Sinking for no reason

[Loudspeaker]

I would like to call myself an experienced player having played this game for years. But now I have run into a very annoying problem, which I have never seen before. When submerged in hostile waters, I sometimes just sink and die. It has happened to me twice in a row, ending two careers the same way, and this made me suspect that a bug is causing this. Here is what happens:

During day time and having no air warning system I dive to 90 feet and keep it going there untill nightfall, where I will submerge and recharge batteries. Much to my surprise, I just sink without any warnings of any kind. The hull just takes severe damage at the 90 feet depth. It's like the boat just crushes like a piece of paper. I don't know for sure, if I was attacked, but it seems very unlikely. It happened to me in an S-boat in my previous career and just right now in a Gar-class submarine (time compression 512).

The only changes on my computer have been a damned and unwanted upgrading from Windows 7 to 10, but my mods are still the same as always:

RFB 2.0 along with RSRD.

It is a mystery to me what is happening. What is wrong?

[Taucheisen]

Maybe you hit a mine? There are lots of them after September 1942 (Stock 1.5)

[cdrsubron7]

I would like to call myself an experienced player having played this game for years. But now I have run into a very annoying problem, which I have never seen before. When submerged in hostile waters, I sometimes just sink and die. It has happened to me twice in a row, ending two careers the same way, and this made me suspect that a bug is causing this. Here is what happens:

During day time and having no air warning system I dive to 90 feet and keep it going there untill nightfall, where I will submerge and recharge batteries. Much to my surprise, I just sink without any warnings of any kind. The hull just takes severe damage at the 90 feet depth. It's like the boat just crushes like a piece of paper. I don't know for sure, if I was attacked, but it seems very unlikely. It happened to me in an S-boat in my previous career and just right now in a Gar-class submarine (time compression 512).

The only changes on my computer have been a damned and unwanted upgrading from Windows 7 to 10, but my mods are still the same as always:

RFB 2.0 along with RSRD.

It is a mystery to me what is happening. What is wrong?

After making the upgrade from Win 7 to 10 are you using the same install of SH4 or do a complete fresh install and start over?

[propbeanie]

After making the upgrade from Win 7 to 10 are you using the same install of SH4 or do a complete fresh install and start over?
'zactly... and your "Saves" might be toast too...

[torpedobait]

I leave the free camera available, and after one of the sudden sinking events I reloaded a save and used the camera to check the waters around me, near the southern end of Formosa Strait. I found it loaded with mines! I'm sure there are many other areas similarly mined. Ducimus got me!
:Kaleun_Cheers:

[Rockin Robbins]

There is no safety in diving during the day and surfacing at night to recharge batteries. And you will develop only 1/4 of the targets you would have developed, had you remained on the surface.

It's like the Germans' grand plan to use a snorkel to remain submerged during the day. They were blind. And they were unaware that their snorkel was a homing beacon, a most excellent radar reflector. They were not safe at all! They just never knew what killed them.

Wearing a blindfold is not the same as not being able to be seen. Submariners should learn that simple fact.

Not only that, but when you deplete your batteries you are not ready for any combat at all! On the surface your fuel consumption doubles or triples as you recharge batteries, cutting your range by the same factor and making you a less successful sub skipper. And suppose you get pinned down by action with your batteries half charged?

Now you can run half as fast, only half as far before you are forced to surface and die because you are unprepared for action in the false belief that hiding below the surface makes you safe.

The truth is that it makes it many times more dangerous for all these reasons. A submarine is a surface raider which can submerge for the shortest possible amount of time when absolutely necessary to save your fool hide and those of your crew.

Stay on the surface and live! Stay on the surface and sink four times more targets per patrol. Airplanes? That is what lookouts are for. War ain't supposed to be safe. But it IS supposed to be fought, not hidden from.

[aanker]

The area just south of Honshu at the eastern entrance to S. Japan's 'Inland Sea' - Ku Suido - is heavily mined, and that was the location I was sunk by a mine for the first time. Submerged at sunrise to creep in, and BOOM (although there was no boom, it's that fast though, and over).

The excellent Win 10 upgrade remark by cdrsubron7 is another good possibility, as is plowing into a tiny '1 pixel' (single square) Is.
-
Edit: RR is correct about staying on the surface, however I was following early war orders to submerge during daylight hours. This protocol was soon changed.

Happy Hunting!

[Rockin Robbins]

-
Edit: RR is correct about staying on the surface, however I was following early war orders to submerge during daylight hours. This protocol was soon changed.

Happy Hunting!
Ah! But the policy was changed because brave sub commanders disobeyed those orders, knowing it was better to be alive and begging forgiveness than dead and considered a hero. Of course, in the process of saving their necks they developed a lot more contacts and sank more tonnage than those who merely obeyed orders.

Lockwood was a smart enough cookie to see a good thing when it was served to him on a silver platter. But make no mistake. It was the sub commanders disobeying his orders who changed the paradygm.

Hiding in wartime is not safe. It's more dangerous than doing your job.

Patton said it best "The best way to deal with fear of losing your life is to make the enemy more afraid of losing his."

[Prometheus]

hmm we need to bring that sub up from bottom of the sea and examine it, than we may have a clue what happened and do all what is necessary to prevent it from happening again. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

[Loudspeaker]

Thanks for all the replies. It proves to me that this forum is not only active - this game still have alot of fans. Also I am pleased to see that the most extingused RR took his time to share his knowledge with me. Sub commanders often found their own ways to do things even if command told them to do something else.

I was told that the famous German ace, Otto Kretschmer, got his nickname "silent otto" not only because he was a captain of few words, but also because he didn't often reply to the never ending messages from BdU. He had soon realized that those replies often were followed by an attack by the Allies, who ofcourse were able to position any big mouthed German sub commander.

I reason that mines were my problem, and that they were the reason for my abrupt sinkings. I will give RFB another go and report back if I notice the same thing over and over again.

Thanks for the replies - but remember... The Japs may have gotten them too. Stay alert on your next patrol :hmmm:

[KaleunMarco]

I leave the free camera available, and after one of the sudden sinking events I reloaded a save and used the camera to check the waters around me, near the southern end of Formosa Strait. I found it loaded with mines! I'm sure there are many other areas similarly mined. Ducimus got me!


Mines!
for the first time i actually ran into one. it blew my topside to hell.
what i wanted to discuss is why it activated at all.
i was patrolling in Area 7. Deep water. submerged to 200 feet. stalking a small convoy. all of sudden, i am taking topside damage. no injuries. periscopes and weapons damage, only. only? well, i had to break off contact and fix the damned scopes before returning to action.


after the mission was completed i fired up the Mission Editor and loaded the Jap_Mines file and there it was...Area 7 it is rife with minefields. so, i located the field that i had sailed into and found that the mines are set to activate between -20 and -35 meters. 35 meters is approximately 115 feet. ME does not indicate the type but the .MIS indicates a Type=500. unfortunately i do not have access to the type-table so i do not know what type it is.


anyway, the issue that has me perplexed is that i was at 200 feet yet i activated a mine whose deepest activation is 115 feet.either i am missing something basic or Ubisoft got me.:hmmm::hmmm::hmmm:

[propbeanie]

... and just what do you think holds that mine at its depth? Magic fairy pixie dust? Why no, it's an anchored cable (usually), and your right-front dive plane hooked it, and pulled the mine down to your depth - "KA-BLOO-IE"...

I don't know if they simulate that, but St. Peter would be able to tell you... :arrgh!: :salute:

[torpedobait]

... and just what do you think holds that mine at its depth? Magic fairy pixie dust? Why no, it's an anchored cable (usually), and your right-front dive plane hooked it, and pulled the mine down to your depth - "KA-BLOO-IE"...

I don't know if they simulate that, but St. Peter would be able to tell you... :arrgh!: :salute:

:haha::haha::haha::haha:

[mikesn9]

While on the subject of mines, is there anyway to watch out for them while patrolling an area?

I've been sunk a few times, Like a bomb out of nowhere.

[Barkerov]

Not unless you view the external camera and they are underwater so it would be very tedious. There are just some areas you should stay away from, like the coast of China along the East China Sea, The entrance to the Sea of Japan and Places along the Formosa Strait. These are not ALL of the areas that are mined by the way, just the places I have had the unpleasant experience of hitting them.



The mines have to be in reasonably shallow water too since they have to be anchored to the sea floor by a cable.

[propbeanie]

While on the subject of mines, is there anyway to watch out for them while patrolling an area?

I've been sunk a few times, Like a bomb out of nowhere.
The game can have mines anywhere, the game don't care 'bout no "anchor" point... but there are a couple of things you can do. If it's late in the war, and you have a Tench boat with FM sonar, you can "hear" the mines ring the chime. Otherwise, if you are underwater in an area you suspect has been mined, then you can partially raise the periscope and look through it (refer to the "SH4_Q-Ref_Card_Front.jpg"), so long as you are going slow enough, and are not too terribly deep to see, or that it is not night time... The game does not give you a sound (that I know of) like a cable rubbing against your hull the way the anti-subnet will give you a warning. You just go "BOOM" when too close, in my experience. It is advisable (duh) to stay away from them... :salute:

[mikesn9]

[If it's late in the war, and you have a Tench boat with FM sonar, you can "hear" the mines ring the chime]

I have a Tench boat how do I hear these?

[propbeanie]

Unfortunately, the FM does not truly function in SH4. I might try me a test with a Tench, make a SingleMission with a minefield, and see if it "shows" on the NavMap maybe... It'll be this afternoon before I get to it. - Oh! are you using TMO, or FotRSU? :salute:

[mikesn9]

SH4 Gold with TMO wtw.

That's all

[propbeanie]

Well, I did FotRSU first, and the results are in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck1_ZD1zJz8

My Tench did not have FM sonar though, even on April 15, 1945 at about 1800 by the time I got up there, but there was the minefield... and yes, for you US citizens, that is a slight dig at the date... :arrgh!:

My pictures through the periscope did not turn out too well, but here's a few others:

https://i.imgur.com/KPJcPlr.jpg
A mine, as seen from the external camera from underwater.


https://i.imgur.com/t1228L8.jpg
Same mine from the surface up close


https://i.imgur.com/CR8kuiZ.jpg
That's my sub at the bottom, and a bunch of little white orbs out in front of the sub, sitting at PD. You can see the first mine about 1/3 of the way down from the top edge. My sub's bow is about 1/3 of the way from the bottom edge.


https://i.imgur.com/7GqUFAG.jpg
Blowing up a mine with the 40mm AA gun. That bright "gold" color on the targeting reticle is just the sun setting behind my location.

Thus far, the procedure to follow with a Tench is the same as it is for the S-18 = "Go and be careful", aka: "Go around it" :salute:

[mikesn9]

Curses, foiled again!

[propbeanie]

I'm thinking, for whatever reason besides nostalgia, that the SSI Silent Hunter (the original) had the capacity to do what I'm seeing in my rememberance, as little blue "star" dots on the NavMap that would signify a detected mine, but it might have been some other subsim game... anyway, I'll keep noodling with this (it's too much fun), though I do not expect much from the SH4 engine. I don't think they put the capacity for such (FM sonar) in the game... We'd have to have CapnScurvy or someone of similar skill level comment on this :salute:

Taken from http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/F/m/FM_sonar.htm :
FM Sonar
This American sonar was a high-frequency, short-range sonar designed to detect moored mines. It used frequency modulation, sweeping through frequency as it swept in bearing, so that a nondirectional hydrophone could determine the bearing of a return signal from its frequency alone. It was one of the first true search sonars, though its range (not more than 800 yards or 730 meters under ideal conditions)was inadequate for any purpose but plotting minefields.

The sonar had a Plan Position Indicator, similar to those used on the best radar, which showed mines as bright green "pears"; the sonar also made an audible sound when its beam swept across a mine, a clear ringing note that the crews promptly dubbed "hell's bells." The audible component was important because helped distinguish actual mines from shoals of fish; the shoals gave a less distinct return that produced a muddy tone that a trained operator could easily distinguish from an actual mine.

The technology was originally developed for minesweepers, but the minesweeper force was unimpressed with its capability, and its development and deployment was taken over by the submarine service under Charles Lockwood. Lockwood saw the potential for the sonar to allow his submarines to penetrate Japanese minefields, and the first units reached the fleet in time for Operation BARNEY in July 1945, a raid by nine submarines on the Sea of Japan. The nine boats successfully penetrated the minefields in Tsushima Strait, although one boat was later lost to a conventional depth charge attack before the remaining eight boats escaped through La Perouse Strait.
References
Sasgen (2010)
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2012 by Kent G. Budge. Index

[mikesn9]

I have played 688i, and used the FM detector in that game to chart and pass through mine fields.