October 17, 1940 Situation

[Rose]

I'm on my inaugural patrol in a VII-C based out of St. Nazaire, assigned to patrol grid DT56 off the coast of Morocco. I've only found two ships by radio contact -- one was in terrible weather so I didn't bother with an intercept (it was off the coast of Spain, and was probably neutral anyway), the other was moving away from me and was already 60 nautical miles south of my U-boat, so I didn't bother with that either. I am meandering around in DT56 right now, completing the 24 hours, and with no ships in sight. I've been sailing for about two weeks and the crew is itching for an attack. I keep telling them that on our return voyage I'll manage to find something, but I'm having trouble convincing even myself... Are there any juicy shipping lanes between DT56 and the Bay of Biscay that I could frequent in hopes of an encounter? I know it's a basic question, but I just got back into playing with the release of GWX 2.0. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks :D. It's October 1940 btw.

[KeptinCranky]

you say you're in DT56?

I'd say stick around, submerge to 20 meters (so you can still receive radio), do a slow search pattern and only surface for air and battery recharge and loiter until a convoy comes along...because it will definitely come along in a week or so.

once it does, I'd hound it all the way to Britain or until my eels run out, at which point I should be near to Biscay and home port.....

look at the map...DT56 is a definite hotspot
Been there.... done it :arrgh!:

[Brag]

It would be interesting to see what GWX 2.0 jas done with the heavy single ship traffic on the north side of the Gulf of Cadiz. That used to be a tonnage grabber.:yep:

[Rose]

Just a bit of an update on my situation: I took your advice Keptin Cranky and continued in a slow search pattern, mostly submerged at 20m, in and around DT56. The storm which had been brewing for a few days continued to rage around my vessel, but we pushed on. My sonar op received some contacts but they were all single and moving in inconvenient directions. A single ship isn't worth it in terrible weather anyway. Finally, as my crew began to lose all hope of ever finding a convoy, a group of spies based in Freetown, Liberia radioed that they had witnessed a large amount of British merchant ships amassing and then departing the port. BdU then gave the convoy's estimated position and I had my navigator plot an intercept. I intercepted the large British and South African convoy and have been stalking them along a parallel course for about 100km. It is far too rough to attack any of the ships yet, so I'm going to wait until the waves calm down to make my move. I just hope it clears up soon. I've been running about 6km minimum to the closest ship for most of the time. Is that too risky? Would you guys recommend backing off a bit? What would my fellow kaleuns do in a situation like this?

[KeptinCranky]

Back off! :doh: :o

6km is too close for shadowing, except at night and even then you might get spotted by an escort and then all hell will break loose and even if you get away you've lost ground, I stay 10 to 15km away and match their speed from a position slightly ahead and make a quick dive to listen every 2 hours, if they change course during that time, and they will at some point, I can adjust my course and speed and still be in a good position to make an attack when the weather clears/night falls/or i've had enough of shadowing :up:

[Rose]

Alright man, thanks alot for the advice!

[_Seth_]

Good luck, Rose mate!! Sink them all!!:up::up::up:

[Rose]

^^ Thanks mate, I'll try :ping:.

I'm beginning to wonder if the 15kps winds will ever cease... It's been weeks and the waves show no sign of dying down. In SH3 Cmdr I put wave height at seasonal. Does that mean that for the entire seasons of fall and winter the waves will be 20 feet high? If so I'm ****ed for this convoy encounter. Is it ill-advised to change the wave height mid-patrol? ugh...

[bigboywooly]

Remember
If the weather is real rough and you save the game and exit
When you load up you are going to get a guaranteed 7 days of bad weather
Save before that 7 days is up and you reset the weather clock so getting another 7 days bad weather next time you load :shifty:

[Gezoes]

Isn't there a chance of a weather change after two days, when one reloads a saved game?

Ofcourse, the weather can also remain the same, but 7?

[bigboywooly]

Isn't there a chance of a weather change after two days, when one reloads a saved game?

Ofcourse, the weather can also remain the same, but 7?

There should be a chance of a 2 day change but rarely happens that way if at all

Of course it wirks the other way too
Save in good weather etc and will continue on your next load

A lot of research went into the weather early on and it seems saving resets the weather clock back to 0
IIRC was Steibler who spent a fair amount of time on it

[KeptinCranky]

Gods BBW :o I hope you're wrong on that because I thought it was 48 hours...

If it really is 7 days I haven't noticed it, but that would be something to keep in mind when saving....

[Rose]

O wow I never heard that before... In 7 days when the weather is finally clear the convoy I'm shadowing will already be in port :( . I'm assuming it takes shorter than a week to go from the exit of Gibralter to London at 7 knots...

[KeptinCranky]

Hmmm, not sure, am bad at math, can't do the calculations off the to[p of my head, my guess would be something like 7 days yes, but they won't be going to London, why would they go through the Channel, where there's schnellboote, luftwaffe and mines when there's all these nice ports on the western side of the UK like Bristol and such...they're closer too..:-?

[Rose]

haha im terrible at math as well... I have an idea -- I'll just load a prior save and play thru 7 days (I should have enough time with a prior save from a few game days ago). I assumed they were going to London because it's convoy SL that I'm shadowing, and it says on the game map that convoy SL goes form Sierra Leone to London.

[KeptinCranky]

If that turns out to be the case, them going to London, you might just be able to intercept them near Brest or Cherbourg, which means if you radio their precense in repeatedly you might (possibly, if it's not raining, or a sunday, or before 11am :doh: ) get some Luftwaffe assistance, or possibly even some of those madmen in their schellboote :cool:

I'm currently evading DDs NW of Aberdeen having attacked the convoy they were escorting and having hit 3 ships, one of which is confirmed sunk :arrgh!: It's march 1940, I have a IIa and I'm fresh out of eels, now all I have to do is evade them pesky DDs and go home for Kaffee und Kuchen, and medals by the bucket of course :D

[BulSoldier]

Remember
If the weather is real rough and you save the game and exit
When you load up you are going to get a guaranteed 7 days of bad weather
Save before that 7 days is up and you reset the weather clock so getting another 7 days bad weather next time you load :shifty:

Thats why i had a month of vile storm in a two month patrol with frequent saving due to lapse of time.:damn:

[KeptinCranky]

Nope, weather change is possible 48 hours after loading, not seven days, thank Neptune :D, or we'd never get to sink anything once it's turned bad :-?

[Rose]

Weather change using Cmdr?

[KeptinCranky]

No there is no such option in sh3 commander, there is sh3 weather program but I don't use that.

Tested it by loading up my IIa savegame, it was good weather when I saved, remained unchanged for 48 hours, then it turned for the worse, high winds and such, but since I was on my way home that was no problem. :up:

the weatherstate is fixed for 48 hours after loading up the game, after that it can change, sometimes fairly rapidly, sometimes not....

[Subtype Zero]

From one of my posts in another thread:

In my testing, I have found that the weather updates according to a fairly regular schedule: within 32-34 hours after leaving port, even under high TC. This interval lengthens by one hour for each subsequent change in the weather, resulting in longer and longer intervals between weather changes.

In order to avoid getting stuck with long periods of unchanging, lousy weather, you must avoid high TC for long periods of time AND avoid saving IF you think the weather is about to change. After the weather changes in some way, go ahead and save to your heart's content (note: as long as you are not submerged, near land, or near any sinking ships, etc. :roll:).

You can get a rough estimate of when the weather in your game is about to change by 1) keeping track of the number of weather changes that have already occurred, 2) take the number found in step 1 and add 32-34 to it, 3) estimate when the weather last changed in your game, and 4) add the number found in step 2 to the time of the last weather change you found in step 3. For example, say you have been at sea for one week and have noticed approximately 5 weather changes. Add 5 to 32 and 34 for a range of 37 to 39 hours. If your weather last changed at 0300 hours on June 1, then you can expect the weather to change next time sometime between 1600 and 1800 hours on June 2.