DC sink rate

[Keelbuster]

Does anyone know how fast DCs sink? I'm thinking that if you use the stopwatch and listen from the splash to the pop, you might be able to estimate with some accuracy the depth the escorts think you are at, and plan yer next move accordingly. The idea being that you don't want to be deeper than you have to be, lest you catch some damage and crush. If they think you are at 50m, then being at 75 is good enough, right?

[CCIP]

The sink rate for DC's in SHIII is 3m/s. Easy to calculate I think :)

[Keelbuster]

Excellent!

[Ducimus]

The sink rate for DC's in SHIII is 3m/s. Easy to calculate I think :)

hedge hogs are around 6 or 7 m/s as i recall, gotta love those things :stare:


edit:
Does anyone know how fast DCs sink? I'm thinking that if you use the stopwatch and listen from the splash to the pop, you might be able to estimate with some accuracy the depth the escorts think you are at, and plan yer next move accordingly. The idea being that you don't want to be deeper than you have to be, lest you catch some damage and crush. If they think you are at 50m, then being at 75 is good enough, right?

Good luck with that. The AI has an uncanny ablity at guessing your depth. WIth a crew rating of 3 or 4, they generally get it in, or damn near the pickle barrel. The only varience seems to be when the DC's explode.. depth accuracy i think the varibale is called. By default its 5 meters, meaning that the DC will expode anywhere within 5 meters of its intended depth. Trouble is, the AI gets the intended depth spot on... all too frequently (late war most of the time).

Method ive been using is a bit mroe from the hip. ill go down to like, 140-150 meters asap. The more downdrop distance, the longer it takes for the DC to get near me. So wthe INSTANT i get splash's, ill immediatly go down another 10-20 meters (or try to) before they arrive. They go for the next run, ill push it deeper. At some point i have to bring the boat up and start the process all over again, cause once you reach crush depth, your out of room to run from the ashcan's. ALthough go deep enough, at a steady 2kt speed, alot of times they'll fall aft of you because the distance they had to travel throws them off their mark. This is assuming the DD's run is perpendicular to your track. If he makes his run parrell to your track on top of you, you'll run right into another DC, so you have to get off that track or take an ashcan in the bow or midships.


Err.. my 2 cents anyway. Good luck wtih your idea, hope it works out.

[Graafenstein]

I always dive deep, because of the fact that a DC's explosion radius decreases with depts (due to water pressure),
and of course the sub's hull vulnerability increases with depth too.

In other words, if you're at 150 meters depth and a DC explodes 10 meters from the sub at 150 meters,
the damage will be less than if your at 50 meters and the DC also at 50 meters, again 10 meters away.

This is in real life, but is this accounted for in SH3, I wonder?

[Ducimus]

I always dive deep, because of the fact that a DC's explosion radius decreases with depts (due to water pressure),
and of course the sub's hull vulnerability increases with depth too.

In other words, if you're at 150 meters depth and a DC explodes 10 meters from the sub at 150 meters,
the damage will be less than if your at 50 meters and the DC also at 50 meters, again 10 meters away.

This is in real life, but is this accounted for in SH3, I wonder?


well from a certain point of view hull vulneralbity increases with depth. Primarly because if your hull intergrity is at X %, you can only go Y deep.

for example if you get nailed by a hedge hog at say, 200 meters, that will drop your hull intergirty into to the 60% range if i remember correctly. If you were shallower, you'd survive that. But at 200 meters or deeper, the depth will crush your boat. . You can try and go to flank speed and blow ballast to get into "lighter" water, but ive yet get the boat to rise fast enough to save it from such a hit at that depth.

If you get hit by a depth charge at that depth, you ahve just enough time to put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye, where as at shallower depth,s you'd surivive such a hit.

Somehow though, i doubt depth charges work the same way. I think they're pretty much static in what they do, but thats just an opiinon.

[Keelbuster]

If you get hit by a depth charge at that depth, you ahve just enough time to put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye, where as at shallower depth,s you'd surivive such a hit.
.

My experience as well - hull damage at >160m often means chain-reaction crunch.

About the sink time - it's important, for sure. If I can hear a DD over top of me and I'm at 160m, I know he probably won't get me. The worst thing was when I heard him off to starboard, moving ahead of me. He was moving fast, and gradually crossed my bow. I heard splashes over the whole process, and gambled that with the sink rate I'd get under them. They BLEW ALL OVER ME. Miraculously no damage - then - a single DC hit - i get about twenty quick reports (including Mediiiiiiic!) and the boat crunches. Anyways, that kind of situation might benefit from an impact estimate based on sink rate. I should have known the timing was bad and flanked out of there.

[Beery]

The DCs in the game often seem to be launched by destroyers who have a perfect lock on your boat. I've found that the only effective way of avoiding them when they're latched on is to dive as deep as possible and perform hard turns at maximum speed. Even this is only marginally effective. I've been toying with the idea of reducing the DC effectiveness in RUb for a while now, but I can't figure out a way to do it that retains some realism.

[Keelbuster]

I just don't want another insta-crunch. It was too devasting last time - no time to even look at the crew screen - just flashing lights, that glass breaking sound and a crunch - like 3 seconds. Lately I've been staying at PD, and progressively diving as they rush me. These are tactics I learned on this forum. Actually, I've had a lot of luck at PD (at least against 1 DD) - Watching through the peri, and second it starts its rush I zag right or left 45 degrees at flank. Only problem is the side launchers...and the hedgehogs. But, the idea is that at PD you can take a DC hit, or two, and maybe escape in a lucky flank rush/decoy blast. Then, you go straight home with conservative surface exposure and your fine. At 160m, if you get hit you frantically have to rise, and even if you make it, yer kinda out of steam and panicked, off the hydrophone and vulnerable. At PD you can keep yer eye on him. Being able to see him allows you to make sharp decisions in evasion; I can never get an accurate sense of range over the hydrophone; don't know whether I'm going under, or into, a cloud of DCs. At PD there's also the surface noise which is helpful in medium-heavy winds.

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I just watched U-571, which is admittedly a healthy step or two away from real life, but in that flick the DCs were exploding _close_ to the boat and there was minimal damage. I don't know how close the crunch hits are in SH3, but I'm thinking they're further away than that. On the other hand, I've been surprised on occasion when I see (through the OBS scope), a DC explode very close by and rock the boat, but cause no damage. The variability is kinda cool.

In the end, I think what we all want is to be hit, flooded, sunk, but survive somehow and get away to tell the story. That's such a fine wire to walk that we may never have it perfectly our way.

Kb

[Ducimus]

I've been toying with the idea of reducing the DC effectiveness in RUb for a while now, but I can't figure out a way to do it that retains some realism.

Well heres what i did in my game, (although im sure htis is standard for most modifications of the DC files)

Depth accuracy set at 25
Radius reduced to 20 (default 40)

They key here i think is the accuracy setting. Default is 5, thats right in the picle barrel, 25 seems to provide enough variation, but there still pretty close. I imagine too large of accuracy and they wont hit crap. The other thing you can experiment with is the sink rate. Although im sure your much more familar with all of these settings then i.

Intrestingly enough, i made a similar modification in the hedge hogs. Highly unrealistc, and gamey but i set the depth on them to 200, with an accuracy of 50. End result is if i can get under 200 meters fast enough i have a CHANCE of surviving as the hedge hogs randomly detonate between 200 and 250 meters. However at that depth, a single hedge hog is fatal.


Now all of that said, the active sonar on DD's plays a large part in their accuracy i think. The key therein i beleive is the min distance variable. Ive worked out mine to where they get REAL close, but not super accurate. Too wide a min distance and their so far off your location its laughable.