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Old 09-07-08, 10:37 AM   #2
Bosje
Seasoned Skipper
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
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first of all, you'll want to manually check the hydrophones every two hours or so, specially while you are lying in ambush near obvious shipping lanes. your sonar guy and early war hydrophones are not to be fully relied upon to get you your beloved contacts.

if you check the map, you'll see the British westcoast ports (the ones from greenock down to plymouth). the brits dedicated each of those ports to specific goods and services while they shut down the east coast ports for anything except limited coastal shipping. so the big freighters and, gradually more important, convoys all have to reach a specific one of those Western ports. That means they have to go either north or south around Ireland and into the waters in between Ireland and England. Those two relatively narrow lanes above and below Ireland are the infamous Western Approaches and that is where they all go. this is where all the action happened in WW1 and it's where the action starts in WW2

later the Brits get their defenses organized better and you should find yourself driven out of these rich hunting grounds. Don't worry, simply extend those lines to the US and down around the Iberian peninula. Rockall Banks is almost sure to provide you with targets, so is the western end of the entrance to Gibraltar Strait

I myself only just started on OpMon 400 and I think that the shipping is, in fact, very realistic. you have to work to get some ships sunk they don't just fly into your mouth wherever you are. Do the hydrophone checks regularly and you'll pick up some targets that would have otherwise passed you by.

if you have SH3 with GWX, you'll find an ingame map with some much-used shipping lanes. do a bit of research too, you'll figure out where to go hunting

hope it helps
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