Newbie question about patrols
 

I just recently started playing SHIII and I'm already addicted to it :) I play the game on the 'normal' setting, and although this isn't 100% realistic (actually, it's only 29% realistic ;) ), I would like to do the patrols in a realistic way.

The mission are always "patrol grid XX for 24 hours". So what I do is; go to that grid, plot a course through the grid, similair to the first preset search pattern and sink a ship or two. However, in my first patrol I didn't come across any ship after 24 hours, so I went to another grid to find a C2 cargo wich I sunk.

But, is this realistic..? How were the real patrols in WWII? Did the U-boats patrol a certain area for a certain time, and then immediately return to base? Or did they patrol als long as they wanted?

(by the way; If I'd turn fuel limit on, what would happen if I run out of fuel? Is it a mission fail or is it possible to get refuelled on sea, by friendly units?)

In reality, BDU micromanaged the u-boat fleet with a capital M.

Unfortunately, the virtual BDU in the silent hunter series is nowhere near as dynamic as it should be even for a game.

In reality. A u-boat commander would be told to reach a specific area where other boats would be patrolling. He would then be provided with contact reports and instructed as to when to proceed with the attack

For example "stalk convoy, provide regular updates on their position, wait for other boats to arrive."

This could go on for days

Suddenly the order "commence attack at dusk" or something similar would come in

If conducted properly, you would have a few boats all attacking the convoy at once thereby inflicting enormous losses.

Perhaps, given the limitations of our rather unrealistic BDU, the best thing to do is decide what your favorite hunting grounds are (rockall banks, Irish sea, American east coast etc) and then hunt there routinely.

If you run out of fuel at sea... You're hosed. That's it, your done. You can refuel at supply ships or supply subs depending on your chosen mods (GWX3)

Edit: if you run at about 9 knots, your range significantly improves. Just keep an eye on your remaining fuel.

I generally head home at around 50% remaining

Theres a mod called Fuel effeciency or something. It does two things:

1) Your ahead 1/3 setting (2), is set to your most efficient speed, I spend about 90% of a patrol at that setting. A type VII could, in theory, go to New York and back at this speed if your using GWX (they altered the fuel settings to allow for more realistic ranges)

2) Very useful, the : key is now "decks awash" instead of snorkel depth. Very useful for wn you dont have a snorkel. Allows you to run with just your conning tower above water, effectively hiding the boat with a reduced cisible cross section, while keeping your watch crew on deck, albeit very wet and grumpy.



I've altered my renown settings to give me a little reward for hitting my designated patrol area, then I go to a more productive location.

As Rivet points out, BdU micromanagement is not something the game offers.

Inspired by older salts in other threads, my policy is to go to the assigned area for 7-10 days. After that, I flip a coin to decide whether to return to base or push on. Where to push on? Coin flip decides if I stay in area another week or go somewhere else. Where else is determined by successive coin flips.

I know that is capricious, and it does sometimes lead to long, fruitless patrols, but I would imagine many commanders felt their orders capricious -- and long, fruitless patrols were the norm, not the exception.

By the way, I aim to stay out 45 days per patrol. I generally start heading back to camp around day 35-38, depending on where I am.

As for fuel, it isn't a scarce commodity. If you cruise at around 8 knots, sprinting only when tactics demand it, you will probably have at least 40% fuel left when you get home. I have done 55-60 day patrols many times and come home with a third of a tank. So, by all means, turn limited fuel on. It's an easy bump in realism.

Ahhhh... game theory at it's simplest and best. :D

That's not a bad system though. I do like to adjust to higher traffic areas, either using Spinnennetz or my own favorite hunting grounds. I kind of pretend BDU has rerouted me there based on traffic and B-Dienst reports.

I love this game! If it was any more realistic, I'd have to use a densimeter every day to keep my boat balanced during dives. I've discovered that my hearing is better at the hydrophone station than my radioman, even my qualified one. In 1943, U-409 ran at night at 10 knots, and 2 knots during the daytime. In the novel "Das Boot", a night attack was described as follows..the boat was headed on a course of 250 degrees when a convoy was spotted 16 miles away bearing 140 degrees. The boat turned to port 230 degrees, then port to 220 degrees. The convoy was now bearing 170 degrees. The boat turned port to 165 degrees. The convoy was now ahead of the boat's bow. After locking the convoy in optics, the convoy turned to 180 degrees. The base course of the convoy was determined to be 240 degrees. The boat turned starboard to 255 degrees, then to 253 degrees to get ahead of the convoy at full speed to be in a forward position for attack. When ahead of the convoy, the boat turned port to 180 degrees, then starboard to 200 degrees when the convoy made it's zig/zag turn towards the boat. When the boat attacked the convoy, the boat went to 140 degrees, then to 150 degrees before firing two torpedos.
Kampf, Gewinn oder Wurfel (fight, win, or die)
Comradeship....sworn fellowship.

Oh, believe me, if I am not ordered to stay on station another week, the alternatives are "favorites." But I pick even those options by dice or coin toss. And within reason... No going to Gibraltar if I have been given barren grounds off Norway, for example.

Always. And your vision is better, too, up on the bridge. Though at 32TC or less, they are good enough.

going a few steps further than the coin tosses or dice rolls...

I had considered making an excel spread sheet on my laptop with a grid reference as a cell entry such as "BF GRIDS NORTH HALF" and "BF GRIDS SOUTH HALF" and so on and so forth until the given grids are entered into excel for the northern and southern halfs of each grid reference.

if i find myself patrolling a specific area, say AF79 for example... i can go to my laptop in excel and select "AF GRIDS SOUTH HALF" since i am in the southern half of excel....

once that is selected it will correspond to a list of about 5 to 10 "virtual orders" on a second excel page out of those it will select one at random.

for example... if i selected the cell which represents "AF GRIDS SOUTH HALF" one of the randomly generated orders might be "Proceed to grid AN16 and observe task force activity west of Lerwick."

It would be time consuming to create such a file, but in theory you could come up with hundreds or perhaps thousands of possible virtual orders and they would all pertain to your situation ie... no being rerouted to gibralter from norway.

I await that!

I've experimented with the idea, and the concept works.

however it would take a LONG time to compile all the information and make the necessary "new orders".

I'm working on a "test" one now.

EDIT: works good in theory, but excel is cumbersome for this sort of thing. really would need a program like SH3 commander or something.

To add to what's already been said:

In Silent Hunter 2 they had an awful "campaign" which consisted of a series of single missions. If you completed a mission you would go to the next. If you died, or failed to complete the requirements, you would have to do the mission over.

SH3 was originally proposed to have an more advanced variation of this, but the members of Subsim and the Ubisoft boards staged a huge protest, which led the Dev Team to take a poll and eventually change it to the current system. This meant a six-month delay in the release date (from September 2004 to March 2005), but we all said we didn't care; we just wanted it to be fluid and random.

The "24-hour" requirement is a holdover from that. No, kaleuns were not assigned to patrol for twenty-four hours and then go home. I always stay in the assigned grid for at least two weeks, then go to an adjacent grid, pretending I was ordered by BdU to do so.

All of this is fixed in SH4, in which you patrol for an assigned time and then call in for new orders. Sometimes these will be to go to a new grid and sometimes you'll be given free reign to do what you want.

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. It's all becoming clear now :)

I think I will use fuel limit, but only when I start a new career. On my current career I still want to practice attacks, especially against convoys.

I read a lot about the GWX mod. What are the most important features of this mod? And will it be more difficult to sink ships?

Oh, and happy holidays everyone! :)

Happy holidays to you, too.

Many of the GWX modders (may their tribe frutify!) write here, so they can give you the technical details...

For me:

1) a far more realistic range of merchant and naval targets.
2) much fuller, interesting home harbors.
3) harder-to-sink targets, requiring more thought and precision
4) a deck gun that doesn't sink BBs with four shots
5) airplanes that actually kill you
6) widespread mining
7) "real" events scripted into the game -- Battles of Narvik, for example
8) 650+ plus page manual that is nearly an encyclopedia the U-boat war
9) all done by dedicated volunteers who don't charge a dime.

I could go on, but I would run out of breath.

One of the things I do is to ignore all of the single ship pop ups. I only attempt intercept on convoys and task forces. My theory being those are sent out for all units who can make intercept should try. Another tactic is to only use sonar for searching once or twice a day for short time periods. I play at 100% but use map updates for target motion analysis. Chasing convoys is awesome. I have played Grey Wolves since 2006, love it.