Destroyer ran out of charges?

[Gunnarr]

A destroyer has been depth charging me for 54 minutes. I have been following the advice of posters here, and I am able to evade the charges. But they are not losing track of me, finding me with pings after doing a turning sweep after one or two turns.

Anyway, the past two times the destroyer found me and moved towards and ovr me, it did not drop any depth charges. And the third past attack , they only dropped one charge.

are they out of charges? I read that they have like enough charges for about 200 minutes or so. The destroyer is a Hunt 1 destroyer. It is an escort for a convoy. The convoy has 4 destroyer escorts. But two are sunk. The third is chasing me, fourth is with convoy.

It is heading west, I am heading north

The whole situation would have been avoided if my time acceleration wasted a minute of time when the enemy was spotted, that lost minute gave them time to spot me

If they are really out of charges, what should I do? I have no aft torpedos left. Should I just try moving at flank speed? Or maybe they are careful with their charges and its tricking me

I am in a type 2 , the one you get at the start of the war at flotilla 2

[Gunnarr]

Also one thing. The two other destroyers that first came to me together I sunk with aft torpedos, set to 1 meter, firing at around 500 meters from target behind me, at the moment they start a zigzag turn .

Both times, the torpedo hit the very end , at the propellers, and I assume the depth charges blew up or something, because the whole thing blows up and sinks within a couple minutes.

The last aft torpedo I had I was going to do this to the last destroyer chasing me. I had to surface and run and get it out of the external spots, while they fired at me from 5000 meters or so. I did not kill the last destroyer because I forgot to open the aft tube... :/\\!!

So for 54 minutes of in game and real life time I've been trying to get away.

I am wondering, did submarines ever try to sink chasing destroyers with aft torpedos as i just did? Or is it just another unrealistic outcome/tactic. It felt kinda cheesy to sink them that way.

And yes, i do not have the realistic torpedo reload time on right now. And I know that sailor Steve is going to be sad that the game allows the external torpedo moved in 6 minutes while being fired at and moving at flank speed :D

I am just wondering about sinking destroyers in that method

I'm going to save and quit and wait for some help here, while I play hearts of iron 3 Italy :subsim:

[Pisces]

Go slow to about 1 knot and keep silent running on. Just move away from where he is hanging around. (make gentle turns as hard turns slows you down even further) Stealth allows you to evade as he will loose track of you and eventually return to the convoy. Any faster an he keeps picking you up. But once he is passed you, you can temporarily increase speed a little as you are in his baffles. Only the most experienced enemy crew get tenacious and stay on you. Hopefully you still have the oxygen and battery juice left to sit things out.

You'll never outrun the destroyer at flank. Especially in a slow Type 2 at max speed of 13-ish knots. You'll sustain heavy damage due to it's deckgun if you surface. Not worth it imho.

[Gunnarr]

Go slow to about 1 knot and keep silent running on. Just move away from where he is hanging around. (make gentle turns as hard turns slows you down even further) Stealth allows you to evade as he will loose track of you and eventually return to the convoy. Any faster an he keeps picking you up. But once he is passed you, you can temporarily increase speed a little as you are in his baffles. Only the most experienced enemy crew get tenacious and stay on you. Hopefully you still have the oxygen and battery juice left to sit things out.

You'll never outrun the destroyer at flank. Especially in a slow Type 2 at max speed of 13-ish knots. You'll sustain heavy damage due to it's deckgun if you surface. Not worth it imho.

Sorry I think I did not word my post correctly. This is the third destroyer to come at me, he is the rear escort. I have no intention to surface right now. I was only surfaced when this third destroyer was not in sight of me, I was surfaced after I sunk the front escort and closest side escort.

My intent on surfacing was to 1. Possibility to escape if the rear destroyer took too long to catch site of me before I could go back down after getting the torpedo (I was at a 30 degree angle of the heading of the convoy) 2. get the third torpedo out of external area so it could be used. 3. I am a noob and don't know how fast destroyers can move. But with that experiment I now know :p

I was only going flank speed when surfaced, in order to get a torpedo from the exterior tube, so I could eventually get it in the aft torpedo tube. I had surfaced because the two previous destroyer escorts were sunk, and I had only the exterior torpedo left in the aft to get. At that time, I did not have any further destroyer escorts spotted. The one that caught up to firing range of me was from the rear of the convoy, it only fired at me for about a minute at far range with their QF 4 inch Mk XVI naval gun, nothing got close to hitting. When I got the torpedo out of the exterior I went to periscope depth, and reduced speed (to conserve battery power, probably did more harm than good) to sink it like the previous two destroyers by letting it in close that they do not have enough time to evade. But I missed because I forgot to OPEN the aft torpedo tube before firing.

This was when the destroyer was 500 meters behind me, so they already knew where I was. (I wanted them to chase me, to kill it in that method, but my failure to kill it made things very difficult)

From then on for 54 minutes I did evasive tactics.

I went to 40 depth meters and silent running once there during their first depth charge. When they come in for depth charge after that, I do flank speed and 90 degree turn at the moment, and go lower depth to avoid getting hit and change direction a bit. Then back to silent running speed, so they cannot hear me by the time the depth charges are done exploding. I cannot go too low, sea bed seems to be around 80-90 meters. I am at 60 right now.

But they keep sweeping in circles and larger circles and pinging me to find me with active sonar is the problem. I know to try to keep a low profile to them, that is, to not be broadside to them. But them circling often negates the ability to stay in a good position, because one cannot turn nearly as fast as them when going silent running speed.

The problem I am having is after they get depth charges, I get away for a little bit. But after sweeping, they find me with active sonar.

Anyway, the main question was, are they out of depth charges? Since if they are, couldnt I just go flank speed and ignore them pinging me? (I want to go flank to get as far away as possible to the convoy, where another destroyer is) Eventually they will leave though, since they must escort their convoy.

I don't want to sit at slow speed with this destroyer on me if he has no depth charges, I would feel like a sitting duck, what if britain sends a destroyer from elsewhere to me? (Although Ive never had this happen)

I just read the wikipedia page for Hunt 1 class destroyer, it says they only had 50 depth charges. Maybe they ran out after all? But i dont think it could have been 50 charges in 54 minutes. but who knows... time flies and I am not counting the explosions

[maillemaker]

Yes, in SH3 you can bullseye pursuing destroyers fairly easily if you know what you're doing. I have about a 70% success rate. I usually use mag torps under the keel so I don't have to worry about a bounce due to bad angle.

In your situation with only one destroyer if you have 100% hull integrity I would go to maximum depth and silent running and manually set your props to under 90 RPM. You can see the RPM from the conning tower. You'll need to change your speed gauge from the usual slow/full/standard/flank to actual knots.

At max depth + silent running + slow RPM + constantly trying to point your bow/stern at them they should go away after a while.

Steve

[Zosimus]

I partially agree. You should go as deep as you can, but rather than ahead slow and quiet you should try reverse and quiet. Then you can go to the hydrophone and keep tabs on the ship. You should be able to continuously back away from it and still hear it by keeping your bow on the ship.

[Gunnarr]

Hey guys thanks for the replies I'm going to try it

[bstanko6]

If u go inside your boat where the chief is, the dive station, you should see an RPM gauge for port and starboard engines. Like mail maker said, keep that rpm low. I stay around 50 rpms.

[UKönig]

If you think that your hunters have run out of ammo (depth charges) then I think the only thing left for you in that case is to try your theory out. If they have no more to drop, then no more will drop.
Biding time and waiting for them to go away is risky for several reasons, as I have mentioned in another post. The bottom line is, the British know the capabilities of the U-boats they are fighting, they know time is on their side, not yours.

[Gunnarr]

Hello again!

Well, this is how things went.

He found me a few more times, and then left after I managed to get away with the help of your advice. He never dropped any more charges, so he must have ran out.

Anyway, I used this time to catch up to the convoy, and sink two whale factories and one large tanker. The destroyer which never met me started dropping depth charges, but I hid from them by the debris...

http://i.imgur.com/D3A3IYE.jpg

:ping: it worked alright, but after time accelerating one of them disappeared. :o

they eventually left to go back to the convoy.

A grand success, even if it took a few hours of evading depth charges :D

(oops I did not take the advice of not moving rudder all the way... ill have to remember that)