7 Year Old Submarine Ace
 

My son has been developing an interest in submarine history. I have been including him on my recent missions and sharing information and historical facts, especially tatics.

Recently I set him up on a war patrol with a Porpoise class boat off Luzon. Realism is set to 38. With a little help, he penetrated the escort screen and got within 2700. Yards of 2 Kogo battleships and 2 Mogami heavy cruisers. Constant zig-zagging made it impossible for a good shot, so I told him to attack the destroyers using methods I demonstrated.

The escorts were literally so heavy some as if they were in tow. He fired a nice stern tube spread, with 2 hits followed by a bow tube spread and 4 hits. 2 Azuki's collided and sank in the ensuing chase.

I had him dive to 165 feet and head for Manila at 1/3 silent. On the way, he surfaced at night for recharging and sank a merchant with deck gun fire.

When he docked, we checked the log and noted 6 sunken destroyers. The icons were gray on the ones sunk by collision, so he did a good job first time out!

You should be ashamed, teaching a child to murder those innocent little pixels. :O:

Seriously, though, it's good that he likes a game that reflects history. This is how they get started with the real thing. Glad he's having fun and doing well. :rock:

My 8 years old son also play SH4 and he is specially good evading DDs. I do the approach and attack, and leave him the DDs. We are Morton and O'Kane.

Welcome to the little ace!

Fitzcarraldo :salute:

MEIN GOTT! U both let children into the MANCAVE!:k_confused::O:

Ja, er ist ein Mensch!

We watched "The Enemy Below" a few nights ago and my son said, "why isn't the u-boat commander making course changes?"

Staying on 140 was his undoing....

:yep: He's sharp.

Because he was under orders to meet another German ship but I don't know the reason. It's been a long time since I've seen that flick. I really think that was mentioned in extreme passing very early in the movie, if memory serves me correctly. It would have been very easy to miss.

Your son is correct, though. In The Art of War, Master Sunzi emphatically states one of his most important mandates:

"NEVER BECOME PREDICTABLE!"

I was about that age when I first became interested in submarines - saw Run Silent Run Deep at the theater with my Dad. Fortunately they didn't have computers in 1958, if I had a sub simulator when I was a kid I never would have done anything else. :ping:

Here! HERE!

Last time I played with a kid. It was in silent hunter 3. PLayed multiplayer so we could both do our things. I was waiting for him to start the attack on the convoy but he torpedoed me instead. Gotta give him that .... it was a very accurate 4500y shot.

And of course, you didn't dodge the torpedo because you were not expecting him to stab you in the back like that. :haha:

A number of years ago, I spent quite a bit of time playing one of the strategy games online. I learned then that BSing (backstabbing) is great fun among our impressionable young. We would all form these alliances and build this excellent camaraderie. When our enemies had been defeated, the game was supposed to automatically end. But they wouldn't. That's because one of our crew would have switched sides at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. But we wouldn't know who it was. Sometimes, more than one person would go turncoat.

So picture this:

You just won the war and everyone is congratulating everyone else. Good job guys. (Of course, you could only communicate in chat at that time.) Kudos all around but the game doesn't end. You need for it to end so you can gather up your badly needed points for better positions in future games. Everyone realizes that at least one person has switched sides. We wait and we wait. No one makes a move. People begin to accuse each other and everyone denies their treachery. We can basically see which player is the strongest, meaning he survived the war with the least damage. So it may be him but we can also see who is the weakest. It is almost always guaranteed that the weakest player is not the turncoat because you have to be strong in order to find success in your treachery. After all, the traitor is about to declare war on all the guys who just WON. It's a dicey move. The only advantage is surprise and so, suddenly (and usually) the weakest player is attacked. If the non-traitors can rally fast enough, the turncoat will be defeated. But if not, the turn coat can often wipe the map clean and gain ALL bonus points. The surprise attack will most often carry the momentum needed to win.

While I can see the "fun" in it, I can also say that I never liked it because any game could run for several hours. In almost every case, I just wanted to quit and take a break from gaming for a while. I also wanted the points I had honestly earned and I didn't want to develop a reputation of being a dishonest player. People would not want to play with me in future games. I finally was able to solve the problem by playing with my cousin. We would set up two computers in the same room so that we didn't have to communicate through chat. We could just talk to each other. Then we would be on the same side online and it worked very well. Anyone that betrayed us had to take us BOTH on.

Now, in retrospect, I remember is quite a lot of fun. :)

hedging the screenplay's 'poetic' license
 

:yeah:PRECISELY! The USS Haynes, a Buckley class destroyer escort, also makes that mistake turning to port after each depth charge attack and suffers an eel hit as a result. Ironically, and to have a movie I suppose, Buckley class destroyer escorts were equipped with hedge-hogs just aft of the A mount battery...I don't recall one being used in the movie:hmmm: In the flick: The u-boat is on its way to rendezvous with a German merchant raider in the South Atlantic Ocean; hence returning to a constant course. Depth charge wise; what wallop!

Quote:

Up to 200 DC's were carried. Two sets of double rails each side of the ship at the stern, each set held 24 charges; eight (two on Captain-class British units) K-gun depth charge throwers each holding 5 charges, were situated each side of the ship just forward of the stern rails. On Captain-Class ships, just forward of these double sets of ready racks were fitted along each side of the ship extending to midships, each set holding 60 depth charges.

But if they'd used that hedge-hog we would'nt have much of a movie....:03:

Yup, but sadly for him it wasn't good enough to sink me. :yeah: Had heavy damage on the stern including the left propeller. But lucky enough, no flooding. The hull bend but didn't crack.:/\\k: So, it was pretty much payback time. This time with 2 accoustic torpedoes. He probably thought I was using standard ones because he started to dive at full speed. The rest is up to you to imagine. :arrgh!:

But yeah, This game is still a fun game to play with kids. It isn't a twitch based game so younger player can really take their time to learn from a lower realism setting. With the added historical content and the heavy use of maths in torpedo targeting. I think it is a more appropriate game than most 'younger audience aimed' games released.

Not read all posts since thread starter but zig zagging means you have been spotted.

My tactics on spotting a convoy/task force is go ahead, run in and dive to 300. run at two thirds until without 3000, down to 1 and periscope depth. Fire and go deep again to reload.

Grey ships sunk are normally other than torps, eg: collision. They seem to be very good at that, tonight I watched a Maya Class collide with a destroyer.

2/3 is sufficient speed when leaving an attack at 300 depth. Especially when not in calm seas.