misha1967
04-19-12, 02:41 AM
First off, I'm certainly not reinventing the wheel here, as a matter of fact most of what I've learned comes from studying the real tactics of U-boat commanders, but it might be of some use to "noobs", so here goes. The rest of you fellow veteran Kaleuns can just roll your eyes and skip it. I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know.
First: Your boat's "ears", the hydrophone, are much more efficient than any set of eyeballs.
The surface is nice, you can go really fast and you don't have to worry about the batteries and the CO2 levels. But it's really not all that efficient, particularly not when you're close enough to the enemy that they have planes within range.
By all means use the surface whenever you're outside of enemy air range, but don't do so when you're not, particularly not in the early war.
Once you get to your patrol zone, for instance the British East Coast, dive when the sun rises and stay down unless you have a very good reason to come up. Use the nighttime or bad weather to change positions. You won't see anything on the surface with your watch crew sooner than your hydrophone operator will hear it.
If you DO catch a contact while you're down below, then you have to use your judgment. If you are going to chase, you obviously can't do so below unless the target is coming right at you. Just remember to make a sweep of the surface from periscope depth before you surface.
But don't just cruise around on the surface within range of the RAF to enjoy the view. Not only is it tiresome to have to crash dive every time your crew spots a plane (and you're pretty much dead if your TC is above 128/256 even if you DO hit the crash dive button), you're also much less likely to pick up a target using your eyes than you are using your ears.
Don't worry about the silly CO2 warning if you're below the sea either. The game triggers that warning when you hit 10% of lethal, NOT 10% of atmospheric content. Do check your CO2 levels from time to time, but your crew is not going to die unless you pass into the 90% area, which will take a couple of days to reach and you won't ever have to do that to see the sun set. Besides, even if you DO worry about the CO2, it only takes a few seconds to "air out" the boat.
And if that isn't enough incentive, I can tell you that my intercepts and sinkings have gone up a lot since I started using the "cautious" method. I don't waste time and fuel cruising back and forth in empty waters anymore.
Now, obviously, that advantage is going to drop as the Brits develop radar since that will mean that the night is no longer your friend, but you'll be doing yourselves a favor in the early times by relying more on your hydrophone and less on your watch crew's eyes.
First: Your boat's "ears", the hydrophone, are much more efficient than any set of eyeballs.
The surface is nice, you can go really fast and you don't have to worry about the batteries and the CO2 levels. But it's really not all that efficient, particularly not when you're close enough to the enemy that they have planes within range.
By all means use the surface whenever you're outside of enemy air range, but don't do so when you're not, particularly not in the early war.
Once you get to your patrol zone, for instance the British East Coast, dive when the sun rises and stay down unless you have a very good reason to come up. Use the nighttime or bad weather to change positions. You won't see anything on the surface with your watch crew sooner than your hydrophone operator will hear it.
If you DO catch a contact while you're down below, then you have to use your judgment. If you are going to chase, you obviously can't do so below unless the target is coming right at you. Just remember to make a sweep of the surface from periscope depth before you surface.
But don't just cruise around on the surface within range of the RAF to enjoy the view. Not only is it tiresome to have to crash dive every time your crew spots a plane (and you're pretty much dead if your TC is above 128/256 even if you DO hit the crash dive button), you're also much less likely to pick up a target using your eyes than you are using your ears.
Don't worry about the silly CO2 warning if you're below the sea either. The game triggers that warning when you hit 10% of lethal, NOT 10% of atmospheric content. Do check your CO2 levels from time to time, but your crew is not going to die unless you pass into the 90% area, which will take a couple of days to reach and you won't ever have to do that to see the sun set. Besides, even if you DO worry about the CO2, it only takes a few seconds to "air out" the boat.
And if that isn't enough incentive, I can tell you that my intercepts and sinkings have gone up a lot since I started using the "cautious" method. I don't waste time and fuel cruising back and forth in empty waters anymore.
Now, obviously, that advantage is going to drop as the Brits develop radar since that will mean that the night is no longer your friend, but you'll be doing yourselves a favor in the early times by relying more on your hydrophone and less on your watch crew's eyes.