Does Sinking a Ship need visual comfirmation?

Hi lads,

I just started a new campaign with TMO 2.2 enabled.
And on my first patrol, a little west of Luzon , I spotted a taskforce.
Now I quickly went to intercept and I screamed with joy when I spotted the Kongo Battleship amongst the dozens of destroyers, so naturally that became my first and only target, around 36000 Tons I believe.

I opened my 4 tubes and hit the battleship 4 times.
I instantly went to dive and got the hell out of there.

Now my question is, do you need to stay in visual range for a sinking to count?
I noticed the battleship listing quite badly before I went under but since have not gotten a confirmation on a kill, so does it just take a while?
And if it sinks while I'm hundred of miles away, do I still get the credit for it?

I've been searching for the answer to this but haven't been able to find it anywhere, I'm quite confused as to how the system actually works..

Hope anyone can answer this riddle for me

Thanks in advance

Kind regards,

[vincentz]

I guess it does count even without visible contact.
I sometimes shoot planes, that then turns away and 10-20 min later they crash. Not only do I get the kill, but also get to see it in event camera.

[pabbi]

I think you have to be within radar contact.

[Armistead]

Imagine a contact zone around your sub. When a group or ship comes within your contact zone it spawns. If it leaves your contact zone, the ship or group despawns. The contact zone is basically the limit of your best equipment range, but notice if you pick up a good group your PC should lag some before you see it, etc...However, you can usually find it yourself on sonar.

You don't need a visual, radar or any other method, if it's a kill you will get a message ship sunk and you can see it in you log. If not in your log, it's still afloat.

The goal is if you damage a ship, don't let it escape your contact zone, if you do it will despawn...vanish... Try to sink it while you have contact.

Many of us attack ships in storms we never see and sink it, the ship icon will show grey, but you still get credit, just means not in visual sight, if it's a red icon, it was a visual sighting. Simply, with most mods you can sink ships without even having a visual of the ship, but if you sink it you should get a grey or red sunk ship icon and credit in your log.

Originally Posted by Armistead

Imagine a contact zone around your sub. When a group or ship comes within your contact zone it spawns. If it leaves your contact zone, the ship or group despawns. The contact zone is basically the limit of your best equipment range, but notice if you pick up a good group your PC should lag some before you see it, etc...However, you can usually find it yourself on sonar.

You don't need a visual, radar or any other method, if it's a kill you will get a message ship sunk and you can see it in you log. If not in your log, it's still afloat.

The goal is if you damage a ship, don't let it escape your contact zone, if you do it will despawn...vanish... Try to sink it while you have contact.

Many of us attack ships in storms we never see and sink it, the ship icon will show grey, but you still get credit, just means not in visual sight, if it's a red icon, it was a visual sighting. Simply, with most mods you can sink ships without even having a visual of the ship, but if you sink it you should get a grey or red sunk ship icon and credit in your log.

It seems you are right, I crippled the battleship and left the taskforce so I think it despawned, thanks very much for clearing this up.

Kind regards

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Montray

It seems you are right, I crippled the battleship and left the taskforce so I think it despawned, thanks very much for clearing this up.

Kind regards

When you lose it with visuals, do all you can to get it's course and try to work that way why dived, keep a close check on sonar yourself. Damaged like that you probably could've caught it.

Even keeping an escort contact from the group will keep the group from despawning. Often they will lag way behind hunting you, so pay attention when they leave and when out of their visual surface and give chase, usually you can catch the group or find the wounded ship.

I've chased groups over 600nms and kept contact with the group. If it has a damaged ship going slow, either the ship will fall out of formation or if it's going fast enough the group will slow down. Most TF you can keep up with.

[Daniel Prates]

There are a lot of situations where a sunken ship (even an evidently sunken ship) will not score as a hit, and neither compute as tonnage sunk. Probably most of those situations are plain and simple bugs. Sometimes, when you sink a ship in shallow water, and it goes half-sunk after hitting bottom, the liferafts will go off and still the ship will not account as a hit.

[badger_ken]

a 6-months-later reply - just wanted to say that I just had the exact same situation, right down to it's being a Kongo-class battleship west of Luzon! Like you, I hit it (in my case 3 out of 4 hit), it crippled it, I hung around in the area, after 15 minutes I periscoped-up and saw it nearly motionless and heavily listing, I had to quickly submerge again as there were still a swarm of DDs around it, after about 15 minutes more I saw the little red "ship sunk" icon show up on screen, I could even hear it's death throes on my sonar - but like you I got no credit.

oh well.

[WernherVonTrapp]

If you get the "She's going down" message, you should get credit for the sinking. If you're submerged, just make sure the target isn't at 180° and you're not too far away to detect it.

[badger_ken]

interesting, thanks Werner - I did _not_ get the "she's going down" message, I just saw the little red icon go on , and I could hear it on the hydrophones. I'd would guess I was roughly 2 NM away. I don't think I was at 180 to it. I _was_ submerged.