[MarkShot]

Well, I have been playing and practicing 1943. Some initial impressions:

(1) Attacking and getting into the convoy doesn't seem any harder than in earlier years using the same techniques. The key is knowing the convoy's track and understanding the formation. Creeping in and coming about and the choosing the right time to shoot.

(2) I have a saved game where they have me cornered. I did a little practice with it and I was sunk. I need to spend more time with it and see if I can break contact. I am not sure if it is possible.

(3) After the attack, disengaging hasn't proved very hard. The important thing is to continue the same stealth tactics that got you in initially. Which is 1-3kts and start heading deep.

Very strange about SH3.

In AOD and SHCE, when a merchant goes boom, the escorts come racing to the likely location of a submarine. Of course, if you have set up the situation well, you are not there when they arrive. But the important thing is they come generally as fast as they can. Thus, they don't leave time much time to depart the area.

In SH3, I find the escorts seem to come over very casually despite their great speed potential. Thus, if you shoot a good distance away from any escorts, you stand a good chance of creeping away, since the escorts come over very casually to investigate the situation. Now, you may say that if the escorts raced over, they would not be able to detect you. True. But they need to be looking in the right spot first. One the key rules of ASW warfare when you got a sub is to box it in quickly before the AOU (area of uncertainty) has time to expand and grow.

Thus, given where the merchants were hit; some triangulation and the max speed of the sub ... the escorts should be able to close on a likely area fairly fast and commence the search. They do not. They allow the sub 2X to 3X more time than the minimum available to displace. At the same time, this translates into the potential area where the sub may be of an exponential increase in the area necessary to search.

In summary, escort logic is weak on the screen and on the hunt:

(1) The screen is too rigid of a formation that fails to cover much of the convoy's perimeter. Worse yet, the lead elements search a very narrow footprint.

(2) When hunting a sub, escorts fail to use their great speed to maximum advantage. When they have detected a sub and lost it, they tend to keep blowing holes in the same location rather than expanding the search area in a logical fashion and/or boxing the sub in.

(3) So far, it seems the one thing that the escorts do well is prosecute a contact which they continue to hold on their sensors.