SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Now this is too much !

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- - Now this is too much ! (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=179467)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat (Post 1587333)

It was fixed Steve. In stock SH5, the AI is less competent, will drop DCs away from your position and will lose contact with you and stop dropping DCs.

The problem here (if there is a problem) is that in TDWs IRAI v.29 at the highest difficulty level, the escort AI can find you and follow you everytime and will keep dropping DCs on your exact position until you are DEAD! However, I see TDW is already working on a v.30 of his mod to tone down the AI.

Thanks. There was a little mod for SH3 that reduced the effective blast radius of the charges to correct levels, which meant that it is possible to recieve a pounding that lasts hours and still get away alive. Not always, but most of the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catfish (Post 1586979)

Also remember SH2, i enjoyed it for the graphics (for that time lol) and played the competely scripted "campaign" (15 missions ?) one time, and the single mission at the Azores and the refuel one several times. And then never again ..

SH3 was a quantum leap, but the same depth charge problem. And SH4. And SH5.

Greetings,
Catfish

Pacific Aces mod for SH2 and Aces Campaign mod was a godsend.

I can make the ship AI in SH5 do basically anything I want (to a degree). I could have them skew off course before dropping depth charges to simulate inaccuracy. There just isn't enough flexibility built into the ship AI to do what I want (available function wise). And ship AI is the best AI of all the AI in game :nope:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve (Post 1587255)

The depth charge problem was fixed with a mod in SH3, and I think in SH4. Why not SH5?

Or has it?

If you mean "pin point accuracy" of depth charges. Yeah. They can be made to be as accurate, or as inaccurate as you want. You just have to adjust a sensor elevation here, a depth precision there, and maybe a sensitivity rating, or possibly a crew rating if you really want to stretch it. Getting rid of pin point drops isn't a one variable adjustment though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith (Post 1587549)

Accuracy was not really an issue although getting an accurate reading could be. An experienced crew could be deadly. For example, once Johnny Walker's HK group found a U-Boat, it was dead, probably 2 out of 3 times.

For a U-Boat to escape, the escort has to have problem locating it or holding contact. There could be many factors: green escort crews, poor sonar equipemnt (more of a problem in early war years), poor sound conditions (i.e. thermal layers, plentiful sea life, temperature variations, currents, noise), water disruption caused by DC explosion.

So an escort working alone would have a harder time re-acquiring contact since it would lose contact when it dropped the DCs and the ensuing disruption would mask the U-Boat. On the other hand, when you have 2+ escorts working as a group, one can keep a fix on the U-Boat while the other attacks.

A green escort crew would have more trouble locating the U-Boat and would be more likely to drop DCs in a spot where the U-Boat is not. (In SH4, I have been under DC attacks where the AI dropped DCs far from me, but close enough to be heard).

All escorts should have some problem dropping DCs at the correct depth. Determining correct depth of a submarine was a problem during the entire war. (However, I seem to recall that in the SH series, the AI will always drop DCs set at the correct depth?)

Varying sound conditions: finding a U-Boat in the middle of the North Atlantic in winter after a storm is more difficult than in the North sea :arrgh!:. This is probably more of a problem since the underwater sound model in SH is very basic. However, if we had one or more thermal layers at random depth and of random intensity, this would go a long way towards creating the same thing. Would this be possible with a script? :hmmm:

All the above is true, and don't forget the 'cone of silence'. No active sonar of the period could point down beyond a certain level, so every escort, no matter how accurate the information or how good the crew, was essentially dropping blind. A good u-boat kaleun could take advantage of that by starting his evasion just as he heard the destroyer accelerate into it's attack run.

Walker's major tactic for the hunter/killer groups was to have all six destroyers fan out and comb an area. When one of them picked up the u-boat, he became the 'hunter'. He would match speeds and stay behind the target, guiding the others in on their runs. This way, even when the water was disturbed after a run, he was still in a position to pick up the target all the sooner. And if he couldn't, they just fanned out and started all over again. The u-boat wasn't going very far very fast.

nice excerpt Jan. I also saw took this one from the links you posted:

Quote:

Since the outset of the war, it had been generally accepted that escorts would stay close to their charges to ward off U-boat attacks. Walker, then holding the rank of commander, had achieved his successes by ignoring this principle and hunting his victims well away from their quarry. He sank 2 U-boats 40 miles away from the convoy he was protecting. In high places at the Admiralty there were powerful forces at work seeking to brand Walker as a lucky heretic. Only his success and the unqualified backing of Admiral Sir Max Horton, the C in C of Western Approaches, prevented Walker from being posted ashore. While Admiral Horton was in a favourable mood, Walker persuaded him to try a revolutionary theory: Six modern, fast, specially equipped sloops, freed from the fetters of convoy duty, should be given a roving commission to hunt down U-boats in their most vulnerable grounds, the Bay of Biscay, which they crossed when beginning or completing their patrols, and far out in the Atlantic where they surfaced with immunity because the sky was clear of aircraft. In the spring of 1942, Walker took command of the Second Support Group, the first of the new striking forces. From the bridge of Starling, his own sloop, he drilled Wild Goose, Cygnet, Wren, Woodpecker and Kite until they became a team, swinging into action with few orders and no mistakes. The first few weeks were uneventful and gave the crews time to work up, before spending a few days in Iceland prior to leaving on 21st May.

In June, Walker found an opponent worthy of his guile, Kapitänleutnant Gunter Poser, commanding officer of U-202. This U-boat was returning home after a special mission in which it had landed five Nazi agents in the United States on Long Island's Amagansett Beach. (These agents were all captured and executed) (See footnote at base of this page). It was U-202's ninth operational trip of the war, and 27-year-old Poser was a quick-witted, capable captain. U-202 transmitted a long signal while surfaced and the Group homed in on her position in line abreast. On June 13, Poser's officer of the watch sighted mastheads through the periscope and called him to the control room. Poser took over the eyepieces and immediately he thought them as destroyers. He ordered diving stations and within seconds U-202 was down to 500 feet.

The captain turned to the asdic officer and announced his intention to attack. Starling surged forward. The "ping" of the sonar beam echoing from the hull of U-202 coming faster as the range shortened. Then came the order to fire depth charges. Tons of high explosives rolled from the stern rails and shot from throwers on either side of the quarterdeck. Ten charges dropped through the water toward the enemy. For a few seconds there was silence. Then miles of ocean and the waiting sloops quivered as the blasting charges exploded. Huge columns of water boiled to the surface and sprayed up into vast fountains astern of Starling. The great cascades subsided; but of the U Boat there was no sign. Walker settled down to the waiting game. The enemy was proving tough to hold and hard to find.

During exercises, Walker had evolved a form of attack known as Operation Plaster. It called for three sloops steaming in line abreast to roll depth charges off their sterns. Now he ordered Wild Goose and Kite to join Starling, and the three sloops steamed forward dropping a continuous stream of charges, the naval equivalent of an artillery barrage before an infantry attack. The sea heaved and shook under the impact of the explosions. Twisting and turning and always leaving a trail of charges, the ships plastered the area. In three minutes, 86 depth charges had rocked and shaken the attackers almost as much as it had U-202. The U Boat settled deeper and deeper, the control room crew watched the depth gauge. Down to 700. Much more and the submarine would crack under the tremendous pressure. 750. Poser's eyes would have been fixed on the controls, and his mind listening to the creaks and groans reverberating from the straining hull. 800, the engineer officer's will have warned. 850. Poser snapped out his commands: "Level off and keep her trimmed at 800 feet. Steer due north, 3 knots." Far above, Walker was talking to his officers: "No doubt about it. She's gone deeper than I thought possible, and our depth-charge primers won't explode below 600 feet. Very maddening indeed." He grinned and continued: "Well, long wait ahead. Let's have some sandwiches sent up. We will sit it out. I estimate this chap will surface at midnight. Either his air or batteries will give out by then." It was shortly after noon on June 13. By 8 p.m. Poser had taken several evasive turns without result. He could not shake off his tormentors. At two minutes after midnight his air gave out. He ordered reluctantly, "Take her to the surface." Without any audible warning, U-202 rose fast through the water to surface with bows high in the air. Her crew leaped through the conning tower hatch to man her guns, and Poser shouted for full speed in the hope of outrunning the hunters. On Starling's bridge, the tiny silver conning tower was visible in the moonlight. "Star shell...commence," ordered Walker. One turret bathed the heavens with light. Then came a flashing crash of the first broadside from all six sloops laying a barrage of shells around the target. A dull red glow leaped from behind the conning tower of the U-boat. A dimmed lamp blinked from Starling, and firing ceased while Walker increased speed to ram. Then he saw the jagged stump of the conning tower ablaze and shouted in triumph. U-202 was obviously too damaged to escape. He ran alongside, raking her decks with machine-gun fire and firing a shallow pattern of depth charges that straddled the submarine, enveloping her in smoke and spray. Poser clutched the hot periscope column, drew his revolver and shouted a last order: "Abandon ship! Abandon ship!" The cry was taken up and passed through the U-boat. Poser turned to say goodbye to his officers. Rather than be captured, he was taking his own life. At 12:30 a.m. the battle was over - 16 hours after it had begun.

"operation plaster" was a tactic developped by Walker and was first used in action in june 1942. As you see, it also took a group that had trained extensively together.

I wonder if this can be applied to the game, limiting "operation plaster" tactics to veteran+ HK groups after june 1942.

the devs tried to implement a 'line abreast' formation into the AI but it doesn't work :nope: Everytime you try to use the function it CTDs the game. This is probably the reason why they commented it out on release. They had good intentions but poor implementation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith (Post 1588102)

so how does the "operation plaster" tactic work in IRAI? I saw 5 different types listed in your init.aix file.

Quote:

OPERATION_PLASTER_HARD = 13;
OPERATION_PLASTER_HARD2 = 14;
OPERATION_PLASTER_SOFT = 15;
OPERATION_PLASTER_SOFT2 = 16;
OPERATION_HK_PLASTER = 17;

I got a good working over from a HK group using your mod v29. In external view, I could see one ship acting as "director" matching my course and speed, sometimes pinging, sometimes just listening, while the rest would run over my position dropping DCs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat (Post 1588145)

so how does the "operation plaster" tactic work in IRAI? I saw 5 different types listed in your init.aix file.

I got a good working over from a HK group using your mod v29. In external view, I could see one ship acting as "director" matching my course and speed, sometimes pinging, sometimes just listening, while the rest would run over my position dropping DCs.

That's how Operation Plaster works now in SH5. Since I couldn't get the line abreast to work I did the next best thing. Current version is now v0.0.30 BTW.

Hello,

with 3-4 hunters really knowing what they do (like Walker) few boats stood a chance for sure in 1944 and '5.
However there are a few errors or misconceptions in the BBC texts, one of it being that even if you heard a distant escort pinging you would still hear the other "slow" sloop cruising right above you, and you will also hear the splash of the charges that tell you what is going to come.

And remember the sloop may not be too slow, otherwise it will tear off its own stern when dropping the charges .. a starting attack run IS being heard in a sub, even without hydrophones.

As well a U-boat was faster than sloops or corvettes, so once surfaced and out of gun reach it would be able to escape - as long as there is no real destroyer capable of 20+ knots in the hunter group.

In the link i posted about ASDIC it also shows that the escort ships of the convoys did not spend much time to hunt a U-boat, they had to stay by the convoy and often did not have the training the hunter groups had.
Their experience certainly grew with the war ..

A U-boat being forced to dive was usually out of the fight for hours, if it ever caught up again with the convoy at all - this alone was a victory for the escort.

Now that i have met Walker personally at least 4 times already in 1939 along with his MkIV eyeballs being well able to see from thousands of meters (in 50 meters visibility due to fog, night and storm) the next time i hope to run about another chap who is not that perfect yet :shifty:
:rotfl2:

Greetings,
Catfish

P.S. Very interesting to read even the plaster methods have been thought of by the dev team, they obviously know their stuff, but similarly obviously did not have enough time to implement this stuff. So as far as i have understood all kinds of detection can be changed, even thze crews getting tired, but tthe AI itself is not changeable ?
But then this is not bad at all since it would reflect the real thing .. just leave out the special techniques in the early times - possible ?