How to miss an elephant in a corridor

[Excelsior82]

Hey guys,

I'm not quite new to Silent Hunter although I'm not a god-skipper neither, but I have wasted a decent amount of time on SH1, SH2, SH3 and SH4.

I'm currently on SH4, un-modded, and while on patrol, my watch spots two ships at night, one medium gunboat and a destroyer a bit farther.

I'm trailing the gunboat for 30 minutes and I engage her with my cannon when she's 2160 miles away because she spotted me and was going to escape or attack.

This part is okay, I feed her 5 shots of HE and she started to sink (ain't that a little fast ?).

In the meantime I lost the destroyer from sight, but after keeping up my route, I notice the destroyer sits quietly in the water, waiting for a submerged submarine to send her to Davy Jones locker.

And here I come, submergeing some 2800 miles before I reach her, then I keep going silently, and I manage to approach her at 550 miles without been detected.

I'm very close yet and I decide to take her down now. I send two fishes and wait for the ka-boom, but she started her engines and dodged.

I'm a bit startled and decide to reload and retry, in order to see when she spotted the torpedoes. It appears, she saw the torpedoes some 20 seconds before the hit (that's when I saw her running her engines), she runs for some seconds and sits again... I shoot her again, and she does the same.

I've loaded the game 3 times and was unable to pierce any hole in that crappy destroyer (my sub is a S-18 with Mark10, so I sent let's say 12 torpedoes which all missed, and I am not in realistic aiming mode)


There, I'm no more startled, but astonished, because whatever I do, she always dodge my fishes, and she doesn't even dare to poo grenades on me. She just moves away and continue sitting.
I've tried to attack her from several angles, but no luck.

Anyone has a clue why this happens ?

[Anthony W.]

Reposition from behind and to the side - fire one with a left offset, and immediately launch another with a right offset. If she dodges one, she runs into the other

Then again, a Mk.10 is a slow torpedo...

And sinking that (sub chaser I'm thinking was the word you wanted) with only 5 HE rounds was a bit fast but it depends on where you hit.

Try TMO 2.1 and RSRD - makes the whole thing a lot more real - but prepare for hours of depth charge attacks and destroyers that will stop at nothing to send you to Davey Jone's Locker

And your torpedoes won't go off as often. Lots of duds just like in real life. And they do less damage.

[magic452]

The ability of destroyers to evade torpedoes is a big flaw in the game.
They accelerate at aircraft speed.

To score hits on a DD in the stock game with auto targeting you must
1) DO NOT lock the scope on the target.
2) aim the first torpedo about a quarter of a boat length ahead of the bow. This will make the DD sit still.
3) shoot two more fish, 1 at the center or the stack and the second some where forward of that. Shoot these three quickly.
4) Best bet is to do this at night or in bad weather if possible This applies to any target

Make sure that you open the torpedo doors first. The "Q" key.

Most likely the reason the DD starts and than stops is she doesn't know where you are and your very lucky.

550 Yards is pretty close much closer and the torpedoes will not arm.

Good luck and good hunting.

Magic

[Stealhead]

Torpedo accuracy is far more important than torpedo speed any day.No matter how fast or slow the target is going if you set up your shot/spread accurately it wont matter the speed of the torpedo.Oh well I suppose this would less a factor with auto target missed that bit.

[Excelsior82]

And sinking that (sub chaser I'm thinking was the word you wanted) with only 5 HE rounds was a bit fast but it depends on where you hit.
After some searchs (had to find how it was translated from french), I found what it was : A medium gunboat

The ability of destroyers to evade torpedoes is a big flaw in the game.
They accelerate at aircraft speed.

To score hits on a DD in the stock game with auto targeting you must
1) DO NOT lock the scope on the target.
2) aim the first torpedo about a quarter of a boat length ahead of the bow. This will make the DD sit still.
3) shoot two more fish, 1 at the center or the stack and the second some where forward of that. Shoot these three quickly.
4) Best bet is to do this at night or in bad weather if possible This applies to any target

Make sure that you open the torpedo doors first. The "Q" key.

Most likely the reason the DD starts and than stops is she doesn't know where you are and your very lucky.

550 Yards is pretty close much closer and the torpedoes will not arm.

Good luck and good hunting.

Magic

Thanks you, I'm gonna try that.
By the way, it was 0.550 miles, not 550 yards, I confused myself with the units. However, I didn't found the activation range for MK10 :/

[Armistead]

Yep, may of us use what we call the "hold method" on stopped and moving ships. The game does allow that they can pick up speed and stop too quickly so if you aim one in front of the bow and the next one center, it will see the bow one not increase speed or even slow down, so your others should hit. DD's are the worse, they can take off like a speed boat.

It's called shooting by the wire, great tactic. Why I love M18 torps, wakeless and they can't see them.

Do yourself a favor and load TMO and you won't have to worry much about escorts sitting still letting you shoot, they'll be making runs on top of you.

[Excelsior82]

Do yourself a favor and load TMO and you won't have to worry much about escorts sitting still letting you shoot, they'll be making runs on top of you.

I'm sure my crew will be grateful for being targetted by depth charge.

However, when I saw the DD standing still at night, I asked myself if the captain of that ship wasn't suicidal.

[Anthony W.]

I'm sure my crew will be grateful for being targetted by depth charge.

However, when I saw the DD standing still at night, I asked myself if the captain of that ship wasn't suicidal.

SAR for the missing boat?

[Dogfish40]

Hey guys,

I'm not quite new to Silent Hunter although I'm not a god-skipper neither, but I have wasted a decent amount of time on SH1, SH2, SH3 and SH4.

I'm currently on SH4, un-modded, and while on patrol, my watch spots two ships at night, one medium gunboat and a destroyer a bit farther.

I'm trailing the gunboat for 30 minutes and I engage her with my cannon when she's 2160 miles away because she spotted me and was going to escape or attack.

This part is okay, I feed her 5 shots of HE and she started to sink (ain't that a little fast ?).

In the meantime I lost the destroyer from sight, but after keeping up my route, I notice the destroyer sits quietly in the water, waiting for a submerged submarine to send her to Davy Jones locker.

And here I come, submergeing some 2800 miles before I reach her, then I keep going silently, and I manage to approach her at 550 miles without been detected.

I'm very close yet and I decide to take her down now. I send two fishes and wait for the ka-boom, but she started her engines and dodged.

I'm a bit startled and decide to reload and retry, in order to see when she spotted the torpedoes. It appears, she saw the torpedoes some 20 seconds before the hit (that's when I saw her running her engines), she runs for some seconds and sits again... I shoot her again, and she does the same.

I've loaded the game 3 times and was unable to pierce any hole in that crappy destroyer (my sub is a S-18 with Mark10, so I sent let's say 12 torpedoes which all missed, and I am not in realistic aiming mode)


There, I'm no more startled, but astonished, because whatever I do, she always dodge my fishes, and she doesn't even dare to poo grenades on me. She just moves away and continue sitting.
I've tried to attack her from several angles, but no luck.

Anyone has a clue why this happens ?

An Elephant? I don't know about that. One of the things that many Destroyer designs have is being compact. That is, Small, Lightweight and Fast! You will notice that many of the Destroyers in the recognition manual are barely 1000 tons and many of these were considered to be too small to warrent wasting a torpedo on. Because of the fact that they could out-manuver a torpedo, subs generally gave Destroyers or Destroyer patrols a wide berth. It was considered suicidal to attack more than one at any time (or at least a dance with the Devil). Most of the attacks made by US subs on DD's were made in the first few months of the war when the Subs were still learning (quickly) about new wartime tactics.
If you still want to attack a DD, set yourself up for silent running. Either get him to come to you or get him stopped, and fire at him as close as possible (slightly over 500yrds) preferably. If he knows you're there, come back another day! Good Luck and Good Hunting!:salute:
D40

[Excelsior82]

Well, maybe you didn't read correctly what I was telling. The DD is sitting, and I manage to approach her less than 1100 yds and she doesn't raise a brow.

That was because of that, and for the sake of humor that I compared her to an elephant.

I know that historically subs weren't attacking DD, but I did it because she was full stopped at night (sounds crazy).


However, I've just made another tests. I crawled at 550 yards from her and I launched one fish 10° ahead of her bow, one at her bow and one between these 2 spots in order to have the first fish blowing her...

The MK10 Torpedo is not fast, I recognize that, but 10° at 550 yards, that's a lot and without these tries, I dare anyone to sink her, even with a 4 torpedoes spread... This just doesn't sounds right.

Did you told that TMO forbid the DD to accelerate like a Porsche ?

[Anthony W.]

Well, maybe you didn't read correctly what I was telling. The DD is sitting, and I manage to approach her less than 1100 yds and she doesn't raise a brow.

That was because of that, and for the sake of humor that I compared her to an elephant.

I know that historically subs weren't attacking DD, but I did it because she was full stopped at night (sounds crazy).


However, I've just made another tests. I crawled at 550 yards from her and I launched one fish 10° ahead of her bow, one at her bow and one between these 2 spots in order to have the first fish blowing her...

The MK10 Torpedo is not fast, I recognize that, but 10° at 550 yards, that's a lot and without these tries, I dare anyone to sink her, even with a 4 torpedoes spread... This just doesn't sounds right.

Did you told that TMO forbid the DD to accelerate like a Porsche ?


Launch a 3 spread - one ahead - one behind - and one at the center

Or capsize it. I once was out of torpedoes, and a tiny destroyer escort was sitting there perfectly still. So I snuck underneath it - and blew my balasts.

Haha

[Daniel Prates]

The DD is sitting, and I manage to approach her less than 1100 yds and she doesn't raise a brow.

(...)

I know that historically subs weren't attacking DD, but I did it because she was full stopped at night (sounds crazy).

You actually get a lot of docked escorts when raiding some harbors. But stoping a chase in the midst of combat to scan for you... that's unusual. I must say though, that if you are being chased by several DDs, it is likely that one of them will stop or slow down dramaticly to help increase it's sonar effectiveness, pinpoint you and send the information to the other DDs.

Wanna get an easy crack at dealing with several DDs? Activate external view, choose the 'tokyo express' single mission, and have a ball. There will be 4 DDs (as i recall it). Strike them and see their response. It should teach a lot on how they behave. I ocasionally re-play that mission just to see what they do, what works and what doesn't.

[magic452]

Did you told that TMO forbid the DD to accelerate like a Porsche ?

Nope. You just gotta live with IJN Porsches. They had them long before Germany. :haha: :haha: I hope Skybird isn't any were around.

The acceleration of ships is for the most part hard coded.
Webster has a mod that helps but doesn't cure all the problem.
Some run this mod with TMO but Ducimus says that it nerfs some of his sitings.

Magic