Looking for player opinions/strategies....
 

Hello,

As I've posted before i have recently came back to SH5 now the game is usable with TDW's excellent mods and stoianm great tutorial videos.

After watching his videos manual TDC just seemed to click for me and I think I've only missed 1 torp, but this was on a merchant in full evasive manoeuvres.

Which kind of brings me to my point of this post I recently engaged a convoy of 9 merchants/troop transports with 3 guarding destroyers. I was about 16km in front of the group at night and was able to stay undetected. Calculated my shot and at the angle of about 87 to their port if I remember correctly I was only able to hit 1 ship. I released 2 torpedoes at 4km out and hit my target which eventually sunk.

This obviously alerted the destroyers to come searching for me but by the time the torps had hit i was already a good distance away.

So what Im asking is, was 1 boat good enough. Should I have sunk more if so how...

Also as a side note I completed the 100,000 Tons sunk in the British Coast Mission, gone back to port and end patrol but nothing happened... was with in the deadline and sunk 150,000 tons.... the mission is still available any ideas??

You can hit 3 to 4 targets at the same time:

1) If you pick 3 targets following the same line (i.e. in one column), you may shoot them at different bearings (same range, different AOB) with slow, medium and fast torpedoes respectively for first, second and third ship. It's better to be at 90 degrees to convoy course, as this helps you calculate AOB really fast. The range torpedo should travel stays roughly the same, but you compensate delay between shots (you need to reset AOB and torpedo depth, and reposition your scope) with torpedo speed. This way, torpedoes should hit roughly at the same time (if considerable time passes after first hit the convoy would probably evade other shots).

2) If you pick 3 targets following different lines, but on the same row, you may shoot them at the same bearing (different range, same AOB) keeping the same speed for all three torpedoes. You should shoot the farthest ship first, followed by that in mid-range, finished by closest ship. Torpedoes are to travel different range, but that is again compensated by the delay between shots (you need to reset range and torpedo depth).

You may be able to hit 4th ship by, for example, combining both methods (i.e. hit 3 ships in the same line and 4th in different line). Or by accident ;) Or you can go after only two by firing two torpedoes at each one.

3) Salvo shot at 90 degrees should be possible, but I hadn't put enough effort to offer you exact method.

4) The dangerous alternative is to position yourself between convoy's lines at 90 degrees to convoy's course, dive really deep (probably into red zone of the Tiefenmesser) and listen via hydrophone. Once fore escorts pass above you and preferred targets are closing, go to periscope depth and prepare to shoot fore and aft tubes with method (2). You'll need careful timing with this, as ships will be really close, and you'll have a great chance of having your scope spotted. But this way it's possible to sink 2-3 ships (even if you're spotted, they won't have time to evade at such close range), and the DDs might have trouble going after you.

Erm at the moment I fire when the ship crosses my scope, when it's at 0 degrees. How do you line up the scope and know when to fire on 2/3/4 targets?

Hope that makes sense.

I assume that 0 degrees is the bearing you've calculated AOB for, right? So when you fire at this bearing, torpedoes will impact several degrees off (how much depends on AOB, range and torpedo speed). This is exactly how it works for method (1):

Let's assume target moves from your starboard to your port (right to left).
You position yourself 90 degrees to target's course. It means that at bearing 0 target's AOB will be 90 degrees to port. Also, it means that at bearing 5 AOB will be 90-5=85 degrees; at bearing 10: 90-10=80 degrees and so on. At bearing 355 it will be 90+5=95, etc. The math is simple in this case, so you can quickly reset AOB for new target by looking at target and taking bearing from the scope.

Now directly to your question. For method (2) you'll want all torpedoes to hit at the same bearing. For simplicity, assume you're still at 90 degrees and want to hit at bearing 0. So, at bearing 0 you know that target's AOB will be 90 degrees (this will be true for all targets). So you point your scope at bearing 0 (easy to do with "view to heading" command), switch TDC to manual input, enter 90 degrees AOB and target's speed (don't forget to press red "send data" button for each parameter). The range to target is not really important in this case due to triangle similarity. I.e. you can enter the range to closest target. Then, you switch TDC back to automatic, and turn your scope towards the target, at the same time monitoring gyro angle dials of the TDC. You need to stop your scope at the bearing where both gyro angle dials will show 0. This will be your shooting bearing. Naturally, due to such positioning, the first ship to cross your scope will be the farthest one (exactly the one you want to shoot first). So you just wait for it to cross the scope and fire. Then you wait for the second one to cross scope (some seconds at most) and fire again. Same with the third one. You can even set each torpedo depth beforehand if you have the opportunity to identify each target's draft, so you won't have to do this in between shots.

To simplify: if you can hit targets at the same bearing, you need to pre-calculate AOB once and then fire when TDC shows gyro angle 0. If you can't, you need a fast and easy way to recalculate AOB for each shooting bearing.

Take a look at these great videos. Stoianm demonstrates all the mechanics there. Keep in mind that he uses different terminology (he calls "rows" what I call "columns" and vice versa).

Thanks for the info rad. I think ive seen 1 set of Stoianms vids on convoys ill check them both out.

Does anybody have any ideas on this please:
Also as a side note I completed the 100,000 Tons sunk in the British Coast Mission, gone back to port and end patrol but nothing happened... was with in the deadline and sunk 150,000 tons.... the mission is still available any ideas??

What I can think of is:

1) Turn off online saves (IIRC "synchronized saves" in Ubi launcher)
2) Be absolutely sure you sink all those tons within mission boundaries (you can check those by clicking mission's "iron cross" at the map).

Similar thing happened to me once in 50,000 tons mission.

Do you mean these in the top left corner??

http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/a...-22_204440.jpg

I wondered what they were... some are larger than the rest though?

No, no. I meant the mission marks on the map itself (i.e. the one close to "Grossbritannien" on your screenshot, though this one is for 50,000 tons mission). When you click one, you see the area in which mission takes place. You need to be within these bounds. And you can see the tonnage progress bar on mission description that way. Furthermore, when you have "patrol designated area" marks, you need to begin your hunt (sink something) close to that mark (100km IIRC). Also, sometimes you'll receive radio messages telling you to move to different patrol area.

Those in the top left corner are showing overall campaign progress and how much "progress" you get for each mission. On your screenshot, one progress point is already "filled": this is for completing "Invasion of Poland" (the tutorial).

Oh i see thanks again rad...

:DL

You're welcome ;)