Harbor attacks and comatose officers
 

Heya folks, I’ve been enjoying the fine game for only a few days now, trying to get the hang of things before I up the realism. I’m currently sailing the biggest boat one can get at the start of the war, I’m on my second patrol. Sank three small merchant on my way, went past scapa flow, patrolled my area and found jack all for several days, and couldn’t find anything to shoot due to bad weather and heavy fog.
With my senior officers slowly dying at their post (damn the fact I can only recharge 2 at a time) I decided to head back, down past scapa flow and figured.. what the hell, I still have a bunch of torpedoes, and with this weather there should be a bunch of ships in the harbor over here (not scapa, heard stories about that one).
So I crept into the harbor and found a C2 tanker and a small merchant, blew both to hell without being shot at by anything, the SO reported a warship closing, then going away again..


Now my question is, why do people say harbor attacks are risky? I realize it’s early in the war and my realism is set at stock, but how can a destroyer ever get to me if I’m parked stern first into a dock perfectly suited for a submerged uboat? They can’t sail over me to drop DC’s, or shoot me cause I’m submerged, couldn’t one outwait destroyers till they lose interest or crash into the dock walls?


Also, I’m having issues keeping my senior officers fit, I can only recharge two at a time, and it never seems to be enough, on longer patrols they always head into the red.

Thats because the stock fatigue model just plain sucks. There isn't any real solution to it other than to just turn it off, or get a better fatigue model. SH3 Commander also lets you set at what Time Compression fatigue stops affecting your crew. I personally have it at 128. That way when I'm in combat it has an effect but crossing the Atlantic it means nothing happens cause I'm always at 1024 (or 2048 because you can do that with SH3 Cmndr :yep:).

Tasuric; Welcome to the U-Boat nuthouse Herr Kaleun.

My guess is your running stock SH3 and getting your feet wet. That's fine but down the road you'll probably consider a mod or two perhaps one of the supermods (GWX, WAC, NYGM). Each one of those in their own rights adds difficulty and harbour traffic PLUS defences the stock game lacks.
If you want to get a taste of good harbour activity take a look at the Harbour_Traffic_147_standalone mod. That, turns stock SH3 into a good game, and will start you on the path to mod addiction.
I can't imagine not starting a game without SH3Commander anymore, that program lets you make good tweeks. If you haven't already read up on a program called JSGME. It's a mod installer for the game oviously, most mods are packaged to be used with it for ease of installation.* Please Note; before you install any mod when using Commander rollback and reset any T/C adjustments first.

Now, prepair ye to loose sleep, part of your life, and don't worry about hair falling out. :arrgh!:

*GWX has it's own installation routine and cannot be uninstalled with jsgme.

Welcome aboard kaleun Tasuric :arrgh!:
Might I suggest you try GWX (JSGME is already included)...SH3 Commander and SH3 Gen as a starter :up:

Welcome aboard, Kaleun Tasuric :D

Welcome aboard and happy hunting!

That's an interesting thought. Presumably they might make you sit there for long enough that you need to surface, but you could perhaps got a torp shot at him beforehand or duke it out with your deck gun (not recommended unless it's only an armed trawler or similar).

Another thought is that you've got to get to the dock first. I've always got near to docks by sinking any warships first...

Interested in what others think.

Welcome aboard, Tasuric!

In SH3 it's easy, with harbor traffic mods or GWX or NYGM not so much.

Others have explained that, I'll speak to real life. The famous Scapa Flow raid by Gunther Prien wasn't just a "harbor raid". Careful planning and days of study of aerial photographs were done by Admiral Doenitz before he even considered asking captain Prien to undertake the mission. Even then it was fairly dangerous, and right after that the British took great care to make it pretty much impossible to get in or out of their main bases. In shallow water a u-boat can't get under the cone of a destroyer's asdic, so detection is almost guaranteed. The water is so shallow that there's no place to hide.

Basically, as difficult as it is with GWX, it's still much easier than it was in real life. After Prien's Scapa Flow adventure there was not one single harbor raid by a u-boat.