How do you patrol?
 

I've seen several great tutorials on here for tracking contacts, intercepting, destroying them, etc.

But I can't find much on how to patrol an area and improve your chances of getting a contact in the first place.

I more or less draw zig-zags through the area I'm supposed to patrol, kick up the time compression, and wait for something to happen. I'm guessing there's a better way to do it though.

Any tips?

In TMO there is a map showing the shipping lanes which does help. I don't remember if vanilla has it. Using the map you can narrow down your search patterns a bit :03:

Also don't always trust your crew to spot or hear anything, drop out of
TC once in a while and look around or use the hydra phone, Sonar guy usually has cotton in his ears and never see's the green indicator light blinking :doh:

Well that all depends on what mods you are running, if any. But generally hang out around the shipping lanes. The stock game had a fold out of the shipping lanes and over at the RSRDC thread I believe there was talk of a map used that accurately shows the lanes too.

Oh one last thing, shouldn't you be back in the engine room nuc? :O:

I use RSRD. I constantly battle nothing but large invasion convoys 30-60 ships, just over time you learn where they are.

You'll notice right before a contact or if one is near you PC will lag a little.
This means a contact is near. Basically the range equals that of your best crew and equipment can pick up, but early war you lack both. When your PC lags, go to sonar. You can hear much better than you sonarman early war. Then you get a bearing and head that way.

Study historical war, where the invasions took place. Java early war you'll run into many large convoys late Feb, early March in 42 at Java...one big convoy of over 50 ships.

Shipping lanes are the most important. Find narrow straits in the shipping lanes..good place to catch them.

Most battles are scripted in RSRD, take part in them,,,loads of fun.

I have TMO 1.9 and RSRDC.

Where do I get the map of the shipping lanes?

Also...
You know... there's a reason the called us nukes up to the section tracking party when there was a real contact out there... ;)

Yeah it's called CEP, take marker draw on paper. Everyone else was too busy to do it. :DL Welcome to subsim though!:salute:

Map is under the Misc button, Toggle the Radio Map switch, Radio pops up in the upper left corner, grab it drag down to view :D


Couple links for you also

http://combinedfleet.com/battles/

http://www.historyanimated.com/pacificwaranimated/

Well... somebody has to go do wake-ups and get coffee for the COW. :haha:

(anyone who is reading this and isn't a submariner... don't worry... we're not fighting. This is how we greet each other. Especially nukes and cones)

Thanks G2B. And awesome links! I can already tell I'll be spending a lot of time at those sites.

:salute:

http://www.naval-history.net/WW2Camp...pConquests.htm

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/subreports.htm

http://wwiiarchives.net/servlet/nav/Original_docs

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...r/timeline.htm

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/IJO/index.html

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

http://www.navsource.org/

If you run RSRD, you will eventually figure it out.

Bungo Suido is a target-rich area through much of the war. Lots of roving ASW patrols, though.

I have racked up some pretty impressive kills in the following areas:

NW of Truk: late '42, '43 and early '44
E. China Sea: 42, 43 and '44
Luzon Straits 42, 43 and '44
Makassar Straits '43 and '44
That stretch of water between Mindanao and Peleliu is crawling with tankers in '43 and early-mid '44.

The SoJ isn't too bad, as long as you can penetrate La Perouse Str. Lots of stuff heading toward that stretch of water from the W.

Try heading for the SLOT during the Guadalcanal campaign and try your hand at picking off the Jap. tincans wizzing by. VERY challenging, but fun. I find killing DD's to be almost as thrilling as killing big capital ships (almost) 'cause it can be so damned difficult. Personally, I think the renown points for DD's should be double what it is currently.

Thanks HMCS.

Don't I have to stay in my assigned area though?

Thanks for the extra links, too G2B

Yes go with your assigned areas but getting to and from with a little side trip if fuel allows is always fun. Allot of times when your done with patrol areas you get notice to RTB or patrol area of your choice.

Detours and excursions are my middle names :D:D

Patrolling your designated area was ostensibly so US subs wouldn't shoot each other. That won't happen this game, though. US subs had a dickens of a time with their own a/c through the early part of the war and at least one boat was sunk by friendly forces. That doesn't happen here, so you won't be penalized for taking the scenic route. You will, however, garner a little less renown by fulfilling more than one patrol objective - as soon as finish patrolling as per your orders radio in a status report and COMSUBPAC will radio you a fresh objective.

That doesn't mean that you can't take a lengthly detour enroute to your patrol area. Say for example you are based in Midway, Oct. of 42. Your assigned patrol area is the Palau-Rabaul shipping lanes. You can boot south and refuel at Tulagi, tangle with the Tokyo express coming down the slot or add to the inventory of Ironbottom sound before heading to your patrol area via the Bismarck Sea, where there are more targets.

Not really. Only long enough to complete the objective. You will notice on some orders "If IJN forces are detected outside this area, feel free to smoke their a**es", something to that effect. Not verbatim.

By the by- I understand that during the invasion of Luzon in Dec. 41 there are PLENTY of targets, though I don't play that part of the campaign. I am S-Boat phobic. There are plenty of S-Boat skippers in this forum, though. I can't stand those S-Boats, though. They're death traps.

During a patrol, do you frequently dive to increase the possibility of picking something up on sonar?

If so, how often and how deep?