Has anyone done this?
 

I recently found myself doing a photo recon in a harbor when suddenly, a destroyer come into the harbor, pinging away and IT WAS LOOKING FOR ME!

I backed into one of the slips and went silent. It was just a complete stroke of luck that I was aimed just right so that I could back into that slip. If I had needed to maneuver, I would not have made it. That action saved my bacon and I was not discovered.

Is the AI on this sim really THAT good that this level of realism exists? Either way, this is fun stuff!

What do you mean by "slip"? What is that?

A boat slip is the docking area between two wharves where a ship is moored. Since I have a real boat in real life, I may have used the wrong nomenclature. What's good for boats and what's good for ships may be two different things.

Yes...and I sank him....

Excellent evasion tactics by the way....

You can also hide next to a partially sunk ship in the harnor and attack approaching escorts. The same can be done by hiding under a slow-moving tanker, at sea, and attacking by sonar while submerged. Especially useful with acoustic torpedoes....

I have only ever noticed there is always at least 1 destroyer guarding ports, however when there is a fleet parked there, o my its a death trap for me.

Is it a death trap because of numerous active destroyers? Being used to SH1, where there were usually only two active destroyers, it was easy, I would just deck gun them because they would wait to get close before firing. I take it it is not that way in SH4? I am still in the Torpedo Attack tutorial, I still have not quite figured out how to make a successful torpedo attack, and will play that one until I am comfortable enough to try the Convoy Attack tutorial.

Would not reccomend gunning it out with a destroyer

Not in SH4, no, I don't imagine so. This was SH1, where they would not fire until around 2000 yds away. I would open fire around 4000-6000 yards, the computer would automatically adjust the gun for range. With a heavier gun, it would take about 10-15 rounds, with a lighter gun earlier in the war, it would take between 25 and 50 rounds. Actually, if I remember correctly, the S-class had heavier guns than the P-class, so many of the P-classes were refitted with the guns from the S-classes as the S-classes were sent back for training purposes.
Just got sunk in SH1 by a merchant who was firing from 3000 or 4000 yards, very accurately, I might add; I had already taken some damage from another armed freighter of some kind. Won a Posthumous MOH, SS, NC. Yay.

I have been killed by destroyers enough now that I've gotten really frustrated at times. Frustration leads to desperation and desperation can lead to some really rash actions on my part. But I figure, what the heck? I'm about to die anyway.

So, just a little while ago, I had a fast destroyer closing rapidly from behind. Since he had already pinged me and knew exactly where I was, I didn't try to go deep and silent. I turned as quickly as I could directly away from him and went all ahead flank! I opened my stern tubes and waited until he was dead astern at about 600 yards. I fired one fish right on his nose and down he went! By this time, his partner in crime was closing in from almost dead astern too. So I did exactly the same thing and YUP, he got one right on the nose, too.

OMG! I couldn't believe that that actually worked! - TWICE EVEN! Of course, it cost me two torpedoes that i would have loved to use on ships that weighed a lot more but, on the other hand, it was better than dying. I think that one of the keys to success was that, both times, I waited until the bad guy was right around 600 yards out. Both times, I had a vivid green triangle.
Within just a few seconds of firing my fish, both ships tried to turn away in a panic. Wow, those destroyers can turn really fast. ....but not fast enough at that range. I know that if I had fired sooner, they would have dodged and if I fired later, my fish would not have had time to arm. And now I know that it only takes one torpedo to kill a destroyer.

It's a really dicey strategy but it gave me one of the most fun games I've played yet.

Yeah, this sim is getting better and better.

So do most people use the manual targeting or automatic? I am trying the manual, and it is hard, and this is just the training mission. I send the bearing, range, ship type, estimated AOB, speed, then an updated bearing and range, and can't seem to get any hits, even on a broadside target inside 1000 yards with a spread of torpedos. Should I not update the bearing and range? Or is that what the Position Keeper is for, and should I turn that on before anything else?

Nice work...

You didn't mention the Q key, but one problem with the programming - if you hit the fire key and the tube is not open, the crew will open the outer door then fire the torpedo automatically. Which is a guaranteed miss every time, because the gyro angle at the moment the fire command is given is set, and the few seconds delay to automatically open the outer door means the target has moved.

If you're not doing it already make sure you hit the Q key to open the outer doors BEFORE doing the "final bearing and shoot".

I assume you speak of American boats...my son likes the American boats, so this is how he does it. Start position keeper on initial approach. Use the red 'S' button to lock target. Approach to less than 1000 yards - I attack between 400 and 600, but a German torpedo arms quicker, so i can move in closer. Try this and see.

Ahhh....Thank you. I knew nothing about that. I kind of wondered about the doors, because as realistic as SH4 was, I was a bit surprised that they did not have a torpedo door thing, turns out it was only my ignorance. No need to be surprised after all. I will try that. That also explains the delay from when I hit the button and when the torpedoman says, "Torpedo in the water". Does it open the door only for the selected tube, or for all the tubes?

Only for the selected tube. I generally set speed and depth then hit Q (open outer door) then W (switch to next tube) and repeat until all the tubes I intend to shoot are set and open when the target is still 5000+ yards away. I also set the AOB to 80 (or whatever it looks like it will be at the moment of firing) when they're still 3000 yards or so, since you won't have time to do it at closer range - the AOB changes slowly at long range but too quickly to keep up with at close range.

Personally I use the auto open = false hack;

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...00&postcount=3

So I don't waste torpedoes, if the outer door isn't already open the tube won't fire.