Suicidal destroyers

[gorilca]

Hi everyone. I'm new here, and sorry for my english. I just started SH4

My first patrol was in asiatic fleet, to patrol filipine strait, but i never got there because of all the convoys on the way.

Ok, i find a stationary convoy of troop transports guarded by three Maya Heavy Cruisers and a bunch of destroyers, by filipine coast. I come in silent runing and shoot four torps at the first Maya, sink it and start evasing manuvers. All ships start zigzaging like crazy, destroyers DC my last known position and another Maya comes in at full speed. Then two destroyers stop each other right in front of heavy cruiser and get run over.

I think to my self: "cool, two les", but it makes no diference because they seem very incompetent. They did not seem a thrat at all, I could easily evade them and attack at will.


So, I try to attack another Maya, but they start from dead stop to flank speed in cca 4sec. of course i miss. So because i'm out of fishes i sneak away.


After that i found this forum, download some mods (webster's ship's manuvering speed fix, scaf and colour buttons for hud). I also started using manual targeting and generaly started playing at higher difficulty settings (88% - i stil need map contacts).

When i come back to the game i'm on my third patrol to Celebes sea and another sub reports a medium speed task force 64nm NNE from me coming right at me. I wait for them at periscope depth ... and: WooHoo, there's 6 carriers and three kongo battleships.

As I'm targeting a shokaku carrier i forget about everything else. So as I'm about to fire from 1500y when a destroyer comes between us spots me from cca 200y starts pinging and throws in reverse. But idiot at the same time throws his depth charges and runs over them. He blows up from his own dc's. Well because i'm stil quite a noob i miss with all four torpedoes and get out of there (7 destroyers pinging my way)

Has anyone had similar experience? Are destroyers all the time this dumb? Do they get better?

The only time a destroyer sunk me was when i just started the game for the first time in submarine school and i stayed on the surface too long. He shot me from 3km and sunk me. After that they were just a nuissance.

OK, that's all for now.

Gorilca

[Admiral8Q]

Welcome Gorilca. Your "English" is great. Some of us that grew up speaking it still can't speak properly! :haha:

If you want a challenge, I'd recommend the TMO mod. If you want realism, then the RFB mod. :salute:

[WarlordATF]

As the war progresses you will encounter better skilled enemies. In the beginning of the stock campaign most destroyers are set to poor or novice skill level and each year they get a little better.

Also, Yes i have seen really dumb destroyers early in the war. I had one try to Depth Charge me in the shallows and he ended up knocking out his own engines because he was moving too slow to get out of the blast area!

Welcome Aboard!

[gorilca]

thanks guys

So they will get better.

As I progress through campaign, how soon will i get a chance for a new boat or newer torpedos?

A little off topic.
How accurate is the function for estimating target's speed and bearings. Because i was stalking a lone merchant, that was said to be moving at medium speed on the map. I do a range check wait about a minute do another one and click the estimate speed button. it gave me 9kn, i fire two fishes and both miss badly behind the merchant. Frustrated, because i had almost perfect conditions (night, low wawes, i was stationary about 900y off of his port bow) i reloaded and tried again with same results. second reload and this time i set the speed for 19kn and finaly hit him.

Although that was before scaf mod, might have some thing to do with it. But he was realy close so this shouldnt be such a big factor.

Gorilca

[gorilca]

Admiral8Q, thanks for recomendations, but i would like to play through at least one campaign as close to vanila SH4 as i can.

The mods i have installed
Webster's ship manuvering fix, well it seemed completly unrealistic acceleration of heavy cruisers.
SCAF, at long range for the most part i couldn't see tops of the masts because of the monitor resolution (stil 1650/1080)
hud lights because you couldnt tell wich button was pressed.

But i will try those two mods and others when i can.

Gorilca

[magic452]

The speed estimation thingy on the TDC doesn't work very good

Use the three minute rule to get course and speed. Zoom in on the contact and you will see it jump every so often, 30 seconds for sonar, 20 sec. for radar. When it jumps start the clock and mark the position, wait 3 minutes and mark the new position. measure the distance between marks and that will give you speed. 100 yards = one knot, 500 yd. = 5 kt. and 1000 yd. =10 kt, etc. Do this 3 times and you will also get a very good course as well by drawing a line through all the marks.

As far as the DDs go they do some strange things in stock.

Magic