How to avoid trouble?

[spaceman8888]

hi kaleuns,

I have genreal rookie question.. to which searching didnt help much

How do you avoid detection? how do you know that enemy hasnt spotted you? how do you in all your calculations think about genreal safety & how do you know that you are not in danger of detection by all means equipped by enemy (visual/radar/sonar) when you go about unveiling & attacking that enemy? I am not asking tips on survival in timeline but as what safety guidelines a real kaluen without knowing what he may be facing (unkown enemy (DD's)/ unknown tech advances for him).. would do to prevent detection at same time go about his plans confidently?

[unterseemann]

The most important: Stay silent! Silent running and don't exceed 3 knots while underwater 1 or 2 is even better
Others tips: Keep your scope low, dive to pd early,rely on your hydrophon, avoid attacks in perfect weather or shoot from a longer distance, don't be too greedy, keep low profile to nearest ennemy and keep cool sometimes escorts pass right in front of you without detecting you ( especially in bad weather).

General safety is the main preoccupation for me. As I can't sink every allied ships and win the war my main goal in the end is to come back home in one piece no matter if i sink 1 or 25 ships in my patrol.

[Paul Riley]

And if you ARE detected submerged try to keep your sub facing to or away from the pursuer,this has the effect of narrowing the sub's acoustic profile.If you were beam on (side on) to the pursuer you would have a broader profile and ASDIC would have a larger area to hit ,increasing the reflection strength.
And go as deep as you possibly can without taking damage.I have reached depths of 220m in a VIIC before,and this makes it very hard for enemy sonar to detect you.

[Gilbou]

First, avoid passing in front of escorts. Try to pass on their side or
behind them. On the map, draw circles with your maximum torpedo range and try to shoot as far as possible, within this range (5 km for type II torpedoes, 5/7.5/12.5 according to speed level for type I). Since the type I torpedoes leave a bubble trail, get closer.

Don't let periscope up too long. No more than one minute at any time, within 30 seconds if you can. Try to keep the periscope as close to water level as possible, move it up/down as required all the time.

Always check depth under keel before attaking. It uses active sonar to do so, and if you ever check depth with an escort around or after having being detected, you will make so much noise they will now exactly where you are. You spot a ship ? Check depth. If it's small, attack from as far as possible, and turn around, dive, and stop engines and wait for explosions.

If you can, attack at night. If you spot a ship or convoy during day and its speed is not too fast (ex. slow) you can plot their course, and "Shadow" them. Running 10 Km or so away on parralel course until it's night. At night the wakes from the type I torpedoes won't be seen at all or easily, and your periscope won't be spotted as in day. Attack when sun is going down but not totally dark since most ships run all lights turned off, if it's a night without moon you will have trouble seeing the ships.

Attack from the side, at 90 degrees. I prefer to attack when I have ships on my left going right. I always try to shadow and attack when sun goes down or at night (with my current type IIA it's sometimes impossible because I don't have enough speed to keep with most convoys).

If you are detected, it's easy. Escorts start pinging (which means you passed in front of them), lights on surface search for you or bullets start to get fired at your periscope ;)

Dive. Not too deep. enough to have margin to evade depth charges. Do not dive to maixmum depth yet. Dive, and type about 10 meters between you and ocean floor if it's not too deep.

Intead of letting your hydrophone operator report to you, get to his place and go a 360 degree check with engines turned off. Check where the nearest warship is. Listen to it without moving the needle and the sound is going to fade : check if it goes left or right so you know where it is and where it is going. Get to map, use the ruler to plot it's line of bearing. Start engines, use slow speed and move away from this line at 90 degrees. Always try to show the smallest profile to your enemy : front or back. never your side because that makes you a big juicy target for ASDIC (the real name for the sonar they use).

If it gets close, order silent running. Click on the speed thingie, and click to set speed between 0 and 1. The guy will report "Setting speed to 0 knots" but in reality, you are not setting speed to 0 but to 1. In the sub, above the two guys that steer the sub, you can see the two engine RPM values. If you order slow speed while running silent, it's still 150 or 200 RPM or so. When you order a speed with the needle at 0/1 it will go t0 50 RPM. That's the best : 50 RPM will give you 1 knot but it's damn silent, more than the default "Run silent running!" setting.

Watch out : using slow speed makes the sub difficult to keep at ordered depth and you will go 5 meters or so higher. Order a deeper depth, about 5/6 meters deeper than you want (the ballasts are not used for dive control but neutral buyancy, the engines and the diving planes are used to level the sub at the desired depth, even modern subs do it like that. It's only when speed is 0 than ballasts are used to go up/down but they do noise so avoid going up/down with engines stopped).

If the escorts is pinging you, no need to remain silent. They know where you are, you are directly under them. Remove silent running, move to standard ahead. Find where the escort is, and where it is going (either ask the hydrophone operator to track it, and rapidly check on hydrophones). When it gets closer, order flank ahead speed and move the sub 40 degrees left or right and get out of the place they're gonna throw depth charges as fast as possible. While charges are exploding they are not hearing : as soon they start exploding, change course again and full speed. Always dive when doing so : that's why you keep 10 or 20 meters below you, so you can go flank ahead, change course AND dive at the same time for at least 10 meters deeper than where they detected you to avoid their depth charges).

As soon the depth charges stop exploding, order silent running. Set speed to 50 RPM, change course again and go up 10 meters or so or keep current depth (always make sure you can dive for 10 meters anytime. Go deeper and deeper, and if you're too close to ocean floor or near crush depth, go up 20/30 meters).

Do not always run flank ahead speed even if they're pinging. Sometimes they are pinging but you are not under the pings. Be clever. Unless the operator says they are pinging you, keep silent. Find where they are, show them the smallest profile (make them see your front of back of sub, never the side).

Also, if you have a merchant ship stopped after a torpedo attack, try to get below it. The escort cannot go over a ship on surface, so it is a very good spot to hide because they escorts won't easily pass over you. If the merchant goes down.. Get the hell out of there (so don't park just below it...).

[vergol]

Good stuff, Gilbou. Your gave even a seasoned kaleun like me some new strategies to consider. Thank you.

[desirableroasted]

Everyone plays differently, but I disagree with some of the above (I play GWX 3.0, 74% reality -- weapons guy does his thing automatically).

On the map, draw circles with your maximum torpedo range and try to shoot as far as possible, within this range.

You sacrifice a lot of accuracy by shooting from afar. If you want tonnage, pucker up and get close. The escorts are doing their job; don't let that stop you from doing yours!

Attack from the side, at 90 degrees. I prefer to attack when I have ships on my left going right.

90 degrees is doctrine if you are shooting with impact pistol, but if you are using the magnetic, you want the fish under the ship as long as possible so that it senses the magnetic field.

If you are detected...Dive. Not too deep. enough to have margin to evade depth charges. Do not dive to maixmum depth yet.

In fact, the deeper you go, the better chance you have of evading the sonar cone if the escort is close. Especially early in the war the enemy sonar operators just aren't that good if you are deep.


If it gets close, order silent running ... If the escorts is pinging you, no need to remain silent. ... Remove silent running, move to standard ahead.

The silent running status and engine speed are not connected. Silent running keeps your crew from doing noisy stuff like moving torpedoes and metal bashing, so it is "added silence" when you are running at low RPMs. Running at high RPMs does negate the silent running setting (so why stop at standard ahead? Go for flank, since you are busted anyway), but since you probably will do only short high-speed runs, why turn silent running off?

(In fact, I go to silent running as soon as I start making my attack approach and stay there until I clear datum unless I simply must make repairs).

While charges are exploding they are not hearing : as soon they start exploding, change course again and full speed.

As far as I know, if two or more escorts are chasing you, only one will DC you at any moment... the others can and will try to track you.


course again and go up 10 meters or so or keep current depth (always make sure you can dive for 10 meters anytime.

Your mileage may vary, but if you are getting lashed by 3-4 escorts, 10 meters ain't much room. It's like being in a drive-by shooting and stepping aside a few inches. Might work but....

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[Dissaray]

Droping 10m in a depth charge attack can actualy save you from some damage. I generaly go a bit more than 10 as I don't want to come up short and catch a charge on the tower and lose a scope, 15-20m is general sufficant in my experiance. Another trick I have learned for dodging depth charges is when you know they have just gone right over the top of you kick your engens in to flank speed and turn 25-45 degrees. When you are in their screws they can't hear you so being quiet isn't an issue and the speed and course change coupled with diving if needed can cause them to miss entierly, just remember to cut engens and run silent after the manuver or things will get tricky again.

As for not geting found out in the first place I always fall back on Elmer Fud's brilliant advice: "Be very, very, quite. I Hunting Allies." That along with being where you can't easely be seen and you are set.

[Jimbuna]

In addition to the excellent suggestions above and especially if your running SH3 Commander (which I highly recommend).....go as deep as possible and travel at a maximum speed of 1 knot.

Here's the trick....SH3 Commander randomly sets values for the ships sensors to simulate thermal layers.

[desirableroasted]

Droping 10m in a depth charge attack can actualy save you from some damage...

Friend, if an escort is on me, I am not looking to "save some damage," I am looking to clear datum as quickly and a troublefree as I can. Which is why my mantra is "Depth and Distance are my friends!" If 10 meters more is good, 100 meters more is really good -- whether vertically, laterally or both.

I figure since my boat is designed to dive, I may as well take advantage of every benefit that affords me. The faster I lose the escorts, the faster I can get back on the job.

[RConch]

Get close-attack-go deep and silent and I head into the convoy to get lost in the noise of the merchants.
Prayer while doing this gives some comfort.;)

[Damo]

My priority early war is to get inside the convoys. I normally find 'em, plot 'em, join 'em. I try and take up a position in front and off to the side of the convoy, facing head on to the lead escort. Weather permitting I'll be at decks awash (between 7 -8 on the depth scale, click just below 8) and at ahead slow. I watch that lead escort like a hawk, he tends to weave about as he searches for submerged threats in front but as you're not submerged, he won't pick you up unless he rolls right over you on one of his weaves. It's a matter of timing and when there's a gap and he's heading away from you, you can afford to notch up to ahead one third to slip through unnoticed.

Now you're behind the lead escort and ahead of the merchants you can start identifying your targets. You have to be quick depending on the speed they're travelling but I try and place myself between the columns at 90 degrees to their course at peri depth (I have community units and some of them have guns onboard, even at the start of war). In my VII I try and set up so I can fire 2 torps at a ship 2 columns in front, 2 torps at the ship next to it in the first column in front and my rear torp at a ship in the column directly behind. This works well and allows you to get all your tubes emptied in one go.

As soon as they're away I turn into the direction of the convoy and start down, deep, to reload. One advantage of this is that the escorts, when things start going boom, have to navigate through the columns to get to you, which gives you a lot more time to weave about and that's if they find you at all. A lot of the time I hit flank as soon as the first torp hits (after that the other ships will be hard pushed to avoid the other torps) as this keeps me inside the convoy and matching their speed, if not going faster. I'm head on to the lead escort as he turns about and when he gets about 1000m away I go silent, 1-2 knots and 15 degrees right/left rudder (depending on where I am in the convoy, I want to stay inside it as long as possible). Once he goes over the top I'm silent running off, flank and back in the direction of the convoy.

The escort will again have trouble navigating around the ships and I may get a chance to come up to peri depth, find another large ship and if the seas allow, throw a magnetic under it from it's 180 degree position. This takes practice though as the ships will be weaving and it's a matter of timing and keeping the range as low as possible to be sure of getting a hit. At this point I'm looking around to see if the other escorts (if any) have joined the hunt. If not, I'll set up a rear torp at magnetic to waste the first destroyer that is probably coming at me from behind. This gives me a little extra time to hit some other merchants before needing to reload again, for which I go deep at flank and cut engines to check the hydrophones for my next destroyer nemesis. The outside escorts always take a while to get to you for the same reason as the first, they have to navigate through the convoy.

If they are still a way off, I'll come back up to 25m while reloading and get myself very close to the hull of a merchant, just in case I missed an escort on hydrophone I don't want to be in open water when he pounces. Normally, I can rinse and repeat until all torpedoes are spent and then go deep and silent to evade and move away, normally out the back of the convoy keeping any destroyers on my 180.

Later in the war when radar becomes a factor I follow the same route into the convoy but go deep and silent and back up to peri once the lead escort has passed, everything else follows the same procedure. Once things start getting real dicey in the later years I don't even attempt this and have to rely more and more on long shots from the side against convoys as the ASDIC is too good to get inside, but the newer torpedoes with a search pattern can wield good results if you plan out your shots well and luck is on your side. You better be running away as soon as the torps leave the tubes though as once they find you, they'll stick to you like poo on a blanket.

Ok, so it's not really a post on how to 'avoid' trouble, but it is a way of causing trouble and getting away with it.

:arrgh!:

[spaceman8888]

I have read all of it & cant think of how to thank for every sec of SH or any other activity you gave in to help & share so generously.. i deeply thank u all :up: & especially to Gilbou, desirableroasted for digging deep

@Damo: what you wrote is in my opinion really exceptional strategy & which i might have tried myself but not that cleverly! Thank you really for sharing it & also for elaborating it that well

& I just read articles on SH tactics here : http://www.subsowespac.org/sh_tech.shtml & they add quite a few things to already excellent points talked here

I started this thread bcoz i hv already learnt a great deal /tactics/methods frm mny discussions here making me good at intercept/manual targeting & other phases but only missing link was : safety .. just was hoping to know what cookbook RL kapt'ns follow or rough guidelines they have in mind or what they hv learned frm trainning before they go about their first patrol.. like know/how to avoid unnecessary risk due to not knowing consequences of common actions etc..

so, if there is still somthing amiss here, pls reply

:salute: 2 undying will to help I c here
.. almost quite frequently same/typical question pops frm newbie inbound but still they are answered

[Dissaray]

Friend, if an escort is on me, I am not looking to "save some damage," I am looking to clear datum as quickly and a troublefree as I can. Which is why my mantra is "Depth and Distance are my friends!" If 10 meters more is good, 100 meters more is really good -- whether vertically, laterally or both.

I figure since my boat is designed to dive, I may as well take advantage of every benefit that affords me. The faster I lose the escorts, the faster I can get back on the job.

I don't think you quite understand what I am geting at realy. If a depth charge explodes arond 10m away from your boat it won't hurt you, thus saving you some damages that you would otherwise suffer. The charges going off that close will rattle the boat but won't break any of your stuff. Being deep helps with evading attacks beacouse the charge has to get down that deep but the charges are set to go off on impact or at a preset depth they get from the ASDIC. Therefor if you are no longer at the depth the ASDIC told them or in the way of the depth charge you are at little risk of geting hit.

Obviously it would be better to not get depth charged in the first place but after the charges are off the racks it dosen't help much to say, "well I just won't get found by those guys up there" now dose it.