Dealing with the threat

[Rwearjr]

Hi All,
I am really interested in your strategies for handling destroyers in TWoS.
I will share a few of my personal observations:

1. Deep water. I attempt to stay in water over 100m. If that target is so juicy I cant resist and, in shallow water then a couple of questions arise. Is the target on a heading which will place her in deep water? Are there any destroyers within hydrophone range? Can I wait until night to perform this attack? If she is alone, and more than 100Km off the coast and I have no warship hydro contacts I may well risk it. If any of the above aren't true then caution is advised. I attempted to shell a French small merchant of the east coast of Britain on my last patrol, and within 5 minutes had an airplane dropping DC on me. Luckily I was already at safe depth (I followed the depth rule and attacked in an area where I had 169m of depth. A destroyer also was called to the area, but I was long gone by then.

2. Convoys. I attacked a convoy off the coast of Norway on my present patrol. We attacked from within the convoy.
Sank two juicy targets for 11,000GRT in one swipe. But, we paid the price. The convoy had 5 outer ringed escorts, and we endured 6+ hours of depth charging and a hair raising evasion. We were nothing short of damn lucky to get out alive. The whole crew needed new underwear. In the future convoys escorted by more than two destroyers will be given serious scrutiny. Of course type and capability of escorts play in. Not to put too fine a point on it, but again in this scenario I had 300m of depth at my attack point, and it saved my crews lives. I believe in one of Berbsters posts I read about diving immediately following a convoy attack (not waiting on torps to hit) and staying at least 3000M away (when escorted) using the spread salvo method. Thus giving you precious time to get deep before the mayhem starts.

3. If you are detected. Decoys, and flank bell. Use Decoys wisely! I haven't actually counted, but I think there are around 10 decoys in my inventory, the UI doesn't list this to my knowledge. Careful with depth changes. They use precious compressed air, too many and you will be in trouble. Get as deep as you safely can. I am currently trying to get an estimate of how far away from escorts I should be before returning to silent run after a decoy/ flank bell escape. It would appear if you can get 5000+ meters away then perhaps you should consider silent speed/ all stop and course change. This depends on the lifespan of decoys, perhaps someone knows this? If so, use the stop watch and run flank bell until the decoy expires would seem wise. I have a question here also concerning ASDIC. Most of the destroyers I have encountered are equipped with ASDIC, and I am only in 1940. Not being a complete historian I thought this wasn't on a large portion of the British fleet until much later in the war? Is this accurate? Also, Is there thermal layer modeling in this game? Diving deep help avoid ASDIC?


4. Stay the hell out of this situation!

Any thoughts?

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi Rw
Convoys that are escorted are going to give you a hard time if you are too close.
That is why I prefer to attack as far away depending on the weather.
The closer you are to the convoy the bigger chance you will be pinged and your chance of an attack is over before it has begun.

I cannot ever remeber being far enough into a campaign to ever having decoys in SH5.
Peter

[jonass]

Hi guys,

I also am trying different tactics in evading the destroyers after an attack or encountering those pescy hunter-killer groups. Currently in September 1940 and getting ASDIC pinged a lot as per noted by you guys as well.

But, I am a bit confused. My most recent tactic I use is to dive to btw 140-160 meters and then just shut down engines and stay there until the DDs tire and return towards the convoy. The DDs do a zillion passses and drops a trillion deapth charges but either in the wrong place or to shallow.

This tactic has worked every time. Drawback of it is that the convoy is out of sight and I have to do a really good leg to get myself into pos again.

The real problem behind this tactic (which I believe shouldent work?) is that I can't seem to loose the DDs, no matter the depth I am at or if I sprint away just after the attack. They always seem to find me, no matter what (e.g. silent running etc.)

Any thoughs?

Using: TWOS 2.0.0 with 2.07 update

Cheers

[SS Norholm]

In the few weeks I've had SH5 & TWOS, I've mostly managed to avoid them pretty well.
Same tactics as you Jonass really, deep as poss, and quiet, then wait for them to move on.
All convoys I've attacked so far have been unescorted There was one with 6 escorts but all of the merchants were small/medium freighters, also outside of my patrol zone, so I left them alone for the above reasons! Not worth the risk.
I've killed a few destroyers though! Most to add to tonnage on way home, and in self defence.
The first one I killed was after I'd sunk a merchant about 40 miles east of Grimsby. It came over to investigate at full speed and I had nowhere to hide in 40m of water, so i went to periscope depth and sank it with a magnetic detonator on fast speed when it was within 1km!

And again today actually, on my way out of Trondheim, I'd lined up a 90 degree normal shot on it in the dark, got a little to close, and as I went to periscope depth they heard my engines slowing to a stop! It turns straight for me at 36 kts search lights blazing, i fired off a quick magnetic detonator from 800 meters, and she couldn't avoid it.
She must have rose 10ft above the water on detonation, completely broke its back, snapped her clean in half!
Looked a bit like this: ��


Very, very lucky though as I was dead to rights and she'd just started pinging!

But yeah, mostly just try and stay quiet and hope they f*ck off lol!

[Rwearjr]

Good stuff! Isn't it awesome when you get that great shot off on a warship coming to sink you! It's old west for sure, someone is gonna die, who is it gonna be?
A damn site better than the old days in SH5 when you could pretty much sink whatever you wanted until you got totally bored and threw the disc in the junk drawer as I did for the past 4 years.
So what do you guys think about thermal layer modeling? Is it in the game? I have to agree that so far getting below 100 meters, and going silent or all stop has been the best method I have found. I mentioned the decoys because in the encounter with the escorted convoy outside Bergen I actually used the Lot of my decoy inventory to escape. As I mentioned, it was literally by the hair of my chin. On that particular day every escort in the group had ASDIC. I was uncertain of my yet fully trained crew's ability depth wise, so I proceeded deeper with caution, but with death raining from above, and waiting below the choices were few.
Anyone have an idea on decoy run time as well?
I have to agree with Jonass, it does seem the destroyers are a little "too good" sometimes. I just chalk this up to the tweaking of the AI to get as much realism as possible. It's likely given the game parameters that this was the best that could be done. As for escaping DD's I used the depth charge evasion script supplied in your TWoS Script package twice, on the final attempt after several grueling hours of hiding and running I was able to get enough distance, and depth to lose them. They continued searching for yet another hour or so, and I ran silent when I could and All Stop when they were close. They even pinged around me a couple of times, but apparently weren't close enough to smell me, or the thermal layer was throwing them off? Not sure.
Rolf Weare, U-51

[SS Norholm]

Originally Posted by Rwearjr

So what do you guys think about thermal layer modeling? Is it in the game?

I'm interested about this too, I have noticed at times as I go deeper their red Sonar arc (ahem, I know it's a bit cheaty) fades at some point, and also gets a lot narrower.
Maybe thats it simulating me descending through the layers?

J

[Rwearjr]

Yes, I use this feature on my TAI Map as well. At least until I get a decent idea of British destroyer sonar/ hydro capability. Guess some could consider it a cheat, but think it's also historically incorrect to think a German Submarine captain would have absolutely zero knowledge of British destroyer capability.
I also use map contact update for the same reason. If this were a true working U-boat we would be plotting bearing and range of a target continuously. For me some of these issues come down to how much do you wish to do alone as the captain. I am content relegating the map contacts to my watch guy, and taking the hydro/ sonar info on the map as info I learned in Submariner school and via first hand experience. DOesn't obstruct my immersion in the least. Glad these items were left for each Captain to decide to taste.
Rolf Weare U-51