He tricked me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jscharpf]

This ever happen to you?...

So I'm cruising around the east coast area of England, early in the war using a IIA, I'm just looking to poke the beast so I slither up a little too close to one of the east bases (on the surface), and there are three destroyer type ships. I'm relatively new so I don't know for sure what these ships were, but they looked like two very small boats and one pretty large boat, all with depth charges.. they were fast too!..
So .. there I am, spotted by the ships I assume because as I'm watching them in my binocs, suddenly I see one start charging for me.. full front waves splitting.. looks pretty awesome!... I dive... didn't have much room, probably 30 meters max I think..and I proceed to play the game of cat and mouse with three of these ships searching, pinging, dropping depth charges... Now the only cheats I use are the stabilized view and the outside view.. so I take the outside view on occasion to follow one of the destroyers.. as he slows down, speeds up, fires depth charges, take an underwater view.. etc., etc., I manage to avoid any damage, staying quiet, moving around, then after what seemed like several hours (lost track of time), two of the boats headed back to the base, rather quickly, and the larger boat, suddenly stopped.. just STOPPED... engine was off..!!

So.. I'm thinking.. hmm.... he must have ran out of fuel?? Game bug?? is he damaged? Overheated engine?? So.. I sit there quietly... for a looooooong time....he still isn't moving... OK something is wrong here.. he must be vulnerable.. muahahahha.. I will sneak up and score my FIRST kill on a warship of any kind..

So, I'm still in running quiet.. I slowly start to circle him, just to make sure nothing weird happens... and I stay about 3KM away.. I don't want to take any chances.. my heart rate is really up there now.. just seems too easy... but heck maybe I found a bug in the game or some limit...

.. So.. I decide to just pull up perpendicular to him, avoid the TDC, and just fire a salvo of 3 torpedoes, set to impact, fire them at 1 meter.. going to make sure this guy goes down!!!

Again,, I spend an extraordinary amount of time lining up, taking the outside view, moving as perfect as I can.. periscope just there (water was calm)... quietly I load my torpedoes and open the doors..

.. still waiting... he's quiet... I'm quiet, engines now off... nothing but the pencil scribblings...

So one last external look, zoom to him, he's quiet.. not moving..AHH HE IS GOING TO BE SO DEAD!!!!

.. ok back to the periscope view.. still a little nervous.. what the heck..

Push the FIRE BUTTON!!!!

Off they go!!..

I switch to external view... watch the trail of bubbles.. OH MAN 3 TRAILS.. going right at him!!! THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!!!..

So... I'm following the trails... kind of in a view just above and behind the torpedoes.. visual on the ship and my little white lines.. EVERY ONE LOOKS LIKE IT'S GOING TO HIT!!!!..


As I get about half way (guess)... suddenly... HE STARTS HIS ENGINE!!!!... AND VROOOOOOMMMM... HE STARTS MOVING REALLY FAST!!!

I'm too stunned to react.. watching my three torpedoes pass by his rear as he takes off... WTF??? I figure.. ok he's running home....

Guess what?? NOT!!!!! HE TURNS TOWARDS MY UBOAT!!!


OH CRAP!!! I"M SITTING IDLE AT PERISCOPE DEPTH!!! I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD NEED TO DO ANYTHING LOL!!


I rush to my control room go full speed and dive to 25 meters (I think it was something like this).. turn hard left...


DEPTH CHARGES IN THE WATER!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!

BOOM BOOM DAMGE KRAULEN!!! DAMGE!! DAMGE HERE DAMGE THERE!!

BOOM BOOM OH MY GOD!!!!

WATER EVERYWHERE, GUYS GOING RED!!! CAN"T REPAIR!!!

GOING TO THE BOTTOM!!!

..................suddenly it's quiet.. jump to the..

....................MENU SCREEN.... mission results..all crew lost.. ..

DONE!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?! JUST LIKE THAT??

Lesson learned... don't get cocky lol... be prepared for anything..

Needless to say, I did save the game prior to entering the area.. after restoring the game.. I decided to not look for trouble in that bay area again and cruised on past it... thank god for simulations!

Jeff

[Sailor Steve]

The AI in SH3 is pretty good. The reason he stopped was because he was listening for you. One of the problems of the game is that all ships accelerate much faster than they could in real life. That said, if you were 3000 meters away, 1500 would give him plenty of time to see the wakes or hear the torpedoes and make his move. Then all he had to do was either follow the wakes or head in the direction of the sound.

Another trick they'll pull is the tag-team. One will stop and listen. Went the other one charges you the first one will hear which direction you turn and whether you dive or rise, and he'll make his attack run accordingly.

And then there's later in the war with hunter/killer groups. One will follow you, keeping contact while he directs the others in. It can be brutal.

The stock game can be pretty easy to beat. The supermods are all designed to be more realistic, which means more deadly. Rules: Stay away from shallow water. Always assume the worst, and prepare for it. If they have you, dive deep. Any time you hear their propellers, assume it's an attack run, and dive or rise, and turn. After they drop, go silent. This works best with single ones, so when there are two or more you have to adjust. Keep an eye on the sonar tracks on the chart, and maneuver accordingly. Turn into them, not away. With luck this will cause them to overshoot.

Always remember, they only have one purpose in life, and that is to kill you.

[jscharpf]

Thanks for the reply, Steve!
I'm using the GWX gold mod and everything is on realistic except I use external view and stabilized view.
So even though I don't know what the contact on the map is (friend or foe), I can go to external and move to their location to check their flag.
With that said, it has been extremely challenging (or frustrating!) for me.. but I enjoy that. I did start with a different mod, and it seemed too easy. Every ship I hit sunk right away. With GWX, man it's tough!...
And now I see what you're saying, those buggers are persistent!!

I'll take your advice about the shallow water.. it seems suicidal!

Can you clarify something? When you say "go silent" does this just mean the setting where you tell the chief engineer to run silent or does it mean that and ALSO turn everything else and stop? The reason I ask is that when I give the command to run silent, we're still moving slow, I can go to flank speed, but.. am I still silent?? Is the only way to be silent, just to shut everything off and drift?

Also, you're saying I should move towards the attacking destroyer? I want to make sure I understand.

All I do is zig zag and panic lol!!!!!

and hope..

[bertieck476]

I think I read a post sometime ago that said the only way to be silent is set for silent running and set your speed to 1 or 2 knots, above this I think you start to be noisey

[Sailor Steve]

The above is correct. Two knots is the maximum for silent running. In older games Silent Running would automatically shut off if you accelerated. In SH3 and later this is not so, and that's a good thing. In SH3 if you do use a sudden burst of speed the crew will still remain silent, not doing any repairs or loading torpedoes. Just remember to shut it off when the action is finished, or nothing will ever get repaired, even on the surface.

In real life they couldn't stop underwater unless they were lying on the bottom. The trim was never perfect, and sooner or later the boat would begin to rise or sink. Either the boat had to move or the pumps had to be run, and either one would make some noise.

By turning toward the attacking destroyer I mean remain slow and silent until you hear his propellers. Once he is that close he can no longer hear you, and the actual drop is blind. You can hear which direction he's coming from or look at the map to see which contact line is the closest. If he's doing 12 knots when he drops and you're doing 8, then if you turn the same direction he's going (i.e. away from him) then he'll only be going 4 knots faster than you, and he's over you longer, giving the depth charges more time in your area. If you turn toward him and make it all the way, then the differential is 20 knots and he's dropping where you were, not where you are. If you only make it halfway and he's heading across from your direction, he's moving 12 knots sideways to you and your beam makes you a narrower target.

Remember the old fighter pilot's saying: Always turn into your enemy. Even if you don't get a shot back at him you still give him the worst possible shot at you. Also remember that this only applies to the attack run itself. While you're silent turn your tail to him. It gives you a smaller sonar signal and with any luck will get you away from him.