A few books returned recently to my reading rotation. Silent Victory, Thunder Below, Clear the Bridge and the usual suspects. It is amazing the effect it has. As I read through them, I get overcome with the urge to return to the sea. It is so inspiring. Same thing last year with Hitler's U Boat War, and before long I was back in command, and you can read about it here

War Patrols of U-46


For a long time now I've wanted to give FotRSU a go, it's one I have never played. Instead I installed Trigger Maru Overhauled 2.5. I like this mod a lot and maybe I'll give Rising Sun a shot down the line. Spent some time deciding which career start to use. My last one was New Construction from Mare Island in 1942. This time I chose middle 1942 out of Pearl. Installed the aft deck gun mod and took command of USS Kingfish, a Gato and set off with a mission to insert agents at Majuro. Good area, between Saipan and Truk. I'm snapping pics and kicking around a new AAR. Unlike German boats, where I play dead is dead until I'm dead or the war ends (mostly dead), in US boats I restrict myself to four or five patrols, so an AAR isn't quite the workload. We'll see.

And also unlike German boats, I'll restart until I get command of a boat that was not sunk in the war. So it was I got Kingfish. It's good to be back at sea once again

I took Kingfish to Majuro only to find I had not unchecked "no map contact updates" So I had to start over. All other difficulty settings are checked. So it was I became skipper of Guardfish, one of the most famous boats of the war. This is the boat that 'watched the Tokyo horse races, placing bets'. Of course that's a war-time embellishment that made for good copy at a time when the nation was desperate for good news.

Given no special mission this time, but again to the Marianas. It's been successful so far, sending two good freighters to the bottom. It took some time to adjust to the US equipment, but not too long. My approach and attack methods are the same in German and American boats, but the way the solution data is entered is different between the two.TMO is a difficult mod, with skilled enemies and authentic torpedo performance, but by shooting salvos of four I've been able to cover the faults well enough.

I'm snapping pics and taking notes with the intention of doing an AAR. Maybe not much interest so I'll kick it around. But it's great to be back in command of an attack submarine once again.