Battleships and larger vessels in SHIII??

[Alexlab]

Hi all,

Just a quick question and would appreciate if someone could help me out here. I've been playing SHIII for about a year on a realism setting of around 43%. So far I have never encountered any large allied battleships, german battleships or aircraft carriers either. Is this due to the case that the realism settings need to be higher in order to encounter these vessels from time to time in the game? Or has anyone encountered these ships with lower realism settings and in that case I just happen to be plain unlucky?
Much appreciated.

[piri_reis]

Welcome to subsim Alexlab!

The ships that sail the oceans in SH3 are derived from the Static & Random Layers of the campaign. The realism settings have no effect on traffic. You've just got to be lucky to come across a taskforce, or you can lurk around their favorite spots (gibraltar?) or raid a harbour (scapa flow)..
What supermod are you using, gwx, wac, nygm they all add extra traffic to the stock campaign files.

[StarLion45]

:D Hi there Alexlab:D

First of all I would like to welcome you to SUBSIM:sunny:

Battleships !? I don't know where to begin:hmm:
Hmm , it depends what year you're in , but ok, lets start:cool:
If you're in the year 1939 , you will find HMS Nelson in "Loch Ewe" .
but I never been there yet:-? And you find him in the Northwestern corner
of Gibraltat Harbour . I explain it to you:D sail down to Gibraltar strait , and in the beginning of the strait order your crew to slow down to "silent running" and dive to 14 meters through the whole strait . And when you come to beginning of Gibraltar Harbour turn babord (left) keep your sub close to shore , this is very important:yep:
You will find " HMS Nelson " about 2-5 km to the end of that corner . But beware ! It is very shallow water .
If you sink him , turn your sub , and go the same way out again on " silent running "..

And other Battleships like "Warspite" and "Hood" , you will/can find those , and similar Battleships in the fjord "Vaag" in Narvik around april 12 - to april 28th in the Grid "AF38" , and in in the "Harstad fjord" you can run into "Warspite" . And in the year 1941 , in May 26-27 , you may , if you're lucky , you can find a taskforce that is hunting "Bismarck" in grid "BE38" with the Battleships HMS Rodney/Nelson , and "King George V" , and those carriers Illistrius" etc .
I hope this was a little help to your questions . But I'm shure other embers in here in SUBsim can help you too:p

Good Luck ! And SINK THEM ALL:up:

[TarJak]

Welcome to subsim Alexlab!

[meduza]

Occasionaly you'll receive a report of a Task force from BdU. Intercept it, and there's a good chance you'll find a battleship or a carrier. It won't be easy because they move fast, and are heavily escorted.

Sometimes you'll find a battleship or a cruiser inside a convoy, going slow. Sitting ducks. :arrgh!:

I didn't have much luck with large warships. During the years of playing, I sank no more that half a dozen battleships and not a single carrier, although I attacked and damaged a few. :oops:

Welcome aboard and good hunting!

[Alexlab]

Thanks for the help guys. I've got one more question though,

What supermod are you using, gwx, wac, nygm they all add extra traffic to the stock campaign files.

What are gwx, wac or nygm???? Never seen or heard of those before?

Also, when I get a radio message received, there is actually no message anywhere to be found.

Cheers for any help.

[meduza]

What are gwx, wac or nygm???? Never seen or heard of those before?
These are the supermods for SH3. Here (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=115089) are the links for their threads.

Also, when I get a radio message received, there is actually no message anywhere to be found.
Press "M" and you'll see the all the messages you received and sent.

[Brag]

Welcome aboard, Alexlab! :D

I recommend GWX 2.1
However, GWX 3.0 is about to be released. You may want to wait until this happens.

[richardphat]

^
l
l

YUP YUP :p GWX! You must play GWX! There is a bunch of BB available for KM, RY, UN and IN

[xxx]

I've only ever come across a battle ship once but on my last career I was given orders to break into Scapa Flow and sink an Illustrious fleet carrier. It was there along with 2 Auxillary cruisers :rock: . However thats the only significant capital ships I've seen in SHIII.

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD, Alexlab!:sunny:

As Meduza posted the best link, there's not much more to explain. The supermods are all great, and all have harbor traffic coming and going, including pretty much historical ship movements.

Germany only had one aircraft carrier, Graf Zeppelin, and she was never completed. You can see her in Kiel harbor in 1939 with GWX. Also the battleships and cruisers are there during the correct historical time frames.

[ppk]

Welcome!

Early in the war the game sometimes spawns Revenge class BB's in the middle of convoys with two or three Flowers as escorts... That's probably the easiest way to kill a capital ship but you have to be lucky to find one. Personally I like to hunt in grids AM and AL near the Rockall Bank, it's around there that most of the Liverpool bound convoys converge. Once in a while you'll see other stuff too, for example I just bagged a pair of unescorted Fiji light cruisers in AM29. Not exactly a battleship but still bigger than the usual stuff. The guys above pretty much summed it all up. Good luck!

On the topic of task forces I have a question too : almost every patrol I get contact reports of task forces transiting within British waters from Liverpool to Scapa. I never tried to get close but there seems to be a spot where the water looks deep-ish on the map and I've been thinking about sneaking in there to take a few swipes at them... Is it worth it? It's Feb 1943 in my campaign now so I might as well save that for the next one but still, I wonder...

[Blue-Casket]

Yeah i don't find battleships a lot , only have been able to sink one !
A revenge clas which was surrounded by 8 escorts :p
I can assure u the moment 2 of my 4 torpedo's hit that vessel they all went down to hunt me :arrgh!:

Then after heavy damage i lost trail of escorts and battleship but i knew it was heavily damaged en went on with searching, after a day i found him back completely unescorted because he couldn't keep a steady course anymore.

3 more torpedo's finished the job ;)
Another time more in the beginning of the war i saw the hood and 2 other battleships behind it setting sail to the West that was a nice image too :yep:
But i've never seen a carrier EVER :down:

[GreyFox]

My very first patrol it was bad weather. I was on patrol a hundred miles off Syrth of Forth in my little Type IIA when my lookout warned me about a taskforce. I dive and take a look around, 3 battleships about 5 klicks away. I tried to close, but they were travelling at over 20 knots while I could only make 13. I fired a couple of torps, but they all missed.

Haven't seen a battleship since :cry:

[Jimbuna]

Welcome aboard Alexlab http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/welcome.gif

[peterloo]

Welcome, alexlab

Mmm. As others explained this required luck.
For me, I have sunk no capital ship. Encountered none neither. But I still have some success in my career.

But I must emphasis that your main role is not sink battleships but merchant shippings. Comparing successful USA and German commerce raiding by submarines, and the fruitless Japanese attempt in sinking warships, we can see the difference. (Notice that Imperial Japanese Navy operates a great submarine fleet at the start of Pacific War, with the most submarine types, some of the best ones like I-400s, and arguably the best torpedo --- the type 95, derived from the famous type 93 long lance)

Is that because USA and German has better stragetical position that results in their difference? Not really. USA has equally vulnerable supply lines from USA east coast to forward bases like Peral Harbour or Midway. But her inability to exploit this weakless equated her defeat

Remember your main duty!

[Kptlt. Siegmann]

I don't go intentionally looking for a warship to sink, I just happen to be lucky enough to run into a lot of them so far. Career 2 in my personnel file, I sunk 2 Revenge Class BBs, 1 CV, and HMS Hood, all within 8 months. I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to sink something that big if I can help it:yep:

Plenty out there though! Just have to be in the right place at the right time.

[YukonJack_AK]

Alexlab - Used to have the same frustration as you... Where are the 'juicy' targets? Honestly - I upgraded to Grey Wolves (GWX) 2 months ago and have NOT been disappointed yet! I regularly go hunting north of Ireland (early war - 1940-41) and usually will come across a decent sized convoy escorted by a Nelson Class BB right in the middle! Only got her once but what a treat just to see her! Seriously try GWX - and welcome from one new guy to another!

[peterloo]

I guess the British uses cheaper and cheaper escort ships as war drag on. Havn't tried attacking convey by GWX much through (I use NYGM due to the less capable computer config of my notebook)

Not even regular DDs. They substitute it by a whole **** lot of flowers, black swans! Battleships are diverted to Japan.

BTW finally tried successfully sinking the auxillery cruiser in NYGM :)

If you talk about where have the BBs gone? Simple. War with the Japanese

[A Very Super Market]

GWX makes it significantly harder to find (forget sink!) a capital ship (as far as I know, which isn't that much :P). Stock SH3 spawns capital ships regularily in Loch Ewe and Scapa Flow. The rest of the time, they spawn randomly on patrol without set guidelines for dates and stuff.

[Jimbuna]

GWX makes it significantly harder to find (forget sink!) a capital ship (as far as I know, which isn't that much :P). Stock SH3 spawns capital ships regularily in Loch Ewe and Scapa Flow. The rest of the time, they spawn randomly on patrol without set guidelines for dates and stuff.

On the contrary.....if you read the GWX manual you will find BB's scripted into the game with a high percentage of historical accuracy...and that includes convoys on numerous occassions http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[HunterICX]

GWX makes it significantly harder to find (forget sink!) a capital ship (as far as I know, which isn't that much :P). Stock SH3 spawns capital ships regularily in Loch Ewe and Scapa Flow. The rest of the time, they spawn randomly on patrol without set guidelines for dates and stuff.
On the contrary.....if you read the GWX manual you will find BB's scripted into the game with a high percentage of historical accuracy...and that includes convoys on numerous occassions http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif
:yep: in my current GWX campaign I sunk: HMS Nelson, HMS Rodney and 2 Aux. Cruisers more then I can recall in Stock SH3.

I've noticed when you hunt for capital ships you will not come across any, if you just take on whatever crosses your path you may be suprised what you'll see throught the scope.

HunterICX

[crazypantoufle]

All the capital ships i sank were during the beginning of the war, all in harbours: HMS Revenge in Scapa and HMS Nelson in Loch ewe in 1939, HMS Illustrious in Scapa in april 1940 (tough one because of all these torpedo planes patrolling around) and HMS King Georges V in Scapa in december 1940.

Once i met another KGV BB in deep water north of ireland in January 1941, but i had only TI in my tubes so the attack failed.:damn:
So i confirm that it's very rare to meet a capital ship once England is at war with our vaillant japanese allies.
But you can still spend your frustration on pricy DDs like Tribal, V&W or class C till mid1942 (once i sank 5 of these bastards in a single mission). After mid1942, Royal Navy send only crappy escorts with the convoys like Flowers or BlackSwan, so the military glory for sinking escorts is dropping.

Anyway any encounter with an interesting military target outside harbours is totally random, so don't count on it too much. It's a pity, because i 'd better sink military targets than commercial targets, but on the other side i'd better sink any allied ships than no ship at all during months.:roll:

[Blue-Casket]

Ok this time i've met something REALLY weird ! :D

I was sailing back after a patrol to ST. Nazair in the hope i could meet some juicy targets because my patrol was really bad.

I was sailing very close to the spanish coast when i found this task force even closer to the coastline lol :p

It was the first time that i saw the treasure they were protecting.

It was a bogue escort and i thought YEAH :arrgh!:

But they were so fast and changed their course very strangely so i couldnt get a hit :nope:

[danurve]

One 'almost' sure fire way to catch captital ships is to arrainge your patrol time out of the Bay durring the Bismark encounter.

A bunch of Task forces cruise around durring the Norway invasion.

You can catch a few fast Task forces close N/E of Norway very later war.

And like others have mentioned, alot is just luck on patrol. Although sometimes the luck isn't good. :dead:

I've found the Med also has it's share.

[Paul_IronCoffin]

I lived my career many times over, and yet to see a battleship:cry: I even tried to sneak into Scapa '39 in the hope of seeing Royal Oak, but alas, no...

[Blue-Casket]

I lived my career many times over, and yet to see a battleship:cry: I even tried to sneak into Scapa '39 in the hope of seeing Royal Oak, but alas, no...

i think you were JUST too late i fear because i tried that too and sailed on a more higher speed then normal and i've found them there.
The next day however i saw 3 battleships including the hood sailing passed me.
That was an amazing sight ! :arrgh!: