Quick Question... in Quandary!!

[Nedlam]

TO all you Veteran Submariners out there. A Noob need your guidance! :)

So my crew and I have been sailing through this pea-soup of weather for the better part of two weeks now. It's not the weather bug because it does change from bad to worse and back to bad (occasionally I get just plain crummy if I'm lucky). I've seen nothing but those damn little Torpedo boats who in the fog manage to sneak up on me, get a few quick shots off then call in their big brothers to aggravate me for about 2-3 hours searching for me... I hate the English Channel. :damn:


I got the hell out of the Channel and FINALLY found a large convoy! BUT I'm still in this awful weather(overcast, medium rain & heavy fog with rough seas). To add $@%# on top of the growing pile it's 0600 and pitch black out. I'm almost 100% sure I'm directly infront of the convoy it's currently long range according to my SO.

Now the question:

Do I remain submerged and rely on my SO to guide me in or do I surface and relay on this MK1 eyeball I hear so much about?

I know convoys are big, but so is the ocean. Frankly even if I stumble on the convoy I think I'm screwed with this weather wreaking havoc with how my fish will run.

I'm just curious what some of you out there would do.

[The Avon Lady]

Follow mostly on surface, flank speed. Dive now and then to use your hydrophones with engines completely off. Keep an ear open for high speed propellers - warships. :yep:

[Nedlam]

See, now that's what I was kind of leaning to and in better weather it would be a no brainer. I am a little hesitant because I've had the experience in the past of ships literally appearing out of the heavy fog at 500 meters. At that point all hell usually breaks loose!! :doh:

Hey! maybe after this (if I don't muff it up) I'll be ready to apply for WaW! :)

[The Avon Lady]

See, now that's what I was kind of leaning to and in better weather it would be a no brainer. I am a little hesitant because I've had the experience in the past of ships literally appearing out of the heavy fog at 500 meters. At that point all hell usually breaks loose!! :doh:
WARNING: Under these conditions, play only in 1x TC. :yep:

[Keelbuster]

Attacking a convoy in fog can be really good and really bad. If you can take enough hydrophone readings to properly get yourself in the way of the convoy, then it can work. The key is to mark out the convoy lanes, and place yourself right between two lanes. Once the convoy is all around you, I surface and attack from the UZO. Try to get one or two ships with 2 torpedoes a piece. Escorts will have a hell of a time finding you in the fog, and you can usually escape without being detected - especially if the water's rough - they can't hear you well. The main thing to watch out for is getting run over by a merchant. Fog attacks are not ideal, but if you are almost finished a patrol, have a ton of torps left and want a kill or two before heading home, it might be worth the chance.

kb

[Ula Jolly]

Attacking a convoy in fog can be really good and really bad. If you can take enough hydrophone readings to properly get yourself in the way of the convoy, then it can work. The key is to mark out the convoy lanes, and place yourself right between two lanes. Once the convoy is all around you, I surface and attack from the UZO. Try to get one or two ships with 2 torpedoes a piece. Escorts will have a hell of a time finding you in the fog, and you can usually escape without being detected - especially if the water's rough - they can't hear you well. The main thing to watch out for is getting run over by a merchant. Fog attacks are not ideal, but if you are almost finished a patrol, have a ton of torps left and want a kill or two before heading home, it might be worth the chance.

kb
What is WITH some people?! :o You surface in the middle of a bloody convoy?! Don't they open fire, at least??

[davidaspy]

I hate that weather. Before now I have:
Crashed into a ship before it was spotted
Manually sunk a ship with deck guns before it was spotted
Been destroyed by a ship before it was spotted

Best bet is just sink what you can and leave.

[Nedlam]

Five pairs of eyes are better than one pair so I surfaced and looked around. I did use TC 2x while surfaced and I finally found the convoy!!

My WO spotted a ship 300m away. Hell if I could see the thing!?!?! So we set a course torwards it. I saw nothing?

I asked him: "Where the hell do you see this so-called ship?"

He looked at me as if to say "Duh?!?! It's right over there stupid!" and then pointed me in the right direction.

So I looked again... nothing. I was turning to tell him that this wasn't funny and stop screwing with me when I noticed his eyes big as saucers and he looked like he was trying to say something. Then as I predicted all hell broke loose. Suddenly he is shouting a ship is attacking us. Next the search lights come on. Not to mention a tracer across our bow.

"Now I see the ship!! Wow, I've never been this close to a Flower Corvette before have you? How close do you think we are 400m?" I said to him. "Good work by the way spotting it! Oh yeah... ALARM!!!! EVERYBODY BELOW!! CRASH DIVE!! LEAVE THE BINOCULARS!!! I'LL BUY YOU NEW ONES!!!"

So after all that I played hide and seek with two corvettes for about 2-3 hours. It seemed like an eternity. BTW it was also the most fun I think I've ever had playing a sim. Later on I've got to thank the person who posted the tactics on how to evade. It worked like a charm!

Question: Is there a "How to" somewhere on using the info the SO gives you to plot anything? Unless I'm missing something how do you plot your targets course if you do not know the range? I know the general direction they are going relative to my heading but it seems you guys (and girls) are talking about something else.

[The Avon Lady]

LOL, Nedlam! :rotfl:

Poor fella!

In 1940 patrols, I took on escorts with my deck gun, weather permitting. At some point they try to ram you but you can usually outmanouver the slower ones.

An escort once missed me by 70 meters. I let off a broadside shot that blew the escorts rear gun off its mount and into the sea.

Gosh, did the adrenalin ever run!

[Trav_R]

If you're wanting to be able to plot hydrophone info on the map, there's a few ways to do it. You could just rely on the SO, but it's much funner to do it on your own, and it doesn't take much longer. Plus, once you get decent at it, you can guess the targets range a lot more accurately than "long" "medium" and "short" range like the SO does.

You first have to make sure the volume on the hydrophone is all the way up. Since you can't tell how high the volume is without actually having the mike pointed at a target, what I do is run my electric engines and point the mike at 180 so I can hear my own screws. Then you just click on the black knob by the wheel and drag it around until the sound is loudest. Once you've done that, your volume will stay at max until you reload the game, so you don't have to mess with it anymore. Of course, when you're actually listening for targets, you want to be at all stop.

Now what you do is be at periscope depth or lower, all stop, and make a full sweep listening for screws. Once you hear some, you can tell merchants from warships by their speed. Merchants have slower sounding screws, warships generally run much faster than merchant screws. So, once you find a target and you have the needle pointed in the direction where the sound is loudest, you have the bearing to the target, which is accurate to within 2 degrees or so. Now you have to guess the range, which is tough at first but you can get good at it before long.

For guessing range keep in mind that you can detect targets up to about 20km away, so if you can just barely hear the target, then it's probably about 18-20 km away. If it's about twice that loud, then it's around 10km, and if it's within visual range, find out its range with the periscope and then listen again so you know what targets sound like at that range. Now, you go to your nav map and plot a point. You'll need the bearing mod if you don't already have it.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/patricioz/SH3_Bearing_Overlay_3.0.zip

Once you have that installed, zoom in on the map until you can see the bearing tool shows up. Draw a line from your sub to the target's bearing and at the estimated range. Put a mark there with the marker tool and write down on a piece of paper the mark number and the time that you put the mark there. Now you can delete the ruler line, just leave the mark there. If it's the first time you've heard that target, then you don't have any idea which way he is going so wait 5-10 minutes and plot another point to get an idea of his direction. Then surface and move roughly towards a position where you can intercept him, stopping every 10 minutes or so to plot a point.

After about 5-6 points, you should know his course to within about 5-10 degrees, and if you've been writing down the times, you can also get his speed to within about 2 knots. If your first mark was at 18:00 and your latest mark was taken at 18:45, draw a line from the first mark to the latest one. Let's say it's 14km. Divide 14 by .75 (3/4 of an hour) and you get 18.7 km/h. 1knot = 1.8 km/h, so now you divide 18.7 by 1.8 and you get 10.4 knots. All you need is a rough idea of his speed so that you can get in front of him with well enough time to get settled in and take more hydrophone readings by the time he reaches you, you don't need his exact speed.

Once you're in his path, point yourself at a perpendicular course and wait on him to cruise right into you. I've used this method in heavy fog before, and each time by the time the target was in visible range (about 400m) I already had the TDC manually set up for a perfect shot. I pointed the crosshairs and fired away without even bothering to adjust the TDC, and I hit every time. The hydrophone is definitely worth getting good at.

[HMCS]

Attacking a convoy in thick fog and stormy conditions can be hairy - it's the ONLY time in dozens of patrols that I have been killed by a DD (when I die it's usually the a/c that get me). Visibility can be next to zero - sometimes 300 m or less! It's a crapshoot; if the DD is nearby, you are dead meat. If not, then you can penetrate the convoy and pick off your targets point-blank. Stay on the surface - speed and your small size is your best bet. Dive only when absolutely necessary.

I did manage an attack the other day in my trusty VIIb; I tracked the convoy's movements by hydrophone to get a rough idea of its course and speed - barrelled in and bagged a C2 at 350+- m.

And then a Black Swan FF raked me with 20mm and killed most of my deck crew.

[kiwi_2005]

For practice, try out the Storm online mission with a mate.

[Skubber]

You could also try shadowing the convoy until the weather breaks. Or until visability at least gets a little better.

Just maintain sound contact and keep skirting around the edges of the convoy, with a margin of safety to protect against flanking escorts.

Of course, this takes a lot of patience, there is a small risk of losing the covoy entriely, and no guarantee the weather will lift soon...