Periscope Depth = Untouchable ??

[Chubster]

Currently evading 6 destroyers.....after reading yet another excellent post by MR R Robbins :salute: instead of going for the thermal layer I went up to P depth.

Have to admit it was all rather scary, seeing my sub in the midst of so many destroyers but lo and behold they dont seem to be able to touch me.....they are pinging away, search lights all over the place but they are not actually doing anything?

So the infamously notorious DD's of TMO can be rendered useless by going to P depth :o

Now that aint no fun ????

[Armistead]

Keep playing that way, you'll find yourself dead soon enough. I find staying at scope depth your less likely to be in the sonar cone, but they will still find you, moreso if the water conditions are right. If they do find you, you're gonna take a severe beating, because you're not deep enough to outrun charges..Later war it becomes much more difficult.

The most important thing to not being found is water conditions.

[Chubster]

LOL.....yep, spoke to soon. just got my asked thoroughly spanked by a lone dd trying the same tatic :DL

[Laconic]

The most important thing to not being found is water conditions.

Wrong! The most important thing to not being found is not being there at all.

[Armistead]

Wrong! The most important thing to not being found is not being there at all.


and the right water conditions will assure that....:D

[Rockin Robbins]

Yes, periscope depth is not the worst place to be, just like going very deep isn't the best place to be all the time. I do like to remain at periscope depth as long as I can in order to maintain the initiative. If they do force me down, I seldom go deeper than 300' and never stay there long.

Every second I'm thinking "why can't I go to periscope depth NOW and cause some wanton destruction!" The best defense is making your enemy afraid of you.

Fighting a sub is riding that fine line between just reacting to intimidation and turning toward being the intimidator yourself. When you have 5 DDs looking for you, nothing will set you free quicker than a big boom and a sinking hunter.

[Bubblehead1980]

yea never found staying a periscope depth to work much in TMO except once and that was in December 1941 when the DD's are nutless wonders mostly, even in TMO.

I tend to play as historically accurate as possible anyway so I go for test depth and try to stay there as they ddi in RL when evading(well Balaos and Tenchs went way deeper than test depth usually) , if have to will go deeper though.

[Admiral8Q]

If you stay at periscope depth, keep your scope down and follow the "lines" on the map, or sit in the sonar station and listen to the different bearings/speeds/explosions...

Poke the scope up on a bearing, take a quick look then periscope down right away. 3 seconds at full extension is usually enough.

Don't underestimate the dd's in TMO however. (as you learned) I was detected at about 6000+ yards by a dd while at pd and died quite quickly when he zoomed over me dropping his cans.:o

The weather was perfectly calm at night though.

[razark]

Keep playing that way, you'll find yourself dead soon enough. I find staying at scope depth your less likely to be in the sonar cone, but they will still find you, moreso if the water conditions are right. If they do find you, you're gonna take a severe beating, because you're not deep enough to outrun charges.

My last career came to a quick end when BdU* asked me to explore Manila harbor and take pretty pictures of CVs for their scrapbook.

The water wasn't much deeper than periscope depth. I managed to off one DD that was prowling around, but another one came by shortly afterwords. I managed to survive for a while, and it took him a few runs to get me, but I went from "doing just fine" to "OMG!" when he got one charge close enough. Didn't end right away, so I surfaced and quickly lost a gun battle to him.

*Yes, BdU. I'm sure ComSubAsiatic didn't issue me those orders. :nope:

[orangehat44]

Fighting a sub is riding that fine line between just reacting to intimidation and turning toward being the intimidator yourself. When you have 5 DDs looking for you, nothing will set you free quicker than a big boom and a sinking hunter.


Nothing makes me laugh harder! I was in one of the landing forces outside luzon, Popped the mogami quickly with 3 fish and broke the back of a troop ship with my front four tubes, in my salmon class I think. Swung round and fired two back tubes at another mogami (keep finding TF's with 2+ Mogami Heavy cruisers) and now the DDs are swarming like bees. Pinging gets intense. Swing my scope and see a DD chugging straight at me perfectly at 180 deg. 500 some yards out. Quicly set a rear tube to deep as possible and fast and lose it right into the snout of that dd. Didnt blow it up but now the dd's turned tail and ran. and left me alone for a bit.

Too bad I was half asleep and after wamping a good 30 k or so in that TF ( sent 3 or 4 troop ships down with single torpedo keel shots. THey must use chewing gum to hold them together. I wasnt paying attention (as I was passing out) and forgot to relieve from battle stations as I was breaking contact and going to my patrol zone. kicked up tc, nodded off again and awoke to a radar contact. but alas as I forgot to take off battle stations the entire crew was completly fatigued and i was sitting motionless on the surface. and that plane did not miss. I was pissed and sleep drunk so I just shut off, i had saved before the TF so I get to try it again but probably wont have as good as results.

[Chubster]

Quicly set a rear tube to deep as possible and fast and lose it right into the snout of that dd.

Should that not be as shallow as possible......or again, am I missing something ?

[orangehat44]

Rgr that my bad "Shallow" I popped 2 other dds to for one torp kills while they were sitting slow that also helped deter their ASW efforts. it was weird, maybe they were staging but the whole tf was moving under 4 knots some ships at 1 (the Mogs) it was like a shooting range.

[Red Devil]

visually you are more likely to be spotted, staying at periscope depth is hazardous to your health.

[Admiral8Q]

visually you are more likely to be spotted, staying at periscope depth is hazardous to your health.
That is true.
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7720/underwatern.png

[Red Devil]

Nothing makes me laugh harder! I was in one of the landing forces outside luzon, Popped the mogami quickly with 3 fish and broke the back of a troop ship with my front four tubes, in my salmon class I think. Swung round and fired two back tubes at another mogami (keep finding TF's with 2+ Mogami Heavy cruisers) and now the DDs are swarming like bees. Pinging gets intense. Swing my scope and see a DD chugging straight at me perfectly at 180 deg. 500 some yards out. Quicly set a rear tube to deep as possible and fast and lose it right into the snout of that dd. Didnt blow it up but now the dd's turned tail and ran. and left me alone for a bit.

Too bad I was half asleep and after wamping a good 30 k or so in that TF ( sent 3 or 4 troop ships down with single torpedo keel shots. THey must use chewing gum to hold them together. I wasnt paying attention (as I was passing out) and forgot to relieve from battle stations as I was breaking contact and going to my patrol zone. kicked up tc, nodded off again and awoke to a radar contact. but alas as I forgot to take off battle stations the entire crew was completly fatigued and i was sitting motionless on the surface. and that plane did not miss. I was pissed and sleep drunk so I just shut off, i had saved before the TF so I get to try it again but probably wont have as good as results.


and the moral of that story is that you do not Drink & Drive :arrgh!:

[TomcatMVD]

So far (and playing stock that is) I've been able to successfully escape pesky destroyers by diving all the way down to below the thermal layer, popping a decoy right before passing said layer and then changing course and taking the engines down a notch or two. And, while these escapes have left dozens of DD's wandering and wondering, as soon as I slowly crawl my way up to PD they seem to notice me (not even being that close to them).
This is just my personal, and very limited experience... I've been playing around with SHIV for a very short time, and again, still haven't got a hold of any MOD. I will get me started on that ASAP though:yep:

[Rockin Robbins]

Those of us who have tried to keep our playing fairly realistic have done some research and haven't come up with a single example of a sub using decoys during the war! Yeah, I was surprised too.

It seems to have been strictly a U-Boat tactic. Who figured? http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/clueless.gif

[Red Devil]

Dont use decoy but it was fairly well used to throw a few rags, wood and oil into a tube and fire it out, but don't know if US subs employed this method.

As for avoiding detection, it all depends on how realistic is realistic. Going below the thermal, changing direction and adding 1 to the speed does help but only about 80% effective. Go down to 300+ and sometimes it is possible to go up to standard and get out of trouble that way.

I am now in late 1943 and the Japs are getting cleverer. One chased me from a goodly distance and plastered where I 'was' as I heard him coming and did a reverse course, and I was below 250 going 'slow'.

One thing though, they never believed that a sub could go below 200, so if we are to be historically accurate, depth charges should not figure below that depth.

[Armistead]

If a escort is making a run, as they speed up, hit flank speed. If your 200 ft or deeper, they should all fall far behind you. Course when your up against a dozen type A's with those 6 Y guns...they can really dump charges, deeper the better.

[Admiral8Q]

Believe me, if those dd's are speeding up and heading for you... DIVE!!! and change rudder. I learned that in sh2 vs dc;)