Taking on destroyers is really too easy....

[Marcus]

Hi all,

Don't know if you all have the same experience as I have. I play at 84% realism with IUB 1.02. When I encounter destroyers I surface and finish them with my deck gun (fair weather only of course) before they come into my 2500 meter radius. Then they back off before they get sunk and can be hunted easyly. Bit more difficult with more destroyers of course. This could not have been the case in WWII I guess, so why is everybody so afraight of these destroyers. Have to add that it is still before the end of '43 though. Maybe this changes after that with the airsupport.
SO, in a word, too easy..... agreed?

[Gizzmoe]

Try some real tactics! Don´t get into gunfights with destroyers, that´s highly unrealistic. You exploit weaknesses of SH3! IRL a single hit into the pressure hull would mean that you are unable to dive (not so in SH3) and a submarine captain would never risk that. Dive when they are around, torpedo them if you like and use standard evasion tactics.

[Marcus]

I am doing that since a few weeks now to match "reality", but even torpedoing them is fairly easy when they come in a straight line at you within 500 m.
I am using evasive tactics as a challenge now, but is there some mod that repairs this unrealistic feature?

[Gizzmoe]

I am using evasive tactics as a challenge now, but is there some mod that repairs this unrealistic feature?

What exactly do you want to see fixed?

[Marcus]

Well, three things actually:
1. increasing expertise at shooting from a distance from the destroyer (= chance of hitting me)
2. keep zigzagging at sub instead of straight line last 500 m
3. increas damage from hit at sub

and maybe a fourth: set depth charges more superficially when overrunning a sub at persicope depth.

Easy, not?

[P_Funk]

Remember that the reason the Destroyer probably misses alot is because the thin sillouette of a U-boat is very small and that ship mounted guns are usually intended for larger vessels with broader hulls. However often the "intelligence"of Destroyer captains in SH3 isn't something for the great British Navy to be proud of.

[Heibges]

It's been that way since Silent Service, Silent Service II, Silent Hunter, Silent Hunter II, and now Silent Hunter III.

It's best not to engage them at all, a practice I have made a point of doing since Silent Service

And least in Sh3 game, you can't take them out at 7000m with the deckgun like you could with all the rest.

Besides overusing of the hydrophones to find targets, engaging escorts is the largest exploit in a subsim.

[CB..]

I'm not sure just how much effect these entrys have on the destroyer gunnery BUT;

open the sim.cfg file (with notepad for the novice)

and edit these entrys
[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=10 ;[deg]
Max fire range=6000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=12 ;[s]


reduce the error angle and wait time then increase the range and if the logic applies to the main guns then they should be far more dangerous

try

[AI Cannons]
Max error angle=0 ;[deg]
Max fire range=8000 ;[m]
Max fire wait=5 ;[s]

for example--

otherwise there are variuos tweak programs (time travelors) which should enable more direct control over the DD main guns

[Der Teddy Bar]

I beleive that with the SimHQ Tonnage War mod that players will learn quickly not to attack an escort while surfaced. If all works well, the infamous bow shot will rarely result in a kill.

With the Tonnage War mod it will also give the player reason to respect an merchant ship that is armed with a deck gun. This is due to the fact that it is now quite difficult to sink a merchant ship via the deck gun and that the deck gun crew are now more readily wounded or killed.

It will be essential to aim at or just below the water line. No longer will targeting the pointy end of the bow sink any merchant vessel in the game.

People can keep their quick reload times, and even the targeting cross hair as it of little value plummeting the upper deck with the deck gun. And these two items offer no additional benifit under the new ship model. In fact, I would say that the cross has to now stay as it would be impractical to aim at the water line otherwise. A nice discret dot would be nice though.

As a consequence of having to aim at the water line, you also now have to be a lot further from the vessel, again making it harder.

[Marhkimov]

Der Teddy Bar,

Forgive me for not knowing, but what is this SimHQ Tonnage War mod?

[Der Teddy Bar]

marhkimov,
It is a project undertaken by myself and Observer and is designed to put the focus back onto sinking ships. It is intended to enhance, not replace, RUB.


The SimHQ Tonnage War mod will encompass several key aspects that complement each other and we expect to make a more in-depth gaming experience.

Cute 'mod' names to follow...

Tonnage War – As it says, Tonnage is in, renown is out. Upgrades are FREE but take time.
Sinking – How would you like to see a coastal merchant take a torpedo around the engine room and not know if it will sink or not?
Morale – Moving away from punishing the player through ‘fatigue’. Morale will slowly be removed thus slightly impacting upon the performance of your men, but, sink a ship and the Morale will raise. Your success or failures will impact upon your men’s performance. Take a long voyage will not cripple your boat.

All the parts make up the whole. The Tonnage War mod is both the whole and a part.

The Tonnage War mod will put the emphasis back into sinking ships. Essentially moving away from the renown based upgrade system.

Everything is free. However, upgrades will now take time. Upgrade from a Type II to a VII will take 75 days. It will take 35 days to get your diesel engines upgrades and 45 days to get a new AA platform (i.e. conning tower) installed. The times will be as historically correct as we can be within the confines of the game.

Your medals will be given according to your tonnage and as per the historical average.


The Morale mod will make your success and actions a key component of how well your men perform.

Reckless actions where your men are injured or die will effect your crew's morale, which in turn effects their performance. Sadly, bad luck will also have an impact, life is hard as a captain.

Go a long time between sinking’s and again, this will impact upon your men’s performance. Not in a way to punish you, but it will be an impact.

Sink ships and your men will be in top spirits keeping your men’s performance at it peak within the limits of their 'Efficiency', Observer's new name for fatigue, a word that shall from here forth not be spoken of :rotfl:

We have also modified the deck gun, AA gun and the conning tower to now be more accurate in the way in which your men are or are not protected. Have your men at the deck gun or AA gun and expect high casualties when being faced with a barrage of 20mm fire. The conning tower crew will be OK, working within the confines of the game. However, a 3” gun will make short work of anyone within the conning tower. These changes do not make it impossible to man the deck gun against an Elco, just a high risk situation. As was the case in real life.


Sinking mod. Work has only been completed on the Coastal Merchant, Small Merchant, Liberty Cargo, Victory Cargo, C2 Cargo, C3 Cargo, Small Tanker, T2 Tanker and the T3 Tanker, we have now no notification of 'Enemy Unit Destroyed' until the moment that it slides under the water. How long will it take to slip under the water? See some examples below.

Of course the obvious question is
Q. Will I have to wait for it to sink?"
A. Well yes of course you will :up:

Q. But I am in a hurry and don't want to wait around.
A. Not an issue, use another torpedo or the deck gun. You will be faced with the same dilemma a real captain faced, "do I need to waste another torpedo?"

Q. Will you get credit if you are not around when it sinks?
A. Not sure. To be tested.


The first coastal merchant was hit directly under the first mast behind the bridge at 11:14 and sunk at 11:27 – 13 minutes

The second coastal merchant was hit directly in line with the front edge of the bridge at 11:32 and sunk at 11:49 – 17 minutes

The third coastal merchant was hit directly under the life boat (in line with the funnels) on the bridge at 11:11 and sunk at 12.04 – 53 minutes

The fourth coastal merchant was hit directly in line with front halve of the front cargo container 12.00 and never sank even after 24 hours.


The first small merchant was hit at was is the centre of the front cargo container at 11:16 and sunk at 11:43 – 27 minutes

The second small merchant was hit directly under the rear mast at 11:43 and never sank.

The third small merchant was hit directly under the rear most life buoy at 11:11 and instantly went up in a massive explosion! Sank beneath the waves at 11.23.

The fourth small merchant was hit directly under the second life raft at the front of the bridge at 11:39 and never sank. Dead in the water though. Was on a 45 degree list and never sank even after 24 hours.

You may also need to move around to the other side of the vessel to make your torpedo count.

Is it designed to make things more difficult? No. Will it make thinks more difficult? Yes, but only to match up to what was historical.

[Excalibur Bane]

Well, if it makes you feel any better I saved awhile back at a point where I encountered a Hunt destroyer. I then tried a couple of times just to plain surface and destroy it flat out with my deckgun. He always won, and I lost. Badly. :oops:

I was in an IXB too with the larger deckgun and using AP shells. Didn't really matter though, he'd always cream me before I could pump enough shells into him to slow him down. :)

[PatAWilson]

Teddy Bar:
Sounds like an interesting mod but were small and coastal merchants really that durable? In general, how many torpedo hits did it take to bring down merchants of various types?

[Der Teddy Bar]

Teddy Bar:
Sounds like an interesting mod but were small and coastal merchants really that durable? In general, how many torpedo hits did it take to bring down merchants of various types?
Small and Coastal merchant can sink with 1 torpedo. It is all depends on where you hit the ship. Then there is also the critical chance occuring.

Two torpedoes should almost always sink a Small and Coastal merchant.

Using the 88mm deck gun, with 100% hits at/under the water line, then it should take about 30+ shells.

[Skubber]

I just do not have this problem. If I am on the surface and destroyers attack me, I die.

For realism's sake, though, I do not personally man the deck gun. And so attacking a destroyer at range is a bit of a different consideration under these circumstances.

As far as I know, U-boat captains did not man the deck gun personally.

So what I am saying is this: If you play SH3 "arcade style" you can't really complain about it being too easy, or not realistic.

You are playing "FPS Deckgun Killer" I think. The destroyers are more easy to kill in that game, I guess. :hmm:

[Frenchie]

SInce installing rub I have found destroyers easier than in vanilla shiii. However this is something that I believe has ben changed in this, crews being changed from elite to veteran, veteran to novice? At least for the early war years. I have never even bothered to try and engage a destroyer on the surface. I'm not suicidal, other than that one time of trying to sneak into Scapa Flow and oddly enough that lesson was learned real quick. However I do feel that escorts should be engaged where appropriate. If only the game could actually keep note of how many warships each nation had the better you were the less defended convoys would be and the outcome of the war could actually be influenced, etc, etc.
Destroyers usually move too fast and too erratically for me to manage to get a torpedo hit. The few times I have have been a mixture of mainly luck and a little skill. Once you are detected however the job becomes much easier. The trick is not to lose your bottle. To steal a line from a certain film, "The hard part about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch". Destroyers will come charging in at you and at 34 knots they're coming in bloody quick. Simply reduce speed to slow and bring either your bow or stern around until the destroyer is coming in straight towards you. Set up your solution, make sure to use magnetic torpedo's with the correct depth settings and get ready to dive bloody quick if it all goes pearshaped. Wait until it's about 2000m to 1500m away, don't forget it's still charging in so your torpedo estimated time of impact is going to be sooner than written, and fire. If you're brave trust to your skill and watch from your periscope. Results in a bloody impressive sinking if done correctly, torpedo usually explodes towards the stern because of the speed the destroyer was charging towards you and the thing does a half nose stand before settling back into the water and sliding under. I do advise having a second solution lined up and ready to go though in case of the first one screwing up and also a finger hovering over crash dive and ahead flank.

Frenchie

[Der Teddy Bar]

Simply reduce speed to slow and bring either your bow or stern around until the destroyer is coming in straight towards you. Set up your solution, make sure to use magnetic torpedo's with the correct depth settings and get ready to dive bloody quick if it all goes pearshaped. Wait until it's about 2000m to 1500m away, don't forget it's still charging in so your torpedo estimated time of impact is going to be sooner than written, and fire.
The Tonnage War mod is aiming (bad pun) at ensuring that the down the bow shot using the magnetic detonator will no longer be a kill. Hopefully we will be able to acheive this is a neat way.

Why so, surely this happened... as far as u-boats are concerned almost certainly not.

For the Germans, from 1939 through till the begining of 1943, the magnetic detonator was unrelaible in its use. About 40% of magnetic detonator set torpedoes exploded at the arming range of 300 metres.

Of the torpedoes that did not suffer a premature explosion, a high percentage exploded too early when reaching the ships magnetic field. That is, they exploded beside the ship and not under it. When we say beside, we may be talking 5-10 metres away.

When this issue was countered by setting the sensitivity down, the magnetic detonator was not sensitve enough to be effective against ships of less than 3000 tonnes.

Now add to this the depth keeping issue, where as the torpedo would possibly end up as much as 2.7 metres deeper than it was set at. The cause of this issue was not identified until March (or there abouts) of 1942, and a solution available until the end of 1942.

Also, we can set our torpedoes to 1 metre deep in a gale and have a 100% true run. In real life, the torpedo was raely set above 3 metres, even in perfect conditions. As a shallow set torpedo would most likley become a surface runner, that is, it breaks the surface and as a result the sensitive gyroscope and the likes fail and the torpedo goes off course.

As far as I am aware, there were less than 10 escort type vessels sunk by u-boats before 1941.

Now as far as the impact pistol goes, it also had its fair share of problems. The designe was to work up an angle of 55 degrees, but in reality is was found to be closer to 20 degrees (off the top of my head, may have been slightly higher). So trying to detonate a torpedo on the fron of a razor edge bow was in reality, impractable.

Of course, the allies were also degausing their ships as a way to combat the magnetic mine. Obviously this also made the magnetic pistol less effective.

[Marhkimov]

Der Teddy Bar,


The SimHQ Tonnage mod sounds great. Though I have a concern. You said that ships do not register as "sunk" until they slip under the waves. My question is, what will happen in shallow waters where the ship does not slip under? Will the game still recognize that it was sunk?

It would help us understand if we knew how you got rid of that "ship sunk" message.



And if your mod is successful, would you allow for its use in a big mod, for instance RUb or IUB?

[Frenchie]

All those who are and have attempted to make this game more realistic with modifications of all kinds have done wonderful things. I have no problem with the idea that some of the abilities we as captains in shiii have are not exactly as they were. However surely just limiting ourselves to how things were back in the day does not allow for innovation and new idea's and tactics and uses? This game as well as trying to be historically accurate surely also is meant so that you can try new things out for yourself? Take the AA gun as an example. I would say few u-boats ever tried sinking a ship with it. It doesn't mean it is not possible, it doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't try. (I never have myself, this is just an example) We do seem to rather like punishing ourselves for punishments sake. Don't get me wrong here I'm not trying to pick a fight, just curious as to what others make of it. From my own experiences I have sunk about 4 destroyers this way. One from the stern, and those from the bow have been, sunk with one torpedo, torpedo prematurely detonated and had to get the hell out of dodge bloody quick, and sunk with two torpedo's. Which sound about in line with the data you were quoting to do with equipment failure and accuracy levels.

Frenchie

Re Marhkimov - Teddy did mention wanting it to be compatible with improved u-boat and rub in a post higher up?

[gouldjg]

All those who are and have attempted to make this game more realistic with modifications of all kinds have done wonderful things. I have no problem with the idea that some of the abilities we as captains in shiii have are not exactly as they were. However surely just limiting ourselves to how things were back in the day does not allow for innovation and new idea's and tactics and uses? This game as well as trying to be historically accurate surely also is meant so that you can try new things out for yourself? Take the AA gun as an example. I would say few u-boats ever tried sinking a ship with it. It doesn't mean it is not possible, it doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't try. (I never have myself, this is just an example) We do seem to rather like punishing ourselves for punishments sake. Don't get me wrong here I'm not trying to pick a fight, just curious as to what others make of it. From my own experiences I have sunk about 4 destroyers this way. One from the stern, and those from the bow have been, sunk with one torpedo, torpedo prematurely detonated and had to get the hell out of dodge bloody quick, and sunk with two torpedo's. Which sound about in line with the data you were quoting to do with equipment failure and accuracy levels.

Frenchie


Your are quite right but what you will also notice is the following.

The realistic modders (I am not one of them) do more background searching and homework and thus provide much factual info. They are usually the ones who dig deeper into the games mechanics to exploit everything possible to fit their realism buzz.

Sure, sometimes the realism does not suit everyone including me in some parts, yet without their foreground work us gameplay type modders are just left in the dark as we really do not go through all that research and can be much more impatient than the realsim side.

We are at a pinnicle in the game where not so many visit and the hardcore realism fans and the hardcore gameplay fans are left over from the early days. Both working to their own goals.

Everything is pretty much being finnished off and final tweaks and projects have begun.

It is then down to the Modders to write up the guides on how things were done and how a player can choose between settings.

There are just the final few projects that drive both realism players and gameplay players mad so one group or the other will discover the comprimise and hopefully both will benefit.

Once each one is solved within the games limits, we should then share info with the so the exploits can then be for both side of the fence.

This game has never been so open to modding than it is today.

One day both sides will be happy as dandy. I am close to killing one of my biggest gamekillers.

Hopefully other peple are also close to killing theirs.

[HEMISENT]

Teddy Bar
I read the piece from the Sim Hq site a couple days ago. I'm very interested in this concept. Altho I may not be an absolute realism fanatic I do tend to play in that direction. Right now I'm using RUB, Harbor Traffic And Gouldjg's damage mod among others. Is the Tonnage mod a complete redo involving shelving these or are these popular mods compatible. Also, any idea on a time frame.
thanks again for bringing yet another concept to the table.

Jason, I couldn't agree more with your response. This game and this community never disappoints.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Though I have a concern. You said that ships do not register as "sunk" until they slip under the waves. My question is, what will happen in shallow waters where the ship does not slip under? Will the game still recognize that it was sunk?

It would help us understand if we knew how you got rid of that "ship sunk" message.
The sinking credit works exactly as before. So if it worked previously, it works now. What will probably happen is that only after the appropriate flooding has occured will it be called sunk, as is the case now.

We can get rid of the message, but not the officer making the call, so it comes up "WO: ". Also, you would then need to restrict access to the log book, which I would be all for!

[Der Teddy Bar]

Frenchie! please use paragraphs! :up:

However surely just limiting ourselves to how things were back in the day does not allow for innovation and new idea's and tactics and uses?

Take the AA gun as an example. I would say few u-boats ever tried sinking a ship with it. It doesn't mean it is not possible, it doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't try.
That is what Enigma: Tide Rising is for :rotfl: I am unsure what new tactics you can make up, after all, the tactics are governed by the AI behaviour and responses.

Seriously though, no offence taken or intended, but what is achieved by leaving, or moding the game to be unrealistic.

In the real world sinking a merchant ship of 2000 tonne was not possible with the AA. It was hard enough with the 88mm deck gun. If it was possible, a u-boat captain would have used it. Again, what improvement in game play would be achieved by allowing a player to sink a 2000 tonne ship with the AA? All I see is a trend towards Quake on Water gameplay.

We do seem to rather like punishing ourselves for punishments sake.
Not so!

Making a game more representative of what it is about is in no way "punishing ourselves for punishments sake". Making a game more difficult than what it is representing, that is, more difficult than it was historically, such as has been the issue with the sonar and radar detectors, is "punishing ourselves for punishments sake".

So while a mod may maker it harder than it currently is, but no more difficult than it historically was, then it is certainly not "punishing ourselves for punishments sake" :up:

Again, please take this is the good spirit of discussion.

[Happy Times]

I guess its close to realistic that the destroyers go down allways with one torpedo, but it would be nice if sometimes they didnt. Plus i think there is too often encounters with destroyers crusing by and you just have to take the shot! Im using RUB with realistic career lenghts and i get too many sunk warships in some careers :hmm:

[Der Teddy Bar]

Teddy Bar
I read the piece from the Sim Hq site a couple days ago. I'm very interested in this concept. Altho I may not be an absolute realism fanatic I do tend to play in that direction. Right now I'm using RUB, Harbor Traffic And Gouldjg's damage mod among others. Is the Tonnage mod a complete redo involving shelving these or are these popular mods compatible. Also, any idea on a time frame.
thanks again for bringing yet another concept to the table.

Jason, I couldn't agree more with your response. This game and this community never disappoints.
Compatibility is our intention. Compatibility will depend on what they have done and what we have done, and possible compromises.