Can mines damage/destroyyour surfaced sub in SH 4?

[Bubblehead1980]

Considering adding mines to Balabac Strait in 1944.Can you hit them when surfaced? What about other ships? How can you set them to make sure that if you you hit one, they absolutely destroy your sub(as would in RL)? Mines are few and far between in the game. and were a real threat to us subs, so trying to add them to RSRD.Would be nice if were a threat in historical areas such as balabac, esp to surfaced vessels.

[Stealhead]

I am pretty sure that they can.I think there are two types one with a longer tether to hit a surfaced sub and one that is shorter to hit a submerged.

People have had "mystery" deaths while at the surface and Ducimus surmised that a mine was the culprit.

The only problem though is that during WWII fairly early on they discovered that they could send pings into a suspected mine field and the mines would return and they could very cautiously proceed through a mined area or rather find the clear area for friendly traffic.MIT developed a special sound passive set specifically for mine detection it entered service some time in 1944.Of course that set is not simulated in the game and you can not use the JP to ping towards a suspected mine filed and avoid returns.So the real life skippers had ways to mitigate the mine threat that we do not have which would actually things ahistorically more dangerous than they really where.Mine tenders would routinely patrol the fields to ensure mines had not become untethered.

One of the theories for the Wahoo sinking is that she hit a mine that had become untethered and had drifted to a location that normally would have been deemed safe.They could only place mines in certain places and they would only put them in choke points more for area denial because your enemy is going be able to take an educated guess where mines might in a body of water also used by his own vessels.Mines should get tripped by anything that hits them which means that enemy can never completely block off any body of water.

Skippers could also observe local traffic to find out where to go locals know where the mines are.You really cant simulate that in SH4 the ships do not have that kind of AI nor do they have the AI avoid a minefield to avoid a mine filed in their waters. The Barb captured a Japanese merchant marine and asked him where the mines where you could also board a ship and capture the charts.Again these are other forms of mitigation that are not possible to simulate in the game.For this reason I think is why Ducimus and others increased the mines but nothing beyond that there is no way to make them more realistic in all respects.

[merc4ulfate]

They will kill you just as well as a runaway torpedo or a subnet.

The best defense again nets is to find a deep water area of the net. The will only hang down 150 feet so if you find a deep water spot you can go under them and then back to the surface before it shallows out in a lagoon. Done it ... it works.

Best defense against runaway torpedoes. I for one have never seen them run away port side they seem to always run starboard. All ahead flank, dive and turn Right full rudder. Turning port can set your sail as a great profile target if you haven't dove deep enough. Turning port will at least get you a few yards of time plus your turning radius will not be the same and the torpedo so it will instantly get off center of your sail as a target.

Best defense against mines in the water. Go around. O.k. there is another way. If you have enough depth under the keep raise the periscope and then dive down so the scope is completely underwater. Now that you can see out of the forward observation window you can see the mines in the water (provided it is day light and your not running like a bat out of hell) and steer clear of them as you enter no mans land.:rock:

[TorpX]

Best defense against runaway torpedoes. I for one have never seen them run away port side they seem to always run starboard. All ahead flank, dive and turn Right full rudder. Turning port can set your sail as a great profile target if you haven't dove deep enough. Turning port will at least get you a few yards of time plus your turning radius will not be the same and the torpedo so it will instantly get off center of your sail as a target.


I don't understand about the turning port part. It seems to me you would want to turn in the opposite direction or the torpedo. I realize the sub's turning radius will not be the same as the torp's, but I would not care to rely on such small margins. Turning in the opposite direction (assuming you have time) gets you out of and away from the lethal turning circle of the torpedo. Also, I would want to turn 180 deg., not just 90; that would leave your tail sticking out where it might get hurt.

[Bubblehead1980]

also can just do some recon and find the entrance/exit to the subnet. I have hit a mind before submerged, but wanting to make them a threat to subs and ships when surfaced.Also, need to adjust their power so that if they hit sub, its all over.

[Armistead]

You can put them on the surface, done it in a few areas. You've probably seen the properties, you have a min and max height, so how you set that determines the randomness of the depth of the field. Course using TC will get you killed real fast. I don't think any mods place them on the surface because they take out ships as well.

I think the explosion effect is in the Library under mine zone, maybe navymine zon.

[TorpX]

also can just do some recon and find the entrance/exit to the subnet. I have hit a mind before submerged, but wanting to make them a threat to subs and ships when surfaced.Also, need to adjust their power so that if they hit sub, its all over.
If it were me, I'd try to make them so they don't destroy the sub instantly. Let the victim suffer the terror and anguish of having his sub 90% damaged, knowing he cannot reach home, and thinking why oh why did I try to sneak into this blasted harbor?!? :/\\!!.

Just thinkin' out loud. :03:

[Bubblehead1980]

You can put them on the surface, done it in a few areas. You've probably seen the properties, you have a min and max height, so how you set that determines the randomness of the depth of the field. Course using TC will get you killed real fast. I don't think any mods place them on the surface because they take out ships as well.

I think the explosion effect is in the Library under mine zone, maybe navymine zon.

Thanks

[Bubblehead1980]

If it were me, I'd try to make them so they don't destroy the sub instantly. Let the victim suffer the terror and anguish of having his sub 90% damaged, knowing he cannot reach home, and thinking why oh why did I try to sneak into this blasted harbor?!? :/\\!!.

Just thinkin' out loud. :03:



True but I think about the USS Flier, hit a mine in Balabac Strait and went down one minute.Mine should be a fatal blow to a sub, just like if a torpedo circles back and hits the sub.Although the USS Pollack survived a circle run in 1943 because the fish ran deep and exploded underneath them, but since fishwas so deep, the shockwave didnt have full effect on the old boat(this was from a book by Captain Ken Ruiz who was on the bridge operating the TBT when this happened)

[MarkCt]

I have played two full campaigns and now it's 1943 in campaign three and have yet to find a sub net or mine field. Probably a good thing. But I've been in a few harbors where I thought they would be but it was clear.

[Stealhead]

I have played two full campaigns and now it's 1943 in campaign three and have yet to find a sub net or mine field. Probably a good thing. But I've been in a few harbors where I thought they would be but it was clear.

The lack of mines and nets to a large extent lies within limitations in the games design and of course time constraints placed on the developers.In the stock game there are very few sub nets or mines.

Some mods like TMO improve the ratio of mines and nets but again I think they took the overall focus of their design goals while modding also I am sure it takes a lot of time to add these things in and that time was usually spent on modding other parts of the game.

If you look at TMO it has a fairly substantial amount of improvements and additions and these take a lot of time to develop and test and tweak and tests again when you put that much time into something you want it to aspects that everyone is going to enjoy and notice.Not every player likes the infiltrate into a harbor or choke point aspect.Everyone does like there sub to have much improved details,tougher smarter AI,Tench class boats and so on.

In the end it boils down to specifics if you have something more specific that you want to have more detail or to have a greater challenge you may have to make these tweaks yourself.

[merc4ulfate]

@TORPX I understand what you are saying.

I do it for two reasons. One I have seen plenty of runaways. They all without except, for me anyway, have run starboard. I noticed once that in a dive my stern places itself to high for to long sometimes. So to avoid the con or stern being hit I turn starboard in hope of corkscrewing down without my stern setting up as a target for runaway pete.

My last runaway was yesterday in a Type II U-boat. I had a British destroyer less that 1000 yards away coming right at me. I kept my scope up so as to make sure he had a good track on me as I dove. The fish circled back 4 or 5 times as I dove but the destroyer kept on my original heading. Like I had hoped the destroyer got hit and sank by my runaway while I dove and made my escape.:subsim:

[Stealhead]

I think he misread you because turning to port from a torpedo circling to starboard is turning in the opposite direction.The best evasion option for a circle runner is to dive and turn in the opposite direction seems like everyone agrees with that.Circle runners seem to be pretty rare for me I have not had one in some time but I am pretty sure i have seen them run both port and starboard.

[Armistead]

When I play, usually cams off and rare I see them, but if I do in time, I turn into it, simply it circles right, I flank and do hard right turn crash diving. It usually buys me enough time to get deep enough.

One thing, if you shoot from a dead stop, they always just circle around me, but I don't playing that way.

[TorpX]

Mine should be a fatal blow to a sub, just like if a torpedo circles back and hits the sub.
Oh, I'm sure you're right about that; I just thought from a game standpoint it would be better to see/know what happened. And perhaps, have time for one good - Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

People here occasionally make posts asking "what happened? I was cruising along and bam! I'm sunk. I have no idea what hit me." Seems kind of unfair to the player. I kind of like the way they did it in SHCE; you had a death screen and were told KILLED BY MINE.

[Armistead]

Bubble, I have a traffic file for RSRD some where for China coast traffic with some surface minefields. Towards the end of the war, many convoys basically ran the coast, in and out of harbors. You get this message with RSRD, but none of the convoys really hug the coast. I have several historic and some more for fun. You have to go in at night, can really only attack from sea side, water is shallow and convoys have mean escorts. Also put a lot of jap fishing vessels in the area to spot you.

I'll see if I can find it, may still be on my old pc.

[Bubblehead1980]

Bubble, I have a traffic file for RSRD some where for China coast traffic with some surface minefields. Towards the end of the war, many convoys basically ran the coast, in and out of harbors. You get this message with RSRD, but none of the convoys really hug the coast. I have several historic and some more for fun. You have to go in at night, can really only attack from sea side, water is shallow and convoys have mean escorts. Also put a lot of jap fishing vessels in the area to spot you.

I'll see if I can find it, may still be on my old pc.

Nice, hope you can find it, sounds tough.I just finished up my traffic add ons, addded some things to each phase of war, looking forward to trying it out, esp with the darker nights.

[Stealhead]

When I play, usually cams off and rare I see them, but if I do in time, I turn into it, simply it circles right, I flank and do hard right turn crash diving. It usually buys me enough time to get deep enough.

One thing, if you shoot from a dead stop, they always just circle around me, but I don't playing that way.


Thinking about it this an aspect of the game that cant be fully simulated.In a US Navy sub they would have had the sound man listen and follow the torpedoes they would have been able to fairly quickly ascertain that one was running very errant and react several seconds faster than you can in the game also in the game the only way you can do this is by manning the JP as soon as you fire and listen in real life a crewman had this task the game makes dealing with a circular run unrealistic because you do not have a fair and reasonable method to detect one.Of course the watch would also be alert for an errant while on the surface and they dont do that in the game either(of course they would only be able to see a steam powered torpedo).Within the bounds of the game you must do too much work to deal with this that takes away from combat efficiency because you are not able to fully focus on the attack.

[Armistead]

Thinking about it this an aspect of the game that cant be fully simulated.In a US Navy sub they would have had the sound man listen and follow the torpedoes they would have been able to fairly quickly ascertain that one was running very errant and react several seconds faster than you can in the game also in the game the only way you can do this is by manning the JP as soon as you fire and listen in real life a crewman had this task the game makes dealing with a circular run unrealistic because you do not have a fair and reasonable method to detect one.Of course the watch would also be alert for an errant while on the surface and they dont do that in the game either(of course they would only be able to see a steam powered torpedo).Within the bounds of the game you must do too much work to deal with this that takes away from combat efficiency because you are not able to fully focus on the attack.

Yep, be nice if sonar would call out. Most the time I get hit at scope depth. Bout the only thing you can do is check the attack map after you shoot, but I seldom do.

[theelite1500]

No way a sub can withstand a mine

Probably

[merc4ulfate]

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11272088

The Argus News Paper, Melbourne Australia January 18, 1940 reports submarine survives head on collision with a mine. Loses 20 ft of the forward section.

From Hobart, The Mercury writes ...December 7, 1941 one did not make it out so lucky.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/25903590

[Stealhead]

It would depend on where the sub hit the mine the location along the hull if the sub was surfaced or not.A mine has a fairly high likely hood of destroying a sub outright but not a 100% chance.No weapon comes with a 100% kill guarantee even modern guided weapons are only in the 90% range of having good effect on target.

[TorpX]

Mines come in all shapes and sizes. Also, they are deployed in different ways and for different reasons.

I think it is too bad SH4 doesn't allow for offensive mine-laying missions. Not because they were that effective, but because it was part of the historical campaign.

In WitP, they put in quite a bit of detail related to mines, but they aren't particularly effective.