Heavy fog woes

[reggie_mcfly]

Bought my copy of the game about a week ago and absolutely love it. Have been reading this forum religiously for even longer, and it has been extremely helpful. Thanks to anyone and everyone who has posted.

Anyway, my first post and a plea for help/advice:

I am playing on 61% realism IIRC. I have just about got the hang of manual targetting but have got map updates on for the moment - I thought I'd see if I could sink some ships without having to work too hard for the bearing/speed of my targets. Its going pretty well so far. Found my first convoy this afternoon and sent 15k of steel to the bottom of the Irish Sea with 3 torps :yep:

My problems are coming when I encounter ships in heavy fog. On my current patrol, wind is 15m/s and the fog is thick enough to walk on. I got hold of a merchant on the hydrophone and tracked him for an hour until I could make out his smoke through the fog. Although I could see him clearly, my watch crew maintained that they could see nothing. This meant that the ship did not appear on my map, and I could not even lock onto him with the UZO to judge his range manually. As such I could not begin to work out his course/speed.

I edged closer and closer, slowing down all the time to reduce the visibility of my wake. But as soon as my watch crew clocked him (and by this time I was virtually on top of him), he spotted me :damn:

What should I have done differently? How do you collect data on targets in thick fog?

I should point out that my watch crew efficiency bar was full.

[Deimos01]

I like to use what I call the leap frog in these situations. I submerge to get a sound fix on the target long enough to get an idea of his course. Then surface ahead flank speed on what I hope is a good course to catch up. I make frequent dives to get new sound fixes. Basically repeat this until I spot the target. Still running ahead flank I drive right up next to him on the surface and turn away to bring my stern tube to bear. One fish from the stern tube then hard around to bring my fore tubes to bear. Im usually within 300-500m when doing this so it doesnt matter if he spots me and goes evasive. The range is to short for it to matter.

Now of course, this will not work on armed ships and I havent tried it on a convoy. This technique works pretty well and is a lot easier than trying to get in a position ahead of him and hope he passes withing 500m which seems to be the limit of visibility in heavy fog.

Good hunting :up:

[Kalach]

I normally submerge a few times until I can get a good idea of his course. Once I've got it I will get ahead of him and submerge about 200m away from where he should pass by. As he gets closer I can fine-tune my location a bit and get the distance to 310-350m.

It would be easier just to wait ahead of him (at his 0 bearing) and just use a magnetic torp, but heavy winds usualy accompany heavy fog and will make a mag shot hard.

Alternately, if its not too windy and you have some of those fancy homing torps you don't need to work out where it is :arrgh!:

[drEaPer]

You should be able to lock, thats strange.... Even if my crew doesnt see the target, and even if my binocular crosshair doesnt turn red, I can still put the normal black crosshair of my bino on target and press "L", switch to UZO/periscope and have him locked in view.

[kiwi_2005]

RAM THE BASTARD :|\

[Dar]

I just had the same problem last night--a crippled, motionless, and burning C2 that we had damaged in a squall and, after diving to re-load tubes and adjust position, which my crew just could not locate again even as we sat 300m away from it!

After fuming at my blind watchmen for a few minutes, I stumbled across locking the UZO on the target, as drEaPer stated earlier. Finally I was able to target and finish her off!

[Dar]

Oops--just re-read your post and noticed you said the UZO wouldn't lock on for you. You're playing at higher realism than I am (54%)--so perhaps your manual targetting and tracking prevents that.

I'm working my way up to that stage, but I'm not ready for it quite yet!

[Deimos01]

One other thing. You dont have to be able to lock your optics on the target to get a solution if using manual targeting.

[Kalach]

One other thing. You dont have to be able to lock your optics on the target to get a solution if using manual targeting.

Yes, that reminds me... There was a good tutorial around here somewhere on how to get a perfect firing solution using only the hydrophones (and the map too I guess).

You could have a search for that if you have the patience to try it :know:

[reggie_mcfly]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

I realise that I don't need a lock to fire, but I thought I needed a lock to use the range finding feature (using ship's mast height). I could see no other way to judge range.

Trying to use the hydrophones sounds like a good plan. I'll have a hunt for that tutorial.

[Phylacista]

heres a fine tutorial of manual TDC:

http://www.paulwasserman.net/SHIII/
it showed me that there is more to it than the notepad


about attacks in heavy fog:
I had the problem of getting under the neccessary 300m distance. What I do is lining up behind the target on exact course. This way he ist moving away from torp so even distances under 300m work fine.

Works only with magnetic pistols though - but I did this in heavy seas, too. If there is no premature explosion it works great:
Cause the torp goes under the ship in LENGTH it doesnt matter if the ship is tossed high by the waves - it will come down in time for the magnetic pistol to work :|\

[reggie_mcfly]

Very clever :up:

I have only fired one mag torp in rough seas and it blew early - so I haven't bothered since. Perhaps I should give it another go.

[blackdog_kt]

Reminds me of a time i was tracking a C2 in heavy fog. I was making frequent dives for manual hydrophone checks,and i managed to catch up with him some time later. Problem was that visibility was about 300m,which is also about the minimum firing distance for a torpedo to arm.

Needless to say,i was spotted and he started zig-zagging. However, i stayed directly on his original heading,which he was crossing as he was zig-zagging. Low AOB shots are bad with impact fuses,so i took the risk of firing a magnetic shot in heavy seas.

Through a bit of observing his course changes,guesswork and a bit of luck i managed to get a magnetic shot approximately midship,as he was crossing the line of his original heading and expossing his flank. The ship stopped dead in the water and sunk shortly after.

The trickiest part was the arming distance for the torpedo being about the same as the visibility range. I had to lay down the solution,open the tube and order some reverse before firing to help stob the u-boat,so by the time the torpedo got to him it would have travelled the minimum arming distance.

Of course,slowing down means manually "leading" the target a bit through the scope after the solution is set,but some years of WWII flight simming makes you comfortable with that :rock: