Tactical tip
 

I do not know if anyone has posted this, but it is worth mentioning.

On my current patrol, I had the perfect angle and I stopped the engines and waited to the small tanker to approach. While that was happening, I opened the outer doors to tubes 1 and 2. When the tanker was at the perfect angle I fired both eels w/o worrying about having to wait for the outer doors to open.

What do you fellow captains do?

That saves maybe three to five seconds. If you only have a slow running cargo ship I don't mind, but these seconds can be valuable while attacking convois. But generally, I don't open doors myself. I have four experienced torpedo shooters to do that.

I think I've been opening the doors before firing since the beginning, even before I heard about it from the experts. I mean in any sub movie they say "open outer doors" before they fire. That just seemed to rub off on me.

As for tips I can say always set the speed of the torpedo manually because theres a bug that sometimes makes the speed wrong. That can mess up a shot much worse than closed doors.

If you dont open the outer doors your trajectory of torpedoes will be off from your original computations, there is a discussion and tests about it in one of the threads about a year ago in here.

This is w/ both doors open at the same time.

I will post a pic which will say alot.

Mind you this was not a salvo shot. this was single shots.

As promised I will post a pic. (need to make one).:D

I always open the tubes before I fire to have the instant and rightly calculated shot. You just have to be careful because opening an aft tube closes all forw. tubes and vice versa methinks. :hmm:

If u open the tubes manually from the 3D screen (that is, taking the weapons officer post) then you can open all of the tubes simultaneously, if you dont touch anything else they'll stay open for the whole attack. Then you can switch tubes in the periscope screen for shooting.

I always open the tube doors as well. Realistically speaking it depends on the target. If it is too close or moving at high speed opening the doors prior to firing makes a difference. Otherwise you can score a hit without opening them. It is more realistic though to open them

I ussualy don't open the tubes. It takes more time this way, but you really don't care. If you have a high value target, that can accelerate to high speeds, it's kindda smart to open the tubes forehand.

I open the outer doors first..just to add to the element of realism :yep:

I always open doors first. The slight delay required to open them before the fish are launched CAN be enough to cause a miss.

As far as ordering full stop and "hovering" I realize the game will let you do this but its not realistic so I dont (shrug).

I'm a door opener. Always have been always will be (except when Bernard forgets to remind me).

I do agree w/ that.:)
Bernard does have a bad habit of opening the doors and I miss the exact moment and the eels miss.:D

Opening the outer doors before firing is a nobrainer. The seconds it take for the doors to open automticaly makes the difference between hit or miss.

In addition to anything i may have written here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=94111


- mark all contacts on your map, even if their out of range to give chase. You'll be able to better see/deduce where ship traffic routes are, and alter your patrol route accordingily.

-Mid to late war. Shoot your fish, go to 1/3rd and start clawing for the depths IMMEDIATLY. Any faster then 1/3rd your liable to tip them off. If you dont start diving right away, you might not get enough depth between you and that ashcan spewing DE.

- Always sweep the area and sky with the observation scope before surfacing. Partiucarlly if 1943 onward, or somewere along the US east coast, carribean, or freetown. Nothing quite like surfacing infront of a PBY or sunderland, - and yes, your "timing" can be THAT ROTTEN. Its happend to me at least twice. Hydrophone check coulnd't hurt either if the area is well patroled.

- Shallow water and rough weather is a bad combination if you value your hull integrity.

- That unarmed, or damaged merchant your using for deck gun target practice alerts everyone in the neighborhood for you.


- Avoid using electric torpedo's beyond 2000 meters if you can help it. Particuarlly against any target moving faster then 9 kts.


Thats all i have for now. Im sure theres more but i cant think of em right now.

[quote=Ducimus]
- Always sweep the area and sky with the observation scope before surfacing. Partiucarlly if 1943 onward, or somewere along the US east coast, carribean, or freetown. Nothing quite like surfacing infront of a PBY or sunderland, - and yes, your "timing" can be THAT ROTTEN. Its happend to me at least twice. Hydrophone check coulnd't hurt either if the area is well patroled.

quote]

One small addition to this excellent advice: When surfacing set speed to flank or full; wait a few minutes afterwards before reducing speed. Saved my boat two patrols ago.

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