First harbor sinking for me!

[mpugsley]

My first large ship sunk in a harbor! First patrol with Type IIA out of Kiel.
British auxilliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) in Scapa Flow

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mpugsley/SH3Img@11-7-2005_22.22.46_687.JPG

Did a good job of evading destroyers and had night to help me on my way out. Unfortunately, I ran over a sub net on the way out... sank because I didn't assign people to the most important room until it was too late. First time with serious damage. Didn't know how to handle it. Does a completely filled room always sink the ship? Or just when it's the control room?

[Duli]

Any room filled with water sinks the ship.

[cueceleches]

Scapa Flow and early in the war??? Hey, here we have the new Günter Prien! Congrats man! Scapa is a difficult one! :up: :up:

[grunf]

Not too difficult if you go through the west channel :up:

[Duli]

Yep, if you go through the west channel, its pretty easy. Its much more difficult if you go through the south one. I did go through the south one 3 times, and I barely escaped after the attack. Now I am entering and exiting through the west one, and its quite easy.

[PaulB]

A well done kill :)

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but since we are no the subject of "first harbour sinkings"....

I am in Nov 1939; VIIB, and have found a Nelson class battleship in Loch E, and I'm working on sinking it. It took multiple hits and is listing badly (basically, at 90 degrees lol), but the water is show shallow that it still has its guns on the surface...some of them anyway...

I didn't want to waste any more fish, so I went from its 'hull' side, surfaced, and thought to try the guns...But I got pounded by the land units.

Will reload and run further out before I surface...Any clues as to the range of the land units?

But since I've got a save before I even started the attack - any advice on how to get this sucker downed at once?

[cyclops]

get at a 90 degree angle on him and aim under the forward turrets. That is were his ammo bunker is located and it is huge.

[Zie Chuckinator]

yea deck armor is really weak.

[PaulB]

Well, I guess I missed the sweet spot. It still took him 3 or so to go down.....I went to his other side and shot the last one that blew him up. Exited port and headed to the ocean at flank lol but that was a nice 36000 tons.

[mpugsley]

Thanks, guys :)

Nice kill PaulB!

I came in on the above attack through the south channel. I was lucky at having a heavy thunderstorm at night. That's actually what inspired me to go in. I hadn't planned on going in earlier. But with the great weather, it was easy to go in on the initial approach on surface. Once I got close to the south entrance (where the two pieces of land come together, close to my cursor in the second picture below), I went 12 m (so that the heavy waves wouldn't reveal me when a low spot passed over) and stayed at ahead slow. Took about a whole day (game time and almost real time at very low tc, often 1xTC) to get to the target at ahead slow and stopping machines at various times.

I admit that I did cheat a bit by using external camera to occasionally *confirm* some sonar contacts. It didn't provide me with new information, but did make me feel better about my 'honest' estimates acquired through scope and sonar use. Once I made it into the harbor, I also used the external camera to scout the harbor to see if anything was worth my while and the general vicinity of the target(which is certainly new information that I didn't earn). Apart from that, I was honest in using the scope and sonar to make my approach once I learned that it was worth my while. Used RUb 1.42, 91% realism, manual targetting (which isn't a big deal for a stationary target, of course). I had unchecked external view and also God's eye, the latter suggested by Beery in the RUb readme. God's eye gave me some dashes on sonar that would update (as shown below).

As for sinking the ship quickly, I used the following page to determine weak spots:http://www.communitymanuals.com/shiii/index.php?title=Ship_Weak_Spots. Since a picture of an auxiliary cruiser is actually used, it was quite helpful. I aimed for spot 4 in the picture on that page. The cruiser started moving shortly before impact, so it hit closer to spot 3. Used 2 magnetics, fired one after another, not salvo, at 1.8 m below keel.

Six angry warships after the sinking...
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mpugsley/theescape.JPG


Here's where my escape broke down due to the sub net.
(picture removed, because I just realized that pointing out the net could be a spoiler for folks; there is a sub net here somwheres...)

[Zie Chuckinator]

let me guess, scappa flow, west channel?

[mpugsley]

Actually, no. Here's a url for anyone who doesn't mind a spoiler. Maybe you can pretend that this is reconassiance from someone who survived the net. :)

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mpugsley/subnet.JPG

My submarine is almost on top of the net in this picture. Just about to hit it.

Thanks for the info on flooding, Duli.

[jmaisc]

Hi guys,

Do you use any MOD to get ships in Harbour????
I've managed to get into some harbours and they were all empty, not a single ship...I could dock my sub in any plave because they were all empty.

And its frustrating to have a lot of work to pass by the patrol boats and get inside the habour to find out that it was worthless, and have to got through the same patrol boats again on the way out... :damn:

[Gunfighter34]

In the default game you will find vessels in the harbors only on specific dates, and it's very rare. Someone more knowledgeable than me might be able to post a link to where you can find the dates/harbors/vessels just so you can check them out (and maybe put some fish into a fat Nelson if you like!). I don't use them, personally.

What I would definitely suggest is installing JGSME and then putting in the latest version (1.44) of Rubini's Harbour Traffic Mod. This really adds a LOT of life to the game, including traffic in both friendly and enemy ports, AI u-boats coming and going, and sometimes even Allied air strikes on the German sub bases! Once you've installed it you can even change to a version with no mines and torpedo nets if you like (if you're a wussy like me).

Just do a search of the forums for JGSME and Harbour Traffic Mod 1.44 or look in the SH3 Mods section for more info and post there if you need any help.

Oh, and no, this isn't a paid advertisement, I'm just a happy end-user. :)

[jmaisc]

Thanks Gunfighter.

[Nopileo]

... and here is a list of where and when to find capital ships in ports (towards bottom page):

http://edseek.com/archives/2005/05/04/silent-hunter-iii-survival-guide/

[Col7777]

I asked this in another thread as a side issue, but talking of Scapa Flow, there was a channel in SH2 on the east side but on the map in SH3 it doesn't seem to be there, it just seem a long way round seeing as the mission places you on the east side.
I did go in the south entrance and it went easy, but coming out was a bit different.

[Gunfighter34]

Yeah, in SH3 there's only the South Channel and West Channel. I'd highly advise the West Channel, especially if you're running at higher realism settings.

[ReM]

The real channel (Kirk Sound) that Prien used is not in the game.
Check out this chart (only shows eastern part of Scapa Flow)
http://members.home.nl/rem/MapScapaPrien.jpg

This was also the only possibility to enter Scapa...
Check out this chart and see that all major entrances are blocked..Kirk Sound is on the right side of the map. Entering west or south is virtually impossible
http://members.home.nl/rem/scapa_flow.jpg

If I enter Scapa I take the south entrance and hug the coast to the west of this entrance. There is a big opening in the subnet there.
In SHII I used to prefer the western approach....
Not a regular visitor though... :D

[Col7777]

I thought the real channel wasn't there, next time I'll try the west channel as you advise, thanks guys.

[Gunfighter34]

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. Heck, they didn't even model the Kiel Canal.