You probably had the misfortune of running into a couple that had "elite" skills, which sometimes happens early in the war & pretty much becomes the norm by 1942-43.

You are far more likely (in 39-40) to come across escorts who either won't find you (if you are crafty, no blazing away at flank speed) or will find you only briefly. If you are reasonably careful.

GWX 3.0 (may the modders names be celebrated far and wide!) teaches you, if nothing else, how to be as suspicious as a coyote and how to slink shamelessly away like a whipped cur when necessary. It's the only way to get to 1944 (don't even ask me about 1945, never made it that far in 5 years of playing).

Sounds like a depressing game, doesn't it? Maybe that's why we love it so much.

Sadly, I didn't get any extrernal shots...now that I think about it, and since I'm a semi-pro photographer in real life, I should've been clicking away! Damn...

At any rate I was evading the little corvette destroyer after having sent a torpedo into the coastal freighter destroying her engines. The freighter was dead in the water and I passed directly underneath her at 1 knot, and just like you guessed, she must've reached a critical flooding level or the fires in the engine rooms spread to the fuel tanks and she went up like a roman candle...I was at periscope depth, just barely squeezing underneath her rudder when she went up. I was watching my Uboat drive underneath her in external cams, then I went inside to the command room just before the explosion.

At first I thought the destroyer ran a direct depth charging pass over me...the red lights went out, gauge glass went flying, the boat started to roll over, nearly upside down...."We're Taking Damage, Sir!" is being bellowed down the boat...

I panic change course and start to dive to 60m. Then "Hull Damaged, Sir!" Now I'm horrified...But, no flooding or anything is reported. I finally get the sense in me to take a gander outside using extrernal cams (Yes, I'm a cheapskate--I know. :( ) and that's when I realized it was the coastal freighter I was watching my U boat slip under earlier.

By that time the destroyer was still in the center of the columns of the convoy depth charging where he thought I was. The freighter, having exploded, broke amid ships and began going down backwards. This caused her aft end to scrape down the after end of my uboat's port side, since I began to turn away, causing just another little bit of damage. Kinda like an insult to injury sort of deal.

I think the biggest lesson learned would be to maintain a good distance, lol!

Well there's your problem! Unless I'm harbour raiding I NEVER attack in less than 300m depth. If you can't got to at least 200m in your escape plan then don't bother. All you are doing is putting your boat and your men in mortal danger.

Yeah...I thought 70m was fairly deep if you compare feet to meters...I've been raised on Imperial units, not Metric, and so that is also part of my problem.

I need to learn what equates to what from imperial units to metric. I think 1m is equal to 3ft.

At the very least my men can say I'm somewhat ballsy...if they don't muntiny against me for being bat-s*** crazy, lol.

I had another question...I can't say I've run across any neutral units yet, but if I do, aren't we allowed to sink them? I think I read somewhere that you will lose renown...which I find odd, because as far as I understood during the 40's wasn't Germany using unrestricted submarine warfare? I figured everyone was game.

"Unrestricted" means you don't have to follow the Prize Rules - IOW no warnings, stopping to search for contraband, all that rot. It does NOT mean that you destroy everyone - you are still restricted to those you are actually at war with - or you KNOW they are heading there with stuff to help said enemy!

Doubt means err on the side of caution.

Unless you've modded out the renown hit, the game will punish you with loss of renown for sinking a neutral unit.

I'm not sure how this compares to what happened to commanders who did so in real life, although I do know that they were under orders NOT to attack American ships in particular (before Germany declared war on the US), even US warships that were escorting convoys made up of enemy shipping, because Hitler did not want to antagonize the US for fear she would enter the war on the side of Britain and France.

Nevertheless there were some occasions where neutral ships were attacked and sunk in a variety of circumstances but I don't know that any of the commanders involved saw their careers derailed because of it.

As far as unrestricted submarine warfare goes, I always thought that had more to do with the way in which attacks were carried out, and not so much with giving the "all clear" to attack neutral shipping wherever and whenever it was encountered. The exception being neutral ships sailing in an area that had been declared a war zone or under the enemy's protection, the assumption being that any such ships were supplying the enemy and therefore fair game. Since unrestricted SW means attacking without notice and without boarding and inspecting either the ship or her papers, I guess everything would be left up to the commander's discretion in the case of a neutral vessel under those conditions. IIRC even in WWII there were occasions where merchants were stopped and their validity as a target predetermined in the "old school" fashion before a decision was made about whether or not to sink them.

But the game makes no distinction regarding neutral ships based on their location and assumed ports of call - neutral is neutral, war zone or not. I know some people have edited out the renown hit for sinking neutrals, but then will only attack them if they are clearly sailing into or out of an enemy port. They may even edit in a renown reward for sinking neutrals because they only attack them in circumstances where it would be considered acceptable to do so.

The other issue with neutrals is that they will sometimes be sailing in convoy with enemy merchants and under the protection of enemy warships. Even if you don't target them specifically, when you attack the convoy there's always the chance they'll be the ships you end up hitting. I doubt any RL commander would have been penalized for sinking a neutral in that situation.

So - if you leave the renown penalty in the game and sink a neutral, you'll be penalized regardless of circumstance. But you can take it out or modify it and then play the game in whatever feels to you like a more realistic way. It's just a matter of personal preference.

Don't sink any of your Axis comrades though, that one will really hurt. And sinking a hospital ship will get you transferred right out of the Kriegsmarine and sent to the Eastern front! :D

Thanks guys! That clearifies it much more. I also did a little bit of research on the subject between replies and it just affirms the great info I recieved here.

So, unrestricted submarine warfare means having permission to attack enemy vessels without boarding them and checking their cargo manifests and what-not to affirm them as a viable target. That is much more sensible than what I was thinking...heh. :oops:

From Wikipedia, FWIW:

The prize rules, I think, were a hold-over from the age of sail when enemy merchants were more likely to be attacked and siezed, rather than sunk, and taken into the custody of the attacker along with their cargo and any survivors. This would have involved engagements between surface ships and certainly was not the best (or even a sensible) way to make effective use of a submarine as a vessel of war - which became pretty obvious once they came into play.

"Sensible" and "Rules of War" tend to not be synonymous!

From
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/...marine_warfare

"London Rules on naval warfare

The submarine sinking of merchant ships without warning is in violation of the 1930 First London Naval Treaty, which specifies that "...except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety..."
However, the London Rules were obsolete before they were signed (though the Kriegsmarine based its Prize Rules on them). The use of disguised guns on auxiliary cruisers increased the risk inherent in stop-and-search rules, but the primary danger came from the wide-spread adoption of radio, which meant that a merchant could call for help as soon as a submarine appeared, even before it could issue its demands. Coupled with the rapidly-growing speed, range, and destructive power of combat aircraft, this technology ensured that complying with these rules would be suicide for any submarine."


I love it when lawmakers try to limit the carnage of warfare - good intentions, usually go by the wayside as the first bullet is fired .....

Yup, the first casualty is often the carefully laid plans.

Man...those destroyers are lethal as hell, even in 1940! I left in October...made my first perfect intercept of a large enemy convoy! (:D:yeah:)

Turns out to be a huge British convoy with something in excess of 15 ships or so, with four escorts (One in front, one in back, and one on each side) Thanks to the wonderful tutorials I was already well ahead of them, submerged at 'scope depth and creeping along at Silent running. Soon I find myself within the perfect firing distances of some amazingly juicy targets. Don't get me wrong, all of these merchant ships were high value targets, but the nearest ones right off the bow were a tanker, a troop transport, and a few coastal freighters. I'm happy to say I was able to put a torp into each one! Sunk two right off the bat. The others were crippled and sinking slowly (Realistic ship sinking option on)

Now the escorts are pissed. The one running in the front is long gone, but the flankers and rear cover were converging on my spot.

I learned my lesson from my first patrol and now the depth under keel was over 1000m. Feeling confident I dive deep hoping to level at 100m. Well...I was too confident. At about 80m an escort did a perfect DC run. Glass shatters, lights flicker, the boat is tossed about violently, fore end batteries are immediately destroyed, command room is flooding along with the bow torpedo room and the forequarters. HEAVY flooding. The boat is sinking and fast!

I am amazed to say I survived it all somehow. I blew all compressed air and was in emergency reverse. We neared 220m before we finally began to ascend again. I'm pretty sure the nose of the U-boat touched the ocean floor. We were near vertical.

Somehow my crew managed to get the flooding controlled and I took us back up to 120m. The attack took place at 1am and 3 destroyers depth charged me until 4am. I finally gave up and literally stopped the boat. They finally rejoined the convoy at 6:00am.

I'm sad to say that I only sunk three ships that patrol. Something around 9,891 tons. The others I hit (2 more I think) limped away. On a side note, a submarine called out a position about a damaged tanker a few squares away from where I attacked the convoy. The square was directly in the convoys path. The submarine said they couldn't engage and were out of torpedos. Does GWX 3.0 actually have subs that recognize when you've attacked a ship?! Freakin' epic details!!!

Also, to the GWX team...the sounds that were being made by my U-boat while my engineer was screaming about crush depths...absolutely TERRIFYING! I'm ashamed to say that it gave me chills...I never want to experience something like that again...it made me nauseous! I could never do what any submariner does in real life ever!

Absolutely great work. I still can't wait to spot some of the damage modelling for the ships...I'm thrilled to see an oil slick! I wonder though, is that an additonal mod you have to add to GWX 3.0, or is it something that comes with the mod? From what I understand in the manual is says it's included, but I have yet to see an oilslick. I also read it depends on where you hit the ship. Is it a rare occurence?

When you install GWX you also get several optional GWX mods that you can enable or disable using JSGME, which is also installed for you by the GWX setup program. The mods can be found in the MODS directory that it creates in your game folder.

I think it should've put an icon for JSGME (or JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler) on your desktop when it was installed - if so, doubleclick on it and it will show you all the optional mods that GWX added for you on the left side of the interface under "Available Mods." One of them is Enhanced Damage Effects, which may give you exactly what you're looking for. To enable it, click on it once and then click on the ">" in the middle of the interface to transfer it over to the "Activated Mods" and that will enable the mod in your game.

BUT! Do not do this in the middle of a patrol, with a few exceptions mods should only be enabled or disabled when you are in base between patrols.

Whether or not you see an oil slick may well depend on where the target gets hit, but I think you'll find that damage effects in general are much more impressive with that mod enabled.

You were exactly right. I somehow or another, in my sleepy stupor (It was like 4AM when I was finally able to install GWX ) I deleted JSGME. I now have just added the files and will try them out. My career was saved while I was at base after my second patrol, so hopefully I won't run into any troubles!

Gute Jagd und Fette Beute! :yeah:

Was it to or from U-43? I thought the most of the contact reports, unless it's specifically titled "Radio Contact Report" (And those come from BDU), in GWX were just eye candy. Or did the GWX team match the scripted layer to radio reports (or vice versa)??

Cause I've been ignoring those.......

I honestly haven't had Vanilla Silent Hunter III installed long enough to know. All I know is that the message was titled from U-43. Said something about sinking a damaged tanker.

If it's just eye candy it was a hugely awesome coincidence because I hit a tanker that managed to limp away. And from U-43's message, it seems that the area they reported sinking it was the direction the tanker had been going. I couldn't pursue due to the depth charging.

If it is scientifically proven that the messages are just eye candy, I will ignore this, because recieving a message like that just added to my emersion in the game. Made my freakin' day, LOL. :yeah: