Silent Hunter 5 First person view.
 

I remember reading in the US Navy's submariners guide that certain vessels required a certain number of fanned torpedoes to be fired to ensure sinkings. It recommended that even relatively small vessels should have 4 torps fired at it .... I remember thinking it seemed like a lot to fire at one vessel.... but now the new SH5 is penalizing for this?

This is typically how I play anyways, but it seems to be contrary to historical protocols. Doesn't it?

Not at all. BdU's required protocol was different than SubPac's. Torpedoes were treated as premium weapons; not to be wasted. Since the uboats' mission was to strangle Great Britian, it was imperative to maximize each boat's effectiveness. It is also why attacking escort ships was frowned upon. This was also true given the small number of frontboote available at the start of the war. You needed each boat at sea for as long as possible between refits.

I see! Cool. :know:

BdU did give out an order to fire a fan of 4 torps at escorts even if a hit was
unlikely during part of the war. It was thought such tactics would force
all escorts to spend more time on evasive maneuvers.

An interesting what-if involves Doenitz making escorts a high priority target, for like six months or a year or so, stripping convoys of a significant amount of their protection, THEN going to town on the merchants. Wouldn't it be better to sink more merchants in a smaller amount of time than to spread the same tonnage out over many months? Wonder if you could do this in the game-mod it so that you have Zaukonigs right from Sept. '39, sink every escort you encounter, and by '42 see 40 ship convoys shepherded by only 2-3 escorts (if I am reading the press release correctly).

I don't know if i like that last paragraph on the "campaig of sh5" in that review guys......i dont want to lose the free to roam aspect.....being sent to a succesion of historical battles is not what im after:nope:

yeah...i jumped in a bit quick there.....i love sh3...i want millions to buy sh5..so it lives on and enchants many more unsuspecting gamers:rock:

Excellent Post Mikhayl :up::up::up: :salute:

It's all hearsay at this point. :yep:

While any news on SH5 is good.

We can't consider it Gospel.

That depends on who your informant is :03:

The only problem with the what-if is that I believe it depends on a greatly exaggerated degree of effectiveness regarding the T-5. 640 were fired in combat. Only 44 or 45 ships were sunk by it, depending on which sources you want to cite. Given that each boat was only alloted a few (meaning that you didn't fire them in a spread), that's not a ratio considered favorable enough to offset the Allied industrial output.

I think that U.S boats were a lot more aggressive against japanese destroyers compared with the germans.

Japanese destroyer losses were relatively heavy during the solomons campaign, and Allied intelligence was quick to appreciate that the Japanese were suffering from a serious destroyer shortage in early 1943. This prompted nimitz to issue an order on 13 April that destroyers be given higher target priority by submarines (second only to capital ships) in order to aggravate the Japanese destroyer shortage.

I would also take the above linked article with a grain of salt. It is an SH5 article with a picture from SH4. He mentions being able to play for both sides (what!?!?!) which we have not seen anywhere else. Many early "previews" are little more then e-published rumor-mill. Unless it comes from UBI, especially 7 months away from release, it is just speculation.

The USN in the Pacific was fighting a very different enemy than the Germans in the Atlantic. The Japanese did not have the capacity to keep up with ship building. The United States did.

This is simply trying to compare apples with pears. There are so many differences in strategy, tactics, equipment etc between the two theatres they are almost impossible to compare.

For a knowledgeable read of both theatres I would suggest purchasing the Clay Blair books....Silent Victory (PTO) and the Hitler's U-Boat War (2 volume ATO).