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TWOs I just cannot shake off destroyers

After suffering the lame destroyers in the stock game I’ve encountered the other extreme in TWOs. I’m in mission 2, coastal waters. I encountered a warship, sunk it, then 3 of his mates found me. After 3 hours of wasserbombing and jinking this way and that in real time I finally got punchy and headed east and TC X 68. The network of blue lines keep circling. They seem to have run out of depth charges but I’m down to low battery and very little oxygen.

This just isn’t very realistic. Will I have to game the game again?

Using high TC when enemies are nearby is a very bad idea in all SH games, it has the effect of magically send all enemies right over you, that's a glitch in all SH games. Use TC not higher than x4 or max. x8 in WoS if underwater with enemies or if your sub is damaged.
Hey, this is written in the docs of WoS, I'm pretty sure...

If still the destroyers are too hard for you, you can tweak WoS to show the destroyer's sonar cones by changing the settings in the OFEV or even in the game itself (there is an icon to press on the NavMap to change settings). Then, try to keep a low aspect angle and avoid the orange cones of the destroyers. The AI is quite good in SH5 WoS, and I already said elsewhere that this game is not for 'casual gamers'...

XS

Thanks Xenon.

I’m really not after a casual game at this point. As I said I did at least 3 hours in real time. I was very impressed at this point as it’s exactly the challenge I was after.

I’ve played SH since the very first one and generally there’s a point where the destroyers are losing the scent and you can up the TC a couple of notches, which eventually is what I did, but it felt like they could ‘magically’ find me. If I’m wrong, that’s good.

I’d rather not have to resort to arcade cones and the like.

I just wanted to know that this wasn’t a glitch and I do stand a chance of shaking them off if I do everything right.

Btw...does it mess up the game if you save during one of these situations? I was up til 5am last night! What’s the solution?

Cheers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compans57 (Post 2666732)

(...)there’s a point where the destroyers are losing the scent and you can up the TC a couple of notches, which eventually is what I did, but it felt like they could ‘magically’ find me. If I’m wrong, that’s good.

I’d rather not have to resort to arcade cones and the like.

I just wanted to know that this wasn’t a glitch and I do stand a chance of shaking them off if I do everything right.

Btw...does it mess up the game if you save during one of these situations? I was up til 5am last night! What’s the solution?

Cheers.

'Casual gamer' is no blame at all, I'm one of them in many games...
Rest assured that yes, the magic reappearance of the enemy over you if you use a higher TC is a glitch, nothing you can do about but NOT use too high time compression.

It's better not to save game with enemies in sight, the risk to corrupt the save is small however. The risk is bigger with enemy airplaines in sight, or with damaged units in sight. What's important to not get corrupt saves is: always save in a different slot and don't use autosaves (just delete them, you get the delete option when saving a game, also delete your previous good saves when you don't need them, they take a lot of memory with time. Always keep bunker saves.)

Have fun and go on asking if you need help,

XS

Hello and good evening companse57,

3 days ago I suffered the same. Various destroyers came over me to bomb me up. My escape was, that I was near the ground, 106 meters deep and all machines off. Send my crew to sleep and activated the CO 2 filter. Because my hydrophone was damaged I couldn't hear exactly when they lost pacience and had drained from me. After 20 hrs I had to surface at night and oh luck, the sea was abandoned.:Kaleun_Party:
The20 hrs I passed with TC 64.

But I have to admit, that it was the first time, that I could escape this way.

Greetings from Uli

By the way if you are laying around on the bottom of the sea and try to do repairs, dont save and reload the game. Your sub will get additional damage on spawn caused by the collision with the ground :)

Why destroyers will not let go:

Weather: on a clear calm sea, destroyers will not only sound locate you better, they will be more accurate in attacks.

Profile: the profile of your boat, when a sonar ping hits it, is reflected in this game. A sound shot on your broadside is a huge sign pointing to your sub!

Sound: if you manage to get distance from the attackers, you need to go 50 RPM or less, cease repairs, and wait.

Because the DC rack inventory in this game is unrealistic... you could be depth charged by one ship for a ridiculous amount of time. Bring a book to read!

Do they eventually run out of depth charges and will they eventually go home?

They do, but they have a non realistic amount.

Will they go home at that point?

They will go back to the convoy, or other scripted destination.

If you stir them up, they will come back, and follow you even without DC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bstanko6 (Post 2666838)

They do, but they have a non realistic amount.

Anyone know how many?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bstanko6 (Post 2666827)

Because the DC rack inventory in this game is unrealistic... you could be depth charged by one ship for a ridiculous amount of time. Bring a book to read!

This sounds like a good idea for modding project :hmmm:

Custom weapons with more limited ammo can be added, I did one on my yet unfinished motor launch. Models are already there so one would just need to clone existing weapons with accurate ammo for each ship type.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compans57 (Post 2666646)

Convoy escorts won't let you go as long as they detect you, at least once in XX number of minutes or until the convoy leaves the area. Then they will rejoin the convoy.

However, lone destroyers (coastal patrols and dedicated hunter killer groups) will leave you only if they can not detect you anymore and I don't see what's so unrealistic about that? :hmmm: Free tip: All you need is depth, silence and some luck. Trying to perform fancy holywood DC dodge escape with AK will only make them more persistent...

in my example i posted about in the topic somewhere below, there were 4 convoy destroyers on me at some point, 2 of them left around 1 hour, and then the other 2 kept on my ass for another 2h before they ran off back to the convoy. i think their behavior was pretty realistic if you think about it: 2 of them rejoined to protect whatever was left of the convoy and the other 2 were still pissed so they stayed on me for a bit longer lol

when i surfaced after 3 hours, i was around 10k kilometers from the initial torpedo attack spot and in the opposite direction of where convoy was heading, so you can see that range of convoy destroyers is pretty high

I'd say this behavior is pretty realistic to be honest. Frustrating, sure, but realistic.

The Allies developed a tactic they called 'Swamp' for hunting U-Boats. They knew that U-Boats had a limited battery and oxygen supply and would eventually have to surface after a period of time, so they exploited this.

They formed dedicated hunter-killer ASW groups, that weren't tied to escorting convoys and had the time and resources to hunt sub persistently. When they found a submerged U-Boat, they would hunt it relentlessly until it was eventually forced to surface through lack of oxygen. At which point it would be destroyed or captured. They didn't even need to attack it with depth charges, just maintain contact with it and hunt it to exhaustion.

Quite a lot of U-Boats were neutralised in this manner. Especially from 1943 onwards.

INDEED!

Quote:

Operation Swamp
This was the Allied overall designation of all-out search and destroy operations against Axis submarines in the Mediterranean Sea (autumn/winter 1943/44).

In any such operation the detected submarine was kept submerged until it finally had to surface for air, and was then overwhelmed by the attacks of Allied warships.

The Mediterranean U-boat campaign lasted from 21 September 1941 to 19 September 1944. The Italians having failed to neutralise Malta as a British base, the Axis supply convoys to North Africa were suffering severe losses, and this in turn threatened the Axis armies' ability to fight effectively in the Western Desert campaign as a time when the Allies were able to maintain the flown of men, weapons, equipment and supplies to their forces in this theatre and, to a lesser and often threatened degree, to the island bastion of Malta. In light of the failure of the Italian submarine and bomber efforts to do so, the Kriegsmarine was entrusted with the task of isolating Malta so as to disrupt British supply convoys to the island and, if possible, force it to surrender for lack of food. As the Allies gained the upper hand, U-boat operations became targeted at the various landings in southern Europe.

Some 60 U-boats made the difficult passage into the Mediterranean Sea via the British-dominated Strait of Gibraltar, and of these only one managed to make the passage back into the Atlantic Ocean. Admiral Karl Dönitz, the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote was steadily reluctant to send his boats into the Mediterranean, as he saw the Atlantic as the primary theatre, but recognised that natural chokepoints such as the Strait of Gibraltar were more likely to result in vulnerable concentrations of shipping.

Of the U-boats sent to support the Italian effort, many were attacked in the Strait of Gibraltar, losing nine of their number sunk and another 10 damaged. Had these U-boats been deployed in the Atlantic, or directly along the coasts of the UK, it can be argued that Germany would have been offered a greater advantage.

The German navy already possessed some knowledge of the area, for U-boats had operated with great success in the Mediterranean during World War I (Dönitz himself had been an officer on UB-68, which had been sunk in the region), and U-boats had also supported the Nationalist insurgent faction in the Spanish Civil War (1936/39). The Republican government’s navy had 12 submarines, while the Nationalists had none and therefore welcomed the advent of U-boats. The first two of the boats were U-33 and U-34 which, under the codename 'Ursula', departed Wilhelmshaven on 20 November 1936. Both boats sailed down the English Channel and entered the Mediterranean on the night of 27 November. The boats were soon in action, U-34 launching a single torpedo at a Republican destroyer in the evening of 1 December. The projectile missed, impacting on rocks. Under the command of Leutnant Harald Grosse, the boat made other attacks on 5 and 8 December, but again gained no success. U-33 did no better, its commander being frustrated by the absence of target identification or defensive movement of his intended victims. The only vessel was sunk by the U-boats was the Republican submarine C-3, which was torpedoed and sunk by U-34 on 12 December.

By October 1939, Dönitz had decided to use three longer-range boats to intercept the first Allied convoys of the war. U-25, U-26 and U-53 met in an area to the south-west of Ireland before attempting to force the Strait of Gibraltar and attack Allied convoys in the Mediterranean, but matters seemed to be inauspicious right from the start when U-25 was diverted against a convoy to the south-west of Lisbon in Portugal. After an unsuccessful torpedo attack on a steamer on 31 October, Kapitänleutnant Viktor Schütze, U-25‍ 's commander, surfaced and sank his target with fire from his deck gun. This caused a crack in a vital part of the boat, which compelled it to return to Germany.

U-53 ran short of fuel after shadowing a convoy in the Bay of Biscay and was also forced to return, which left only U-26 available to enter the Mediterranean. A combination of adverse weather, searchlights and British anti-submarine patrols forced Kapitänleutnant Ernst-Günter Heinicke, the boat’s commander, to abandoned an attempt to mine the waters off Gibraltar, and the boat passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on the surface and claimed only one ship sunk in the Mediterranean: this claimed was not confirmed by post-war analysis. U-26 headed back through the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived back in Wilhelshaven on 5 December 1939 as the sole U-boat to enter and then leave the Mediterranean in World War II. The 23rd Unterseeboots-Flottille was established in September 1941 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Fritz Frauenheim with its base at Salamis in occupied Greece, to intercept coastal shipping being used to sustain the Allied forces through the siege of Tobruk, and U-boats patrolled the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. On 7 December control of the 23rd Unterseeboots-Flottille was transferred from Kernével in the north-western part of German-occupied France, where Dönitz had his headquarters, to the German command in Italy, headed by Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring. Additional bases were established in Pula on the Croat coast of occupied Yugoslavia and La Spezia in north-western Italy as more U-boats were ordered to the Mediterranean until the German navy’s focus shifted to the western Atlantic through the 'second happy time'. Up to this time 29 U-boats had entered the Mediterranean.

La Spezia became the headquarters when the boats on the Mediterranean were reorganised as Korvettenkapitän Fritz Frauenheim’s 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille in May 1942. No more U-boats were assigned to the Mediterranean from mid-January to early October 1942 as opportunities along the east coast of North America seemed more productive during the 'second happy time', and Generaloberst Erwin Rommel’s Panzerarmee 'Afrika' was advancing toward Egypt. The 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille centred its attentions on the Allied convoys nourishing Malta and the British forces on the Egyptian/Libyan coast. For sustained operations, U-boats spent approximately one-third of their time on patrol, one-third in transit to and from base for routine provisioning and refuelling, and one-third undergoing major overhaul or repair. The 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille's strength of 20 boats enabled a routine patrol strength of three U-boats from Salamis in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and three from La Spezia in the western basin of the Mediterranean. The loss of U-372 and U-568 in 12-hour sustained attacks demonstrated vulnerability of single boats to a team of destroyers which could hunt a submerged boat to exhaustion of air and battery power, rather than moving on after a few attacks.

More boats were assigned to the 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille after the Allies' improvement of anti-submarine capability along the east coast of North America ended the 'second happy time'.

When a patrolling Short Sunderland flying boat located U-559, it summoned five destroyers able to maintain contact while dropping 150 depth charges over a period of 10 hours until the submarine attempted to sneak away on the surface at night. Waiting destroyers open fire as soon as the boat surfaced, and the crew abandoned its vessel. The Royal Navy boarded the sinking boat and recovered German code documents before U-559 sank.

The 2nd Battle of El Alamein prompted a concentration of boats in the western basis of the Mediterranean in anticipation of an Allied amphibious invasion. Five U-boats made contact with the 'Torch' convoys, and two wolfpacks assembled near the invasion points. U-73, U-81, U-458, U-565, U-593, U-595, U-605 and U-617 constituted 'Delphin' (i) around Oran, and U-77, U-205, U-331, U-431, U-561 and U-660 constituted 'Hai' around Algiers. The Germans lost five boats in their efforts to oppose the 'Torch' invasion.

The Allied armies advancing through North Africa and Sicily constructed a system of airfields, increasing the frequency at which the boats were detected from the air. The 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille focused its efforts on the convoys in the western basin of the Mediterranean supplying Allied troops, but three U-boats were based at Salamis to maintain a patrol presence in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and thus make its necessary for the Allies to dilute its anti-submarine effort. On 1 August 1943 the 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille shifted its headquarters from La Spezia to Toulon, where it could use the former French naval base for patrols in the western basin of the Mediterranean.

In the time after Italy’s capitulation in September 1943, the Allied escort forces in the Mediterranean became more numerous, and their tactic of hunting a detected U-boat to exhaustion was given the name 'Swamp' and used with increasing frequency. The boats used the new G7e passive-homing torpedo against destroyers, but were unable to cope with a team of escorts. U-boats remaining in port were subjected to Allied bombing raids from newly constructed airfields. The surviving boats of the 29th Unterseeboots-Flottille were all scuttled at Toulon when the 'Dragoon' (i) invasion of southern France closed the base on 15 August 1944. The three boats remained at Salamis until Allied forces reached the island on 19 September 1944.

In overall terms, the 62 boats which operated in the Mediterranean sank 95 Allied merchant ships totalling 449,206 tons and 24 Royal Navy warships including two carriers, one battleship, four cruisers and 12 destroyers. All the boats were themselves lost or scuttled.
Four U-boats were sunk by Allied submarines in the Mediterranean.

:Kaleun_Salute:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BritTorrent (Post 2709645)

The most successful British one being 2nd Escort Group (Royal Navy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Es...up_(Royal_Navy)

Led by Captain F.J. "Johnnie" Walker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_John_Walker

This one in particular was worth the trouble. https://uboat.net/men/kelbling.htmOf particular interest was the 3 for 1 kill of British ship Devis transporting two LCM's enroute to operation Husky. After enjoying some success over 12 patrols in the Mediterranean, U-593 was sunk on 13 December 1943 after being hunted for 32 hours by two destroyers.

Quote:

Sunk on 13 December 1943 in the Mediterranean Sea north-east of Bougie, in position 37.38N, 05.58E, by depth charges from the US destroyer USS Wainwright and the British escort destroyer HMS Calpe. 51 survivors (no casualties).

The commander and the entire crew were taken prisoner. Kaleun Gerd Kelbling was a dangerously competent U-boat commander. He died in 2009, well after his tenure as a POW in Canada. :Kaleun_Salute:

Quote:

THe 3 for 1 shot on the convoy commanders vessel!!??: his torpedo hit and sank the Devis (Master Walter Denson), the ship of convoy commodore (Rear Admiral H.T. England, RN) in station #41. She had 289 Canadian troops and two British landing craft on board for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. 52 soldiers were lost. HMS LCM-1123 sank with the ship, while HMS LCM-1129 floated off slightly damaged and was salvaged by its crew.