The great escape

[scalelokt]

Went on a patrol today, early 1940. Had the craziest thing happen. So I attack a convoy, hit a largo cargo ship with 2 fish and then two merchants with 1 fish each. Of course the escorts come flying toward me immediately so I dive to 70 meters (depth under keel was 107). I took quite a beating from DCs for a while and things were starting to get pretty ugly, it was risky to begin with since I only had 107 meters of depth to work with. The escorts were no rookies and they were hitting me with precision even with evasive turns at full speed and then quiet as a ghost at every other time. So I take her down to 103 meters, skimming the ocean floor. Thats when I noticed something, when my boat slowed to 2 knots after my last burst of speed it started slowly rising. 102.... 101... 100.... I've never seen it do that at 2 knots, I assumed some of the damage I took was preventing me from maintaining my depth without sufficient speed. To make things even crazier I could tell by the hydrophone that the escorts would start to lose me at under 90 meters depth. But if I went over 2 knots or went above 90 meters they found me again. Quite a situation, I cant stay under 90 meters at 2 knots because the boat begins to surface, I cant increase to 3 knots or they start DCing me again. What the hell do I do now? I've got 2 DDs right on top of me just looking for any sign of where I am, I've taken a lot of damage, and one more round of DCs will probably be the end of me.

So I come up with a plan , do 5 knots toward the ocean bottom to gain some speed, at about 100 meters go to 1 knot and silent running, and hope they give up on me before I raise to a depth where they find me again. As soon as I hit 5 knots they come after me again, but it was worth it because now the boat is facing down and on its way to the bottom, that downward burst of speed will buy me a few minutes before I start floating to the top again. Cut the engines to 1 knot, silent running, put the rudder at 10 degrees starboard so that there is at least some curve in my course (hate moving in a straight line when DDs are looking for me), and pretty much just sit back and pray.

Went up to 90 meters, I can hear DCs going off somewhere close, but not close enough to even shake the boat around, I'm pretty sure they dont know where I am. Very very slowly I continue upward. After about 20 minutes I'm at 50 meters depth. I can still hear them but they are farther away, I'm thinking this may actually have worked! Once I hit periscope depth I take a look around and dont see anything, but its night time and I still hear faint sounds on the hydrophone. A few tense moments later we surface, I take a look around and spot a destroyer way off in the distance, maybe 5000 meters away. Since it was night time he didnt see me, and I move away slowly in the opposite direction. What a great patrol, ended up sinking the large cargo and one of the merchants. The other one must not have been hit good enough to go under. Tonight I'll start from there and see if I can find that merchant I hit and finish him off, hopefully he is stationary somewhere close and didnt make it back to port.. we'll see. I'll tell you though, that was one of those great GWX moments that keeps you from playing any other game. :D

[It762]

nice read! do you guys fire all your torps manually or do you use the help of the officer?

[robbo180265]

nice read! do you guys fire all your torps manually or do you use the help of the officer?

Some do, some don't. I don't (maths was never my strong point, and I like the game how I have it at 80% realisim)

@ Skalelokt

Fantastic read mate, the rising thing is part of the GWX package. You don't keep rising forever, just a few meters and only at 2kts or less. Makes life more interesting(especially at periscope depth)

Keep up the good work Kaleun:up:

[scalelokt]

For the longest time I would use the weapon officer, or have manual targeting turned off. About a month ago I switched to all manual targeting and no weapon officer. I think its way more fun. You wont sink as many ships, but each ship is worth more renown with the realism higher, so it evens out pretty much. Plus I think the game is much more intense with manual targeting, because you cant just fire off all your torpedos with deadly accuracy with a quick glance and then take off, you have to line up your boat, do all your calculations for firing and at the same time try to keep an eye on those escorts, etc. Plus the greatest thing about manual targeting is when you get a hit, it is SO MUCH more satisfying, all the plotting, calculations, etc paid off, its a great feeling. I went back to auto targeting a few days ago just for the heck of it and I was bored to death, it just seems so easy after doing manual targeting for a while. But thats just my opinion though, the game is loads of fun no matter what realism setting you choose :ping:

[scalelokt]

@Robbo: Thanks! You know what though, this wasnt the standard GWX thing where you rise a few meters over your ordered depth, I actually set the depth at 104 meters, and the boat slowly rose over a half hour or so all the way to the surface doing 1 - 2 knots and having the ordered depth set at 104 meters the whole time. Craziest thing, I dont know if its because I took some damage that caused the boat to be incapable of maintaining depth, or if it was a bug in the game. Either way I went up over 100 meters very slowly, it was the strangest thing. Anyone else run into this? I'd love to know if this was a bug or it was actually caused by damage to my ship. If its helpful I can tell you that one of my propellers was destroyed so I was only able to use one, that might explain it. Either way, lots of fun!!! :D :D

[robbo180265]

@Robbo: Thanks! You know what though, this wasnt the standard GWX thing where you rise a few meters over your ordered depth, I actually set the depth at 104 meters, and the boat slowly rose over a half hour or so all the way to the surface doing 1 - 2 knots and having the ordered depth set at 104 meters the whole time. Craziest thing, I dont know if its because I took some damage that caused the boat to be incapable of maintaining depth, or if it was a bug in the game. Either way I went up over 100 meters very slowly, it was the strangest thing. Anyone else run into this? I'd love to know if this was a bug or it was actually caused by damage to my ship. If its helpful I can tell you that one of my propellers was destroyed so I was only able to use one, that might explain it. Either way, lots of fun!!! :D :D

Weird. coud've been a malfunction or the prop damage.Either way it's situations like that which make this game so addictive. Well done mate, even with that problem you got away to sink more later:yep:

[scalelokt]

Thanks mate, cant wait to get back out there and do it again! :up:

[Penelope_Grey]

In a situation like that I would try bottoming the boat. Even in shallow waters (as little as 40m) it can confuse the destroyers ASDIC enough so they cannot hit you dead on. When I do 2 knts I only float 1m above set depth... :huh:

If you want to bottom the boat all you gotta do is take it right down to the sea floor slow it down to about 2knts or so, then hit D just above the floor and the boat will do down and stay down. On the bottom they won't be able to pinpoint your exact position.

[scalelokt]

Bottoming the boat has never worked for me, but I'll try it again sometime. Every time I've done it it wasnt on purpose, its because I was in a free fall after taking a bunch of damage, then while I'm sitting on the bottom trying to get the flooding down they really let me have it, I've never survived that situation. Maybe if I did it like you suggested though at the right moment, it would work out, I'll definitly keep that in mind during those horrible situations. Thanks!

[Penelope_Grey]

Well, in a free fall, you hit the floor with a bang, so like in real life, the hydrophone operator will detect that, and will be able to tell pretty much where you hit the floor and then boom.

But if you do it purposefully nad quietly, it normally works out pretty good. GWX simulates bottom echo well! :up:

[Brag]

Congratahoochies Skalelot! Well done.

I think bottoming may work if the escorts don't know where you are. If they do, you're a stationary target. :roll:

[Morts]

If they do, you're a stationary target. :roll:
or short for that....dead:rotfl: :rotfl:

[scalelokt]

haha yes definitly true! If I softly hit the bottom instead of ram it with crew screaming it might make a bit of a difference. :rotfl:

I cant wait for SH4, I hope it lives up to expectations, what I've seen so far looks great. I guarantee I will still play SH3 a lot though, GWX makes it such an outstanding game.