Kaboom! Wait, what just happened?

[sicou2]

It is late '41 in an S-18 just outside the China Sea. I am trying to follow real tactics as much as possible. Therefore, just before daytime comes and I am submerging the boat listening to crabs battle epic battles on the ocean floor while waiting for trouble. Now here come the trouble. I have been trying different depths (50, 60, 100, 140, and 149) to sit through the day, but some how aircraft keeps blowing me out of the water! I am not sure how or why they don't want me sitting there hunting merchants but they have got it in for me. The problem seems to be that they are finding me while is am not moving AND under water. Is this common? Or am I just doing it wrong?

I am using RFB 2.0 and RSRD. Looking through the past posts I have seen several threads but they all seem to point to the jammin' red birds tool bag, but I am missing the part about not getting sunk while hiding under water from before sun up until after sun down.

Thoughts?

[tater]

In calm water, the USN found that submarines were detectable from the air. This ability has been added, but it's not as controllable as perhaps it should be, so sometimes they detect you deeper. Deeper is safer.

[sicou2]

Calm water it was... dead calm. Looks like it is time to test a new crush depth for this boat.

Thanks!

[rein1705]

S-boat = don't go below 165 feet unless you have to.
But... you'll make 280 sometimes before you start to take damage if you have a fresh "undamaged" boat that is. Good hunting to you.

[subskipper53]

Originally Posted by rein1705

S-boat = don't go below 165 feet unless you have to.

Pffft. I've taken an S-boat, as a test, all the way down to 300 feet... Died shortly after. Then again... this was with TMO, not RFB.

I usually find that, in a fleet boat, after i dip below 170-185+ i've completely dissapeared, looking from above.

[Armistead]

You don't get near as much depth with RFB as you do TMO. It's basically you can reach a certain mark and you're history. Once you pass it, you're gonna die, even if you get the boat going up. However, if you have no damage you can take it to the very mark and be perfectly fine, another foot...history. I use the S playing TMO 1.9 and do fine at 300 ft with no damage...but I wouldn't take it a foot further.

The Gato you can get down to 600ft without damage, but about impossible to hold depth unless you use a good bit of speed. I find 500ft controls well.

But rest assured, just a few damage points can change the ball game, so it's best not to push the deepest limits. You take damage that deep, you could easily die, why another 100ft shallower...you probably could get through it.

[rein1705]

You can dare as deep as you like. But S-boat skippers have to be more cautious in these matters. Not less daring, mind you, but there's a lot higher risk you have to compute into your tactics with an S-boat.

[sicou2]

Just wondering, but has the discussion moved beyond the simulation in to the realm of reality? Because, I treat my "S" boat like it really does have screen doors and a monkey that plays with matches in the powder well. = )

[WernherVonTrapp]

I haven't skippered an S-Boat yet but, if I'm interpreting your initial post correctly, it seems that you submerge during the day and surface at night. That is not an advisable tactic. For evasive purposes alone, you can move much quicker, and change your location faster while on the surface. If you've been spotted unaware, by the enemy, prior to submerging for the day, you're essentially waiting to be found by the forces that have been dispatched to locate you. Only submerge for ambush or evasion. Don't sit and wait to be found by the enemy.

[tater]

I do a test dive every morning, then crash when a plane is spotted. If I see more than one, I stay down for the day.

[WernherVonTrapp]

I have never stayed submerged all day. There's no choice sometimes but to dive when an airplane is spotted, especially when you have no radar. Even the shorter range radar can necessitate a dive to evade planes. I'm currently in 1944 and have the improved SD-1. Now, if I get a contact, I quickly plot the aircraft's course and determine my distance from it's closest point of approach. Many times I find that I can remain on the surface or merely dive to radar depth. Though there have been a few times where the sheer number of planes has tempted me to stay deep all day, the longest time at depth (for me) has been an hour or two but, that's a rarity.

Dealing with the air threat can certainly tax a captain but that is how it should be. Submerging by day and operating at night was accepted doctrine early in the war so doing it is a valid technique. However as pointed out it greatly limits your hunting ability and staying shallow provides no real protection in calm seas.

So, although real skippers were following orders staying submerged during daylight in areas where there was an air threat, they also recieved negative endorsements for doing so. Something about not hunting aggressively enough so you're caught between a rock and a hard place, or perhaps between an air-dropped depth charge and a demotion.

WernerVonTrapp's SD radar technique certainly works but since real SD radar provided only a range to target, those holding themselves to historical limitations (as far as possible) do not benefit. Ironically SH1 more correctly models SD radar than does SH4.

S-Boats vs. aircraft is a bad (but challenging) combo, you have no defence, you sometimes cannot dive too deeply to avoid detection and your batteries take forever to recharge. It sounds like you might be sitting on an airway used by the AI script to transit aircraft to their patrol zones, if you can get off these tracks while remaining in your patrol area you may be able to spend more time on the surface. Typically (at least in TMO+RSRD), your patrol area is large enough that you might be able to do so.

Good Luck and Good Hunting.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

I haven't skippered an S-Boat yet but, if I'm interpreting your initial post correctly, it seems that you submerge during the day and surface at night. That is not an advisable tactic. For evasive purposes alone, you can move much quicker, and change your location faster while on the surface. If you've been spotted unaware, by the enemy, prior to submerging for the day, you're essentially waiting to be found by the forces that have been dispatched to locate you. Only submerge for ambush or evasion. Don't sit and wait to be found by the enemy.

Wait until you see the dive times of a S-Boat in TMO anyway, you'll wanna stay dived all day....cuz it took half the day to get dived..

Course if you stay down, it then takes two days to charge the batteries.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Wait until you see the dive times of a S-Boat in TMO anyway, you'll wanna stay dived all day....cuz it took half the day to get dived..

Course if you stay down, it then takes two days to charge the batteries.

Well, if that's the case, then I'm an idiot for comparing the experience of my current sub with that of an S-Boat. Sometimes, being an idiot comes all too naturally for me. Oh well.

[subskipper53]

With my experience, a Gato sub will go to crap at precisely 597 feet. That's why i always try not to go below 550. But even then that's in the most extreme situation; i usually don't go under 400-450.

But a have a Balao now.... it rocks. but the thing is after i get to 700+ feet i can almost never come up. i just keep falling like a rock until the sub levels out at 800... at 803 i'm heading to Davy Jones' locker