Soviet Waterways is probably my favourite SH4 mod if only because the situation is so completely different from TMO/RSRD, FOTRS, Darl Waters and We Dive at Dawn. If tonnage is your main thrill, you might want to stay away because shipping is comparatively rare.
I tend to succumb to aircraft or die from escorts in shallow waters in the Baltic but the minefields are pretty well marked on the chart. You need to stay out of them - or - make your depth about twenty or twenty-five metres and raise the periscope slightly (don't break the surface) to look for mines, mine-shadows and or cables. This means transiting minefields in real time, a tedious evolution but one that generally succeeds. No idea if this technique is reasonable or realistic but I recall reading of some US subs negotiating Japanese minefields doing this.
The ShSch Type V are my preferred mount in the Baltic but they are so slow to dive and it takes almost one-minute to make it to twenty metres. Once under though, they are very manoeuvrable and reasonably fast. I like the bigger L-Class in the Arctic but have not yet tried a career in the Black Sea.
-C
|