First of all, as I'm diving for the final approach on a group, after I've got their speed, route, and maybe even the zig-zag lengths, I do the dive at normal TC, 1x, so that I hear the "Passing thermal layer" comment. I then go another 50-100 foot below that and hang out at a 1 knot speed setting, and like you, double-check my gauges and make certain that I'm below 50 rpm. I've used the nomograph, etc., every tool I can remember to think of to help me get into proper position, so that as the lead DD passes overhead, I'm coming up in the middle of the group. Or maybe I'm slipping through a "hole" in the side. While I'm doing all that, I'm setting my torps' depth & speed, and maybe the angle, if I'm reasonably certain of my solution, and know about where I'll be shooting from (very seldom). A thermal layer deep, like below 300 foot complicates that exponentially, of course. When the group's escorts are getting to be within hydrophone range, I go "Silent Running". Then, about 30 minutes later, I get depth-charged...
- sometimes. I did end up dying just a little bit ago in that scenario. One of the other escorts came back, after the group "held" about 5 miles from me. Then the DD did the old "wagon wheel" on top of me, taking turns in their depth charge runs, one always listening. I had been almost 30 minutes again without any raining down on me, and had most of the damage repaired that could be, except of course, the hull damage. Once the "Boom!!" started again, it was another point about of hull damage, for each explosion, sometimes five. Didn't take 'em long... It was almost like the one fellow was dropping one on either side of me, and the next would drop one above and one below. What a wild ride... Panic was in the air for just a little bit, and then the ole SH4 "death" screen, where you wonder if the computer crashed for about a minute... I wish they would have come up with something else for that...
As for the canal, how did you travel through? Did you hear any "Banshee Skreaching"? Like you were running over an anti-sub net? There are none there in FotRSU, if that's what you were using. However, there is one little thing about the game, when it comes to navigating in tight places, like a canal. If you look at the "lay of the land" in the Mission Editor, it actually looks quite a bit like it does on the NavMap, as far as the "jaggies" go:
But notice that I've got the "View" menu open, and selecting the "Render accurate shoreline"? That yields a slightly different picture:
They do not have that in the NavMap view, only the "jaggie" shoreline. Notice how the land and sea are displaced in different places? This is why sometimes, you just have to be on the bridge, personally driving the boat. It just might be that you scraped bottom or the sides in a couple of spots, which is entirely too easy to do if doing Waypoint navigating, especially if you do TC above 8x and don't get to hear all the warning sounds... Myself, I have not tried to go through there, but I will now. Then I might try the Suez, and a few others...
- If you look closely at the map in the ME, you'll notice some "odd" changes from land to water in there, especially the west end of Gatun Lake, and up by Colon, which is where it appears that the adjoining grid was not edited the same, so it might also be that there are "pillars of death" in there, like we had at Truk in an earlier version of FotRSU, which you would not see those, unless on the bridge the whole time.
