can't get rid of destroyers

[Dronston]

Patrol 8, january '41. On my way back to Lorient and I'm at the south entrance of the Irish Sea when I stumble upon a large convoy. I have two eels left in the bow and two in the stern so I decide to try and sink the biggest ship in the convoy which happened to be a British tanker. I had to get within 4 km because I only had electric eels. I release the torpedoes and immediately dive to 90 meters (max depth in this area) and switch to silent running. In the same time I return to my Lorient course. With 50 rpm I hope to sneak away but soon I hear the ominous ping of a destroyer and the depth bombing begins. The destroyer asks 2 others for help and now they take turns trying to blast me out the water.

They have been chasing me for over 3 and a half hours now! So far I only sustained minor damage. They don't seem to run out of depth charges and they don't give up. I am used that at some point they will return to the convoy but that must be over 30 km's away now. I am getting close to 50% of my batteries.

My tactic to avoid depth charges is to go at 1 knot and when my hydrophone oprator informs me of charges in the water I go to full speed.
All 3 boats seem to have sonar so I can't sneak away. In the end I will have to surface. For the moment I am going the opposite direction of the convoy in the hope the destroyers will soon return to them.

I am considering to go to periscope depth and try to take out 2 destroyers with my aft torpedoes but I know this means almost certain death and will in the best scenario still leave one destroyer.
Any tips to get out of my situation?

[Aktungbby]

Well if OTTO Kretschmer could endure the humility so can you. Destroy your enigma. and all codes. Set your charges and blow ballast. Remember your thankyou to the crew speech and have your cleanest T-shirt on a pole so they don't open fire as you broach...you or the exec must handle that detail and it could be dangerous. The fatherland thanks U.......

[vanjast]

You still have 4.5 hours to go before you beat my record .. Track them on the hydrophone and always follow (turn towards) the one that attacks you.. but only after the attack, as this is the next one that will ping you. A gap will soon appear when they're all on the same side... this is when you 'beam' away from the scene.

[Dronston]

@Aktungbby thanks for the moral support

@vanjast wow, I really hope it won't last that long...
I am not sure what you mean with 'beam away', does that mean speeding away or sneaking away?
Problem I have now is one destroyer starts a run and even before the last depth charge explodes the next in line is already pinging me...I feel I have no chance to escape except for if they leave the scene eventually. I guess I'll take my chances and preserve battery power as much as I can to buy more time. If necessary I will try to attack on my last 10% or so. How I wish settling on the bottom would work...

[Kommandant_Wesser]

i was in this scenario in american i was assigned to raid a harbur and i was getting depth charged at 15 meters i had to ride the bottom (17meters) to escape at 1 knot.

[sublynx]

NYGM, GWX, LSH or vanilla? What is the sea condition and visibility? Day or night? Do you use Stiebler's and/or h.sie's mods? Do you have a guesstimate of who the escorts are? Are they equally good at detecting you? Do they have radar? Any corvettes? Have they lost contact with you for a longer time?

90 meters is pretty awful. I sure hope the seas are at least rough. One mistake I've done is to take the depth charges in the water alarm too seriously. Often the dc's are dropped quite a distance from me. If you cause noise by escaping faster they might spot you again. Changing depth at times and maybe even 0 Rpm at times might be of help. Try to guess where the escort depth charging you is going to turn aftef its run and turn away from it. Go port if it turns to starboard. The one dc'ing you might not be the one that needs to be avoided most. It might be the one going very slowly perhaps listening to you.When you have to use speed try to gain distance to the one escort that you think is the best at spotting you.

I hope someone with shallow water experience can help you with some hints. I haven't been hunted in those kind of waters in years.

Good luck!

[Dronston]

@Aktungbby you suggest giving up before actual defeat. This will not do sir, this will not do. At least not yet...

[Dronston]

Originally Posted by sublynx

NYGM, GWX, LSH or vanilla? What is the sea condition and visibility? Day or night? Do you use Stiebler's and/or h.sie's mods? Do you have a guesstimate of who the escorts are? Are they equally good at detecting you? Do they have radar? Any corvettes? Have they lost contact with you for a longer time?

90 meters is pretty awful. I sure hope the seas are at least rough. One mistake I've done is to take the depth charges in the water alarm too seriously. Often the dc's are dropped quite a distance from me. If you cause noise by escaping faster they might spot you again. Changing depth at times and maybe even 0 Rpm at times might be of help. Try to guess where the escort depth charging you is going to turn aftef its run and turn away from it. Go port if it turns to starboard. The one dc'ing you might not be the one that needs to be avoided most. It might be the one going very slowly perhaps listening to you.When you have to use speed try to gain distance to the one escort that you think is the best at spotting you.

I hope someone with shallow water experience can help you with some hints. I haven't been hunted in those kind of waters in years.

Good luck!

GWX. Sea is calm, flat no waves whatsoever, at the moment it's about 1 pm, no clouds, visibilty at max... No Stiebler's and/or h.sie's mods. No idea who the escorts are, all seem equally 'talented'. I'm not good at understanding the difference between destroyers and corvettes, one of them is smaller than the res, don't know if they have radar, they never saw me on the surface or detected me before my attack.

The way I try to escape is to go slow (silent running of course) until depth charges are released, than I speed up to avoid them, sometimes I order hard rudder starboard or port. As soon as I think the last charge detonated or when they explode far away I order 1 knot again. I tried to vary my depth but I need some water above me to outrun the charges. Problem in this case is that I am being constantly pinged so I never seem to be 'lost'.

I also tried to just hover in the water at 0 speed but that almost got me killed and damaged my forward deck and cannon and flak gun. I guess I will also avoid shallow waters for a while if I survive this ordeal.

[Aktungbby]

Well I suspect your up against a well trained 'hunt to destruction' oriented flotilla with its act together and in shallow water to boot. " One highly successful tactic employed by Walker was the creeping attack, where two ships would work together to keep contact with a U –boat whilst attacking; a refinement of this was the barrage attack, which had three or more sloops in line to launch depth charges to saturate the area with depth charges in a manner similar to a rolling barrage by artillery in advance of an infantry attack." It's a little early in the war yet for Johnny Walker. You'd best have some of the Schnapps yourself and hand out the medic's medicinal brandy...that water's cold. Have a better day than Prien or Schepke! It's what I love about SHII: the option to surrender! Who want's to die for an Austrian corporal who doesn't like the navy anyhow-" At sea I am a coward"-der Fuhrer!???

[Dronston]

But, but, but it's supposed to be the happy times for us at this stage of the war...

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Well I suspect your up against a well trained 'hunt to destruction' oriented flotilla with its act together and in shallow water to boot. " One highly successful tactic employed by Walker was the creeping attack, where two ships would work together to keep contact with a U –boat whilst attacking; a refinement of this was the barrage attack, which had three or more sloops in line to launch depth charges to saturate the area with depth charges in a manner similar to a rolling barrage by artillery in advance of an infantry attack." It's a little early in the war yet for Johnny Walker. You'd best have some of the Schnapps yourself and hand out the medic's medicinal brandy...that water's cold. Have a better day than Prien or Schepke! It's what I love about SHII: the option to surrender! Who want's to die for an Austrian corporal who doesn't like the navy anyhow-" At sea I am a coward"-der Fuhrer!???

[Downunderjock]

Hi.

Have you ever tried it let them (the destroyers.) Leap Frog over you???

It sometimes, works. But make sure your periscope is completely down, first.

Go a full steam ahead, at periscope depth, letting them chase you. Don't alter your course.

And no more than about two maybe three of them, you do this too.

In some cases, you may not receive a lot of damage, or maybe none. (depending on the game setting for realism, you have set up.)

And admittedly, you may get major damage, but you might just take a few of them, too.

If it work's for you. You may see some limp away from you badly, or after going over the top of you, sink then and there, away from you.

Did this in SH4 and SH5, too.


See Ya

[Dronston]

Sounds like a risky strategy but I may try it when I feel I have no options left, it may even help me get rid of the third destroyer if I can torpedo the other two.

Originally Posted by Downunderjock

Hi.

Have you ever tried it let them (the destroyers.) Leap Frog over you???

It sometimes, works. But make sure your periscope is completely down, first.

Go a full steam ahead, at periscope depth, letting them chase you. Don't alter your course.

And no more than about two maybe three of them, you do this too.

In some cases, you may not receive a lot of damage, or maybe none. (depending on the game setting for realism, you have set up.)

And admittedly, you may get major damage, but you might just take a few of them, too.

If it work's for you. You may see some limp away from you badly, or after going over the top of you, sink then and there, away from you.

Did this in SH4 and SH3, too.


See Ya

[sublynx]

Oh my. You really have a tough situation. More water and/or worse weather the next time would make survival easier. You need to lose the pinging. When I say lose I don't mean not hearing it, but the sound getting weak. When the pinging is strong you know they know exactly where you are. There's a "we see you" ping and a "searching" ping, and a "almost found you" ping - the only difference being the strength of the noise. You need to go fast and turn until you guess the pinging sound indicates they have lost contact. At that time you go back to silent running (or even 0 RPM but just for few seconds or tens of seconds) and you turn with the speed burst you still have from the higher RPM's. Turn to the direction you estimate gains the most distance to the escorts. Then you keep the course straight and steady if the pinging doesn't indicate they are pinpointing you again.

The small ship is probably a corvette. In my experience they often act as eyes for the destroyers with larger stock of depth charges. He might drop his own RPM's quite often to listen to you. You might consider trying to escape the hydrophone contact with the quietest noise - but first you need to use that prescious battery power to lose the pinging.

[danasan]

It could end like this ...

Good luck is all you need now .

[sublynx]

Here's a picture on the avoiding thing:



If you manage to shake them off for an instance, in GWX I remember sometimes being able to just keep a steady silent course with no changes to the course. In NYGM that wouldn't work, at least to my knowledge. Of course the 90 meters depth might make that impossible.

And what the picture doesn't take into account is the fact there is a 3rd escort that you also need to avoid. It is probably making DC runs against you as well, so probably the spotter is the one that you need to avoid most.

The depth charge attackers lose contact momentarily after every run. They can't ASDIC to their stern. The spotter who keeps listening to you might have a contact on you all the time. He's the biggest threat, but he is also slow, as he needs to be almost dead in water in order to hear you.

Use your speed bursts to gain distance to the one who is listening. The speed bursts are not only for the purpose of avoiding the explosions.

One thing more. You probably know it already, but some others might not know that the sound of explosions in SH3 don't hinder the escorts from listening to you. In the good old days with Aces in the Deep, you almost welcomed a good DC'ing because the ruckus enabled one to cruise away at flank speed until it was quiet again.