RUb 1.4.2 and deck gun damage (not RoF)

[Doolan]

Ahoy!

Before I start, I feel the need to clarify that I consider RUb to be the best mod out there by far, as it addresses most of the realism issues I found in the original game with a single, user-friendly install, eliminating mod compatibility problems and the nuisance of downloading a ton of separate files and installing them in that exact, magical order that is not always obvious.

Two of the additions I find most welcome are, oddly enough, the ones that seem to generate most negative opinions in the community: the fatigue model, which I consider very well implemented, and the change in the deck gun's rate of fire - it didn't take an expert to realize that the original was absurdly fast-.

The deck gun in RUb is not the all-powerful tool of destruction it was in the original, unmodded game, much better than torpedoes in every situation but stormy weather, but something "doesn't feel right" with the new one.

For what I have read, deck gun attacks on merchants early in the war were not common but were not rare either, and some books define them as a "usual tactic" inherited from WWI and stopped only because of the arming of merchant ships, intensification of air patrols and other circumstances that endangered U-Boote whenever they were on the surface for too long.

I have only tried the "new" deck gun in RUb in four patrols, but I find it completely worthless now, which is probably also "off", even though not as much as the original model was.

As an example we have a convoy I intercepted in the atlantic at night in a calm sea, escorted by a single armed trawler. Attacking the trawler on the surface was out of the question, but I thought I would send her down with an electric eel to make my life easier before hitting the merchants. Down she goes, and I proceed to torpedo the tankers, C2 and C3 in the convoy. I play with dud torpedoes (100% realism) and my manual TDC is not the best out there, so a few ships remain crippled but refuse to sink.

One of them is a T2 tanker, hit by two torpedoes. She has a partial listing starboard and her stern is a handful of meters lower. About one quarter of her deck is awash and two heavy fires are present, yet she doesn't stop and tries to limp away. Out of torpedoes, I choose to use my deck gun to finish her (a pretty believable tactic according to my data).

Nearly 40 shells later, all well below the waterline, she is still there. Not a new fire, not even a spark. Not the slightest change in her listing, and she didn't go down a mere centimeter further. I fire 5 more and wait about an hour. Nothing.

My men are tired and my sonarman hears a destroyer closing in as soon as I dive, so I call it a day and sail back to Wilhelmshaven.

On the way back I hit a kustenschiff with 20 shells below the waterline, all port side. Not even half a degree of listing, not a single deck fire. She goes away proudly at full 6 knots without even looking back.

I'm not a real U-Boot captain, so I couldn't say, but I believe that if this was the actual situation there wouldn't be the slightest mention of deck gun use in the books. What's your experience with the new deck gun? I find it VERY reasonable to make it useless against armed ships, but it should suffice to sink a crippled tanker without forcing the crew to man it for 24 hours without sleep...

Keep in mind that I am not complaining, but rather asking for your opinions, data and information.

Thank you kindly for this great mod, which has made SHIII a completely new game to my eyes.

Regards,

Jack Doolan

[Uber Gruber]

mmmMMMM......I have finished off one boat with the deck gun in RealUBoat 1.42 so it is possible to sink something using it. But you still might be on to something, I didn't know damage model of the gun shells had been modified, only the relaod speed...is that right ?

I'm on 1st Patrol in 1939 and have sunk 2 T3s and a Merchant. I have also crippled a T2 and a T3 and have only one bow torpedo left and one aft reserve which will take a couple of hours to load with my very very stressed crew.

I'm also on 100% realism and surfaced to finish the T3 off last night, managed to get one shot at her before an armed trawler and destroyer broke from the departing convoy and steamed towards me.

They pounded me for quite a while and at one point I got hit badly, 4 compartments flodding, boat sinking uncontrollable till it hit the bottom at 150 meters.....i was really going to blow ballast but managed to get the flodding under control. I was a sitting duck and they pounded me again, but the charges weren't set deep enough.

Boats repaired now and they've pretty much given up and are returning back to convoy. I'm gonna surface and shadow the straggling T3 whilst loaded the aft reserve torpedo from the deck - then i'm gonna sink the bugger.

I'm then going to chase the convoy and reposition myself to finish of the T2 with my one remaining bow torpedo.

Its 02:00 game time so I hope to have them both finished off by morning....wish me luck :-)

[Damo1977]

I have sunken numerous small merchants and even a C2 with the current RUB Deck Gun(with 2 careers due to a small problem of a DD) I find it more action packed. But alas with U-Boatnet they tell me I should be able to fire off between 15-18 rounds a min(with a good crew)..............But must remember 88AT crew ( IKNOW IT WERENT SAME) were firing off a lot less and they were on stable surface.............Hell even the SS crews........blah blah

[Doolan]

From RUb 1.4.2's readme file:

050527: Adjusted deck gun shell damage to match historical reality. (data\Library\Shells.zon)

I don't have the original file to compare, and it doesn't say it's been reduced, but I assume it has, since normally RUb's "adjustments" are there to make things harder. Also, it seemed kind of funny that a single 88 HE shell could send a C2 cargo down if it hit the right spot, so I suppose the "historical reality" was, if anything, less impressive.

Anyway, how many shells did it take for you to sink that merchant, how long did it take and how damaged was it before you gunned her?

My limited tests show disappointing results - as well as an odd tendency of T2 tankers to stay afloat no matter what, one after 5 torpedo impacts, two magnetic under the keel and three impact 6 meters under the waterline, but that's a different matter-.

I did manage to sink a few ships in a single lucky torpedo hit (a C3 cargo that was split in half and a T2 tanker that went down nearly an hour later) but the 8.8 didn't show any results at all, except for a small deck fire when I missed the waterline and hit the base of a mast once. As I said, not even a small listing or a change in the target's speed.

Do I require AP shells now to pierce a merchant's hull, or are HE still the thing against unarmoured targets? Even the four / five AP I fired didn't seem to do the trick, and I expect a large hole to be better than a small one - cargo ships aren't tanks after all, they're not designed to stand HE shells -.

This has me puzzled. I might use one of CCIP's files for a *slightly* faster RoF to balance this total lack of effectiveness, but I don't dare doing it before I hear what the "historical reality" was, at least generally.

Regards,

Jack Doolan

[jasonb885]

I sunk a few damaged ships with the RuB1.42 deck gun.

Wasted a real life hour in some cases.

I just can't do it.

:dead:

[Doolan]

Well, I'll give it a few more tries on my fifth patrol, but in the previous four the gun is "not worth it" and doesn't seem to be causing any significant damage at all, even on very badly crippled merchants.

I can't really tell what the exact problem is, but according to most accounts the deck gun should be "worth your time" at the very least in the first year and a half of the war, while it now takes from 30 to 40 min to sink a stupid schlepper...

[CCIP]

30 hits or so is enough for a smaller ship.

Beery, for reference, always gave cases of ships that were shelled with as many as 200 hits, and were actually NOT sunk. I think, on average, 30 hits sound OK to me.

[Bill Nichols]

Try doing the Academy gunnery test with RUB 1.42.... By the time you've sunk one or two ships, the others have run far, far away! :oops:

[mpugsley]

That's exactly why I unmodded that so I could do the academy missions and get my 1500 starting renown! Then I put it back in for the campaign.