100k patrol for Dummies

[filefool]

2 days ago i started a my first patrol ever with a IXB. Ever since i play SH3 i've never upgraded to a IXer because i like to drive a sports car not a SUV.;)

Anyways i got out of Wilhelmshaven, sank an empire freighter (a beautiful ship) north of scapa on my way to the irish sea and promptly got a contact report about a big convoy going SE.

The first ship in this convoy that my men spotted was not a merchant but a battleship, the HMS Nelson. I prepared me and my crew for a lot of escort vessels and shadowed the convoy, waiting for dusk.

At night i slipped right into the convoy and sent a 3 eels salvo into her port side. 36k with one strike. Awaiting the immediate response of some A&B or Black Swans i did quick periscope search before i wanted to get some depth under my keel.

I found no escorts.
I searched again.
No escorts.
I checked the hydrophone contacts.
No warship contacts.
I listened for myself on the hydrophone.
No fast moving propeller sounds.


I cleared the convoy and surfaced. THERE WERE ABSOLUTELY NO ESCORTS!
25 targets, about 10 of them big or middle tankers and i had 18 torpedoes left.
It was March 1940, so none of those ships was armed, the sea was calm and i still had all of my deck gun ammo.


It felt like cheating and opening a christmas present at the same time.

I got 9 with torpedoes and 3 with the deck gun, giving me about 125k after this slaughter.

As i am playing GWX 2.0 the question is, did i got lucky or is this some kind of bug?

[Uncle Goose]

You got lucky, in the beginning of the war big convoys were protected by a battleship to prevent raiders to wipe them out. The british didn't have so much destroyers as later in the war (as a matter of fact, churchill lended 50 obsolete destroyers from the US for escort duty before the US was even in official war with the Axis).

[Jimbuna]

Put it down to beginners luck/good fortune :lol:

[TomcatMVD]

No fair! I'm on my 8th patrol already and never found a single convoy...
Sure, got a task force and sunk the Nelson (who didn't?), but never a convoy... never:nope:

[kenijaru]

Sure, got a task force and sunk the Nelson (who didn't?),
I didn't :cry:

[papa_smurf]

Thts luck for you, finding a convoy like that. All the convoys I find are always escorted by at least 4 naval vessels.

[STEED]

The convoy system was still a mess in 1940 with few convoy's with escorts on there middle part of there journey and none going in and out of the med. Granted not knowing what the GWX boffings were up to you may have got very lucky or plain luck depending on your view point.

[TomcatMVD]

Sure, got a task force and sunk the Nelson (who didn't?),
I didn't :cry:
Sorry mate:cry: Keep looking for her:up:

[Steel_Tomb]

Ive caught a convoy with only one destroyer escorting before, one magnetic fish under the keel and the entire convoy was mine! Didn't break 100k though because they were mostly bloody tramp steamers etc only one or two tankers.

http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r71/timmy3822/SH3Img6-8-2007_1052.36_609.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

...mostly bloody tramp steamers...
Don't you just hate it when they do that?

Cheeky blighters!

[BulSoldier]

Steel Tomb, damn you are one hell of a creature.Think of what the sailors on the destroyer`s bridge felt in the moment shown on the pic :arrgh!:

[bookworm_020]

Steel Tomb, damn you are one hell of a creature.Think of what the sailors on the destroyer`s bridge felt in the moment shown on the pic :arrgh!:

Think what the crew of the merchants would have thought at that moment as well!:arrgh!:

[FIREWALL]

100,000tons huh. Just curious but what were your Realism settings at ?

Don't mean to rain on your parade matey but someone else is going to ask if i didn't.

[Jonathan]

I have done something very similar, but with one exception...my convoy had not one, but two escorts with them, and they depth charged the crap out of me....in fact, they still are!

[Tool]

I just ran into my 3rd large convoy of GWX 2 (March 1940).. currently on patrol 6, just north of the denmark straight. Had to dispatch of 4 DDs and a Armed trawler before sinking 2 large merchants and an ore ship. Decided against sailing south any further due to air cover and left the other small merchants/ships continue on their way. There were 3 convoys reported in my area when i entered this location but this was the largest so i elected to try this one. So far on this patrol i've sunk 10 ships (55k Ton) with my IXB and have 8 torps remaining. Realism is at 72%, but i took a beating and my hull integrity is at 30%, so i may RTB sooner than i planned.

Tool.

[Madcowz]

You were very lucky indeed.

I have just detected a very large convoy on my first patrol but I have no torps left and no gun ammunition having used it all up earlier in the patrol on small merchant ships.

How gutting is that!

/mad

[filefool]

100,000tons huh. Just curious but what were your Realism settings at ?

Don't mean to rain on your parade matey but someone else is going to ask if i didn't.

Well, i don't know the exact number but i don't shoot manually.
I am playing without external or event cam and of course with realistic sinking times, limited fuel and torps.

By the way, i think i really should call myself lucky, because my next patrol got me the HMS Hood in my way. Four torpedoes at 7 km, three hits and hours of evading dc's but the biggest ship of the RN ( and one of the most unique in GWX) was mine!

[Abd_von_Mumit]

100,000tons huh. Just curious but what were your Realism settings at ?

Don't mean to rain on your parade matey but someone else is going to ask if i didn't.

Well, i don't know the exact number but i don't shoot manually.
I am playing without external or event cam and of course with realistic sinking times, limited fuel and torps.
Just a side note: 100% realism setting does NOT mean one can't hunt 100k tons or more. I'd even say opposite - high realism could make getting high tonnage even easier. On my first weeks of playing SH3 a year ago I used autotargeting options as manual plotting scared me, and I missed really often, for a few causes:
- I relied on the auto option too much and didn't even try sometimes to take a good shot position,
- the auto option is really not sufficient for zigzaging/evading/changing speed targets,
- I suppose one doesn't relly care for some details when using autotargetting, like weather conditions, ship's draft, range. It seems so easy no matter what, so why should he care? :)
- auto targeting always aims in the midships, while it's not always the best spot to aim at. Manual targeting lets you pick better spots, like engines or screws, and lets sink ships with 1 shot.

After that I switched to manual targetting, no WO assistance (I only get range when on surface from my watch officer to compare it with my own range estimation - helps to identify the ship properly). And then after I finally learned (took me like 3-4 patrols) I almost never miss. And my tonnage went up like hell, to the level that some didn't belive it was true.

[Blacklight]

Last night, I ran into a nice big juicy convoy heading toward the English Channel. I observed them for a few hours and discovered that there were no escorts at all !!!

I used up ALL my ammunition (torpedoes, deck gun shells, machine gun bullets) and created the largest artificial reef in the world !!!

I only 3 small merchants escaped the slaughter (on fire) because I ran out of things to shoot at them.

Yep. I did the environmentalists proud. Think of all the coral, sponges, and fish species that will now have the undersea equivalent of Manhatten to live in !! When I get back from my patrol, I will be happy to recieve that letter of praise from Greenpeace as the first "Environmentally friendly U-Boat captain"

P.S... I'm sure that massive oil and diesel slick on the surface must have burned off by now. :rotfl:

[gimpy117]

no matter what id do i always get heard while sneaking up on a convoy, even at silent speed at periscope depth. i managed a snap shot but it hit and failed to sink a small merchant (even after a direct midships hit)

[Fr8monkey]

I only 3 small merchants escaped the slaughter (on fire) because I ran out of things to shoot at them.



You can always put Bernard in torpedo tube #1.... Or the ship's cook!:hmm:

[Zakalwe]

- auto targeting always aims in the midships, while it's not always the best spot to aim at. Manual targeting lets you pick better spots, like engines or screws, and lets sink ships with 1 shot.

Hi,

that`s not true. Lock on the target, unlock and aim with the crosshair at the point you want to hit. I mostly set the crosshair right to the bow and let the ship pass, once the area I want to hit is in the cross hair, I fire. Works pretty well (if you don`t forget to open the tubes before.

Z.