Non-Academy Target Practice

[Raptor]

If you want to practice your manual targeting skills, or just make a shooter out of SH3 with GWX, do the following: No warships will bother you and you'll easily sink 300,000 GRT :yeah:between your eels and deck gun - assuming a type IX - correspondingly less with a VII. You will be shooting American large and small tankers (ignore the smalls) plus numerous ocean liners of 24,400 GRT each. One eel is usually all you'll need for each vessel, including the liners, which is quite unrealistic.

1) First, edit c:/your root directory/SilentHunterIII/date/cfg/basic.cfg so you can sink neutral shipping at any time without renown penalty.

[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=0
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=0
CompletedPatrol=0
NEUTRAL=-1.........<= remove the negative sign; make it NEUTRAL=1


2) take your boat to grid square ED9885 - essentially about 30 kilomters north of and centered on the entry to the Bay of Trinidad.

3) Set TC to the max and wait. You'll get a target about every 8 hours. The liners are leading a tramp steamer which you can ignore. The tankers appear usually as pairs, but 3 and 4 together are common. Solos are rare and usually small tankers inbound. You'll see a few other lesser vessels but they are not common.

4) If you want, raid the harbors at Port of Spain.:arrgh!: There are lots of large tankers at anchor.....and no warships or patrols. Sitting ducks for a shooter; minimal use for practicing manual targeting, although you can play with different gyro angles this way. Your targets aren't going anywhere.

[gazpode_l]

Are you expecting us to go sailing all the way there as a part of a campaign mission? I dont think either the type II or the IXB/C/D will have sufficient fuel to reach there, and back.

[Raptor]

The idea here is to practice manually targeting vessels moving at various speeds, both with and without zig-zagging. You don't have to worry about ASW responses from any warships, no matter how many neutral (American) ships you sink......prior to Dec 07, 1941.

In retrospect, it would have been great had SH3 included such a single mission scenario for just such a purpose. After you know how to shoot essentially "sitting ducks", you can try your hand at more realistic shipping targets in a true career mode.

You can do it with any u-boat type by simply turning off limited Fuel when you set the Realism % for your career. Combined with high TC, you can quickly transit from Kiel or Wilhemlshaven to Trinidad. Ignore any shipping you encounter along the way. Given the tiny torpedo load-out, I wouldn't use a type II for this. Start with a VII from the 2nd Flotilla and trade it in for a IX ASAP. More eels means more practice time during each patrol. Teleport home when your tubes are empty, reload, and try again until you're confident with your technique.

Also turn off Dud Torpedoes so if you miss, you'll know it's your fault.


Or just let the kids play it for fun.