Scapa Flow Question
 

Okay. This is for Scapa Flow or any harbour really. So I was playing one of my careers last night and was on my way back around the north end of Britain. When I decided to look at the capital ship dates and where they were moored at. And realized the Hood was in Scap Flow!!! So I timed it and go to Scapa at night and snuck in on the surface (This is October 1939) then I found it got about 5km away, set my 4 torps to run on surface (because of sub nets) and fired (from a perfect 90* angle) and took off. Only problem was it didnt sink, If it would have been in deeper water I think it would have. I saw life boats deployed but no ship sunk message. My question is this. In Scapa Flow (Or any shallow harbour for that matter) do I need to hit them with enough torpedoes to destroy their hull "hit points" in GWX?? Or can I "sink" a battle ship there and get credit??

What happened is the hood just listed to the side all four eels hit on heavily. Im just mad because I spent all that time sneaking in without a hitch, fired four perfect angle impacts, which all hit. (they were spread to hit different parts of the ship) and got away with out having a single trashcan dropped on me. All to find out that I didnt in fact sink a single battle ship :nope:

I did the exact same thing in Scapa. Except after the first four hits, I waited a bit, danced with the escorts and fired another four for a total of six hits. Only then did I get credit by reducing it to zero points.

The problem is that if the water is shallow enough, the bottom supports the ship and keeps it from sinking. This is true for almost any of the harbors. The only real exception I've seen is Gibraltar, where the water is fairly deep.

Sinking in port
 

Does the game have the Hood as a BB or BC? I've seen other threads here asking the same question re: sinking in shallow water. Not sure what the consensus is with GWX though. Didn't GWX eliminate overall hit points as part of improved damage modeling?

I thought it multiplied the hit points by a large number, making you rely on flooding or hitting bunkers. However, 6 torpedoes seemed to do the trick on a bottomed Hood.

As for BB or BC, the engine sound is the battleship engine sound, plus the ship is EXTREMELY heavy. Yet the guns and armor were pretty light for a battleship... I'll just say that the Hood is only describable as theHood.

I recently did a Scapa Flow incursion, followed the historic path that Prien took. Fairly easy to get in if you catch the weather at the right time (good visibility and calm enough you wont get pounded on the bottom). I got stuck outside the harbor for 3 days, had to avoid ASW patrols for that period in 15m water. Little stressful.


Then there wasn't anything worth shooting in there. :nope:


Just saying this as a tip for anybody else who want's to try an incursion. It's built into GWX to leave that path open, just do a little research and recon. I found it lots of fun to do my own recon and such, just like Prien.

What path did he use?? lately (mind you its 1939) Ive been coming from the west then up through that little bottle neck at the south (basically under scapa flow) and been getting in without a hitch, only 2 escorts to avoid really)

There's a whole webpage out there dedicated to his raid on Scapa flow. One of the first google results actually. It's good reading. I'll let you figure it out. I will say though the historic route is the easiest. Once you get past the outer patrol, there are no patrols to encounter on your way in. You actually run on the surface the whole way.


Oh heck... www.u47.org there ya go... made it easy for ya.

Edit: And reading the site again, the GWX version is actually easier than historic, probably has to do with the game mechanics and how the barrier ships are placed.

Danke!:up:

Cool site...

Yes, I figured you'd get a kick out of that MN. :O::D

But it's a great read. One of the first u-boat related sites I found after starting SH3. Think FK set me onto it somehow.

One thing you might try is aiming your impact torpedoes toward points under the gun turrets. You might detonate some magazines and cause more damage that way. Hitting the fuel bunkers can also be effective. :)

I didnt think of that one. I just aimed the four torps at an even spread

Every time I hit Scapa I always head in through the Holm Sound, it gives you a good feeling surfacing the boat and just missing the two sunken ships before diving again on the other side :yeah:.
On another semi related note, I always used to start careers with U-47 before I even knew it was Prien's boat. I had a good laugh when I found out I was up to the same antics in the same boat :D

Shooting salvos almost always fails cost/benefit analysis, especially when you can take the time to find your solution and shoot.

It takes only a half minute or so extra to shoot four separate shots, which, even when you are under pressure, gives you far better target control (and spares you the stress of watching spread angle, etc).

For the past year or two, I've only used salvos (two shot salvos only) when making snap-shots under extreme pressure -- and even then, it has rarely been worth the candle.

Run the Courageous single mission a few times and compare how you do with 4-shot salvos against 4 single shots. I think you will be surprised at the results.

Well the reason I did it is because I knew that as soon as i fired (It was a night surface attack) I was at flank speed heading away from where I fired to dodge escorts coming to find me. Thats why I fired the salvo so I didnt have to wait for each tube to open, and as soon as the fourth left the tube I could leave. Mind you I had them all set to slow and was about 5km away.

Which brings me to another question, Ive started doing this (because I read that destroyers backtrack your torpedoes progress to the firing point) and have fired from 5km at night used flank to get pretty far away then dove and switched to silent running and 50 rpms and destroyers still come straight for me as soon as the torpedoes hit. What gives??? Is there a way (Besides Electrics) to fire and get away without a hitch??