it's actually not that hard to take out a lone destroyer in shallow water, since the ai is so predictable. I find that when they know where you are, they speed up to 14kts and circle you at about 700m. Just gotta get them when they steam across your bow or stern...

Even easier, just flank speed directly away from them.... they will fall in right behind you, wait till they get to about 700m and pop a fish under their bow with a mag trigger... if it doesn't sink them it will blind them so they can't ping anymore.

But, what I'm saying is that these DD's couldn't locate me. I wasn't hunting them... they were hunting me, and unable to locate me at all... i was able to unload all 12 fish into this one convoy and never had to evade a single DC. I don't know if it was modelled this way or not, but I just confirmed that it exists...

Different sub (IXD2), different year (1943), and got the same result, I was able to fire and reload for quite some time without the DD's locating me at PD in rough seas. Anyone know if this is intentional, either from GWX or in the original game, or I've got some bug going here?

Greg

Rough seas make a HUGE difference in staying hidden. And being at periscope depth might actually keep you out of the downward-slanted active sonar pings. You'd only be picked up by reflected pings IIRC. So it's not an accident, and it's not terribly unrealistic, to be able to stay hidden in very rough seas.

Frankly, I've been surprised that in a couple of convoy attacks, I've nailed the ships without any visible response from their escorts! :o I presume it's because they don't have any fix on me and/or the sea state is too rough.

Or it could be that you're in the vicinity of a minefield and the escorts are percieving a mine hit? Its one of the messages, and you never quite know whats modelled and whats fluf from those ;).

Or it could just be that they are asleep at the helm.

The most effective tactic I have for breaking destroyer contact is as follows

1. Turn off silent running
2. Get to periscope depth... raise your scope
3. Call flank speed... hold until you KNOW the destroyer has spotted you
4. Immediately when that destroyer starts turning toward you... hit silent running
5. All back slow

They will extrapolate your course at 8kts (whatever your submerged flank speed is) and in the direction you WERE going. I have very little problem evading escorts using this tactic.

Nice idea, I've kinda let all reverse power settings go to disuse because the props are so inefficient at stopping the boat... as little as 30-45 seconds to come to speed, but a full 2-3 min to come to a stop, even though they should have only slightly reduced effectiveness in this situation as they are nearly symmentrical AOA props...

One tactic I've taken to is diving straight under the DD's when I need to evade, as soon as I hear them overhead I go to flank and they drop DC's behind me some distance. Doesn't always work, but at least they can't turn in on you and close the drop line.

Actually, I am not using them to stop... using them to go backwards. Farther away from the DD I am the happier :D

That's an interesting tactic. What version of the game do you play? I also imagine that a brief full rudder would help slow you down too. It would take you a little off-target too.

My legs start to shake when I hear "shallow waters". GWX (I think 1.0 or 1.3) teached me not to hunt in shallow waters... Or even pass through shallow waters. I was surprised and sunk on a shiny day at the US East coast during Op. Paukenschlag and lost my, till now, best Commander ever - because I had no chance of divng deeper than fecking 17m!!! Self Defence was imposible because I was totally out of Torpedoes, heading towards the nearest Milchkuh.

Never ever again I will enter shallow waters! :damn:

Long story short: THERE IS NO "EVASION" IN SHALLOW WATERS!

I think the better way to say it is there is no losing the enemy in shallow waters... Last night SH3 Gen commanded me to infiltrate Portsmith and do as much damage as possible. I was able to avoid getting D/C'd for a good two hours play time until the DD that was tracking me ran into a dock and sunk and I was able to park under a tanker and wait until dark to sneak out of the bay decks awash. Maybe it was luck after all, but there was dead calm weather during the evasive part and the closest I ever got to a charge was about 50m. Yeah, if he hadn't run into the dock, I'd probably have run out of air before i could get out of the harbor, but I did survive GWX 2.1 in Portsmith in 1940...

Edit: BTW, I was not using external cam, but I was using a lot of underwater periscoping along with plenty of quick pops above the surface to keep an eye on my attacker... i don't think I would be able to evade anything by sound alone at this point.

It's my feel that it should be very hard to track a sub running silent in shallow waters. From all I've read about submarines during the years, I've always learned that active sonar in shallow waters was pretty much useless (in WW2, anyway, and perhaps still today). It would not be possible to pinpoint a sub.
Of course that does not eliminate the chance that someone might hear you, but the chance would be slim indeed. Conventional submarines on silent running are very silent indeed!

I'm not sure if this can be modelled in the SHIII engine, of course. It might feel too easy too then. Just run silent at PD and you slip by any escort. Perhaps the down angle of the active sonar cone, which is now at 0 in GWX 2.1 I believe, can be made variable? Sometimes it is at 10, sometimes at 0, sometimes at some value in between those, but you never know which it is?:hmm: