Destroyer evasion

[teg916]

I am probably not the first to notice this, but one good way to help you out when you have a destroyer depth charging you is your observation periscope. During the day you can see the hull of the ship for a few seconds before it is on top of you and gives you a better chance of dodging in the right direction. At night you can see the search lights shining on the water. I usually retract it as soon as I see depth charges in the water so it does not get damaged. If it does get damaged, you still have your attack periscope.

[KeptinCranky]

I agree that it's a valid tactic, but it has the a downside: If you can see them, You're not deep enough! :DL

Being a bit of a shallow water expert myself I've used this from time to time, but I don't think this was plausible in the real world, or ever done at all.

Nevertheless, if it works to keep you alive that little bit longer, use it :yeah:

[Damo]

I just finished a patrol where I had to patrol AN18 off the north east coast of Scotland. Date was June 18th 1940 and I stumbled on a convoy heading north. Checking my depth there was only 60m below me and I was wary of engaging as it had 4 destroyers escorting. Normally I'd shadow until we'd hit deeper water but I was playing on my non D.I.D. career that I use to test tactics and try my luck so I thought what the hell and fired all my torpedoes from within the pack.

There then followed 4 hours real time of dodging DC's and not being able to shake these buggers until I found a window and came to peri depth to do some stern shots and bow shots at head on. Took out 3 of the destroyers and then slunk away back to the bottom where the 4th one lost me and eventually rejoined his mates. I surfaced and finished off the limping cargo's with the deck gun. I was using the obs scope to see the attack runs and take evasive action but still took a bit of damage although no flooding.

Great fun, but if it were D.I.D. I'd have left it be for sure or waited for deeper water. The convoy snaked it's way up and west past Scapa so the deeper water was never going to materialise and I'd have left them be. I use Longer Repair Times so things get real messy real quick and recovery can take some time, losing your hearing ability due to Hydrophone damage doesn't help either, lol.

I have to have a Rambo career as well as my D.I.D. so I can get the impatience and unwise decisions out my system and learn from the mistakes I make as a result. I'm sure my D.I.D. crew appreciate my efforts....

[Einzelganger]

In real life it wouldn't work, visibilty is just too crap for it.

If you would see a destroyer that way in the Atlantic in real life it would have to be right on top of you. Which means you can probably grab your ass & kiss it goodbye since you'd be :dead:

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Sailor Steve]

I use GWX, and the water is way to dark where I am, which is as deep as I can get. I wait until I hear them overhead, then run and duck and twist and turn, then go silent again. Much better than being so close I can see the buggers.:dead:

[Damo]

Yeah I only use the OP if I'm real shallow or I get caught offguard and can't get deep in time. I use GWX too and you're right, it's too dark to see deep, that's when I rely on my surround sound from within the zentrale and cower under the map table.

:eek:

[KeptinCranky]

No use cowering under the map table, might as well get comfy on your captains bunk, that way you can look at the hydrophone operator getting all panicky :D

[Ancient Mariner]

I don't use obs,i just end up runing real deep if i can,on the crush limit @ silent and wait for the wasserbommen call then go flank change course at flank for a few minutes,then back to silent. Given up harbour raiding,been caught out in the shallows and been sunki many times in the process:damn: so now I stick to the deep oceans

[Brag]

KeptinCranky is right.

If you can lookie lookie, you're not deepie deepie.
Bombie bombie maky you kapootie.
:D

[Leandros]

KeptinCranky is right.

If you can lookie lookie, you're not deepie deepie.
Bombie bombie maky you kapootie.
:D
I am not so sure about this - real-life like. If you are at periscope depth (whether you use it or not) are you not safer than if a little deeper...?.. While the game sets d/c explosion depth real shallow (and often damages the dropper itself) I am not sure if that was done real-life for fear of own damage. The side-throwers would not be a problem (or the hedgehogs) but those dropped from the rear might. I suppose that is why they speed up before dropping. Anybody know the rules for Allied minimum depth setting on the D/C's....?

[Lt.Fillipidis]

Most of the time, i go flank speed at periscope depth and do a fast turn, the opposite way the DD is comming. That way im crisscrossing the paths and have less chance to be damaged.

[KeptinCranky]

Hmm, If you're at PD IRL they don't drop, they just Ram, or if you're too deep for that, they will drop a pattern, which will then explode underneath your boat, driving you to the surface, and then ram, if that doesn;t kill you they unload everything that can fire bullets at you, up to and including the captains sidearm.
This will then make your boat resemble a: a sieve (which sinks it) or b: swiss cheese, (may not sink but definitely won't dive safely)

at this point, for you, herr Kaleun, the war is over :shifty:

In game they will drop DCs which will only be a problem for slower ships like Flower corvettes and armed trawlers. I have seen Flowers blow themselves up during GWX testing, I deliberately provoked them into it.
but not after that, because when I play the game for real I try not to get in such a situation.

[cawimmer430]

Reminds me of my last mission in career mode before my HD crash.

After patrolling my assigned grid and sinking two cargo vessels along the way, I headed down to the Gibraltar for a planned harbor attack. Nearing Gibraltar I spotted a lone merchant in calm waters. I dove to periscope depth, did a 360 degree visual sweep at max magnification, went silent and ordered a full hydrophone sweep. It was apparently safe to finish off the merchant with my deck gun. So I surface at full speed and race over to the merchant while my deck crew fires away. The merchant goes down - and suddenly, off in the distance an enemy destroyer is sighted. He's about 4 km away and closing fast. I figured I could stay surfaced for a minute or two max and attack his guns using a zig zag course. But suddenly, coming at me from the same bearing is another destroyer - and another one - and another one. A total of four destroyers all racing to me. I turned around at max speed and immediately dove down. Checking my depth under keel, I was shocked to find that the bottom of the ocean to surface was 50-60 meters in this region. All that was left to do was try to evade at max under water speed and then go silent as soon as the destroyers were about a 1 km near you. Well, these guys caught up fast and began pinging away like crazy. Going silent didn't help at all and even at maximum submerged speed and frantic turning, I was an easy prey for these guys. To make matters worse, a pair of Hurricanes showed up and began dropping bombs. It wasn't long before the four destroyers - soon joined by a 5th ship, a Flower Corvette, began coordinated attacks on me. I suffered extreme damage but thankfully no serious flooding - not yet. My deck gun was kaputt and so was my FLAK gun. Periscopes thankfully were still functional. I had repair crews working overtime to fix what could be fixed, so I wasn't running silent.

At this point, I was pretty much screwed. The depth below me didn't increase. I noticed that these guys were doing circles around me so I quickly went to periscope depth and manually set the torpedoes (front and rear) for a straight 500 m run and fired away my rear and two front torpedoes without a target lock. My rear torpedo impacted on a destroyer and sent him to the bottom but my two front torpedoes barely missed another destroyer. It was time to go down again, reload and attack again.

If I was going to die here, I was going to die giving these bastards a fight. I've already sunk merchant in front of their eyes and had just sent a destroyer to the bottom. Sadly, I didn't get a second chance. Two destroyers behind me began running attacks at high speeds and dropped a ton of depth charges on me. Amazingly, I wasn't destroyed but most of my compartments had serious flooding at this point. My submarine was now at the bottom of the ocean at 50 m. I set the speed to 0 to prevent more damage and began frantic repairs. Sadly, the enemy was still pinging me and my helpless submarine at the bottom, a mere 50 m underneath them, was a sitting duck - literally. I calmly awaited death as the bombs quickly descended and blew up all around me ripping my submarine to shreds.

It was over quickly.