Very good, glad your prop wasn't damaged! :yep:

I'm pretty sure that starting up the diesels pretty much takes the "silent" out of "silent running." You might go slower than normal when trying not to be detected on the surface, but that would have more to do with not leaving so much of a wake in a relatively calm sea.

Silent running really refers to making as little noise as possible while submerged to lessen the probability that you will be heard by enemy ships equipped with passive sonar (like your hydrophones). Props turning slowly make less of a disturbance in the water than props turning quickly, and water also conducts the sounds of torpedoes being loaded, tools clanging on equipment. And if the movies are to be believed, human voices.

Does the game even let you rig for silent running on the surface? I guess it might leave you in that mode and prevent repairs being made or tubes being reloaded. But tactically in terms of evading detection, I don't know that it would make any difference. If you're detected on the surface it's going to be visually, at least that's always been my assumption.

Edit: in addition, one of your most valuable assets on the surface is speed. U-boats could outrun most merchants on the surface in order to overtake them and get into firing position (and get away quickly if necessary), and for a while at the beginning of the war they could also outrun a fair number of the armed escorts. If you wanted to rig for anything like "silent running" on the surface you'd be giving up that advantage.

Submerged, lack of speed was one of the biggest disadvantages. It only became an advantage temporarily when going very slowly on purpose to minimize the noise you made caused a much faster and more maneuverable (at the moment) surface vessel to lose track of your position and course.

haha yes... plenty of time for those things to happen i'm sure.

thx to Frau K again, great explaination.

when my mum asks we what i want for my b/day this year.. a book on Uboats will come the reply :DL

i have always been very very interested ww2 and is pretty much my main hobby in life, but i have over looked the Uboat war until now. i must say i am totally hooked now!

thx all.:salute:

Well if it doesn't happen sooner or later, you're simply not trying hard enough! :03:

it happened last night on grand scale....had to crash dive... set the depth to 30 meters and a few seconds later....CRUNCH....i forgot to check the depth :oops:

lesson learned.... no more attacks in shallow water!

could some one tell me briefly what happens if i apply for a transfer to another flotilla please ....

it seems to me that being in flottilla 1 is limiting me to only 1 day patrols.... do i need to join another flotilla to be given longer patrols? also what happens to my boat and crew if i do transfer?

thx in advance :salute:

How? You should be able to stay out as long as you like in career mode. Provided you have the fuel and ammo to make it possible and worthwhile.

If you're talking about the orders to patrol a grid for 24 hours, that doesn't mean you patrol for 24 hours and go home. The Mission Orders part of the game was probably set up that way because in stock you get a renown reward for spending 24 hours on patrol in your assigned grid, but you can do the 24 hours there (or not) and then stay there until your fuel/ammo runs out or go somewhere else if you like.

GWX actually removes the renown reward involved so in that case there's no reason to follow the orders anyway, unless you do it for realism's sake.

hi

I have been staying out longer than just the 24 hours and understand how it all works.... thx :salute:

I had just imagined that the patrols would be more indepth than just "patrol this grid for 24 hours"

I have been out on 13 patrols and was expecting the game to spice things up a bit as the game developed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this system at all. I guess i was just expecting more detailed missions and instructions because thats what i'm used to when i buy a pc game :)

As for transfering to another flotilla what happens when i do this?

i'm guessing it will send me to different parts of the world to patrol (i could be wrong) but i am wondering what would happen to my boat and crew, do i lose or keep them etc etc ?

thanks again

For more detailed orders and objectives you would have to play the single missions. In career mode you may be assigned a different grid each time out but it's not going to vary from the standard "patrol grid for 24 hours." It may be boring but it is realistic, except for the 24 hours part, in RL a typical patrol might mean weeks of cruising around the same general area.

OTOH the way things are set up in career mode, you do have the freedom to move around at your own discretion, so it's up to the individual player to decide what's more fun and interesting.

There is a mod that will make BdU send you another set of orders at some point in your patrol, mostly they just tell you to patrol a different grid for 24 hours if I'm not mistaken. "Mid-Patrol Mission Orders" I think it's called... someone here will know for sure.

IIRC in GWX the patrol grids you are assigned do vary by flotilla with an accent on historical accuracy, meaning the grids you get with a particular flotilla approximate the kinds of patrol areas real boats from that flotilla were assigned at any given time in the war.

You can also use Commander to select whatever grid you like prior to starting a new patrol.

ok thanks for the info frau K

i realised early on that i had free reign and have stayed out as long as possible on all patrols.

I am just playing through the game on semi realsim at the moment. There is a lot to learn and i am just taking my time to learn the mechanics of the game and more importantly controlling a sub.

I will definitely be looking at the GWX mod i hear you guys talking about so much some time soon.

But for now...1 step at a time...

thanks again

The "24 hours" thing developed from SH2. In that game (I refuse to call it a sim) they took the First-Person-Shooter approach. The "career" consisted of twenty-one separate missions, each self-contained and each unchanging. In the first you had to go to a certain grid and sink the three escaping Polish destroyers. Then you had to attack a very small convoy. Next you had to sink Royal Oak. In any mission, if you failed you had to do it over. If you died you had to do it over. Only if you fulfilled whatever requirement they made could you go on to the next mission. Some excellent add-ons and replacements were made, most notably Hitman's "Aces Campaign", which added some randomness and of course the excellent "Pacific Aces", which rewrote the game into a very fine US campaign.

When SH3 was still in development in 2004 they announced that the campaign system would be like SH2's except more advanced and variable. The entire community had a conniption fit and swore we wouldn't buy the game. After weeks of unrelenting complaints the devs took a poll and announced they were giving us what we asked for, a career system "like the one in Aces Of The Deep". They also told us the release would be delayed for over six months while they completely stripped out and rewrote the code. The community cheered and announced we would wait for however long was necessary. Apparently a complete rewrite was not totally needed, and the "24-hour requirement" is what was left over from the original system.

Me, I stay at my assigned grid forever, figuring BdU put me there for a reason.

nice little history lesson there ...thx steve :salute:

my tactic has been to sail to the intended grid by the safest (that i think) possibe route, do my 24hr patrol, and then head bak towards any areas where i had seen or killed ship en route. if i had no previous plots i will sail to obvious shipping lanes without straying to far from the route home to base.

seems pretty logical i guess :)


cheers

hey all

a couple of times my RA has recieved a msg about an enemy warship while i have most definitely been at periscope depth.

just wondering how this is happening cus i definitely can't transmit when at periscope depth. is it just a quirk of the game ?

cheers

I figure that BdU assigned me a grid for a reason. I stay in the grid for two weeks. If I haven't seen an enemy ship I roll a six-sided die. On a 1 I move to an adjacent grid, but no further. After another week I'll move on a 1 or a 2. I might be moved after two weeks, or after eight, all random.

I also send a status report at the same time every day, because that's what they did. Possibility of Allied interception? It happened.

sounds like a good plan steve

i have just started a new patrol and sailed to my grid, i killed a couple of merchants on route (with a bit of a detour) and after spending approx 36 hours in position i got the radio message about an enemy warship.

i decided to sail on a possible intercept course as i feel BdU wants me to have a go at it + i really want to sink a warship :DL

i figured that the course will put me on the way to southern ireland, so if i don't meet my intended target i will head off there where i'm sure to find some targets to sink.