Genferret
04-14-07, 04:11 PM
Well, I'm sure that's what my wife would say about the time I just spent. ;)
I on the other hand had a blast! So did my two buddies that were playing MP with me.
We set up a MP generated mission:
Jan 1942 (game set us to Jan 1) between 9am-6pm (game started us at 1pm).
Large Convoy
Large Veteran Escort group
We started out about 10,000m or so from the convoy. 3 U-boats, all Type VIICs of the '41 variant (when you select the year for your boat). When I zoomed out on the map we were about 400km E of St. Johns.
Difficulty set to hard, veteran crew, unlimited eels.
It took us about 2 hours to pretty much decimate the convoy and escorts. Minor damage to a couple of the boast from depth charges, but nothing serious. By this time the crew is pretty wiped out and we tried to track down one last contact that our watch crew kept reporting but none of us could see (turns out it was a ship that had been sunk, but didn't count for any of us for some reason, and the crew/game thought it was still alive despite it resting on the bottom at 149m down).
As we got ready to surface to quit out of the mission my hydrophone officer started rattling off contacts. A *LOT* of contacts to our ENE. What was this? Yes, it was another convoy besides the one generated for our mission that got generated by GWX I'm guessing.
We immediately started plotting out a course to figure out which way this convoy was headed and try to get an idea of where they were at. After getting a general idea based off an earlier radio contact report we set a course that would take us parallel but somewhat close to this new convoy.
After about an hour we got our first sighting of them, they were about 14km out from us, but still to our ENE and heading away. We all went to work figuring out the convoys heading and trying to get a guestimate at what speed they were moving. After figuring out their heading we set our own parallel to them.
Hours ticked by as we alternated between ahead full standard and ahead full recharge mode (since we were all down to about 60% battery power after the first convoy) with decks awash. Daylight started to give way to night, but there was a full moon this night (and I looked it up on google, and 2 Jan, '42 actually was a full moon). We kept each other company over Teamspeak as we continued to keep an eye on the convoy and watch for any change in direction on their part.
Once we started to lose sight of the convoy we turned our heading into a 45 degree intercept course so we could lay in wait. Once we were in position about 12km ahead of the convoy all we could do is sit and wait.
The first two eels I launched went straight towards the lead destroyer once they had closed to 4000m. From the point those two fish impact it was just pure madness as we tried to sort out all the escorts that were with the convoy and tried to cripple/sink as many merchants as we could as they passed. Once they had passed us we turned to follow with the escorts very angry and making several attempts to seek revenge for us having brought down such hell upon their flock they were supposed to protect.
When all was said and done we had traveled over 60km from our initial starting location. The wreckage markers on the map for the 2nd convoy stretched a good 25km itself.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but we had over 300,000 tons between the three of us when we tallied up warships and merchants.
It was probably the best 9 hours I've ever experienced in SHIII. Actually shadowing and intercepting a convoy without TC with 2 other U-boats.
God this game rocks.
I on the other hand had a blast! So did my two buddies that were playing MP with me.
We set up a MP generated mission:
Jan 1942 (game set us to Jan 1) between 9am-6pm (game started us at 1pm).
Large Convoy
Large Veteran Escort group
We started out about 10,000m or so from the convoy. 3 U-boats, all Type VIICs of the '41 variant (when you select the year for your boat). When I zoomed out on the map we were about 400km E of St. Johns.
Difficulty set to hard, veteran crew, unlimited eels.
It took us about 2 hours to pretty much decimate the convoy and escorts. Minor damage to a couple of the boast from depth charges, but nothing serious. By this time the crew is pretty wiped out and we tried to track down one last contact that our watch crew kept reporting but none of us could see (turns out it was a ship that had been sunk, but didn't count for any of us for some reason, and the crew/game thought it was still alive despite it resting on the bottom at 149m down).
As we got ready to surface to quit out of the mission my hydrophone officer started rattling off contacts. A *LOT* of contacts to our ENE. What was this? Yes, it was another convoy besides the one generated for our mission that got generated by GWX I'm guessing.
We immediately started plotting out a course to figure out which way this convoy was headed and try to get an idea of where they were at. After getting a general idea based off an earlier radio contact report we set a course that would take us parallel but somewhat close to this new convoy.
After about an hour we got our first sighting of them, they were about 14km out from us, but still to our ENE and heading away. We all went to work figuring out the convoys heading and trying to get a guestimate at what speed they were moving. After figuring out their heading we set our own parallel to them.
Hours ticked by as we alternated between ahead full standard and ahead full recharge mode (since we were all down to about 60% battery power after the first convoy) with decks awash. Daylight started to give way to night, but there was a full moon this night (and I looked it up on google, and 2 Jan, '42 actually was a full moon). We kept each other company over Teamspeak as we continued to keep an eye on the convoy and watch for any change in direction on their part.
Once we started to lose sight of the convoy we turned our heading into a 45 degree intercept course so we could lay in wait. Once we were in position about 12km ahead of the convoy all we could do is sit and wait.
The first two eels I launched went straight towards the lead destroyer once they had closed to 4000m. From the point those two fish impact it was just pure madness as we tried to sort out all the escorts that were with the convoy and tried to cripple/sink as many merchants as we could as they passed. Once they had passed us we turned to follow with the escorts very angry and making several attempts to seek revenge for us having brought down such hell upon their flock they were supposed to protect.
When all was said and done we had traveled over 60km from our initial starting location. The wreckage markers on the map for the 2nd convoy stretched a good 25km itself.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but we had over 300,000 tons between the three of us when we tallied up warships and merchants.
It was probably the best 9 hours I've ever experienced in SHIII. Actually shadowing and intercepting a convoy without TC with 2 other U-boats.
God this game rocks.