aw heck now that IS embarassing!!!!
 

Started a new career from the start of the war. Took S-27 out to sea and after a month at sea things were good, two 5000 ton ships sunk and moving into position on a small convoy.

My engines were stopped so they couldn't hear me yet the lead destroyer opens up with his ASDIC and somehow knows exactly where I am. My scope was down too, so that wasn't giving my position away. Despite the fact i was just sitting in the water, rigged for silent running, and no engines even running, he knew I was there.

I dove down deep below the thermal and took the boat beyond the 200ft test depth. They lost contact with me for some 10 or 15 minutes but then somehow picked me up on ASDIC again. Despite this, I couldn't shake them after that. I played cat and mouse for 30 minutes, taking the boat even deeper down to some 320ft before the hull started weakening. Back up at 300ft, and 20 minutes later with the DD's still pinging and slinging, the hull weakend and the boat was crushed.

That was a first patrol, and those DD's were impossible to get rid of. It was like fighting against the british in 1944 in SH3. :(:damn:

S-27 sunk on January 8th 1942 after a month at sea, all hands lost.

Still a good deal more glorious than my worst SH4 career!

Anyway I often get the feeling that the DDs are going for me when they sweep the area ahead of a convoy ... I don't think they are though as they sometimes turn around right before getting close enough to detect me. Actually I've been missing some dedicated destroyer captains in SH4 - the English just seemed to put more back into it in SH3 imo!

I can beat that...if "beat" is the proper word to use...first time I ever left Manila at warp speed I collided with something...a chunk of rock...a ship.. who knows? I felt very very foolish indeed. :shifty: Especially so... considering my vast experience, stature and standing in subsim history...:lol:


You at least have the consolation of departing under honorable wartime circumstances...:yep: ...nobody has ever been able to court lady luck for very long....and always win her favor....

My computer still makes it very hard to play SH4, but as I just recently noted in a similar SH3 thread I once got too close to a merchant, and when it blew up it took me with it...in gunnery training school!

Exactly what happened to me! I rammed the front 2/3 of my sub onto land. To further my humiliation I was still close enough to the port to click the "dock" icon. I was imprisoned for the rest of the war.

I think I ran into that same chunk of rock my very first time out of Manilla....lol


[quote=Seminole]I can beat that...if "beat" is the proper word to use...first time I ever left Manila at warp speed I collided with something...a chunk of rock...a ship.. who knows? I felt very very foolish indeed. :shifty: Especially so... considering my vast experience, stature and standing in subsim history...:lol:


/quote]

First, depending on your depth, you may have been visually spotted. The Pacific is rather clear, and (especially if you're playing TMO with Ducimus' evil changed) you might be seen while submerged. Also, if the weather was bad you may have partially broached, with your scopes or even the top of the conning tower coming out of the water.

Second, it seems to me that anytime you get within roughly 500 yards of an escort they just "know" there's an enemy sub around and start pinging.

Well that's a total crapper. In the time i've had SH4, that was my FIRST encounter with a Japanese convoy, yeah it only had some 4 merchants in it, but it had destroyer escorts and such. I was really looking forward to scoring some tonnage and then diving deep, but, even diving deep below the thermal didn't help. I took that little S-class boat down to some 320ft before the hull started complaining really bad lol.

Kind of a shame, it goes to show that when it came to diving depths, the German Uboat was by far superior to their American counterparts. I mean, an American sub that can dive down to 300ft is only 90mtrs by german standards. German subs frequently went to depths of 200+ meters which is considerably deeper. But i remember someone telling me that German subs could dive deeper than their US counterparts because they were smaller and displaced less water or something. lol

The more water that is displaced, the greater the force of that water trying to retake its place. More water displaced, more force pushing back.

Isn't pressure normally measured in force/area? I believe that it's linear with the depth - the force the water exercises on a given area at that depth.

Been a while since I had that stuff though, so not quite certain.

That is correct, as German subs were WWI designs, riveted together like sugar boats for the US. Their smaller size made them able to dive deeper. But greater diving depth alone doesn't make a sub superior. I would argue that speed at silent running is more important in avoiding attack. You can run the American Gato at 3 knots with very stealthy capability.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that because the escort is pinging he knows where you are. Lots of times they ping and know nothing. Determine detection by their actions. If you are showing them a low aspect ratio they might ping away for minutes and never know you're there. As Douglas Adams would say, don't panic!:arrgh!:

:hmm:
Interesting
So if both same construction AND the sugar boats smaller than a VII then should be able to dive deeper than the type 7 based on your observations above ?

Must be more to it than that as S boats couldnt dive anywhere near as deep

True comments about the pingng, but I know when they have locked onto you with their ASDIC because the speed of the pings increases. I'm hoping I was unlucky with this encounter with a convoy, i'll need to see how things go when I start again.

The Type VII hull was welded, not riveted. From the ONI documents put together on the U-570, captured by the British in August 1941, and inspected by the Americans in September:
Further, the Americans and British were both surprised by the thickness of the pressure hull - 7/8" at the aft torpedo loading hatch and 3/4" at the forward torpedo loading hatch. US boats at the time were 1/2", I think.
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-570ONIReport.htm

Section II-B-2, page 17

And the same from the British examination:
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-570BritishReport.htm

'Short General Description', page 4

There is no invisibility cloak in the game. Doesn't matter if you are shallow or deep, you can be detected if you are using the wrong tactics. There is more to hiding than silent running and slow or stopped engines.

As others have mentioned, it's a frequent mistake by new commanders to assume any ping heard or change in enemy heading or speed is a detection and attack. You have to carefully observe your enemy to know if you've really been detected or not. Over-reacting can often lead to being detected when you were not. This is a misunderstood tension aspect to this fine game.
-Pv-

Not sure, but didn't the Germans use higher grade steel for the pressure hulls as well?

Everyzing German ist higher-grade. Even ze Germanz.

Well, to add a little more to Sailor Steve's remarks :up: (see above post), there was an added factor as to why the Germans went so deep in their subs. Basically--they had to. The Allied sonar changes, starting with Q apparatus and culminating in Type 147 Sword sonar gave the allies the ability to look down at much greater angles than the Japanese ever could. A U-Boat at 300 feet was in perfect hedge-hog range for a 147 equipped escort where a Japanese escort would lose contact with a boat that deep while still ~400-500 yards away.

The Americans did go deep to--usually by accident. the Tang went to 700 feet and survived. Test depth was 400 (Balao). The Puffer sweated out an attack for 37 hours at 500 feet (Gato Class--300' test depth). Even the old Pollock had it's 500+ foot moment, twice it's test depth!

In Peter Cremer's excellent book U-Boat Commander, he tells about how they took their boats down until the "frame members began to crack". And they still got the poop kicked out of them.

"Have To" was a great motivator for the depths gone to by the Germans in WWII...

Cheers!

Peto

I did this yesterday. One torpedo hit a merchant and it didn't want to sink. So I decided to deck gun it down to visit ol' Davy Jones. I was a tad bit too close I guess because when it blew up my crew informed me "damage here there and everywhere". :(
I was a bit !#%¤#!%&"# because I had sunk over 50,000 tons before this. :oops:

Done this also. Except I was not anywhere near a friendly port and managed to repair all the damages and get the sub running again. So I limped to the mission area, sunk one ship to complete the objectives and returned to home port. My superiors had hard time to believe my story that I had collided with an ice berg though. Dunno why. ;)

running agaround
 

I too have run aground and that was at high TC. Watch out for little islands that don't show up on the map until you are zoomed in.

Even though you may repair the damage and go on, keep in mind that your hull retains some damage and will crack easier until port repairs can be done.

Back to the topic of thread...I'd be interested to hear a learned discussion about the differences between the asw detection equipment among the nationalities. I am sure that all sonar and all asdic systems were not equals.

I usually go deep and zig zag away keeping at 5-10 degree turns. I've found the enemy has trouble zeroing in on a turning unit.