Query: Tactics

[frogdog]

ALL HANDS: When patrolling...what is best patrol speed? Any suggestions on search patterns? How often do you submerge for sonar scan? How long do you remain in assigned area if target poor? At what point do you say "I'm returning to Pearl for crew rest, A&A (A** and Alcohol) and a whole lot of rack time at the Pink Palace... Screw COMSUBPAC and this empty OPAREA!" I operate using TMO 1.4, ROW PE and latest RSRD (BZ on those mods!!!)...initial patrol off Formosa (Convoy College) contains zilch shipping...beaucoup search aircraft. Granted this is not an arcade game....but hours of TC (32-128) patrolling at 9kts listening to Bing Crosby sometimes gets old. Any suggestions to occasionally increase my pulse rate??? Other than that...great base game enhanced 1000% by the selfless efforts of a great bunch of game modders. Many thanks...much appreciation to them all. HOOYAH!...Frogdog

[Ian_L]

Funny, I was just about to ask the same... I just installed PE2 and RSRDC and wow, great work by these guys. But I am on my first patrol off the san bernadino strait and so far I've only encountered fishing boats in 3 days.

Myself I only submerge about once every 3-4 hours, because in the normal stock SH4 I could usually get hydrophone contacts even when surfaced. I suspect this may be because the type of hydrophone is different than on the U-boats of SH3, which definately required submerging...

I was thinking also, has the renown system been changed to take this more realistic traffic into account (i.e. will comsubpac think that I suck when I return if, for example, I only get 10000 tons of one patrol?).

[kikn79]

ALL HANDS: When patrolling...what is best patrol speed?

I usually run at the most economical speed for the sub (unless chasing a contact) I believe in most of the subs it is around 9kts (Sugar boats excluded)

Any suggestions on search patterns?

I draw a 50NM circle around the "Binocular Star" and set a waypoint for the middle of the circle. Then using a clover leaf design, I patrol the outside of the circle for 2 legs and then go back towards the center and then out to the edge of the circle again. I generally have decent luck with this search pattern.

How often do you submerge for sonar scan?

Once per hour until radar is available.

How long do you remain in assigned area if target poor?

Until my time is up (72 - 96 hours depending) Then I radio in for a new assignment.

At what point do you say "I'm returning to Pearl for crew rest, A&A (A** and Alcohol) and a whole lot of rack time at the Pink Palace

Not until I'm out of Torpedoes or low on fuel, I head for the barn. Unless I have damage then it would be sooner.

Chuck

[Rockin Robbins]

After radar is available, I don't submerge for sonar searches at all. For most patrol areas 75 mile radius is safe. If I recall correctly only one or two are 50 mile radius. I have used 75 all the time and had no trouble with any of my objectives. Don't make your search patterns too tight. There is no gain from searching the same area on successive sweeps that are too close together. Your goal is to cover the most ground in the least amount of time.