tips for a newbie

[gazdadude]

just ondeing if anyone has any tips for a newbie i can navigate basic however no good at ngaging targets how do you do thi using the attack map and navigation map? alo an general tip would be appreciated

[Soundman]

Search these forums. There are many video tutorials you will find helpfull posted here, just be patient and search.

[SteamWake]

Lots of guides here http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=108931

good luck.

[FIREWALL]

Welcome Aboard gazdadude :up:

What they said. :D If those don't help keep asking.:yep:

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

I also am new, still wet behind the ears and learning hard, so welcome shipmate, that is a very useful list of learning guides. thank you for that.

/me salutes

[Monica Lewinsky]

Some General tips come from here:

Q. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

A. Everyone else will let you know the answer.

Practice, Experiment, and Research might point you to the road of success.

[SteamWake]

By conserving fuel ? :yep:

[Hoss1193]

As the others have mentioned, many great guides on these forums! Browse and you'll find good discussions on pretty much anything you've wondered about (as well as quite a few answers to questions you *haven't* thought of yet).

That said, I'll try to textually describe the basic way I use the maps to set myself up for good torpedo shots. This text assumes that you're attacking a single merchant/tanker vessel (not convoy or lone warship), using auto-targeting, and have surface search radar (careers don't *start* with SS radar, but it comes pretty early).

1. At first radar contact, zoom in on the target and mark as precisely as possible (nav map). Note the time.

2. Turn your submarine to an intercept course perpendicular to the target, and come up to a full bell.

3. Wait 10 minutes. Then mark him again. This should give enough interval to allow decent precision in next step.

4. Connect the two marks with map tool and extend the course past the bow of your boat. This will give you a fairly accurate course projection.

5. Measure distance between the two marks, then multiply by 6. This will give you target speed (frankly, you don't really need this with auto-targeting).

6. Pick an attack point along the course, a point you can get to at full bell well before target comes into visual range. 9 times out of 10, your course already perpendicular to target course will work just fine.

7. Draw a 1000yd ring around your desired attack point for reference. Upon arrival, come to 0 knots about 1000yds from desired impact point. This distance works pretty well in accounting for the 100-200 yd left-right error inherent in the map tool that you used to draw target course line. Note...if you're coming down from 20 to 0 knots, you're going to have to ring up "All Stop" a *long* way out - I usually slow to 11 knots after I'm sure it will get me there in time, and then ring up All Stop at 2000 yds from impact point. My Balao class boat goes from 11 to 0 in about 1100 yards, leaving me 900 yards from torpedo impact point - works well.

8. Once in firing position, just sit and wait for the target. I usually wait until visual detection - your deck watch should see him a *long* time before he sees you. This way you know what target type it is and can start thinking about torpedo salvo size, whether using deck gun is viable to finish it off (i.e., is the target ship armed and with what?).

9. Once in visual range, go to periscope depth and order Battle Stations. I've discerned no real need for the Battle Stations efficiency boost before this point, and I like to keep my crew at BS as short a time as possible.

10. Put your Attack periscope up at this point. Wait for target to come within visual range of the periscope.

11. Upon visual sighting by periscope, lock the target ("L" key), look up the vessel in the Manual to determine depth, and activate the Position Keeper by hitting the little white circle in the lower left of the TDC box (it turns red).

12. Lower periscope.

13. Go to Attack Map.

14. Now you see the PK-estimated target position on the attack map. Just watch it come toward you. You can speed TC up to 32 here...no reason not to do so. You should have picked up the target on hydrophone by now; as long as the sonar bearing line of the target tracks along with the PK position, you know that the target ship hasn't changed course. If it diverges, however, means the target changed course and you're going to have to start all over again.

15. Choose which tube(s) you're going to fire, and open tube doors ("Q" key). DON'T forget to do this step well ahead of time...if you fire a torpedo from closed tube, the door-opening delay will make the torpedo miss behind the target.

16. The Attack Map will show a green line showing projected torpedo course to intercept. Wait until that line is about 15 degrees from straight-out. go back to TC 1 (if you're not already there).

17. Go back to attack periscope and raise it. You'll stay at this station through remainder of attack.

18. With PK solution, your periscope should raise on the target's bearing. As soon as it breaks the surface, you should see the ship in the scope. If not, you have an idea where to look for it....about 340 or 020.

19. Lock the target ship.

20. De-activate the Position Keeper. You want to fire at where you see the target...not where the PK *thinks* it is.

21. Set torpedo speed, detonation, angle, and depth.
- If selectable, speed FAST. With this method, longer torpedo range at slow speed is not an issue.
- Contact-only detonation. Contact+influence detonation increases chance that torp will explode prematurely and possibly not breach the hull.
- Spread angle 0 (should be there anyway as default).
- Depth: about 1/2 of target draft (i.e., for 24 ft draft freighter, set torpedo depth to 10 or 12). If in doubt, bias toward shallower. A torpedo hitting right at waterline is far better than torpedo running under the keel and missing.

22. As soon as the target triangle goes green, fire the torpedo(s).

23. Watch the stopwatch...the red mark indicates estimated time of torpedo run. When the blue second hand reaches the red mark, torpedo should impact.

24. Savor view of explosion, fire, and mayhem in your periscope view.

25. If target doesn't sink immediately, be patient...sometimes it takes a minute or two for the vessel to flood sufficiently. Even if the torpedo does NOT sink the vessel, should slow it down enough where you can maneuver easily for 2nd shot against sitting duck. Alternatively, if it is NOT armed (ie., many passenger liners), you might surface and finish it off with your deck gun.

26. Don't forget to SECURE FROM BATTLE STATIONS!!!! More than once I've forgotten to do this and wound up with a totally wrecked crew.

There are many more nuances and steps you can add, plus more considerations come into play for attack against a convoy (such as, Rig for Silent Running long before those pesky escorts come into hydrophone range!). But this basic procedure should give you a rough start.

Good hunting!

[FIREWALL]

Me thinks all that readin advice scared him off. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Falkirion]

If you ever have a destroyer breathing down your neck, dont stop moving and go deep. Deep is good, with silent running and ahead 1/3rd you should be fine if they didn't have an accurate fix on you. If those cans start coming down, go to flank, turn, resume ahead 1/3rd running and repeat as often as neccessary until the Destroyers bug out or you slip away.

[Hoss1193]

If you ever have a destroyer breathing down your neck, dont stop moving and go deep. Deep is good, with silent running and ahead 1/3rd you should be fine if they didn't have an accurate fix on you. If those cans start coming down, go to flank, turn, resume ahead 1/3rd running and repeat as often as neccessary until the Destroyers bug out or you slip away.

Yep, I second that tip, works for me. What I try to do is:

a) Dive from PD on a straight course; don't crash-dive, because you'll level out at 120 feet...not deep enough.

b) I usually dive at flank speed. Yeah, I put out a little noise, but increases the speed with which I get deep. My hope is that I get deep enough fast enough that the DDs lose the sound before they get a decent position.

c) I try to pop out sonar decoys just before I reach the thermocline. Something like 160-180 feet. The layer is rarely shallower than that, and usually not too far below it. I typically find it between 200-250 feet. I have no clue if those decoys are actually worth much, but makes me feel like I'm doing everything I can to evade.

d) As soon as I hear "Passing thermal layer", I slow to 1/3, and kick the rudder hard over one way or the other. I try to level out about 30 feet below the layer, not go all the way down to crush depth. That way, if the DDs *do* drop DCs close by, I've got a little more room underneath me to play with.

e) Then I just creep away at 3 knots and silent running. I draw a 6-nm radius circle around my dive point and slink along until I'm outside the circle. By the time I'm that far, I've usually lost the escort hydrophone bearings by then, and am pretty sure to be outside their visual range if they're still around the original site looking for me. Come up to PD, take a look around to make sure one of them isn't sitting near me with engines off, then surface and go on my way.

Works well 9 times out of 10. The 1 out of 10 times when it doesn't? Well that's what makes the game interesting, isn't it?

[click]

Thanks guys this stuff really helps me. Just got the game on Sunday.

Do have a question though. When attaciking a convoy do you just leave the escorts and go for the merchants if undetected. Or do try and get rid of the escorts first and then get the merchants. Most of the convoys I seem to ecounter have escorts. So far in fact all of them do. Thanks in advanced and thanks to all the people who have done those tutorial vids those are a life saver.

[SteamWake]

Thanks guys this stuff really helps me. Just got the game on Sunday.

Do have a question though. When attaciking a convoy do you just leave the escorts and go for the merchants if undetected. Or do try and get rid of the escorts first and then get the merchants. Most of the convoys I seem to ecounter have escorts. So far in fact all of them do. Thanks in advanced and thanks to all the people who have done those tutorial vids those are a life saver.

All depends on your style.

Some will try and dispose of the escorts and sink the entire fleet (good luck).

But thats not very realsitic. Also with some mods it can be suicidal as well as non productive. Chances are your going to miss anyhow and spend the rest of the day evading. :oops:

Personally I concentrate on the merchant and troop transports as was the doctrine of the day. Ill target the largest highest value ships, two or three of them. Let loose with all the fore tubes. Then time and conditions permitting try to get shots in with the stern tubes as well then get the hell out of there. ;)

But if you just want to blow stuff up sink em all :arrgh!:

[Soundman]

I agree with Steamwake's statement above. It depends on style and even more so, on what install/Mods you have. I use TMO and I gotta tell you the DD's are deadly and as stated above, not worth much renown compared the the higher value merchants. I do enjoy taking on the DD's occasionally and find the best approach with them is a "down the throat" shot. Just yesterday I fired a perfect shot (not down the throat) at one from about 3500 yds and the DD saw it coming and increased speed to successfully evade the shot. AND..don't under estimate those damn Subchasers. They are very hard to hit with a fish and maneuver well. I find them more deadly than the DD's.

[Hoss1193]

Fully agree with Steamwake and Soundman. Depends on what you want to do.

The conventional (and historically accurate) answer is to go for the merchants, the bigger the better. After all, that's your mission, to sink tanker and merchant shipping...and go for total tonnage. Sinking the single Large Composite is far better than sinking two Small Engine Aft tankers.

In fact, the system I use myself to determine if I'm being effective/efficient on a given patrol is to keep a running calculation of "merchant tonnage per torpedo". I know that might not 100% match up to the Renown rewards for given ship types, but I bet it's pretty close. (Actually, once past the first couple of patrols, I'm not really sure that Renown is very important...I've never felt "renown-constrained" in obtaining boat upgrades, new recruits, or newer torpedo models).

Generally speaking, I consider 2500/torp to be about the minimum acceptable figure. Anything higher than 3000/torp and I'm pretty happy...it's a good patrol. Huge European liners and Large Modern Tankers really help that stat, of course. Keep in mind that these are late-war numbers; I sail with all tubes filled with the relatively reliable Mk23. I didn't use that self-assessment measure earlier in my career - when I begin a new one I'll probably dial those benchmarks down a bit for the Mk14.

And yes, I'm still using auto-targeting, not manual. I think the solution-obtaining process I use, however, has got me most of the way toward being able to manual target effectively (described above). But I'm aware that my ton-per-torp number will probably suffer significantly for a while when I go manual.

But anyway, that's just my style - US wanted those subs to sink merchants, so that's what I do.

Your style may be different...if you get jazzed by sinking warships, then by all means do so. It IS more challenging and more dangerous. And it is also true that if you CAN punk all the escorts in a given convoy, now you've got a nice fat vulnerable collection of 6-10 merchies at your mercy....a pretty salivating prospect.

I did do that one time in the Java Sea...Was firing a 2nd torpedo at a wounded tanker, and an escort happened to zip right in front of it and got himself schwacked. Almost simultaneously, a Cutie I'd popped out the stern snagged another DD. At that point, I thought what the heck, and got lucky with DD's 3 & 4. Finished off the cripples from my initial attack and then was able to chase down the remaining defenseless merchies and finish them off with deck gun. ONLY reason I was able to do that; heavy rain and low visibility - prevented multiple merchants from using their deck guns on me, was able to come in behind one by one keeping my boat out of the firing arc of the single forward gun on each successive ship. Very fortuitous set of circumstances, I haven't tried to duplicate that feat - just kinda fell in my lap.

Probably wouldn't have been able to do it if a) weather had been clear, b) hadn't gotten totally lucky with two simultaneous DD kills that I wasn't even really trying for (the Cutie was a long shot, I wasn't really expecting it to connect), and/or c) I'd been playing RFB or TMO - this was stock.

[I'm goin' down]

see my handle and practice holding your breath.

[Deep-Six]

I agree with Steamwake's statement above. It depends on style and even more so, on what install/Mods you have. I use TMO and I gotta tell you the DD's are deadly and as stated above, not worth much renown compared the the higher value merchants. I do enjoy taking on the DD's occasionally and find the best approach with them is a "down the throat" shot. Just yesterday I fired a perfect shot (not down the throat) at one from about 3500 yds and the DD saw it coming and increased speed to successfully evade the shot. AND..don't under estimate those damn Subchasers. They are very hard to hit with a fish and maneuver well. I find them more deadly than the DD's.

Down the throat shots should still apply w/ the same doctrine in SH3. And that is waiting for the DD until it reaches 800yds or less. At 3500 yds it gives the DD all the time in the world to evade. Plus, I would fire a narrow spread incase the DD does try to turn. I have done them and they do work.

[gazdadude]

thanks for the advice