Frustrated Captain considering desertion
 

I was pretty good with sh3 (@100%). So I decided to give sh-4 a try. The first patrol was pretty frustrating: (I play at level hard for my first patrol, I hope some of my experience in the KM might help)

1: The weather: I left for patrol to the Marshalls. It started raining as soon as I get there. Frustrated, and out of fuel, I went to refuel at mid way, It's raining there also... Head to japan to see some legit traffic, It's raining there too... From Dec 14 to Jan 24th, it has been raining continually all through the pacific...

2: The traffic: The marshalls should have been in Jap control at begining of war. But seem to be teaming with US ship (at least I see the blue icon, cause I ain't seeing a thing in the rain...)

3. The enemy ship: South of Japan, in driving rain, I finally find a target with radar. In the dark and in driving rain, I fire 10 torps (i have to fire blind with spreads), score 4 hits (4 "torpedo impact" message). I can see the ship being on fire. But she just keep on going! Not even slowing down! With my tail torps refused to fire, I have to leave.

4. the Torpedo: Although I can fire the front torps. the rear torps refuse to fire (because I "don't have a solution"??? I am in the prefect spot, but I don't have a visual of the ship.) In any event, how come I can fire the front torps blind (without solution), but not the tail torps?

Really frustrated, I might just have to quit the USN and head back to nazi germany...

For the weather, I have to admit that the weather randomisation sucks. The game tends to get stuck in rainy choppy seas once it hits them. If it becomes especially severe, such as a month of rain straight (quick, someone call Noah), there's an undocumented key to clear the weather. I can't recall exactly but it's something like control + n. Pretty sure it's either control or alt + something. I found out about it hunting around in some of the posts for new captains here or maybe in the ubisoft forum, so with some effort, you should be able to find it. Or just experiment. I'm really thinking it's at least in the n area of the keyboard, and pretty sure it's control.

The stock campaign doesn't stop traffic like it should I noticed this at wake island one time, with a pair of American cargo ships going right into the harbor while being attacked by zeros and shore batteries! I reccomend you look up the run silent run deep mod but be warned that the environment wont be so target rich. Honestly though, a little traffic going to captured ports tends to not be such a big deal, as it's very rarely noticed.

Ships can go dead in the water, have it happen all the time. Knowing nothing about the target or where you hit it doesn't leave much more room to comment. Still, keep in mind that some targets are hader to sink than others and other times a target seems to just eat torpedoes. I find I can usually take a large modern tanker down with just 1 torpedo, but about a week ago I had one eat 10 before finally sinking.

Would need to know more about your firing solution and method to identify the problem with your torpedoes. You're aware that torpedoes don't turn 180+ degrees though right? Don't recall the exact limits but it's limited to 120 degrees or so, bearing in mind that torpedoes are much more accurate when fired at or near 0, I don't use such extreme gyro angles and can't recall the exact limits.

Yes it's either ctrl+n or fn+n, resets the weather to fine. I've used it a couple of times to - well - cheat. But if you have radar you can get right on a targets tail, close in and light up the murk with the deck gun. Just hope it's not the Yamato!

It's also important what the patch status of your game is. Make sure you're up to 1.4 or 1.5 (SH4UBM) status there.

Yes, if you don't disable the engines, that target will steam on, just as they did in real life. It's somewhat rare, but it happens. In SH4 a hit doesn't guarantee the target will stop, and that is as it should be.

The weather can be a concern. Actually, rainy conditions are submarine heaven! I WISH I would get stuck in those conditions. But I never seem to. Firing from close range with sonar only is devastating and the most fun you can have with Silent Hunter.

You also don't say whether you are shooting on auto targeting or manual targeting. I assume you are trying to use manual targeting. However, there are important differences between the U-Boat and fleet boat TDC. If you have a rear torpedo tube selected and haven't sent a new shoot bearing to the TDC using the send red range/bearing button on the input portion of your TDC, your shoot bearing is still set for your last bow shot. The gyro angle for your selected stern torpedo exceeds the maximum 135 degrees possible and the game considerately gives you the "no valid solution" error rather than waste the torpedo.

Please see the Sub Skippers' Bag of Tricks thread for instructions and video on how the American TDC works. It's actually just as good (better, say some!) as the ones on the subs from the dark side. Just don't try to make the American sub work like the German one, just as an American skipper shouldn't try to run a U-Boat like a fleet boat. It's like learning a different language.:up:

That really depends on the severity and situation honestly. Trying to kill a target at night in rain + fog is bad. I find when the weather is really bad, I can barely even see the bow of my own sub from the conning tower. Given that at least identifying the target positively as friendly/foe is extremely important in real life, and the fact that this was done visually in WWII (and even now to a large extent), rules out a night attack in bad weather.

When the weather is really bad, you can't effectively launch a torpedo attack during the day either as you have to close to well within arming distance to just see what flag he's flying under, which leaves the sole option of a knock down drag out brawl with guns. I suppose you could let him pass at point blank range to get the id, then do an end around and kill him.

The flip side though is that nasty weather's great for sneaking into and out of places you're not supposed to be (eg, Tokyo harbor) :D.

There is something on that front that really irritates me about the games weather though. Have you ever noticed that the weather is very much all or nothing? I've yet to see a light rain. The wind is almost always 5 or 15 m/s, meaning either calm or choppy seas, and very occasional doldrums, but never "somewhat choppy". Never seen a heavy downpour with no or a light wind either. Though one time, on my second patrol out, I was in the nastiest storm I've seen in the game yet. The waves where high enough to wash out my periscope when I was on the surface! Couldn't run the diesels consistently so dove to test depth and waited it out. That would have been game V1.0.



In the first sentence he says he's at 100%, so manual. Still, as you well know, there's about 20 different ways to track and kill the target.



Personally, I have to say that the American TDC is hands down better. It's a shame that the mark 14 torpedo wasn't it's equal :damn:.

Actually if you're at any time before the last half of 1944 and in Japanese waters, identification isn't necessary. Submarines are the only American game in town and if it floats, it's Japanese. Check out my John P Cromwell training video for a daytime surface attack in lousy weather conditions.

The best way to shoot in zero visibility is strictly from radar. It's a guaranteed kill situation at to risk whatever to yourself. At any point in the war, Japanese merchie/escort formations are unmistakable on radar and totally different from American military task forces. So your identification can also be by radar.

If it looks like a nice line of pips or two parallel lines of pips in the middle, surrounded by an array of pretty equally dispersed pips on the outside, it's fair game! Zero visibility is paradise!

Whip over to the Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks thread in post #1 and load up the WernerSobe sonar only, my Dick O'Kane sonar only, and the John P Cromwell videos. They'll give you all you need to party down in the muck.:D

I would debate that. One exception I know of for a fact is the Doolittle raid, which means hornet and enterprise in Japanese waters in April of 42. I would be surprised if submarine skippers where alerted to the raid as it was hush hush.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there where also several less publicized special ops of varying nature as well during the war.

You also have the potential issue of neutrals (can't think of anyone in that entire area of ops that Japan wasn't at war with off the top of my head though) and if in the Aleutian fleet, allies.

Anyways, given the track record of the US military even in more recent conflicts, I would be very surprised to find that firing at a target BVR without at least being in communication with someone that has eyes on target was in any way authorized in any role in any branch of service. I'm willing to bet that any BVR shooting done during world war 2 was done only under extenuating circumstances, and was either done without authorization or authorization came down for that special case.

But yes, I can and do set up a full plot by radar or sonar when the opportunity presents itself, ready to fire long before I can see him, but will not pull the trigger until I have had eyes on target with very few extreme examples (If you're in Tokyo harbor in 43 it's Japanese :D). I'm also practiced in firing at a target by sonar or radar only as well, but drills are one thing, and your career is another.

Thanks for all your feedback.

Regarding the weather: I am hesitant to use any cheat codes. All though SH3's weather isn't perfect, but it seem to offer variety enough. Why can't they just use that weather engine? In any event, I also hunts OK in bad visibility weather in sh3, lone ship IDed on sonar rarely escapes my boat. In sh3, you always has at least 300 meter of visibility, enough to id your victim before sinking her.

In any event, I think it is unrealistic to have the weather "follow" me. It is very implausible that a vast area of the pacific shares the same weather.

Regarding TDC / firing solution: I have been using manual targeting in Sh3 for at least 10 complete careers now, I find it very good at giving me a visual feel on where the torp will be heading before I fire it. I always gather my info and enter them manually. I rarely missed anything closer than 2000 meters. In SH4, Is there a way to visually see the path of my torps before I fire them? As in the TDC screen in SH3?

Regarding the position of the boat, I have my tail pointing at the target when I was attempting to fire the stern torpedoes. Since I have zero visibility, I can't even see the front of my bow, let alone lock on to the target. On the first passes, I am about 500 yds away from the target as she is about to cross in front of me. Without knowing exactly where her positions are, The sonarman tells me "no sound contact" cause I supposedly have the ship in visual. So I fire 4 torpedoes 2,3,4,5 degree ahead of it purported location (by pointing the attack periscope), scoring 1 hit. Trying to make sure she goes down for the count, I surfaced and run a parallel course while reloading. Fire 2 remain front torps on the second pass scoring one hit. After I finished loading, I fire four more, scoring another 2 hit.

Unable to use the stern torps, I left the scene in frustration...

Regarding the durability of the victim: In all likelihood I didn't kill her engine. But with 4 torps in her gut, 2 possibilities exist, 1, all four hit at around the same spot, critically weakening the structural integrity at that point. 2. 4 torps open multiple breaches, she should be taking in water fast. Either way, maintaining 6-7 knots she would have driven herself under the waves, Especially in a driving storm.

To be honest, Some ships have taken me more than 4 torps in SH-3 as well, I once spent 5 hits to kill HMS Nelson, and 5 to kill a 2000 Passenger/Cargo. But can I be so unlucky to meet a "invincible" ship on my first outing?

I still hope to stay on the right side of history. It's getting very depressing in the other navy to hear that same message in May 1945 that told you all your work have been for naught.

According to Captains Eugene Fluckey and Dick O'Kane, when they were sent to an area in Japanese home waters, they were normally told that if it floats, it's Japanese unless they were in a wolfpack with other American subs. SOP was to advise subs by ULTRA if friendlies were entering their combat zone for any reason. In any event, these friendlies would not include merchies. Therefore, lacking specific instructions to the contrary, location amounted to identification.

In all the books I've read on Pacific submarine warfare, I've not read a single account of getting close to check out the flag for identification purposes. Fluckey sure didn't charge into Namqwan harbor and do a flag census before he started shooting.

No, that is entirely unrealistic and the devs properly eliminated that. However, you do have an impact point "x" and a lead vector which actually leads forward to your aiming point. Using the attack map, check out the time next to the lead vector. That is the torpedo transit time. Now you have to ensure the x impact point stays between the sub and the target (or superimposed on the target) for that long with the current solution. If it does, the target gets it. If not, you have a miss coming.

Yes, you definitely forgot to hit the bearing/range send button after selecting the stern torpedoes. The TDC was still set up for the same bearing you aimed the bow torpedoes. Since the stern torps couldn't turn far enough to follow that bearing, you received the error message instead of wasting the torpedoes. Unlike the U-Boat TDC which automatically updates the shoot bearing based on periscope bearing, the American TDC only changes it when you press the send range/bearing button!

STOP!!!! Under both SH3 and SH4 damage models, repeated torpedo hits to the same point result in very little additional damage or increased flooding. Unless you distribute your hits along the length of the target or you exceed the hitpoints of the target (in which case you get the hokey Hollywood explosion), your target most likely will not sink. This is something of a defect in the damage model.

Watch out for that. The correct arming distance on American torpedoes is 400 yards. Or maybe it was 450, can't remember for sure. Or maybe even it was 450 yards / 400 meters (loose approximation on metric).

During the day in bad weather I find visibility to be between 200 and 1000 yards depending.

At night bad weather visibility can drop to very short ranges which would necessitate a boarding party to engage the target ;).

Of course, probably depends some on mods too.



Well, sure Fluckey is being responsible to consider any vessels in an enemy harbor to be hostile without getting some kind of notice that the harbor was taken by American forces right?

On the other side of what you're saying, details like ROE are somewhat boring and largely unpublicized or commonly available information is vague. Talk to a US soldier about ROE and they tend to bitch about being the only armed forces where they have to thumb through a book to determine if they can engage a target or not (and things to that effect). But you never hear about that outside of a few military contacts.

Perhaps what was meant by any such statements by O'kane or Fluckey was simply that any vessel in hostile waters is treated as hostile until it can be identified positively. See, thinking about it, I've not seen any listed submarine kills or even hits as *unknown vessel* or stuff like that I can remember off the top of my head, which would seem to support my POV. Of course, I would take that statement with a grain of salt as I'm not sitting here looking at submarine records.

I seem to recall reading about someone sinking the USS Essex...:yeah: :haha:

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Hey it was the South China sea! Just because the convoy had a couple of hundred ships in it and the Japanese didn't have that many doesn't mean I made a mistake. It was all Bernard's fault on the sonar not telling me it was an American ship! Honest! I didn't get the ULTRA report! My dog ate my homework! What's one lousy aircraft carrier between friends?:D

Truthfully, I should have known by the formation on radar that it was a large warship convoy and that it likely was American. I've only had a couple of shots ever at Japanese warships and I got all excited to the point I didn't think about the likely situation in April 1945: American warships only. Oh, well, I'm in GREAT SHAPE from bustin' all these rocks.

Wait a second....

Why was a Nazi manning the sonar in a US fleet boat? Moreover, if Bernard didn't tell the American submariner that he was lining up against an American carrier, doesn't that mean he was actually acting as a compotent saboteur? When did Bernard become compotent at anything? Why did you let a German spy on the boat?

I think the Navy might have some more rocks for you, as these questions get answered.