Too much to reply to here directly. First of all thank you all. I could spend days just reading through threads here. The historical information you people present is pretty darned amazing. Thanks so much for the post on the battleships and their weak spots with the handy chart. I took everyone's advice to heart and reran my attack. The waters were exceptionally calm so I tried some magnetic fuses. I decided that if I could get one to hit in a weak spot the whole ship should go down pretty much instantly. I set depth to 10m and all three torpedoes hit at a range of 4300m. I used a 2-3 degree spread to keep my pattern tight. Bagging a battleship yielded and instant promotion and a decent amount of renown, but still not enough to upgrade to a VII(!!). I mean really? I just sank a battleship and I don't get an instant boat upgrade from fleet command from my type II? Bummer.

PS. feel free to derail any thread I start. I love the excursions into historical accuracy!

The HMS Revenge doesn't look so good...
http://i.imgur.com/vNiDnxT.jpg

BTW, this was my first capital ship I've ever sunk in SH3. The thrill of watching that BB slide into the water was indescribable.

Just the fact that you wiped out the Revenge is a feat in itself!

The fact that you did it at OVER 4,000 meters is another

The fact that you did it in a Type II just blows my mind.

Tell me? Did you use the fixed wire method as I explained? If so, I told ya it's simple and effective! Accept no substitute! If you didn't, please explain in detail how you executed this attack. I have never in my years of playing SH3 EVER sunk the Revenge, much less ANY capital ship. I've damaged a couple, but never actually got a kill.

Excellent job skipper! :arrgh!:


P.S. About the whole promotion thing.. We're talking about a whole new command here. U-boats are not cheap, and the good ones only go to the skippers who can perform. Either request a transfer to a flotilla that uses the larger boats, or put in your tonnage until you can request one.

Oh and Welcome Aboard!

Oh stock SH3, you truly are NOT missed by this Grey Wolves fan! :yep:

LOL :)

Stock SH3 was sort of like a rusty old Camaro sitting in a barn. She had no tires, dings in the body, and an engine beyond repair.

The SH3 Modding community took this heap of garbage and turned it into a totally restored Camaro, complete with glass packs.

It truly is like driving a restored hot rod. Nothing beats the feel of a classic! :up:

No arguments there then http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/8636/cdw.gif

I'm a cheater. I had my weapons officer calculate a plot for me. I love subsims, but never found calculating solutions for torpedoes all that much fun. Especially when you you have a destroyer barreling down on you. I played mostly fleet boat sims over the years, so I grew accustomed to having a TDC calculating firing solutions for you. I play with everything on realistic except for torpedo firing solutions. I also leave the external camera enabled, because its fun to fly around and watch the action. I did break radio silence to report my success. Their reply: The first round is on us when you return to port. The funny thing was that the destroyers didn't even break from the convoy to search for me. Those early british escorts aren't too aggressive are they? Another nice thing: setting the depth low and using magnetic fuses allowed me to run my torpedoes right under any ships in my line of fire. So from 1940 on they quit using magnetic fuses historically? Bummer. They work well in calm seas.

BOO! :03: jk. Everybody has their way of doing things, some like it more arcade, some like it more sim. I like mine sim all the way, so everything is 100% realism, plus I hold myself to realistic historic parameters for example:

1. Not raising the scope while going faster than 2 knots submerged (historically the water pressure would bend the scope shaft if you went any faster, causing it to jam in the up position, something that's not modeled in SH3).

2. I travel the "great circle" routes when doing long voyages, but SH3 is designed for traveling on a "loxodrome", which is actually a longer distance on the earth's curved surface, but on a flat map, loxodromes are shorter.

3. I don't use magnetic detonators from mid-1940 until the end of 1942, as historically they were removed from service to be re-engineered due to their high failure rate.

4. I consider each and every torpedo very expensive (as they were), and as a result, Kaleuns were careful in their targeting to ensure a hit each time. Obviously combat dictates the situation, but Kaleuns would rarely if ever fire "willy nilly" as I'm sure many who play this game do. A Kaleun who returned to port time and again with empty tubes and little to no tonnage would find himself out of a job before long. The German high command took this very seriously! Torpedoes were approximately 50,000 Reichmarks a piece! So I am careful as to how many torps I fire at a ship. I figure one torp per every 5,000 tons. If that doesn't work, use the deck gun. But ONLY use another torp as a coup de gras if it's obvious she's not going to sink, and when surfacing is out of the question.

5. I only carry steamers in my external tubes, and I always have a solid mix of steam and electrics in my main hold, as it was historically.

As you can tell, I'm an insane hardcore player, but it makes the kills that much more rewarding.

It's not that difficult once you get the hang of it and hone your skills. Practice makes perfect, like with anything.

Early war they still had limited resources to attack subs, and ASW tactics were still in their early stages. The British escorts weren't so much lacking aggression as they were lacking cohesion on an attack. By 1944 though, they pretty much had it down to such a science, that if you tried a conventional convoy attack they would have you sunk before you could even get close enough to shoot!

As they're designed to do lol. Throw in a nice north Atlantic chop, and you might find impact pistols to be a little more reliable.

I've been playing SH3 for almost nine years now, and I've never even been close to a battleship except in single missions, and I've never sunk one.

I have manual targeting set, but I also use the WE Assistance. My math is less than useless, and I'm happy to pretend. Then again I've been playing subsims for twenty-six years and I'm a little jaded.

We're all nerds in our own way Steve :88)

I was always the guy who played the Close Combat series and Sid Meier's Gettysburg. Original battleship for the PC! Oh man, the memories.

Sid Meier to me always meant the original Silent Service and Pirates.

Or what about leisure suit larry?

First thing that pops into my head when I hear his name is Railroad Tycoon.

:yep: I remember Larry fondly. :sunny:

Except he wasn't by Sid Meier, but Al Lowe.

I hate that game...but only because I've never been any good at it. The word "terrible" comes to mind.

I'm not that good either but I love it.

You play the sim the way you get the most enjoyment...simple as http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/8636/cdw.gif