Shallow water evasion

[treblesum81]

Wondering if its even possible?

I spent 6hrs (real time.... with TC it was more like 18hrs approx) trying to avoid a single black swan destroyer NE of Londonderry in <50m of water. I not able to get deep enough to allow maneuvering room to avoid DCs and much slower and less maneuverable than the DD I kept slipping by by the skin of my teeth until he got lined up just over me and I was sinking (they have two throwers on either side and i couldn't seem to slip by them that easily)... I managed to carry this on 3 times for hours but I could never lose the DD and in the end I died. I've since given up on attacking the convoy that DD was attached to as I just couldn't escape.

Is this sort of evasion even possible without huge amounts of luck? I can imagine this same issue would carry over to harbor raiding, as I've not seen one yet (I've only been in 3 including Wilhelmshaven) that is really deep enough for successful DD evasion. So is there a trick to conducting this kind of escape that will make you much harder to find and more likely that the DD will break off?

I'm using GWX 2.1 btw.

Thanks,
Greg

[papa_smurf]

I've tried several times evasion in shallow water, especially in the channel (yes I know I should not go through it), and its always ended in the same way - been depth charged into next week:damn:

[STEED]

Shallow water evasion

Simple, stay out of the fecking shallow water unless you want to kiss your ass good bye. :rotfl:

[Jimbuna]

GWX2.1 and 50m of water http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v499/c_jane24/Smileys/4_6_100.gif

A good tip: Take your pc and put it back in the box it came in. Return it to the shop from whence you purchased said machine. When the salesman asks you what is wrong with it, simply reply..."Nothing, it's just that I'm too feckin stupid to own a pc" http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/7975/gigglebigtb9fg3.gif

just a j/k mate http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img412/4774/thumbsuplargeon1.gif

A tip for real: Stay out of shallow water.....deep water and maneuverability are your best chances of evading destruction http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

SINK EM ALL!!.....BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[treblesum81]

Hehe, well, this morning I reassessed that situation and moved the same attack W of Belfast and it was a much better situation. Even with that in mind, you can't stay out of shallow water if you want to harbor raid... so perhaps there is a tactic that works for some people? Anyone care to share how you escape destruction when your leaving the harbor after an attack?

On a somewhat related topic, I'm curious if enemies are able to use hydrophones to detect surfaced boats? I was able to sneak up on a convoy yesterday decks awash with a green detection meter and the lead DD none the wiser, but on diving to periscope depth the meter went instantly red and the DD made a hard about to come look for me... I was in the north atlantic in this case and was able to simply dive to 210m and sneak away, but I'm curious if DD's can listen while you're technically surfaced?

Thanks,
Greg

[Jimbuna]

The noise meter is not a definitive science but more an indicator that you are making noise and may be heard http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[treblesum81]

The noise meter is not a definitive science but more an indicator that you are making noise and may be heard

This is something I've come to understand, but in the scenario I just described, I was essentially surfaced with the bridge watch on duty, yet was undetected by the DD until after I submerged, all other factors remained the same in that I did not change engine settings, or go silent running. The fact is that I was probably making more noise on the surface than submerged due to the diesle engines, so why did the DD not detect me sound wise until I went down?

Also, I want to point out that the meter really shows you how likely you are to be detected by enemies. It will stay green if you are surfaced next to a neutral, and go red if you are within an enemie's visual range (though they won't necessarily detect you), even at a dead stop with silent running in force. At least that has been my observation.

Greg

[Jimbuna]

His hydrophones are meant/designed to hear underwater sounds...radar is intended for surfaced vessels maybe :hmm:

[gord96]

in my Type II i was able to evade several DD's in 60m of water. Its not even so much that they have trouble dectecting u but there DC's miss alot because u are so small.

Anyways anything bigger then a type II in shallow waters and its not a good idea. :arrgh!:

[GoldenRivet]

against my better judgement i ventured into some 50 meter water off the US east coast.

i got ambushed by an escort destroyer :nope:

i did survive, but for a long while this guy had me by the short hairs!

nasically, i went as deep as i could which was only about 40 -50 meters and pointed my boat east toward the deep water. i made evasive turns with every depth charge run occasionally listening for splashes by manning the hydrophone myself.

my biggest fear was not this particular destroyer, but wondering how many friends he had on the way!

eventually (i dont remember how long) but this destroyer ran out of depth charges and continued making dashes above me as if to drop his DCs but dropping nothing.

i continued to inch my way east until the echolot indicated an additional 40 or 50 meters below me. I went deeper right above the sea floor and the destroyer lost contact as my batteries were drained to about 20% from the die hard engagement.

we had taken a beating which resulted in only light damage.

surviving in the shallows comes down to patience, luck and religion... be patient, dont zig when you should zag, and pray for a break or some deep water

[Penelope_Grey]

Well lol... against my better judgement.... I chased a convoy into shallow waters... with a sea state of 0 m/s sun shining full pelt got caught, depthcharged... start wondering if I should break off? NO!! By this point, anger is clouding my judgement...

Im chasing the convoy south through the shallow water. Night time comes. Phase 1 of the attack happens on the surface, due to summer months I have about 5 hours of pitch dark, maybe less. In I go on the surface, One Large Cargo and two Ore Carriers... thanks... goodnight.

Managed to break off on the surface and reload my forward tubes. Phase 2 of the attack a submerged dawn attack. One modern tanker scrubbed off... but sadly... my other two torpedoes meant for the other Large Cargo miss... shat!

What is this? One crippled ore carrier.... have tube 5 with my compliments. Boom!

27,000 tons of convoy shipping gone! So if you are going to attack things in shallow water... not to boast, but you need a few things.

1) Experience - even with mine, I still got caught, yes conditions were perfect to be detected, but even so... I got caught.

2) A mean streak a mile wide, no time for caution its dangerous enough as is, if you are going to go down, take as many with you as possible.

3) Luck. No doubt about it, you do need this.

4) A rough plan at the very least of how you intend to escape if push comes to shove.

5) I deally if possible a spare torpedo, because that thing hunting you may just well be asking for it!

[GoldenRivet]

2) A mean streak a mile wide
you? the vanilla loving sweet heart of subsim? No!

I find it hard to believe

:rotfl:

[Penelope_Grey]

2) A mean streak a mile wide
you? the vanilla loving sweet heart of subsim? No!

I find it hard to believe

:rotfl:

Well its true... I can be a tiny bit aggressive sometimes when I play SH3

[Frank0001]

Like said above, luck is a good factor of surviving a shallow depth attack.
I raided Dunkirk a week before, and got caught doing so.
Within some 5 minutes, I had a destroyer blazing above me!

However, the silly sod menaged to blow its DC-rack off, with one of its own depth-charges! He wasn't speeding after the things were released, and due to the shallow depth, they exploded right away.
It made some 10 passes overhead, without actually dropping DC's (not being able to) and finally menaged to crash into the docks...

Somehow I got the kill for that =)

[TrooperCooper]

(...) and finally menaged to crash into the docks...

Somehow I got the kill for that =)


Thats what pilots call a "maneuver kill". :rotfl:

[the.terrabyte.pirate]

Hehe, well, this morning I reassessed that situation and moved the same attack W of Belfast and it was a much better situation. Even with that in mind, you can't stay out of shallow water if you want to harbor raid... so perhaps there is a tactic that works for some people? Anyone care to share how you escape destruction when your leaving the harbor after an attack?

On a somewhat related topic, I'm curious if enemies are able to use hydrophones to detect surfaced boats? I was able to sneak up on a convoy yesterday decks awash with a green detection meter and the lead DD none the wiser, but on diving to periscope depth the meter went instantly red and the DD made a hard about to come look for me... I was in the north atlantic in this case and was able to simply dive to 210m and sneak away, but I'm curious if DD's can listen while you're technically surfaced?

Thanks,
Greg

DD's can't use their hydrophones to hear you on the surface. They rely on visual or radar contacts. When you submerge, they use the hydrophones.

If you're closing on a convoy on the surface at ahead full, you won't be heard, so you won't be attacked until you're spotted. If you dive to periscope depth, but don't adjust your speed, you'll be advertising your position on the hydrophones, and you'll attract the escorts like fleas to a dog.

Decks awash is technically surfaced. They won't pick you up on the hydrophones until you're fully submerged.

Until then, I guess your noise tends to blend in with the surface turbulation, or the sounds of the other vessels in the convoy.

[Tessa]

Dealing with DD's in harbors is more like a chess match than an evasion. There are a lot of potential obsticals that you can use to cloak yourself or use to trap the ships above. Be sure though that you've got plenty of air as you could be submerged for a very long time.

You can hide inside the individual ship docks, will make it hard to find you and hard to hit if they do manage. Hide next to a ship or better, a sinking ship (just be careful as they still move once sunk so if you tc you might end up drifting into it) to protect yourself. Escorts don't seem to carpetbomb dc's next to a tanker. Eventually it may give up and go back to it normal patrol and you can move around again. If not, best option in my experience is to sink the thing. Lure him into a position such that he has to come at you directly astern or from the bow (just as long as he can't flank you) and have your weps plot a solution when he's 400m away and fire once its ready (an electric set at 45m) or if using manual be sure to release the eel when he hits 350m to be sure the torpedo has enough time to arm itself.

P.S. Silent speed when your in trouble with little room is always 1 knot and always try to set your rudders to 2-4 degrees in either direction. Constantly turning helps to make you a bit harder to find.

[Catfish]

Hello,
only to put some more oil into the fire :lol:
I do not know how SH3 handles this, but a submarine which is at periscope depth can usually not be detected in reality, for the following reasons:

Hydrophones: the surface noise of waves, even when it is almost calm, prevents a detection, if you do not crash a hammer against the hull. Running silent with up to 150 propshaft rpm will not give away your position. Just do not stick the periscope out too long ...

Early sonar/Asdic: the detection cone in front of a destroyer will not find a sub at periscope depth, because even its upper face has a downward angle which will pass below the boat. A boat that is so near as to be hit by the impulses, will 1st most probably be rammed in the next second with or without detection, and 2nd a hitting impuls would not be directly reflected to its source as long as the destroyer moves.

Only possibility is a thermal or density layer below the sub that would reflect the sonar impulse upward again, and then "touch" the boat. Even then the physical situation has to be in a way that those impulses are directly reflected.

Both statements are from a book "Submarine hunt and detection" from the 1960 ies, and even in that time with developped hydrophones and sonar etc. it was virtually impossible to find a sub at PD.

The only "classic" sub game with Diesel/electric boats i know of, that represented that behaviour, was "Wolfpack". If SH3 can be tweaked to represent this i would like to see it. Speaking of oil again lol ...

Greetings,
Catfish

[treblesum81]

Hehe, well, from the sounds of it there are 3 components to staying alive in shallow waters:

1: Luck

2: Finding a good hiding spot

3: Not being stupid enough to go in there in the first place

Sound about right? :p
That being said of course, a lot of good targets sit in harbors and convoys are often easy to work with in the limited inter-island waterways. Oh well, I've been wanting to try looking for some of the bigger seagoing targets since those seem to pose a different kind of challenge altogether in that first you have to find them, then get into position with some good thought, and then manage to get away with nothing but depth to hide in.

I did manage to bag an illustrious carrier last night, it was quite a catch, but then I had to spend the next few hours at 150m trying to evade all 6 of the carrier escorts hunting me down...

Out of curiosity, I know that op depth on a VIIB is stated at 150m and max at 220m but I've seen posts here talking regularly about operating at max depth and some that go much further than that... What is the real crush depth on these, and how bad of an idea is it to get right down on it?

@Catfish
Those are interesting points... though I'm not sure how accurate they are, only because if they were really the case, U-boats would have simply just stayed at PD when trying to evade and never gotten sunk because they could sneak away easily. That being said, there are also a lot of other factors there that might be in play and I think it would be worthwhile to include those modellings if they are accurate... GWX et al have made the game so much more interesting and realistic with their addons, but they've essentially made it a lot harder too. Wouldn't it be nice if adding realism could help out in some little way to counteract that. :)

Greg

[Catfish]

Hello treblesum81,
the numbers and situations are from the book i mentioned, and i believe them to be exact. Mr. Topp, who had sunk quite some tonnage, and survived the war, also mentioned that strategy. In fact he said he usually never dived to more than 30 meters for exactly that reason.

A boat hearing a destroyer start its attack run could go to full speed undetected, the destroyer is virtually blind during the attack run. If you are at PD the destroyer has to be REAL fast not to be sunk by its own depth charges, being adjusted for exploding at 15 meters.

Bystanding destroyers would as well not hear you because of the attacking destroyers cavitation noises, and no one wanted to ruin his ears hearing exploding charges at the hydrophone. As well in the first years of the war depth charges often exploded at the wrong depth, having similar problems with depth settings as the torpedoes of all nations.

If the enemy exactly knew where you were (spotted your periscope) you would probaly dive deeper to evade the depth charges: One reason is the deeper you are the more the enemy has to calculate sinking speed of the charges against the movements of the sub. And as well a depth charge in say 200 meters does not have the kill radius it would have in shallow waters - water pressure is your friend here.

Even today e.g. a diesel-electric russian "Kilo" sub can only be found by means of exhaust Diesel detection when running at PD charging the batteries, and the Diesel-generated noise.
As soon as it switches to electric propulsion the only possibility for detection is to use submerged sonar buoys, that direct the impulses upward, and are in that case able to detect the sub. Certainly there are other detection strategies today, but not in WW2 anyway.
One of the advisors for SH3, also a real ex-U-boat commander from WW2, said the SH3 vanilla game was already much too hard compared to reality.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Jimbuna]

Good post http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[treblesum81]

Agreed, very good post..

I'm interested to know more of the reasoning behind how the game is harder than it was in real life... did he elaborate any on the reasoning behind the statement at all? I know that it couldn't possibly have been as hard as its is in GWX, but the stock game was pretty easy to start with, meaning that he was basically saying that real life U-boating was like Sunday cruising with the chance of losing your life...

Speaking to the GWX team here, I think it would be fair if you all had a look into this data, as it may help to further improve balance and realism within your mod, and in addition, I imagine it would help a lot of people enjoy your addon further. I'll say though that I'm not thinking this would become an easy way to lose DD's as I'm sure there are plenty of other detection strategies that one might fall prey too, but I think that in many cases, GWX seems to model almost exclusively the aspects of U-Boat operations that serve to make life more difficult and not all that many that make it easier. Just a thought.

Greg

[predavolk]

against my better judgement i ventured into some 50 meter water off the US east coast.

i got ambushed by an escort destroyer :nope:

i did survive, but for a long while this guy had me by the short hairs!

nasically, i went as deep as i could which was only about 40 -50 meters and pointed my boat east toward the deep water. i made evasive turns with every depth charge run occasionally listening for splashes by manning the hydrophone myself.

my biggest fear was not this particular destroyer, but wondering how many friends he had on the way!

eventually (i dont remember how long) but this destroyer ran out of depth charges and continued making dashes above me as if to drop his DCs but dropping nothing.

i continued to inch my way east until the echolot indicated an additional 40 or 50 meters below me. I went deeper right above the sea floor and the destroyer lost contact as my batteries were drained to about 20% from the die hard engagement.

we had taken a beating which resulted in only light damage.

surviving in the shallows comes down to patience, luck and religion... be patient, dont zig when you should zag, and pray for a break or some deep water

Good post, and it mirrors my thoughts and experiences. First, pray for a heavy sea state. That makes all the difference. Second, generally try to head towards deeper water. Keep a constant direction. Remember that the AI works from a point of contact. Get away from it! Third, use your periscope (if detected) to fight back or to run. In clearer water, the observation scope can be used to see the destroyer on its attack run (doesn't so well work in cloudier or deeper water with mods). Otherwise, keep patient, keep cool, and keep dodging their attacks. With luck, you'll evade them, find deeper water, wear them out, or run into heavier seas. Without luck they'll hit you, you'll run out of batteries, or they'll call in reinforcements.

[Kaleun Volk]

Shallow water evasion

Simple, stay out of the fecking shallow water unless you want to kiss your ass good bye. :rotfl:

:yep:

Well put, make course for some deep sea and hope the batteries don't run dry on you... Shalow water will end careers faster than playing for the Leafs....

But I seamed to have the best luck going as deep as I can in shallows (anywhere from 20 to 30 meters) and zig zaging. Pray for a storm, deeper waters, Hermann Goering's boys, or the water is shalow enough for the escorts to blow off their depth charge racks (seen that happen on occasion)....

[Penelope_Grey]

Speaking to the GWX team here, I think it would be fair if you all had a look into this data, as it may help to further improve balance and realism within your mod, and in addition, I imagine it would help a lot of people enjoy your addon further. I'll say though that I'm not thinking this would become an easy way to lose DD's as I'm sure there are plenty of other detection strategies that one might fall prey too, but I think that in many cases, GWX seems to model almost exclusively the aspects of U-Boat operations that serve to make life more difficult and not all that many that make it easier. Just a thought.

Greg

Hello Greg,

I don't place a lot of faith in stock SH3 in terms of challenge to the player In all my time playing stock SH3 I never got sunk. Sadly as the other senior team members would gladly tell you, if you do action A in SH3, you will have repurcussion in Action B. Its difficult to do X without affecting Y so you have to strike compromises somewhere.

Modifying the sensors was done like it was so that the player faces real threat, because that was the reality of it, the U-Boat force was the second most dangerous force to be in, second only to the kamikaze's of the Japanese. With a 75% death rate there really is no two ways about it, to be historically true, you have to model the aspects that made U-boat operations hard.

However I disagree about nothing being there in GWX to make life easier, you have several things to assist you, such as sonar decoys, anti-sonar and radar coatings, radar warning sets. Not only that, the campaign in 1939/1940 even as far as 1941, is not exactly difficult... I can quite faithfully say that GWX models the "happy times" quite well.

[Frank0001]

Another little tip to hide your presence even more;

Lower your speed to 1kts when submerged, on silent mode it will go from 100rpm to about 50rpm. (at least on the type VIIb)
I know it's not much, but it saves the half in rpm, surely that would save some noice as well!

[Tessa]

Hello Greg,

I don't place a lot of faith in stock SH3 in terms of challenge to the player In all my time playing stock SH3 I never got sunk. Sadly as the other senior team members would gladly tell you, if you do action A in SH3, you will have repurcussion in Action B. Its difficult to do X without affecting Y so you have to strike compromises somewhere.

Modifying the sensors was done like it was so that the player faces real threat, because that was the reality of it, the U-Boat force was the second most dangerous force to be in, second only to the kamikaze's of the Japanese. With a 75% death rate there really is no two ways about it, to be historically true, you have to model the aspects that made U-boat operations hard.

However I disagree about nothing being there in GWX to make life easier, you have several things to assist you, such as sonar decoys, anti-sonar and radar coatings, radar warning sets. Not only that, the campaign in 1939/1940 even as far as 1941, is not exactly difficult... I can quite faithfully say that GWX models the "happy times" quite well.

In terms of fatality rates there's no arguing about the numbers, though I think objectively I'd put the U-Boats as #1 as the kamakaze's had problems. Though they're missions were to be human guided bombs ensuing a near 100% fatality rate some would miss their targets or be shot down. Though there were hundreds of ships hit by these attacks, a lot of the planes were also shot down. Would be interesting to see the % of kamakaze attacks that were "successfull" in hitting their targets, doubt that it's above 75%.

There's a number of aspects of GWX that are harder than the stock, though there are some major changes that go towards the more realistic side which make the game much easier than the stock version. Trying to evade more than 4 DD's in stock is very tough (once their sonar skills get decent) and they rarely give up. GWX does a good job of simulating a real DC attack where ships would leave after a few hours rather than stick around endlessly dropping DC's till you either die or surface for lack of air. The thermal layers also really help throw off the sonar just enough that dc's will reliably keep exploding 20 or 30 m above you if you're under a layer. You can also bottom your boat (intentionally) as a tactic and the DD won't start using DC's like smart bombs on hit you with 100% accuracy (unless they've already found you).

[danoh]

What is working for this noob is to think about the combination of sea turbulance and thermal layer. I have read there are generally 2 thermal lines. One is just below persicope depth and one seems to be around 160 meters.

If the seas are rough it seems I can move at 2 knots at persicope depth and be pretty much invisible. Just today (Oct. 1941) I had a destroyer pass within 300 meters of my periscope-depth sub and because the seas were rough she did not detect me even though I was moving at 2 knots.

I know I would have been detected in calm seas at all stop, and when this happens I flank speed/manuever until I am below 160 meters and at that point they don't seem to be able to find me. My IXC can always stand the pressure down to 210m (haven't risked it below that, though I read it is possible) and once I am down there I'm never detected.

Moral of the story seems to be get down and deep after an attack if the seas are calm.

I have some questions regarding this:

1) do the Germans ever get a detection device (bathyspehere ?) that lets them know where the thermal layers actually are? If not, is there a mod that gives your U-Boat this ahistorical edge?

2) I read the U.S. boats had such a device and it is recreated for SHIV. Was it true the U.S. boats did, and the U-Boats did not, have this device in WWII?

3) Is this thermal layer effect recreated in SHIII GWX 2.0/2.1? My guess is yes since it works.

4) What weather conditions change the lower (160?) meter depth of the lower thermal layer?

Thanks for any input you have.









2)

[treblesum81]

@Catfish

As it turns out, I think that the shallow water detection we were talking about previously seems to have been modelled, either by GWX 2.1 or by SH3 stock (don't really know how much more of that is left after GWX 2.1 and Ubermod). Last night I attacked a convoy in rough seas, but good visibility. On a hunch I chose not to dive right away after the attack and, lo and behold, 3 DD's started searching a good distance out along the probable path of the torp, but never got close to me and my detection meter never went red. I was able to keep the attack going for a full hour at PD without ever getting within 1km of a DD.

In addition, I was able to conduct operations at 1/3 speed and off of silent running in a VIIB in 1940.

Greg

[Schwuppes]

Attacking a destroyer in shallow water = FAIL

[buglepong]

it's actually not that hard to take out a lone destroyer in shallow water, since the ai is so predictable. I find that when they know where you are, they speed up to 14kts and circle you at about 700m. Just gotta get them when they steam across your bow or stern...

[treblesum81]

it's actually not that hard to take out a lone destroyer in shallow water, since the ai is so predictable. I find that when they know where you are, they speed up to 14kts and circle you at about 700m. Just gotta get them when they steam across your bow or stern...

Even easier, just flank speed directly away from them.... they will fall in right behind you, wait till they get to about 700m and pop a fish under their bow with a mag trigger... if it doesn't sink them it will blind them so they can't ping anymore.

But, what I'm saying is that these DD's couldn't locate me. I wasn't hunting them... they were hunting me, and unable to locate me at all... i was able to unload all 12 fish into this one convoy and never had to evade a single DC. I don't know if it was modelled this way or not, but I just confirmed that it exists...

Different sub (IXD2), different year (1943), and got the same result, I was able to fire and reload for quite some time without the DD's locating me at PD in rough seas. Anyone know if this is intentional, either from GWX or in the original game, or I've got some bug going here?

Greg

[predavolk]

Rough seas make a HUGE difference in staying hidden. And being at periscope depth might actually keep you out of the downward-slanted active sonar pings. You'd only be picked up by reflected pings IIRC. So it's not an accident, and it's not terribly unrealistic, to be able to stay hidden in very rough seas.

Frankly, I've been surprised that in a couple of convoy attacks, I've nailed the ships without any visible response from their escorts! :o I presume it's because they don't have any fix on me and/or the sea state is too rough.

[treblesum81]

Or it could be that you're in the vicinity of a minefield and the escorts are percieving a mine hit? Its one of the messages, and you never quite know whats modelled and whats fluf from those ;).

Or it could just be that they are asleep at the helm.

[Philogogus]

The most effective tactic I have for breaking destroyer contact is as follows


Turn off silent running
Get to periscope depth... raise your scope
Call flank speed... hold until you KNOW the destroyer has spotted you
Immediately when that destroyer starts turning toward you... hit silent running
All back slowThey will extrapolate your course at 8kts (whatever your submerged flank speed is) and in the direction you WERE going. I have very little problem evading escorts using this tactic.

[treblesum81]

Nice idea, I've kinda let all reverse power settings go to disuse because the props are so inefficient at stopping the boat... as little as 30-45 seconds to come to speed, but a full 2-3 min to come to a stop, even though they should have only slightly reduced effectiveness in this situation as they are nearly symmentrical AOA props...

One tactic I've taken to is diving straight under the DD's when I need to evade, as soon as I hear them overhead I go to flank and they drop DC's behind me some distance. Doesn't always work, but at least they can't turn in on you and close the drop line.

[Philogogus]

Actually, I am not using them to stop... using them to go backwards. Farther away from the DD I am the happier :D

[predavolk]

That's an interesting tactic. What version of the game do you play? I also imagine that a brief full rudder would help slow you down too. It would take you a little off-target too.

[Nippelspanner]

My legs start to shake when I hear "shallow waters". GWX (I think 1.0 or 1.3) teached me not to hunt in shallow waters... Or even pass through shallow waters. I was surprised and sunk on a shiny day at the US East coast during Op. Paukenschlag and lost my, till now, best Commander ever - because I had no chance of divng deeper than fecking 17m!!! Self Defence was imposible because I was totally out of Torpedoes, heading towards the nearest Milchkuh.

Never ever again I will enter shallow waters! :damn:

Long story short: THERE IS NO "EVASION" IN SHALLOW WATERS!

[treblesum81]

Long story short: THERE IS NO "EVASION" IN SHALLOW WATERS!
I think the better way to say it is there is no losing the enemy in shallow waters... Last night SH3 Gen commanded me to infiltrate Portsmith and do as much damage as possible. I was able to avoid getting D/C'd for a good two hours play time until the DD that was tracking me ran into a dock and sunk and I was able to park under a tanker and wait until dark to sneak out of the bay decks awash. Maybe it was luck after all, but there was dead calm weather during the evasive part and the closest I ever got to a charge was about 50m. Yeah, if he hadn't run into the dock, I'd probably have run out of air before i could get out of the harbor, but I did survive GWX 2.1 in Portsmith in 1940...

Edit: BTW, I was not using external cam, but I was using a lot of underwater periscoping along with plenty of quick pops above the surface to keep an eye on my attacker... i don't think I would be able to evade anything by sound alone at this point.

[GoDeep]

It's my feel that it should be very hard to track a sub running silent in shallow waters. From all I've read about submarines during the years, I've always learned that active sonar in shallow waters was pretty much useless (in WW2, anyway, and perhaps still today). It would not be possible to pinpoint a sub.
Of course that does not eliminate the chance that someone might hear you, but the chance would be slim indeed. Conventional submarines on silent running are very silent indeed!

I'm not sure if this can be modelled in the SHIII engine, of course. It might feel too easy too then. Just run silent at PD and you slip by any escort. Perhaps the down angle of the active sonar cone, which is now at 0 in GWX 2.1 I believe, can be made variable? Sometimes it is at 10, sometimes at 0, sometimes at some value in between those, but you never know which it is?:hmm: