Poor AI or SOP?

[CherryHarbey]

I found a small convoy heading north some way off the coast of Portugal. It contained 3 merchants and a Hunt II class destroyer. I hit each of the 3 merchants and went deep to avoid the destroyer. One the merchants sank quickly and the other 2 slowed to a stop.

The destroyer tried to find me, threw out some depth charges for a hour or so and then just salied on... leaving the 2 merchants for dead. (I waited for 16 hours of game time for them to sink but they didn't without 1 more torpedo each)

Finally, here's the point of the thread. Was this stardard procedure for escorts? I could understand if he still had one merchant left sailing to abandon any crippled ships to their fate but to leave the only the ships left in its care seems to defeat its entire purpose.

[Hans Uberman]

It is odd when this happens and they're not simply leaving one or two so they can rejoin a large convoy. I suppose you could just pretend that they assumed they were going down, and that the Destroyer rescued the survivors before abandoning the "doomed" merchant vessels.

[CherryHarbey]

I'd assumed that the reason you never see ships stopping to pick up survivours in game was that it rarely happened in real life because of being too dangerous. If this destroyer had a stopped along side for a few minutes he would have got an electric torpedo for his troubles.

[Jimbuna]

In RL an escort would either sink the stricken vessel or relay it's position for a tug to take it in tow.

This all depended on the amount of damage sustained and the actual vessels location of course.

[K-61]

SH3 being an incomplete game shipped prematurely to market, the AI is lacking in a number of respects. Simply put, the game as released demonstrates a somewhat unsophisticated AI in certain aspects of the game. Whether the programmers wished to improve upon it but were cut short by the bean counters is something we'll never know. I do wish they'd release the SDK so the modders could get on with finishing this brilliant, but incomplete game.

[Jimbuna]

SH3 being an incomplete game shipped prematurely to market, the AI is lacking in a number of respects. Simply put, the game as released demonstrates a somewhat unsophisticated AI in certain aspects of the game. Whether the programmers wished to improve upon it but were cut short by the bean counters is something we'll never know. I do wish they'd release the SDK so the modders could get on with finishing this brilliant, but incomplete game.

Releasing the SDK so long after the game has been released would actually be counter-productive now....it would probably break the majority of mods and would require a totally new/fresh approach to the game.

I doubt any one individual or team even could be bothered to take on such a mammoth task.

[K-61]

Perhaps, but there being a dearth of U-boat sims these days, I'm sure someone would welcome getting their hands on the code and fixing many of the broken features of the game, such as an officer not going on bridge when the boat surfaces.

[Puster Bill]

It is odd when this happens and they're not simply leaving one or two so they can rejoin a large convoy. I suppose you could just pretend that they assumed they were going down, and that the Destroyer rescued the survivors before abandoning the "doomed" merchant vessels.

That happened often enough in real life, where a crew abandoned a stricken vessel, and it didn't immediately sink, and it ended up being towed to port, sunk by an allied destroyer, or sunk by a different u-boat (or the same one, on occasion).

[Buddahaid]

I'd assumed that the reason you never see ships stopping to pick up survivours in game was that it rarely happened in real life because of being too dangerous. If this destroyer had a stopped along side for a few minutes he would have got an electric torpedo for his troubles.

I disagree there. Early in the war the u-boats often saw the abandoned ship crew would be given aid when safe to do so. The DD would have chased the u-boat off and then saved as much as possible as well. Also later in the war, there was often a rescue ship at the rear position which was part of the escort. Crews were not left to die in the water or in lifeboats if help was at hand.

[Herr-Berbunch]

... Also later in the war, there was often a rescue ship at the rear position which was part of the escort. Crews were not left to die in the water or in lifeboats if help was at hand.

And it was usually an old ferry, more at home crossing a lake than the Atlantic. At least they usually had some properly trained medical staff onboard.

[CherryHarbey]

I disagree there. Early in the war the u-boats often saw the abandoned ship crew would be given aid when safe to do so. The DD would have chased the u-boat off and then saved as much as possible as well. Also later in the war, there was often a rescue ship at the rear position which was part of the escort. Crews were not left to die in the water or in lifeboats if help was at hand.

true, early war saw more giving of aid but this was 1942, I wouldn't attack lifeboats but a destroyer that was throwing depth charges in my general direction not a hour ago would have got a torpedo in a heartbeat the moment it drew alongside. lucky for him the AI told him to sail on!

[K-61]

I disagree there. Early in the war the u-boats often saw the abandoned ship crew would be given aid when safe to do so. The DD would have chased the u-boat off and then saved as much as possible as well. Also later in the war, there was often a rescue ship at the rear position which was part of the escort. Crews were not left to die in the water or in lifeboats if help was at hand.

Rescue of survivors was, and to this day, still is important. Saving stranded men makes sense for a number of reasons. One is the immeasurable yet still valid assumption of maintenance of morale. Knowing that an attempt to save them will be made, men are more willing to risk themselves. Take away any possibility of rescue and there will be fewer volunteers and fewer of them willing to take risks. Rescue also means that men with valuable skills will be saved and able to operate again in future operations. Failing to rescue also affects the morale of men who are forced to abandon others to their almost certain doom. Attempts at rescue were usually made, even with what meager resources were available. The only circumstances where rescue attempts were not made was during highly valuable operations such as an amphibious landing [during the Pacific campaign some convoys made it clear to participants that no ships would fall out to rescue a man overboard] or when environmental conditions would doom shipwrecked personnel, such as the Arctic convoys to Russia. A man would die within a few seconds or minutes from exposure, before the nearest ship could rescue him. Very few men were saved under such conditions. Sometimes the risk was judged to be imprudent. A troop transport carrying hundreds or thousands of men could not afford to stop and imperil itself to rescue one man. As well, there were usually smaller craft that could take the chance.

[Jimbuna]

My late father sailed on the Russian convoys and they were instructed NOT to stop for torpedoed survivors in the water.

They had only a few minutes to live in such extreme conditions.

During one such convoy a merchant altered course to help said victims and an escort threatened it with gunfire for non-compliance of an admiralty order.

[Buddahaid]

My late father sailed on the Russian convoys and they were instructed NOT to stop for torpedoed survivors in the water.

They had only a few minutes to live in such extreme conditions.

During one such convoy a merchant altered course to help said victims and an escort threatened it with gunfire for non-compliance of an admiralty order.

Those cold Murmansk convoys were subject to Luftwaffe attacks which were more effective than what the Kriegsmarine brought to bear, although with a high casualty rate.

[Tessa]

My late father sailed on the Russian convoys and they were instructed NOT to stop for torpedoed survivors in the water.

They had only a few minutes to live in such extreme conditions.

During one such convoy a merchant altered course to help said victims and an escort threatened it with gunfire for non-compliance of an admiralty order.


As cold as the water was in the Atlantic, it was even worse there; you'd be dead in a few minutes from exposure. Unless they were in a lifeboat there's nothing the u-boat crew could have done to help the people already in the water. When conditions permitted (like sinking a lone merchant or convoy straggler) u-boat captains would still come alongside and help the survivors till wars end (though it curtailed as the war went on).

Escorts were the only ships allowed to aid in survivor retrival in a convoy since they could easily catch back up to the rest of the convoy, and had the agility to move the boat around to help scoop the people up quickly. If a merchant got too much off course it put the whole convoy at risk in order to get the offending ship back into the formation and begin sailing again.

[K-61]

Fog and storms were notorious for breaking up convoy cohesion. After the fog or storm lifted the escorts had to run about like sheepdogs to coax the convoy back into formation. Quite a few stragglers were picked off by U-boats after such weather conditions lifted.