Mod request - to solve defenceless convoys (GW)

[thyro]

I've been playing SH3 with GW mod

I come across a large convoy of merchant ships and their 3 escorts.

Two of the escorts were easily destroyed and the DD simply ran away after 2h playing cat-and-mice with my uboat.

Leaving the large merchant convoy unprotected and following its slow path of death.

pictures available under this post:
http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=50525

I found that too easy and I'm sure that in reality this wouldn't happen, a convoy totally unprotected, following the same path at 6 knots and in formation while the enemy is identified and right in the middle of the convoy.



As sugestion for Devs/script Gurus (probably for GW gurus)

1) scatering the convoy, so that each merchant ship (or group of them) break formation and go in different direction at max speed (or max speed of the slowest in the group)

(this will make the ships in the convoy more disperse, so harder to take them all)

or

2) "The convoy" call reinforces, after 1h or 2hs (or random) a corvette (or above)/planes appears in the horizont to try to take out the uboat.

3) come on community more ideas/suggestions!!!!

I'm sure that this would give a biff up a bit of realism and for sure more thrill attacking convoys

Otherwise the current merchant convoys would have a similar fate like PQ-17 convoy in WWII :hmm:

Many thanks for your time reading this request :)

[Ducimus]

Early war you can get away with stunts like shooting the escorts first. Later on, i highly doubt you'll be as successfu with that. ;)

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Early war you can get away with stunts like shooting the escorts first. Later on, i highly doubt you'll be as successfu with that. ;)

Exactomundo! :yep:

[thyro]

Early war you can get away with stunts like shooting the escorts first. Later on, i highly doubt you'll be as successfu with that. ;)


True...

But that shows a convoy problem doesn't it?

what would be better?

Leave SH3 convoys as they are atm (uboat friendly until 1942 - "SH3 version of PQ-17") or induce some panic/changes to make a bit harder and realistic?

I'm sure that if this have happened in real world... Knowing that the enemy was right there close to them, many ship capts wouldn't be waiting to see their ship destroyed in their slow convoy formation. They would have break formation and scatered to increase their chance of survival ;)

Anyway just a thought! :)

[Happy Times]

Early war you can get away with stunts like shooting the escorts first. Later on, i highly doubt you'll be as successfu with that. ;)


True...

But that shows a convoy problem doesn't it?

what would be better?

Leave SH3 convoys as they are atm (uboat friendly until 1942 - "SH3 version of PQ-17") or induce some panic/changes to make a bit harder and realistic?

I'm sure that if this have happened in real world... Knowing that the enemy was right there close to them, many ship capts wouldn't be waiting to see their ship destroyed in their slow convoy formation. They would have break formation and scatered to increase their chance of survival ;)

Anyway just a thought! :)Facing wolf packs they didnt scatter! They are famous for keeping their formation under fire. They would change course and the escorts keep the u-boats submerged. You said you attacked the escorts, did you do it with manual targeting? In reality it was rare to get a good shot at an escort. And it was a risky business with early war torpedos. It wasnt until -43 when the acoustic torps came wich were intended for taking out the escorts first. Until then, unless its right in front of you, dont shoot at the escorts.

[Der Teddy Bar]

The issue is the Tiger Tank U-boat (Trade Mark pending)... Fix that and you fix a lot of the gameyness associated with this example....

[Happy Times]

The issue is the Tiger Tank U-boat (Trade Mark pending)... Fix that and you fix a lot of the gameyness associated with this example.... You cant mod the u-boats damage modelling?

[Ducimus]

Easiest solution would be to take the convoy group in question in the RND layer, add another 3 escorts, and change the crew level of all the escorts to elite. Im pretty sure you wont be having an easy time with that :88)

[thyro]

The other options of adding more escorts few hours after the initial escort unit be under waters also migth bring some realism and increase the difficulty.

Or even the merchants engage on ramming the sub once they lose their escorts/as soon as they spot the sub ;)

I'm sure that any addition to current convoys AI would contribute for better gameplay making the AI a bit "biffed up" and less predictable.

Otherwise a player can be within the convoy for hours and hours (like I did - 8 hours with the convoy taking on ship by ship). Because the AI would simply not react to a threat beside easy zig-zag. :)


unfortunatly I don't know how to program on SH3. Otherwise I would come out with something like that... For this reason that I'm offering these ideas for someone interested to pickup and explore these or other ways to enhance the current convoy reactions :)

[Der Teddy Bar]

The other options of adding more escorts few hours after the initial escort unit be under waters also migth bring some realism and increase the difficulty.

Or even the merchants engage on ramming the sub once they lose their escorts/as soon as they spot the sub ;)

I'm sure that any addition to current convoys AI would contribute for better gameplay making the AI a bit "biffed up" and less predictable.

Otherwise a player can be within the convoy for hours and hours (like I did - 8 hours with the convoy taking on ship by ship). Because the AI would simply not react to a threat beside easy zig-zag. :)


unfortunatly I don't know how to program on SH3. Otherwise I would come out with something like that... For this reason that I'm offering these ideas for someone interested to pickup and explore these or other ways to enhance the current convoy reactions :)
None of what you desire can be done by moders.

[thyro]

Cheers Der Teddy Bar :up:

[Mart!jn]

"The convoy" call reinforces, after 1h or 2hs (or random) a corvette (or above)/planes appears in the horizont to try to take out the uboat.
This actually did happen to me.
i only had 2 torpedo's left. and there was a lonely C3 cargo. no warships or planes anywhere.
i fired my first torpedo, hit in the engines. the ship slowed down. then i fired my other torpedo but it malfunctioned and explode just 50 meters away of the merchant. it was rough water so i couldn't finish it with my deck gun. so i decided to wait for better weather. and as i layed there, my crew sighted a few warships. nothing came close but then. 2 warships came in for me! i crash dived and because they didn't see me, they want away. i waited a couple of hours and surfaced. an hour later, 4 airplanes came in for me! so this really looked like the Cargo called in help, his speed was 0kts, his engines were down. but every hour there were planes or warships.

[jasonb885]

"The convoy" call reinforces, after 1h or 2hs (or random) a corvette (or above)/planes appears in the horizont to try to take out the uboat.
This actually did happen to me.
i only had 2 torpedo's left. and there was a lonely C3 cargo. no warships or planes anywhere.
i fired my first torpedo, hit in the engines. the ship slowed down. then i fired my other torpedo but it malfunctioned and explode just 50 meters away of the merchant. it was rough water so i couldn't finish it with my deck gun. so i decided to wait for better weather. and as i layed there, my crew sighted a few warships. nothing came close but then. 2 warships came in for me! i crash dived and because they didn't see me, they want away. i waited a couple of hours and surfaced. an hour later, 4 airplanes came in for me! so this really looked like the Cargo called in help, his speed was 0kts, his engines were down. but every hour there were planes or warships.

There's a configuration file that specifies how long escorts will prosecute a target. I've often found escorts come back for me while I'm lazily engaging a stationary merchant. Later, they'll show up on the map as an individual contact that never caught up to the convoy again...

[Kpt. Lehmann]

The other options of adding more escorts few hours after the initial escort unit be under waters also migth bring some realism and increase the difficulty.

Or even the merchants engage on ramming the sub once they lose their escorts/as soon as they spot the sub ;)

I'm sure that any addition to current convoys AI would contribute for better gameplay making the AI a bit "biffed up" and less predictable.

Otherwise a player can be within the convoy for hours and hours (like I did - 8 hours with the convoy taking on ship by ship). Because the AI would simply not react to a threat beside easy zig-zag. :)


unfortunatly I don't know how to program on SH3. Otherwise I would come out with something like that... For this reason that I'm offering these ideas for someone interested to pickup and explore these or other ways to enhance the current convoy reactions :)
None of what you desire can be done by moders.

Bless you Teddy Barr!!!

[Der Teddy Bar]

This is how the enemy response works and why is so easy to sail up and down the coast and choke points as if you own the place.

Any vessel that sees you sends out a sighting report.

Escorts...
Escorts will respond to a sighting of your u-boat if they are within 20k's of you. If they are 21k's then they will not show up.

BUT... If the Lost contact time= is exceeded before the escort arrives, it simply turns back around and leaves.

If the escorts have found you and you manage to shake them off, the after the Lost contact time= is up, they just leave.

Most mods have Lost contact time=40

Aircraft..
They use the the Airstrike.cfg in conjunction with the airbase configuration to determine a response.

Response instances and continuation is multi layered. The issue with the air response is that the current configurations are operationally impared in the execution and it requires more than just upping a figure here or there to make it right. The NYGM Coastal Command Mod will seek to address this.

[Ducimus]

Any vessel that sees you sends out a sighting report.

Escorts...
Escorts will respond to a sighting of your u-boat if they are within 20k's of you. If they are 21k's then they will not show up.

BUT... If the Lost contact time= is exceeded before the escort arrives, it simply turns back around and leaves.

If the escorts have found you and you manage to shake them off, the after the Lost contact time= is up, they just leave.

Most mods have Lost contact time=40
.

Thats intresting, i didnt know all that. So for purposes of sub sightings and destroyer response, youd definatly want a lost contact time of 40.

Although the bad side to that would seem, that if you got say, 2 or more escorts looking for you, your stuck with at least one of them for 40 mins. Theres always that last one who refuses to leave, and breaking contact for more then say 15 mins without being pinged with a late war escort screen is damn bloody hard, bordering on impossible.

edit:
Lets say one was to introduce an abitrary depth limit on either active or passive sonar as sort of a makeshift thermal layer. In this example, lets make this "layer" at about 250 meters, maximum depth of the sub being hunted is 260 meters. So it dives to 260 and can't be pinged, That leaves passive sonar as the primary form of detection. Stock is something of a joke, so passive would have to be ramped up in sensitivy.

What sensitivity rating we looking at to where this sub would have to be on complete pins and needles silence, pushing barely even pushing 1.5 kts or risk being heard?

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Just an FYI...

"Lost Contact Time" in GW is 15 minutes... same as stock IIRC.

This is also an adjustable item if using SH3 Commander.

[VonHelsching]

I was wondering...

@ history gurus :know:

Were there any real incidents where the u-boats took the escorts first?

Was it something like (ballpark figures):

- Shoot the merchants 99%, escorts 1%

or something closer to:

- Shoot the merchants first 80%, escorts 20%?

Thanks!

[thyro]

Any vessel that sees you sends out a sighting report.

Escorts...
Escorts will respond to a sighting of your u-boat if they are within 20k's of you. If they are 21k's then they will not show up.

BUT... If the Lost contact time= is exceeded before the escort arrives, it simply turns back around and leaves.

If the escorts have found you and you manage to shake them off, the after the Lost contact time= is up, they just leave.

Most mods have Lost contact time=40
.

Thats intresting, i didnt know all that. So for purposes of sub sightings and destroyer response, youd definatly want a lost contact time of 40.

Although the bad side to that would seem, that if you got say, 2 or more escorts looking for you, your stuck with at least one of them for 40 mins. Theres always that last one who refuses to leave, and breaking contact for more then say 15 mins without being pinged with a late war escort screen is damn bloody hard, bordering on impossible.

edit:
Lets say one was to introduce an abitrary depth limit on either active or passive sonar as sort of a makeshift thermal layer. In this example, lets make this "layer" at about 250 meters, maximum depth of the sub being hunted is 260 meters. So it dives to 260 and can't be pinged, That leaves passive sonar as the primary form of detection. Stock is something of a joke, so passive would have to be ramped up in sensitivy.

What sensitivity rating we looking at to where this sub would have to be on complete pins and needles silence, pushing barely even pushing 1.5 kts or risk being heard?

"Maximum depth be 260m" is just for 2 subs ... XXI and VIIC which can go beyond that. All others would have crushed well before reaching that number (as far as I know).

--- The default values provided by SH3 stock (some used in mods) are a bit overspec.

I believe that termal layers aren't soo deep and their depth can vary depending in certain sea conditions.

Now I wonder if termal layers are implemented on SH3

[gouldjg]

No but Hemisent is currently testing a varied thermal layer mod to go with the new sh3 commander.

If the random works as well as expected, (he already has random crush depths), we can expect to see some varied solutions in the near future.

If I am not mistaken I also think that Jscones added a ability code so that certain things can be controlled by date (lets hope it works).

So for those that think lost contact time suits one time period but not the other, hopefully a new tool will allow you to test between the years and create a sequence of changes by date.

Although Jscones calls it random ability, this ability might also make it possible to define certain conditions dependant on the year.

I am not moving on any other hunches/mods till at least sh3 commander is out and the capability is known.

[Happy Times]

I was wondering...

@ history gurus :know:

Were there any real incidents where the u-boats took the escorts first?

Was it something like (ballpark figures):

- Shoot the merchants 99%, escorts 1%

or something closer to:

- Shoot the merchants first 80%, escorts 20%?

Thanks! Yes, some, after the GNAT torpedo came out autum -43.
"The Zaunköning (Gnat) came into service during the autumn of 1943. Intended to be an escort-killer, it achieved some early minor success only to be countered by the allied Foxer noise-making decoy. It was scoring hits against escort and merchants to the end of the war though.

The weapon was designed to lock onto the loudest noise after a run of 400m from its launch. This often proved to be the U-boat itself and standard issue-orders were to dive immediately to depth of 60m after launch froma bow tube while a stern shot was to be followed by a complete silence in the boat. Two U-boats were almost certainly lost when hit by one of their own T5 torpedoes, U-972 in Dec 1943 and U-377 in Jan 1944." http://uboat.net/technical/torpedoes.htm These went down inside two days. HMCS St. Croix (I 81) http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/4333.html , HMS Polyanthus (K 47) http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5489.html , HMS Itchen (K 227) http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/100.html .

[Sailor Steve]

I've seen solo merchant ships and I've seen convoys, heavily and lightly escorted.

What I haven't seen, and would like to, is the occassional 1939 small convoy-five or six merchants and one escort, because that's all they could put together, at least for the British east coast.