The Non Plus Ultra shot

[Urge]

I have to disagree with this quote from RR...
The difficulty of a no-peek shot, especially sonar only, is why it is the single most satisfying kill in Silent Hunter 4. I have attempted and made sonar only shots and they are challenging but I would have to say that my most difficult and satisfying shot was the one that follows. Full disclosure statement: I play at 90% realism(map contacts and external camera) SH4 v1.4+TMO+NSM. It was night time in the Bismark Sea summer of 43 (hey, wasn't that a movie) and my crew picked up a small convoy. It was 4 merchants(in 2 columns) and one destroyer. I was out ahead of the convoy and had lots of time to set up so I decided to go for a fairly extreme distance shot on a 45° attack angle. I planned to shoot at 6300 yds at the nearest column. Everything was lining up nicely and I noticed that the far column was just ahead of the near column from my perspective as they were passing my aiming point so I fired 2 at the ship in the far column(over 7000 yds) just before my primary target at 6300 yds was passing the aiming point. I think the closer ship was just starting to pass the one farther out from my line of sight. I fired 5 shots in rapid succession and went to external camera to watch what happened( I don't know how anyone can play without an external camera, you spend all this time tracking and plotting targets for one reason and it's really the whole focus of the game so how can you not watch it? A lot of times you have to be diving deep and evading those nasty destroyers and can't hang around looking thru the periscope but you can switch to external view and watch while you are working on your evasion strategy.) Well, this my first try at uploading screenshots so wish me luck...Edit...somehow I screwed up the order of the pics, the order you are seeing them in is 3-2-1-4 instead of the logical progression-we grow too soon old and too late smart
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5880/sh4img20081126113100828ni6.jpg
and here we can see that things aren't going well for the convoy
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4889/sh4img20081126113056140oc4.jpg
I hit the near ship just seconds before the far column hit

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6960/sh4img20081126112940750qa4.jpg
this shot is after firing torpedos, you can see the two columns of ships

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5241/sh4img20081126113130968fm8.jpg
here is my plot set up

So, 5 shots 4 hits 2 kills 6300yds-7000yds+ The beauty of this attack angle on a convoy is you have a reasonable chance of sloppy seconds(hopefully I don't get suspended like Sean Avery) on the far column if you miss your initial target even if you didn't intend to fire at them or in addition to whatever shots you did fire. As an added bonus, I find that shooting from very long range keeps me out of trouble with the destroyers. They sometimes get confused and don't know where to look and/or I have a huge lead on them if they do come after me. I became interested in extreme range shots after reading what Mush Martin does at 8-9000 yds. check out these threads for some pics and tactics...

file:///G:/SH4addons/Multiship_Targeting.htm

file:///G:/SH4addons/Targeting_Problems.htm

I'm just a hack having modest success with lots of practice (and failure). Mush is a Zen Master at this and I can't thank him enough for the tutoring he gave me. Food for thought, you might live to fight another day using this technique and it just feels Sooo good when it works and I think if you pay attention to detail you can ultimately have a relatively high rate of success. So whats YOUR greatest thrill in SH4?

Urge

[tale]

Nice shots Urge and good technique, but this time I have to agree with Rocking Robins.

Satisfaction comes from overcoming difficulty and I believe that sonar only attacks are very, very difficult. In fact I think that long range attacks like yours are close to impossible.

Try this: next time you go to home port unmark the map contacts update option and then try to measure the speed and course of a target at 6000+ yards. At this ranges the inaccuracy of the results you get makes it impossible (at least for me) to perform a successful attack.

With more realism first comes frustration, things you did before are more difficult or not possible any more, but eventually the satisfaction comes back and it's greater than before.

So for me the most demanding but still possible attack is the ones without visual contact (sonar-only) attacks. My personal best is a sonar-only double target attack, hard like hell and most of the times a waste of torpedoes specially in TMO where the merchants change course so often and seem to hear your pings if you send them too often.

[SteamWake]

Nice set of shots there.

I wouldent recommend trying this in the daytime ;)

[Urge]

Posted by SteamWake
I wouldent recommend trying this in the daytime

Why?

Urge

[aanker]

Probably because of the torpedo trail although a while ago I surprised myself with a daylight periscope shot at approx 6,000 yds. They should have seen the bubbles.

I agree with you about the external view. Along with viewing the results - the ship models in general are well done IMO ... especially nice with Fred's camera mod.

Happy Hunting!

Art

[Rockin Robbins]

It just plain wouldn't work in the daytime. There is one disadvantage of the 45º attack, and that is that with a longitudinal spread as you shot, all the targets have to do is turn toward about 20º as soon as they see the torpedo wakes and the torpedoes pass harmlessly ahead. All the torpedoes are advancing toward the convoy in a single line. If you avoid that line, they miss.

Now if you were to do the more complicated stern, MOT, bow spread, you would have a divergent spread, maximum separation between torpedo tracks and a more difficult to avoid spread. But of course, that is more difficult to shoot. At night or in bad weather you did it exactly right.

The other thing that makes your shot difficult is that half of torpedoes quit at between 3,000 and 3,500 yards. Only about a third or a quarter will reach the range that you shot them. So you were fantastically fortunate that your torpedoes reached that extreme range.

I agree with you on the external camera. It sure would be good if the replay were a perfect substitute, but it doesn't let you just play it back from the point of view of the submarine with freedom to take any station or external camera to watch. The replay function just isn't functional enough. So I play with external camera enabled too. And I believe that playing with TMO or TMOplot and map contacts on is more historically accurate than playing with map contacts off. To its credit, RFB recognizes our chosen configuration as 100% realism. I say that's accurate.

Fabulous screenshots. I'll grant that's close to a sonar only kill.

[Urge]

posted by tale...
In fact I think that long range attacks like yours are close to impossible.
are you referring to my attack or to a similar attack using sonar only? I have done this multiple times and have evolved the attack(RRs suggestion) to include swinging around for a stern Dick Okane shot after the 45° attack. When I miss on these shots(the long range 45° attacks) it's almost always with the torpedos passing just ahead of the target(in most cases if I put on a 1° offset they would hit). I can't figure this out cause I check and recheck my course and speed.
My personal best is a sonar-only double target attack, hard like hell and most of the times a waste of torpedoes specially in TMO where the merchants change course so often
Kudos to you sir, I am impressed! Never done that but will have to try now. I already see a lot of wasted torpedos in my future. Don't you hate it when you spend all that time setting up an attack and they change course just before you shoot and then they do it a couple more times-ARRGG(did I spell that right?)
RR wrote...
The other thing that makes your shot difficult is that half of torpedoes quit at between 3,000 and 3,500 yards. Only about a third or a quarter will reach the range that you shot them. So you were fantastically fortunate that your torpedoes reached that extreme range.
I have read that before from you but other than preemies(an infrequent occurance) I don't have that issue. Is that an RFB thing? Almost all of my torpedos go approximately their stated distance.

Urge

[tale]

posted by tale...
In fact I think that long range attacks like yours are close to impossible. are you referring to my attack or to a similar attack using sonar only? I have done this multiple times and have evolved the attack(RRs suggestion) to include swinging around for a stern Dick Okane shot after the 45° attack. When I miss on these shots(the long range 45° attacks) it's almost always with the torpedos passing just ahead of the target(in most cases if I put on a 1° offset they would hit). I can't figure this out cause I check and recheck my course and speed.

I meant your attack, but first let me tell you I have never played TMO with map contacts update on so I don't know if Ducimus took out part of the unrealistic satellite, laser accuracy view of the enemy from the attack map that you get in the stock game wiht map contacts on.

In the stock game with map contacts on you get a perfectly accurate representation of the enemy ships updated in real time, so calculating speed and course is piece of cake. You don't even have to mess with the stadimeter or the recognition book any more. And you can perform looong distance attacks with the confidence of having perfect data about the targets.

If on the other hand you don't see the targets position in the attack map updated in real time you have to start using the radar (if you have one), the sonar, the recognition book and the stadimeter, all very inaccurate at long distances; and then you can consider lucky or experienced if you hit something further than 2500 yards off


My personal best is a sonar-only double target attack, hard like hell and most of the times a waste of torpedoes specially in TMO where the merchants change course so often Kudos to you sir, I am impressed! Never done that but will have to try now. I already see a lot of wasted torpedos in my future. Don't you hate it when you spend all that time setting up an attack and they change course just before you shoot and then they do it a couple more times-ARRGG(did I spell that right?)
Don't think I am an expert at this, I could only do it two or three times. In fact to capture the footage for a video tutorial on the topic I had to repeat the attack like four times, and I had to do it on stock because Ducimus evil merchants were unable to keep a straight course for long enough, I think they can hear my pings or something

[Urge]

If you can pull off sonar only double target attacks you can do these also. practice, practice, practice

tale posted...
If on the other hand you don't see the targets position in the attack map updated in real time you have to start using the radar (if you have one), the sonar, the recognition book and the stadimeter, all very inaccurate at long distances;

Have you seen this mod?

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=111371

You can dial in ranges out to 10-11000 yds or so. In the thread Munchausen tweaks the mod further. I had a little trouble installing it but he straightened me out. Great mod.

Urge