the end of March comes the end of an era—although it might not seem so at first glance.

Turn 3: A quiet week (mostly)

24 — 31 December 1941

Shirts: optional.

As foretold, this week saw very little action.  It was characterized mainly by most of the fleet returning to port after failing their endurance rolls last week.  At least there were no Transit Events worth noting.

Of the seven damaged boats that were at sea at the beginning of the week, three made it to Pearl Harbor, with three more due in next week.  USS Trout—hit by that Diligent Escort in the very first combat action of the war—made it in, and her damage was found to be moderate.  USS Skipjack, who scored the service’s first kill, also made it; she was found to be more heavily damaged and will be out of action for a number of weeks.

I only sent one of the damaged boats (USS S-41, SS-146) to Manila.  As a general matter, I hate sending boats to be repaired there.  The Philippines, inevitably, are going to fall, and it could happen at any time.  Boats under repair (at least the ones in the R2 and R3 boxes) when that happens will have to be scuttled.  Moreover, the facilities at Pearl are so much better that it’s almost always worth an extra week of transit to send them back to Hawaii, in my opinion at least.  Luckily, S-41’s damage was found to be minor enough that she could put to sea in the event of an emergency evacuation.

Only six boats were on station to conduct combat operations this week.  All encountered the enemy, but five of the six failed to score a hit.  The experience of the USS Sailfish (SS-192) was particularly frustrating—first, she missed (by a mile) a 10,000 ton maru, and then a 10,000 ton AC.

Unbelievably, yet another boat was damaged by a counterattack, the USS Permit (SS-178).  This time, it had nothing to do with being overaggressive—just perfect execution and/or luck on the IJN’s part.  {It was the attack round, revealed ASW was 0, and I rolled a 9 on the counter.  Nothing you can do there.}