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Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper
...All you had to do still, with four destroyers on you, was to dive to the bottom and hug it until you were trough the Strait.
That's the reason the destroyers are given tactical atomic munitions to use in their depth charges: Because they suck at what they're doing.
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Firstly, the destroyers are supposed to suck. It was virtually impossible at any time in WW2 to find a sub that had gone deep. I read in (
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMUS_ASW.htm) that
"In the first few months of the war only 5 percent of all depth charge attacks were successful (note: this is the US Navy, so they're talking about 1942, not 1939).
Normal combat conditions reduced that figure to 3 percent. In mid-1944, the USN was claiming an 8 percent kill rate with a single Hedgehog pattern. By the middle of 1945, that figure had risen to 10 percent.". In the game this means that if you get killed more than once in every 10 depth charge or hedgehog attacks where the enemy knows your location, the game is already too deadly. I don't know about you, but I get killed far more often than that.
Secondly, it may be that in the single missions, the game is unbalanced. The game was tweaked in version 1.4b to adjust for better play balance in the campaign game - NOT the single missions. When the patches were being made, the single missions were regarded - rightly or wrongly - as a secondary part of the game. Having said that, if you used the tactic you speak of in real life, chances are you'd be safe. The Gibraltar strait was fairly deep, so it should be fairly easy to negotiate it. In real life, 62 boats attempted the passage, only 9 were sunk. In the game that translates to getting through 5 out of every 6 times you try it. I've tried it twice and got sunk once. When you get through six times out of six, give me another shout.
Thirdly, whether you can avoid detection depends on when in the war you're playing. If you're in 1939-40 the Allies have virtually no chance of finding you, but in 1944-45 you will find that if two destroyers find you, you'll die ten times out of ten.
You shouldn't just assume that 'destroyers suck' simply because they suck in one particular scenario or in one period of the war. This game is more complicated than that, and destroyers go through an evolution as the game progresses. Destroyers 'sucking' in 1939-40 is a FEATURE, not a flaw. Basically, in 1939 you should, on average, be able to survive 33 focused single pattern depth charge attacks - and, to the game's credit, it's not too far off. In 1945 you should be able to survive up to ten (and you should be able to survive two out of three engagements where numerous depth charges and hedgehogs are dropped - in my experience in the game it's virtually impossible to survive a single such engagement). In the game it's far more likely that you'll get killed after two or three single depth charge attacks - something that was unlikely in reality. A big part of the problem is that destroyers in the game don't lose track as easily as those in real life. Contrary to your assertion that the game's destroyers suck, according to official statistics, the fact is they don't suck enough, especially in 1943-45.
Again, the widely-held assumption that every U-boat patrol was full of deadly depth charge attacks is deeply flawed. Take the movie Das Boot for example. In the movie the boat was attacked several times by destroyers, it sustained damage from depth charge attacks and was finally sunk by an air raid. In the real patrol that the movie supposedly depicts, the boat was attacked only once, by an aircraft, and the attack failed to cause significant damage. This is the reality. Das Boot is an accurate portrayal of U-boat operations, but it is a highly condensed portrayal, and gives more of an overview of U-96's entire career, rather than that of a single patrol. The question is, are we after a movie's version of reality, or do we want a true simulation of U-boat warfare? I prefer the latter, because even if it's slower-paced, the tension is that much greater if I know that I have a realistic chance of career survival. When I have no chance, then the whole thing devolves into a tiresome test of endurance before the inevitable destruction of my boat.