Early war there are easy pickings if you run east/west across the top end of Scotland and slip between the mainland and the Shetland Is.

The Western Approaches are always good in particular close to the the northern and Southern approaches to the Irish Sea. All shipping coming to Britain from across the Atlantic needs to come through these channels so hanging in deep water near the approaches works well.

You can also find plenty of smaller targets closer to the East coast of Britain running North South.

Mostly you should find single merchants and I've seen sizes ranging from small coastal craft (trawlers and yachts) up to 7k or 8k tonners.

Oct 39. Ran out of torps going halfway thru the Channel. 15,000 tons :D

This is at 100% realism No deck gun.

The channel... :o Shallow waters and no room to manuever, enough to give the bravest Kaleun nightmares.

The Channel is pretty tame in '39. I've even sailed up the Thames to Southend, docked at the pier, had a pint in the Borough and played the slots before heading back to the North Sea for some targets.:lol:

I've spent entire patrols infiltrating every port in the Channel, most of them are shakedowns. :D

As for the wartime, I've done it without sinking 5 times in '39, 2 times in '40 none in '41, '42, '43, and somehow, 1 in '44. Southampton is hell, just let me tell you that.

LOL! :D

Running into visual range with a ship is very much dependant on the weather/fog at that moment. It could be they simply went past unnoticed. If the weather was bad visibility could be as bad as 1km or if moderate 8km. That significantly reduces your chances.

Hydrophone is not hampered by that (maybe your crew's effectiveness in detecting is). If you listen yourself you can pick up anything within 34km radius (18.4 nm). That means you get 17 times more surface area of maritime real-estate over the 8km stock unlimmited visual range circle (=(34^2-8^2)/8^2). But only 3.5 more for 16km vis, still not bad. The trouble is you need to dive each time, and kick that lazy watchofficer back up in the end.

The interval depends on the size of the area (talked about later) and the relative speed with which the target crosses your hydrophone coverage, so your own cruising speed and the probable target speed and approach to you. If both you and the target are head-to-head add his (possible) speed to yours. If moving in the same direction take the difference. If perpendicular the Pythagoras equation should be used. The head-to-head situation is the quickest to cross the coverage area so also the determining factor.

Assuming your crew reports everything that comes into visual range immediately, the closest distance of the target-track to your visual range edge determines the interval to listen. The 'maximum' interval to choose depends on how lucky you (think you) are to get a target that crosses your path just outside maximum visual range. Have a look at the below sketch:
http://ricojansen.nl/image/hydro_track.gif
The drawn target-track is the most lucky one, just ouside visual range. (direct visual is ofcourse even better: automatic detection by crew) If you are unlucky the target just crosses the outer area of your hydrophone range and so the traverse time could potentially be very short, requiring constant listening. The question comes down to how certain you are of being on a hot traffic-lane. If you think you are on top of the traffic-lane you can use the track-lengths in the image. If not, make a conservative reduction of the time interval we will calculate below.

If you want to catch a target atleast once during his passage through your hydrophone coverage the interval is simply the tracklength (in nm), divided by the relative speed (in knots).

Taking the most extreme case of merchant (medium) speed: 12kts
and uboot cruise speed (i.e. type 7) 8kts
head-2-head relative speed: 20 knots

track outside of 16km visibility: 32.4nm; transit_time=32.4/20= 1.62 hours= 97min

track outside of 8km visibility: 35.7nm; transit_time=35.7/20= 1.785 hours= 107min

track outside of 1km/no visibility: 36.6nm; transit_time=36.6/20= 1.83 hours= 109min

So at the very most do your hydrophone drill every 1.5 hours or 90 mins to make sure a nearby medium speed target has the least chance of escaping your attention.

If you are only interested in head-2-head with slow targets (<8kts) you can do with maximum interval being just under 2 hours. (8+8=16kts , 32.4nm/16kts= 121min)

--------

Aside from that knowledge, I have increased the radius in which map-contactreports can be displayed, from 200-ish to 600km. This means more (distant) contact but not neccesarilly more often (since that is probability driven). So I have more chance to decide for myself if I want to chase them, instead of BdU making it for me. If I cannot be on their central course before they have moved 175km along it (at upper limit of their speed range), I forgo the intercept. At that distance the possible positions due to course uncertainty starts to extend beyond your hydrophone coverage. This way I OWN THEM. :arrgh!:

good post, Pisces. :up:

Speaking of the empty seas, since I instaled GWX 3, I can hardly reach my patrol area before spending all eels. Usualy spend them all in the BF grid. Patrols last up to a week, average tonnage 50000+ tons. :D

Chicken!




:lol:

A few points, most of them already covered to varying degrees:

TC: I never hunt at more than 128x. If I'm in transit through an area with a reasonable chance of contact, or aircraft, I do so at no more than 256x.

Unless the visibility is unrestricted, I spend a lot of time submerged if hunting. If you set your speed manually to 1knt you can stay under until you reach 50% on the O2 guage without depleting your battery to any extent. Throw in some course changes of 60 degrees here and there to avoid a fixed blindspot arc in your hunt area. With half decent crew member on hydrophone, nothing much will get past you. It also removes the issue of aircraft for much of your hunting.

The other benefit to this is you use very little in the way of fuel - people posting that they struggle with fuel on a 'normal' patrol simply must be burning it up running around with to no real purpose. My rule is this: if I've nowhere to go, I run at low speed if on the surface. You can easily spend 12-18hrs submerged at 1knt and then recharge the battery in a matter of hours. Even if you don't recharge, you'll still have 90%+ of capacity after such a period submerged. The only thing that drives me to the surface is O2.

IF the system allowed you to spot smoke on horizon, etc, then there would be more reaon for being on the surface (fact is the smoke from a convoy could be seen well over the horizon vs. the ships themselves).

Cheers

Ive noticed that when your moving with time compression and you notice a slowdown or stutter of your submarine on the map. There might be a contact nearby and then I submerge and a lot of the time the hydrophone picks one up.

Yes, lagging usually means that something is nearby. I avoid using high tc (512+) unless I'm in a relatively "safe" area where no contacts are expected. 1/3 speed seems to be a "happy medium": you'll still get where you want to go but you won't waste diesel, exhaust your engine crew or have to go along at a crawl.

So, currently submerged in grid AN26, going at 3 knots. No contacts, but it might just be that BdU sent me to an empty grid.

On the bright side, I'll now have Jimbuna's 300+ gramophone tracks to keep me company. :p

in one of my previous careers, aboard Type II, I often patroled AM26 and found a lot of targets in the area.

AM52\AM02 is one of my faves
Plenty of action around BF17 etc too

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...Hunter_054.jpg

Well, I think my luck is turning. Only four ships sunk for a total of 13,000 tons, but hey, I'm happy. ;) I ran across two ships southeast of the Shetland Islands, a coastal tanker and medium merchant, and then two more on my way down, an Old Split Merchant or whatever and then a Danish (Oops...) medium cargo. Got a little greedy on the last one and mistook the flag for the Red Ensign. :oops:

I need to work on my aim some, I think, as I used up the the entire forward torpedo stores, save for the external, on those four ships. :doh:

Early war patrol GWX 3.0 and targets galore! Found about 4 smaller vessels off the northern tip of Scotland outbound for my patrol grid near the Rockall bank. Smoked ´em with the deck gun.

After arriving in the assigned area i decided to take a little dip a little west of the Bank for ´rundhorchen´. I couldn´t believe my luck, multiple contacts! It was a small flotilla of 2 auxiliary cruisers and a DD. They were coming right at me, I only had to align my bow a little to get a perfect firing solution. Zapped those 2 cruisers, the DD never even found me. They are pretty helpless in the early days. (their time will come though)

A big ore carrier found it´s watery grave a day later a little south of this area......

November ´39 and the future looks bright:sunny:

Hunting ground GWX3.0.Gold
 

:D Hi everyone :D

In february 1943 , Grid " EB21 " is damn good :yep: :p
Also " The gulf of Mexico " is good . Near " The port of spain ",


If you follow the " EB21 route " You run into this , a large troopship:p :o :yep:

In the next post you can see my spots in 1943 from the map:p :)




http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/5...1525790sa1.jpg

Yea it was a fluke cause I find em a plenty now. The submerge regularly in heavy traffic areas really pays off as well. My last mission, feb 40' mission 6 I ran out of torpedo's before I even cleared the north of Scottland and with my final four I came across a Light cruiser followed by two auxillary cruisers. I couldnt set up a run on the first cause he was too quick so I used the second to set my TDC up and let loose a spread of four on the third. One pre- detinated and the other three were dead on at 1700 meters with target going 24 knots. Not bad i say and I must be getting alot better. Wether was bad but no rain!:sunny:

Spots on the map , 1943
 

:D Hellooo :D

I have draw lines and marked with an X where you can find big big ships

Such as "Whale factory " ships , " Troopships " , " Large Tankers " ,
" Ceramic ocean Liners " and , , " Large Troopships " .:p :p :cool: :cool:

As you can see from the map , I'm not so good to draw lines :oops: :oops: :dead: :dead: :roll:

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/3223/sh3maplk8.jpg