Gibraltar Epicenter

[krashkart]

Here's my SH3 nightmare for the day:

I got pinned down in the Strait of Gibraltar, with warships swarming all over the boat. I was able to get deep enough to avoid the ashcans but at some point, while trying to find a thermal layer, we went a little too deep and entered the Dive of Death. To get back out of that the speed had to be 3 knots or better -- all the way back up to ~160 meters. Get above 160 meters at ahead slow, even rigged for silence, and the destroyers start dumping cans on us again.

Thankfully at that point I could take the revs back down and not worry about slipping back into the depths. Time ground on as we waited the surface boats out. They finally lost interest and left. Started the motors again, crept for the west end of the Strait, reached a point where the hunters were far enough away that we could get some fresh air in the boat.

We ran decks awash for a few minutes and it finally dawned on me to run the scope up for a look around. Almost directly astern there was a trawler chugging along after us, ~3km out and closing. Back down we went -- and the whole dang process started all over again.:damn:

It gets worse. :-?

Crept along for several hours until things cleared up... except things didn't clear up. After the trawler had called his nearest companions over, the entire Gibraltar patrol charged back in on top of us - even the ones that had gone back to their routes 10 kilometers back. Know what killed us? Herr Kaleun's brilliant idea to go even deeper. We hit 240 meters or so and the lights started blowing out. We couldn't ascend to a safer depth in time and imploded at around 200 meters. Career Over. :dead:



Those escorts were really starting to get on my nerves anyway. :arrgh!::haha:

[K-61]

Bummer. I avoid that area like the highway on the Friday of a long weekend. On the other hand, please accept my compliment on your correct spelling of "Strait of Gibraltar." I want to pull my eyeballs out when I see people spell it, "Straight..." :damn:

[frau kaleun]

Here's my SH3 nightmare for the day:



Now that's what I call a dire Strait. :|\\

[timmy41]

Now that's what I call a dire Strait. :|\\
*badum-tish*

[frau kaleun]

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal! And don't forget to tip your server. :O:

[musides]

I was just about to make a post about my own Gibraltar travails when I saw this! :)

So, I'm a bit of a noob to SH, but loving it quite a lot. I had completed my patrol, and decided to hunt in the Strait. I sank two medium cargo ships and an ASW trawler with my deck gun at around 1am. Emboldened by my glorious success, I decided to head straight for the port itself, noting that it is relatively friendly in terms of great depth nearby. I took out two more ASW trawlers and two warships while sneaking around the port, but alas, I got careless/impatient and turned the screws a bit too fast.

That brought along an A&B hunting me, so I raced to the depths, and made it without an issue. Yet, despite currently being at 190 meters, I've spent 2 hours at 2 knots to no avail. In fact -- quite the opposite -- I now have a total of three destroyers and a damned speed boat right on top of me.

It is a heck of alot of fun, no doubt, but also a bit annoying -- I would have thought I would have shaken them by now. Is it possible to speed up the game past 8x when you have surface contacts so close?

[frau kaleun]

It is a heck of alot of fun, no doubt, but also a bit annoying -- I would have thought I would have shaken them by now. Is it possible to speed up the game past 8x when you have surface contacts so close?

I don't know what game files you would need to modify for that, but if you are using SH3 Commander you can use it to reset the max TC allowed in various situations - IIRC that includes when hunting or being hunted. I wouldn't advise doing it in mid-patrol, though, and at any rate even if you could you'd have to save and exit the game and make the adjustment and then reload your save. If you saved while submerged AND with other ships around you'd be risking a corrupt save.

And in general I wouldn't advise going into a higher TC in that situation anyway, remember that in TC you (and your boat and crew) are still limited by your human reaction time, whereas the enemy AI is not. I've had situations where I thought I'd finally outwitted the enemy and upped the TC so I could creep away from the scene that much faster, only to have them zero in on me again and drop wabos right on top of me and by the time I was able to react it was already too late to evade them.

[krashkart]

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal! And don't forget to tip your server. :O:


I tried to tip our Blade center over at work with some veal. Does that count? :smug:


@musides - I had pretty much every destroyer and patrol boat hovering around me for 6-7 game hours. The way I finally got rid of them was to stay in silent running and kill the engines. Try that and they should eventually go back to their regular patrol routes. :)

[frau kaleun]

I tried to tip our Blade center over at work with some veal. Does that count? :smug:


@musides - I had pretty much every destroyer and patrol boat hovering around me for 6-7 game hours. The way I finally got rid of them was to stay in silent running and kill the engines. Try that and they should eventually go back to their regular patrol routes. :)

:nope:

Obviously the correct way to handle this is to stay on the surface, order a course due south, and yell "SCHNELLER! SCHNEEEEELLLLEEEER!" until you have no choice but to dive. Then it's just a matter of a merciful god putting a shovelful of sand under your keel, and your LI performing a wide variety of miracles with the help of the rest of the men while you look at charts and eat a sandwich. Easy peezy lemon squeezy!

[krashkart]

:haha:

The proper procedure on our boat is to order flank speed at periscope depth, with both periscopes in the full upright position, and change course to intercept the broadside of the nearest merchant. If there are no merchants in the area, then substitute course for full rudder in either direction whilst simultaneously expending all available torpedoes at random. In either case, all resting crew members are to take up hammers and bang away on the inside of the Uboat. :yep:

[frau kaleun]

:haha:

The proper procedure on our boat is to order flank speed at periscope depth, with both periscopes in the full upright position, and change course to intercept the broadside of the nearest merchant. If there are no merchants in the area, then substitute course for full rudder in either direction whilst simultaneously expending all available torpedoes at random. In either case, all resting crew members are to take up hammers and bang away on the inside of the Uboat. :yep:

In Commander School they call that the Crazy Bernard. :rock:

[desirableroasted]

It is a heck of alot of fun, no doubt, but also a bit annoying -- I would have thought I would have shaken them by now. Is it possible to speed up the game past 8x when you have surface contacts so close?

If you have any reason to believe there are enemies around, it's prudent to do a slow circle at about 20 m to let your hydrophone man (or, better, you) find any escorts tailing you. You were very lucky that ASW trawler was 3 km back and not 300 m.

If you are not shaking escorts, it's because they still hear you. They will break off after an hour of game time (or less) if they can't find you. If they are sticking with you, it's because you are doing something to reset their timer (and it only takes once).

There's tens of thousands of words of advice on the forum, but the general consensus is:

1) Rig for silent running.
2) Tap your CE on the shoulder to get in his shoes, then, watching the rpm dials at his station, dial yourself down to 60-80 rpms using your speed setter. Don't trust it when it says "2 knots".... use the RPM gauges.
3) Be as deep as you can be. If you are undamaged, push the envelope (to the limit of the orange, for example).
4) (If you are playing full realism, don't do this, but). If you are worried about grounding, the game's ships do not hear your navigator do depth pings.
5) Have a course in mind -- west for example -- but never travel in a straight line; do 5-15 degree starboard and port "weaves." And sometimes it can pay to weave off laterally to your path and just sit.
6) There are no magic formulas.. every situation is different. H pe you get out of this one.

EDIT: I realized just now that I had both Krashkart and Muside's posts in my mind. But what the hey, eh?

[K-61]

I got caught in a similar situation recently. I went deep and quiet, but eventually the boat becomes too heavy to maintain depth so you have to up your RPM's to lift it, which makes noise and repeats the cycle. The escorts up top eventually ran out of fireworks but continued to circle and ping. I had more or less resigned myself to death and upped the TC. After about 6-7 hours of game time they broke off and left the area. Either they gave up or somewhere in the TC period they lost contact. I survived, surfaced and sailed straight back to base to repair the hull and all the machinery they had smashed for me. On the other hand, my crewmen got to enjoy an extended shore leave, to go home and fix their houses that had been smashed by the Allied terror fliegers while they were away at sea.