Turn 14: Skipjack, again

17—23 March 1942

One of the interesting (occasionally maddening/occasionally thrilling) facets of this game is how wildly variable the weekly results can be. Relatively small swings in “luck” can result in major swings in weekly scores—one roll of a 3 when what you needed was a 2 might cost you half your week’s haul (with the converse being obviously true as well).

Glamour shot!

The variability stems mainly from two facts.  First, you make a large number of low (or very low) odds attacks. You might well take 20 shots, say, but you’re only going to have a reasonable expectation of about three of them resulting in kills. But let’s say you get a little unluckier than you expect, and sink only two targets. That’s only changing one result out of 20 tries—hardly a big deal when you look at it that way—but it’s crushing your yield by 33%!

Second, the tonnage of the individual targets you’re shooting at is itself highly variable. One shot might be at a tiny 1,000 ton freighter, the next at a 10,000 ton oiler, and the next at a 20,000 ton behemoth. If you get your great rolls on the first of those three rather than the third—well, you will be cursing your dice’s lousy sense of the moment and looking at a very different score than what you might very easily have gotten.

To be sure, one expects these things to tend to even themselves out over long periods of time. On average, you’re going to be about average. Over the course of specific turns, though—well, meet my two pals “Feast” and “Famine.” Or maybe I should say meet “Famine,” because “Feast” doesn’t hang around here all that often.

With the foregoing in mind, let us consider this past week.

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 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.}

Turn 2: First blood

18 — 23 December 1941

It may be somewhat counterintuitive for a multi-year conflict, but the second week of the war is actually fairly pivotal—at least with regard to making the first career milestone.  Because the majority of the fleet deployed last turn, they’ll see their first chance of combat this week.  Then, regardless of their results, most of them will fail their endurance rolls, meaning that that they’ll head back to port and won’t hunt again until Turn 5 or 6.  Thus, Turns 3 and 4 inevitably will be very lean.  Therefore, some serious proverbial bacon needs to be brought home now—or that first milestone is going to be a real challenge.

In the actual event, the turn was a mixed bag. It saw the first enemy targets destroyed—but fewer than I would have liked, and at a higher cost than I can sustain.

It’s the top hat that makes it.

The week also brought the first ULTRA intelligence of the war, indicating increased enemy activity in the vicinity of the Solomons.  USS Skipjack was one of the boats tasked with acting on the information.  She’d been among the horde of boats that deployed from Manila at the onset of the war, originally intending to patrol around the Carolines.  Instead, she headed farther east, and encountered a small convoy almost immediately.  After a perfect approach, on the night of 16 December she put a torpedo into a small (2,000 ton) merchant, sinking it and claiming the first kill of the war.