ORIGINAL: adarbrauner
did you create an asw group specifically to hunt this fellow over there, or does it patrol that area regardless?ORIGINAL: Aurorus
Off Truk, a Japanese ASW encountered an allied sub, which had been spotted (and reported hit) by Vals the day before.
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ASW attack near Truk at 111,108
Japanese Ships
DD Kasumi
DD Hamakaze
Allied Ships
SS Gudgeon, hits 1
This is much worse for the Gudgeon than it looks. She was reported to be leaking oil badly. I have had this happen to subs and they go to 0 endurance 3 days later. Of course, they do not always go to 0 endurance in 3 days, but The Gudgeon may be in serious trouble. It has been a tough war for allied subs, and the first group of Japanese DDs are upgrading now to the Type 2 depth charges, which do not always explode above the depth of the allied subs.
i'm writing this because I run usually very short of good hunting vessels out of their convoy escort duties, or even if I have, I'm usually unable to keep the track of all this.
Those are Kagero class DDs. I use them mostly for SCTFs. They happened to be at Truk because they are accompanying the heavy cruisers that bombarded Rabaul. Aerial naval search turned up two subs near Truk, so I sent them out hunting them while the cruisers repair a little system damage. Normally I use SCs for patrolling ports, but I am short of SCs for the first 6 months because I have a lot of cargo TFs moving about at this point and because the Japanese start short of good SCs that can make 19 or 20 knots and hunt subs. All the good SCs are needed for tankers for at least 6 months.
The Kageros happen to be one of only 2 classes of DD, along with the Fubuki Is, that have type 2 depth charges to start the war. All the other Japanese DDs have the early war depth charges that cannot drop below 150 ft., which is why you often see the message, "depth charge explodes above sub's depth" when early war Japanese DDs try to attack subs in deep water. I had some Kamikaze DDs at Truk too, but I used the Kageros for the better depth charges.
