Sending contact reports
 

I've heard you can send contact reports to get help. But every single time I click on that, it doesn't do anything. In fact, using the radio seems overall rather pointless, except for receiving contact reports...

Its been working for me sometimes, using GW 1.1a. When i spot a task force, i usually dive to get sound contacts and to sort out the number of ships. Then i surface, and send a contact report. Sometimes luftwaffe attacks the enemy afterwards, sometimes not. In my experience, the mediterranean is the best place for this. But i dont know if the luftwaffes attack are already scripted in GW 1.1a, or if they are responding to my call...

That part of the game is a bit rough around the edges
Send a patrol report and you get: "Keep up the good work" or 'be more aggressive'
Send a Contact report and Maybe if your are VERY lucky some Luftwaffe bombers will come and try to help you out (emphises on 'try' as they will more likely just miss the targets and get them selves shot to hell) .

But dont expect homeboy Hipper and the kreigsmarine 'Posse' to come charging in to save your dirty rotten stern tube. :lol:

Hypotetical question, maybe.,..: Was it only the Luftwaffe, and not the Kriegsmarine who assisted u-boats when they spotted some nice and juicy targets? If i send a contact report, and a german task force is nearby, wouldnt they come to my aid?

The only time it's really worked for me was in the Med. Of course I instinctively crash dived once my lookouts spotted planes (and I uh...cheated by using the external camera to get a look at their markings, which I didn't recognize :oops: ). Then when I saw them attacking the cargo ship, I realized they were Italian! That was fun.

Not far off the mark. In fact these type of reports were a major tactic of the wolf packs. Indeed sometimes the boat to make first contact would never even conduct an attack but rather "shadow" the convoy till other subs could get into position to launch their attack.

It was quite effective.

Unfortunatly thats not modeled in the game.

That would bee cool, though! Just a little "spark" on the wireless, and suddenly the grey wolves appear around you, like an army of silent ghosts...:rock:

as in AOD...

I've wondered too, as even though my lookouts call out 4, 5, or 6 ships from the convoy, the wireless operator won't send a single message, so I've all but stopped trying.

I always do it as a nod and a wink to immersion. I sometimes see results sometimes not. Unfortunately only ever see Luftwaffe attacks as a result and mainly in the Med. Has anyone ever seen a Condor out in the open Atlantic ocean making an attack? So far in nearly 2 years of playing I've never seen em other than in fly pasts over home ports.

I had 2 Ju88 make a kill on a PT boat I was gunning it out with. This was the only incident. Funny part my watch said aircraft approaching so I instinctivly submerged only to find it was my boys heeding my call:rock:. Suprising and very cool:yep:

I always used to have that problem
Not any more
Ran into a DD TF off Norway the other night - I radiod a contact report as I went to PD
To cut a long story short the DD picked me up and set about DC me
Whilst on external view the Luftwaffe attacked the DD about 6\7 times helping me to escape
Mind you every bomb missed and more than a couple of aircraft were shot down but still saved me

It all depends on how close the nearest airbase is to your position and the max radius of the aircraft in it

If you send a contact report, you increase the chance of an airstrike. From the airstrike.cfg file:

Default Air Strike Probability=10 ;[>0] Default probability to send an airstrike from a airbase (carrier)

Enemy Air Strike Probability Increase on Radio Messages Sent=30 ;[>0] Increase over the default probability on a radio message sent

Friendly Air Strike Probability Increase on Contact Report Sent=50 ;[>0] Increase over the default probability on a contact message sent


Hmmmm, wonder what would happen if you set it to 100% ?

I will sure try that tomorrow at my own computer!!!! Just to see what happens!

And it only seems to 'work' if you spot a contact that is not already identified. In other words, sending a report for a convoy that you've already received a contact report for, even if it is days later and in a different location, doesn't seem to do anything. (At least it doesn't show up on the radio message log). I guess that kinda makes sense - your alerting BDU to something they already know. Personally, I've never seen the Luftwaffe respond , so far.

:yep::yep:

Yeah but one would imagine they'd like to know about any changes of course or speed of the Convoy. To me, when I spot a convoy, getting a contact report off is something of a hassle. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to wait a while for it to work and sometimes not at all. (I'm talking about the Contact Report actually showing up in the message log.)

I've found best results if I'm shadowing the convoy from astern, and it also works to send updates whenever the convoy changes course... sometimes.

I've actually had a FW 200 attack a convoy I radioed in off the northern coast of Norway, it attacked about 1 hour after I sent the report, but this is quite a while back - so what mod I was running at that time I'm not sure. (It wasnt GW as I'm currently running tough. )

What grid were you in and what year? Unfortunately I only tend to see Ju88's but I have seen Stuka and Arado attacks as well. I guess you just have to be near enough to a german airbase with Condors.

The thing to keep in mind when it comes to air support in terms of submarines is that the respective branches of the military didn't have a very good realationship be it practical or political. Firstly WW2 was the first time air power had really become a truly functional arm of the military. Further to that fact despite the relative superiority of the Luftwaffe as a bomber and anti-fighter force it's sea based operations weren't nearly so effective. This was so to begin with because the conception of combined arms had only just been realised in ground warfare and sea warfare still hadn't fully adapted to this concept. Secondly Herman Goering made a conscious effort to stifle the Kriegsmarine's request for Air power to aid their U-boat operations. Firstly Goering refused to allow the control of aircraft dispatched to Sea operations to be the Kriegsmarine's jurisdiction which obviously slowed the abiliity to manage and improve the dynamic of their operations. Secondly Goering was a glory seeker and wished to essentially earn victory over Britain for himself. The U-boats had one goal and that was to starve out Britain. Goering saw them obviously as a competitor for that glory. The limited allowance for combined sea and air cooperation still showed great improvements of U-boats effectiveness obviously increasing the ability for detection of Merchants. That didn't stop Goering from retarding the development of this relationship. Hitler had such an insular and often skewed vision of things that only after Goering's Luftwaffe was defeated and somewhat decimated after the Blitz did he recognize the value of the U-boats but by then the Luftwaffe was needed to maintain air superiority against a recovering Britain. By the end of the war Germany had lost air superiority and what was left of the Luftwaffe was needed to combat the growing tide of the Allies in Russia, Western Europe and Northern Africa.

So taking all of that into account I can forgive the ineffectiveness of the Luftwaffe within SH3. Besides the Luftwaffe a contact report isn't only for Air support but it is also meant to provide an update to Bdu as to your current position and situation and also to give them information about contacts so that they can dispatch other U-boats to the location of promising concentrations.

Now it's obviously much less useful inside of a game where friendly ships and u-boats aren't modelled within the dynamic campaign but it is always useful for the real simmers who like to play things as realistic as possible.

Wow. That turned out to be longer than I expected.

Well, promoting and bemedalling my sonar and radio operators has had some very positive effects. Darn near all sound contacts get called out while submerged, and every contact report gets sent.