Japanese TB's caught fishing

[Jeff Leslie]

Finally got payback today against a group of pesky Japanese TB's near Ulsan. Looks like they were parked off a good fishing area and had all dropped lines with hopes of catching dinner....

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/apd1004/Distant_Guns_Campaign1_1700762_seco.jpg

Looks like the fish are really jumpin' !!!

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/apd1004/Distant_Guns_Campaign1_1701267_seco.jpg

Hmmm.... I don't think those are fish......

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/apd1004/Distant_Guns_Campaign1_1701351_seco.jpg

I figured they would pick up and at least move somewhere when the Russians approached. Not until there were 2 of them left did they decide it was time to pull up their lines and vacate the area.

When this engagement started the Russian cruisers were deployed at the edge of visual range, around 30k distant. Soon after the start, another group of TB's (not part of this debacle) headed north to engage the Russian cruisers while the group shown appeared to have turned tail to run south - these TB's in the screenshots were moving away from the Russian cruisers at one point in the battle. After dealing with the brave group, I headed back south because for some reason the battle didn't end when I sunk the brave group so I figured something was still on the map even though it appeared empty. This group here had distanced themselves and were not visible on the mini-map, but even though they were out of sight they didn't kick of a battle end. Lo and behold, this is how I found them when I finally acquired them again, dead in the water just outside the visibility of the Russian cruisers.

[SunScream]

I've seen this sort of behaviour too. I believe it is caused by a collision in the flotilla, which presumably either damages the propulsion of one of the boats in collision or the PO gets confused over collision avoidance and gives up and refuses to move at all.
The remainder of the flotilla reduce speed to keep station and then all park up until the arguing over insurance has finished.

The only other alternative I can think of is that the high speed retreat performed by the boats in the earlier engagement exhausted their coal stocks. I wonder if a collier will turn up?

[Daedalus]

I have found that if they have been at sea for quite awhile they will slow down to save fuel.
The way Norm has it programed is for them to not run out at sea, but I think it also makes for some slow speeds. I am not sure that this is what happend to you.
If you sink the ship that is damaged if there is one then the next in rank will take over. And then they will speed up.

I will say one thing, they are not hard to sink but you can waste a lot of ammo fighting them, so I try not to get into a big battle with the little ones till I am on my way back to port.

[Jeff Leslie]

I will say one thing, they are not hard to sink but you can waste a lot of ammo fighting them, so I try not to get into a big battle with the little ones till I am on my way back to port.

You are absolutely right there - they were sitting at like 52% ammo after this engagement, so I had to go home earlier than I wanted to. I figured it would be easier to hit them since they aren't moving but they still wasted a lot of ammo. Even when I slowed down to like 10 knots they were still hard to hit.

Also, I got in pretty close to these guys at one point, and I did take a little damage from their 47mm guns, mostly from open gun mounts and torpedo mounts on the cruisers. I still have yet to see any ammo spent from my 47mm & smaller guns though.