Any hope for shallow water victim?
 

Is being hunt by Destroyers + shallow waters = sure death? Any brilhant tactics to get out of sight? I've managed before but not in 40m waters. I love the challenge though. Almost got out o their search pattern once. But then "We're being pinged, sir" hehe. They seem to radio others to the hunt too. I've tried going at 1 knot only but so far it proved as good as 2 knots. Even if they don't ear you, they ping you. This is why i love the GWX, it made this game accurate and challenging! I'll pick SH3 GWX over SH4 as it is now anyday!

I never escaped such situation alive. Happened to me twice.:down:
So, always bear in mind:
"Stay out of shallow waters!" - if you wanna live long...:know:

Happy hunting!:arrgh!:

Early in the war you might get away if the DD crew is green. As the years go by though if you get caught in shallow waters you will die. One way to avoid the depth charges is to try to position yourself in the Destroyer's blid side (its back). Also try to use bolds (if you have them) and as soon as they're lunched go at ahead flank for 10-20 seconds. After than it's silent running again. That should help you avoid the sonar pings and head for deep waters.

Good Luck

Not necessarily. I got detected in less than 40m of water and took quite a hammering. Constantly getting pinged and depth charged. Took quite a bit of flooding and hit the ocean floor hard causing more damage. In fact I thought I was a goner. I had to disengage silent running to make repairs in order to get off the seabed and try and creep away, which I eventually did. So U-51 lives on to fight another day, I'm pleased to say. This was in March 1940, which was probably in my favour due to the convoy escorts not being as good as they were later in the war.

Nemo

How many are there? If there aren't too many, my advice would be:

torp the suckers!!!:arrgh!:

It works. They usually circle around you, and quite close too. Just set up a torp, preferably a magnetic keel shot, and look in the radio room to find where they are. If they come behind the stern/in front of the bow, quickly raise the scope and loose the torp!!!
It works with T1 (but you have to be really close) and T2 (bit more difficult to aim).

Another tactic is going ahead flank, and luring them behind you. If their behind you, heading the same course as you, you can sink them with a stern keel shot. It's being discussed somewhere on the forum.

I hope it helps for you!:p

What happened to all that stuff about "...ASDIC is not that efficient in shallow waters":hmm: ??

U-Boats were built for deep water!

Just not too deep lol

-Indy

Hydrophones work just fine in shallow water though... and "not that effective" doesn't mean that they wouldn't try to use ASDIC.

Sure thing... but would they be successful? At least enough to leave me down there forever...? :dead:

The fundamental rule has got to be: Stay in deep water as much as possible :arrgh!:

Just hit the seabed gently, very gently and turn everything off. Worked for me a couple of times. Of course it must be done before you get detected. Later when I get home I will post a couple of screenshots. :up:
CapZap

But how do you get your u-boat to stay on the bottom? I find that at all stop my boat starts to slowly rise (unless I'm taking damage and flooding).

Nemo

So punch a few small holes in your hull then :lol: :up:

The best way is to manually trim your depth a1 1 knot speed for a very brief period of time, and the cut engines again, and so on, and so on. It's quite tedious, but it works. :up:
CapZap

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Sorry for the double post, but this just came in as I was typing
CapZap

So what has happened to the "arming range of torpedoes" ?

You cant send a fish closer than 300m. And in 300m, a "destroyer" is almost an impossible shot for their hi speed & all time manuevering sweeps!

I tried this before. Just laying dead silent at the seabed. ... always been detected!

My logic says, you cant be detected as you become a single body with seabed? But it doesnt work :down:

don't overestimate distances, mentat.

and it's exactly due to the close distance that there high speed and manoevrability may just not be good enough.

Anyway, it's a last hope tactic. But if you're caught in shallow waters, and you here the other destroyers coming, you may need that last hope.

I have this same problem, shallow waters are just death for me at the moment. I have read some good suggestions on the boards here and mean to try them at my next unavoidable shallow encounter:
1) if its just one DD, and you hear the active pinging, they are not being passive, so crank up the speed and try and get some distance
2) Likewise, if they are not pinging be silent
3) if you are being pinged, show them your narrowest aspect so they get a smaller return (point bow or stern towards them)
4) try and take advantage of their baffles. From what I gather, ADSIC only applies about +/- 45 to 60 degrees off the DD bow, so if you get farther off than that, you "should" be safe. Also, I think DD passive listening applies +/- 135 degrees off their bow, so get in the rear quarter and you are invisible.
5) ADSIC range is limited to "only" 1-2.5 km (longer later in the war, closer earlier), so if you can spend some time in the baffles at high speed, maybe you can get out of this range.


Some other points:
1) I'm think I'm getting too jumpy and turning too much trying to evade my enemy, ending up in not much distance made. Next time I plan to keep a cool head, and plot on my map contact updates and my position as much as possible. This is so I can get a better idea of my enemy's course and more importantly, see how long I have traveled down a course, so I don't end up turning before any real distance has been made.

2) Sitting on the bottom has not worked for me at all. You would think that it would be difficult to distinguish the sea bottom clutter return from a sub since they are about the same height, but in my experience enemy destroyers will.

3) I don't really understand the damage control section, so its not clear to me what the effects are :doh:. I did find out at one point though, losing your compressor seems to be about the worst thing that can happen, without it I seemed to just gradually sink. And in if I moved I seemed to be taking more damage from scraping on the sea floor :oops: