need help evading destroyers

[Seth8530]

i have just got out of scapa and am being attacked relentlessly, depth is around 70m clear weather. more destroyers on the way, all torpedoes used except external reserves, june 1940 HELP Batteries jsut above a quarter

[Special-K]

I noticed destroyers tend to circle round your sub when you're submerged. So I headed SLOWLY to the nearest strip of land. Took a bit of damage meself but the destroyer ended up grounded! :-) Don't know if this will always work but it worked that time.

[Seth8530]

Thank you and greetings

[bigboywooly]

Hi and welcome Special K

@Seth
Well serves you right for going into Scapa
:rotfl:
What do you expect
Of course they will be pissed

Not that thats gonna help ya know
If your batteries are that low I guess you are boned
Try heading out for deeper water
Keep your ruder a few degrees over so you arent going straight
Keep speed to 2 kts or under
And as the depth increases so should you

Good luck

[Ducimus]

Yeah, pretty much what BBW said. You dont have the batteries for alot of evasive manuvering. Doing so would be ringing the dinner bell anyway since its clear weather (not good). I'd say your only hope is to keep the rudder 5 to 7 degree's to port or starboard, be as quiet as you can, and try and make for deeper water. There are sometimes pockets of deeper water. Check your map, and hope there's one nearby.

Otherwise... well, your pretty much up the proverbial estuary without a means of locomotion.

[Seth8530]

Thanks for all the good news 0_0 is this the end of me

[Brag]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Yeah, pretty much what BBW said. You dont have the batteries for alot of evasive manuvering. Doing so would be ringing the dinner bell anyway since its clear weather (not good). I'd say your only hope is to keep the rudder 5 to 7 degree's to port or starboard, be as quiet as you can, and try and make for deeper water. There are sometimes pockets of deeper water. Check your map, and hope there's one nearby.

Otherwise... well, your pretty much up the proverbial estuary without a means of locomotion.

Yup--that rudder slightly off center, being really quiet, and a bit of luck may save yer butt. The Tommies don't like U-Boats in Scapa. Staying close to land saved me in SHII --sort of doubt that trick will work in GWX.

[John|Blackthorne]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

There are sometimes pockets of deeper water. Check your map, and hope there's one nearby.

How do you recognize these water pockets? How do they appear on the map?

[High Voltage]

If you are playing GWX and go to your Nav screen (F5), hit the question mark tool and then the marker and you should have a little scale appear next to your cursor which may help in determining depth.
Personally though, I still have a hard time discerning between "ciridian blue" and Aquamarine, so I have to rely on my XO (the wife) to decipher my map...

[Seth8530]

I managed to et away by staying close to land and beaching em, then heading back into scapa to exit the mission

[Brag]

Originally Posted by Seth8530

I managed to et away by staying close to land and beaching em, then heading back into scapa to exit the mission

Woo-hooooooooooooo!!!!
Congratz, Mate. When you return to base , we got to crack the champagne, head for Paris and have a wild night at the Scheherezade.

[GT182]

Here's a way to evade:

When you attack a merchant dive and go deep as fast as possible turning away from your attack course, and go Silent... the DDs seem to know where you are when you fire. (That's how they are in my career so far... Nov 1940) Once you're below 130 meters, slow to 1kt. If the DD still has you and is circling, head off in another direction to get out of his circling path. If you can do that and he passes you by stop engines and sit still. Have your stern facing him during this if you can. Once he's turned tail to you start moving at 1kt again. When he's getting ready to face you again, stop and sit. This might take an hour or to 2 get far enouch away from him but eventually you be past his sonar range. Once out of his range, if he keeps on his present track you'll be able to increase speed to 2 kts and stretch your margine of safety. If you get "he's pinging us", just sit tight as it doesn't necessarily mean he knows where you are, he's only is trying to pick you out. Plus the "thermal layers" are helping mask you.

I just went thru this with a Black Swan DD in BE3. It took me 2 1/2 hours in real time, but I escaped without a scratch.

[melnibonian]

Originally Posted by Seth8530

i have just got out of scapa and am being attacked relentlessly, depth is around 70m clear weather. more destroyers on the way, all torpedoes used except external reserves, june 1940 HELP Batteries jsut above a quarter

Start praying and make your peace with yourself

I would say run silent and run deep but in these kind of situations there is not much you can do. Just keep racing towards deep waters and pray. Pray a LOT

[sunvalleyslim]

Praying is a good thing........best of luck

[Venatore]

U-Boat Evasive Tactics

A U-boat’s best defense is concealment. But once this is blown, the next best recourse is to dive immediately. Ironically, if a U-boat is spotted on the surface, the first thing the escort will do is to shell it immediately and force it to submerge. This will break up the attack sequence and neutralize any threats of torpedo attacks. If given the opportunity, escorts will even ram a U-boat, whether it is on the surface or at periscope depth. The resulting damage will put the escort out of action for many months, but if that could sink a U-boat, then the price was considered well worth it.



A destroyer launching a tight pattern of depth charges. Launching depth charges was much a matter of guesswork. Sailors watched for underwater explosions and looked for debris for evidence of a kill. Once spotted, a U-boat requires at least 30 seconds to crash dive to a depth deep enough to evade the resulting depth charges. If the attacking vessel is too close, it might have better chances running on the surface to build up sufficient speed before ordering a crash dive. A U-boat can outrun most escorts, including corvettes, but not modern destroyers.
Once underwater, the cat and mouse hunt begins. The escort will be searching for the U-boat by listening in to the hydrophones and pinging with its sonar. On the U-boat, the hydrophone operator too will be listening in for the escort’s screws. He will be able to determine the location, speed and the type of ship (merchant or warship) on the surface. These will provide the only clues as to the activity on the surface.
Depth reduces the effectiveness of sonar. The deeper the U-boat, the more difficult it is to locate. A good evasive measure is to dive as deep as possible and as quickly as possible. This not only reduces the sonar signature, but also provides more time to evade depth charges and will keep the enemy guessing on the U-boat’s location by the time the depth charge reached the desired depth. Also, since sonar is more effective when pulsed at flat surfaces, a skilled commander will try to keep its bow or stern pointed towards the attacker as much as possible. U-boats are capable of very silent operations. But in order to remain undetected, it had to move very slowly underwater, which meant a low speed of only 2 knots. If this was not silent enough, the commander could further order the boat to run on silent mode. In this mode, all non essential activities are halted. Torpedo tubes are not reloaded, bilge pumps are run by hand and all non essential personnel are sent to the bunks. Silent operation keeps the U-boat’s noise low, and also helps to conserve battery power.



Given the opportunity, escorts captains won't think twice about ramming a U-boat.
There are several occasions when an escort will lose contact with a submerged U-boat. During the explosion of a depth charge, an intermittent blackout occurs, deafening the pursuer’s listening devices until they calibrate themselves. When the escort passes directly above a submerged U-boat, both sonar and hydrophone contacts are lost. Sonar is useless at short ranges and in addition, the U-boat’s position would be out of the sonar’s arc of detection when the ship passes directly above. Also, due to the interference of the ship’s own propeller noise, hydrophones cannot pick up any sound coming directly from astern of the ship. This provided several window of opportunities for a U-boat to change course or to run at high speeds without being detected. U-boats could also launch BOLD canisters to confuse their attackers. Consisting of a chemical compound which emitted large quantities of gas, the resulting bubble cloud could resemble a submerged U-boat. Unless the sound operator was especially skilled, it was often difficult to distinguish it from a real U-boat. The allies called this a “Submarine Bubble Targer” (SBT).
It was not an easy task locating and attacking a submerged U-boat. Much skill and persistence was needed, and was especially so if the U-boat had already dived very deep beneath the sea. Sometimes escorts forced a U-boat to the surface by waiting it out. Since U-boats had very low underwater speed, escort captains knew that it could not travel very far. In addition, it could not remain submerged for very long periods. Appreciating the fact that carbon dioxide levels will start to rise, escorts will often wait in silence until the U-boat was forced to surface by itself due to the lack of breathing air. During the war, more than a handful of U-boats were defeated by sheer patience.

"Don't you dare give up Captain, you have more than enough tactics to evade the enemy above".