Stupid Noob Tricks

[peabody]

Everyone in here has been so good at helping me with answers (even to stupid questions) I have never received a "Read the manual comment!!" The tutorials put together by many of you have helped me learn the game. Since I don't have much help to offer, I figured I would do a "tutorial" on
"How NOT to attack a Task Force".
NOTE: I was NOT using manual targeting, not any good at it yet.

Maybe some beginners will learn from this, maybe it should just be deleted, but either way, here's my "learning experience".
I had been marking all contacts of Task Forces and Convoys and noticed one thing, direction they were headed. It seemed there were a lot that seemed to be headed for Rabaul (a port on the NE cornor of the Bismark Sea)(I'll take that as a point for me-I was right.)

This is the photo I will refer to:


Mistake one: Location,Location,Location! The red dot is where I positioned myself, all stop, rig for silent running, 250ft. If you notice I have NO southern escape route. My escape goes NW to NE, comes into play later. The yellow line is the convoys (3 of them) that entered the harbor. I ignored them because I just wanted to try attacking a Task Force. But I positioned myself according to their route facing NE.
Mistake two: The Task Force came in on the blue line. OOps I'm facing the wrong way. Some went in front of me, some behind me. Subs don't turn very fast.
Mistake three: Try to get a heading on an entire Task Force (it was a big one) that is in almost a 90 degree turn. I didn't know which way to go-so I calmed myself down and just picked a direction to point. I chose approximately SW (Lucky guess)
Mistake four: I am watching my map and figure it is about time to take a peek. OH, crud, I am still at 250ft. I forgot to come up to at least close to periscope depth. In Real time it takes a while to get up from 250ft. and they are almost in shooting position.

The Attack even though poorly planned was a success. When the periscope popped out of the water I am staring at a Hiryu Fleet Carrier. I shot three almost immediately. Look to starboard at what is coming and down scope. Since the carrier was so close I don't have any time, there was no long distance target to shoot at first, so as not to alert the destroyers before they hit. Don't have time to wait for #2 to get to me, so I turn hard Starboard, flank, and then after a very little bit of time, hard port. Up scope, Oh @#$%$# while I was doing that the Shokaku Fleet carrier decided to turn to port and is now almost a bow shot. I said what the heck, he is so close I'll take the shot. Dumped three more. Spun my scope around to 180 degrees and as I'm turning I see destroyers coming from eveywhere, so I didn't feel I had time to pick a target, better to life to fight again, so I just let loose with all four stern tubes. I got lucky I got the Taiyo Escort Carrier and Ashshio Destroyer. One hit the Chitose Seaplane Tender and badly damaged it, but it didn't go down. (I found that out later when things calmed down and I looked with the external camera and saw a ship smoking, zoomed in and saw a big hole almost dead center of the ship.)

Down scope, headed under the Task Force at flank, figure at this point they already saw me so I get under some noise and try to get a bit of distance before I go to 1/3 and deep.

Mistake Six: this is basically Mistake one. the destroyers formed a U shape around me. I don't know if this is modeled in the game or just coincidence but they were like sheep dogs hearding me NE. What is NE? A great big Island, and my sub doesn't fly. I know it's not right but I just had to see this (not just blue lines on a map) so I looked at the external camera, it was amazing teamwork. They were DCing behind and East and West and pinging away like crazy, forcing me to go where they wanted me, pinned in with them South, East, West and a big Island North and no place to go.

I did get lucky after a looooooog, loooooog time. One of the destroyers to the West must have thought he detected me because he took off full speed to the East and that left a hole in their defense and I took it. I think I wore out the rudder with all the turns I made that day. Oh, ya that brings up;

Mistake Seven: It was a bright sunny day. So they spotted my scope right away. So, I made a hard turn South before submerging and when I got deep, I immediately turned hard NW hoping I would fool them. Didn't work.

Mistake Eight: After finally escaping I forgot I was still on "Silent running" and "Battle Stations". I used TC to get to the refit ship and suddenly stopped dead in the water. Checked the damage -none. Checked the "depth under keel" plenty(thinking maybe I ran into some shallow water, I notice some white spots don't show unless you are zoomed in, I hit one coming from Pearl one time). My entire crew was sound asleep. :rotfl:

That's my experience with a Task Force. Maybe it will help some of the bilge rats. Not a tutorial on doing it right but how to do it wrong. (But sometimes we get lucky)

So, for all the mistakes, I ended up sinking:
1. Hiryu Fleet Carrier
2. Shokaku Fkeet Carrier
3. Taiyo Escort Carrier
4 Ashshio Destroyer
and damaging the Chitose Seaplane Tender (had to look that one up, didn't even know what it was.)

I will be the first to admit, I would not have been able to use Manual Targeting on this, wasn't time, too many mistakes that slowed things down, but they ended up so close, I think I could have "shot from the hip" and got the first two carriers, they were almost too close.

Peabody

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Dear Mr. Peabody,

READ THE MANUAL!

In a game you make mistakes and live to learn from them.

In reality you make mistakes and end up with Davy Jones.

[Paajtor]

Thx, fun read!

Gl on your next engagement.

[Seadogs]

Heheh I think this is one place you can safely count on nobody to tell you to read the manual. That thing is garbage.

[Nisgeis]

You seem to have a very good situational awareness of what was happening. Do you use the free camera to take a peek, or just use sonar and periscope?

[peabody]

Originally Posted by Nisgeis

You seem to have a very good situational awareness of what was happening. Do you use the free camera to take a peek, or just use sonar and periscope?

I usually use the map with the "blue lines". I guess that's probably cheating? But wouldn't that be the info you would get from the sonar officer? In game, you get bearing to one target and that's all. Not much help. Oh, I get curious once in a while and take a peek with the camera especially when I see someone zoom off high speed in a weird direction, I wonder why. And I don't know anything about using sonar, first sub sim I've ever played. As time goes by I'll change the way I do things and make it more of a challange, once I understand more. The manual is useless. I've learned most of what I know from this site.

Peabody

[Rockin Robbins]

No, peabody, the easy modes are not "cheating modes" they are "learning modes." Use them with a clear conscience and turn off different helps as you feel comfortable. Imagine if we had to learn the game from scratch in 100% realism mode! We'd all quit.

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by peabody

I guess that's probably cheating?

No way, that's not cheating. It's about the only way you can get all the information - a bit like with the radar not showing range. It's a bit unfortunate that the sonar range lines on the map are super accurate, but there's no other way to get updates without manning the sonar yourself all the time.

There would normally be two guys manning the sonar stack, one would sweep around see what was happening to make sure there were no surprise visitors during an attack and the second would be handed off contacts to track.

It would be really nice if the sonar man was a bit more helpful, if the game had two and one announced changes in the general ships, like, warship speeding up bearing blah blah blah, instead of just being able to track one target. It would also help if the sonar man could track a specific target and not just the nearest merchant of warship, which is limitting. I would really like to try to build a mental image of what was happening above, using only what the sonar guy said, but alas that's not possible.

[peabody]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

No, peabody, the easy modes are not "cheating modes" they are "learning modes." Use them with a clear conscience and turn off different helps as you feel comfortable. Imagine if we had to learn the game from scratch in 100% realism mode! We'd all quit.

Thank you,I am in it to have a good time, but I eventually would like to learn how they did it in real life, it must have been unbeliveabley hard and I certainly have nothing but the greatest respect for the men who risked their lives doing it. Especially with the equipment they had.
I have had several times with two or three merchants (I get a lot of merchant missions) in a line coming toward. If I only went by the info given by the sonarman's contact I would have missed the first ship. For example, he gives the bearing of the closest ship. How do I word this? If I draw a line on the map of their heading and positon myself perpendicular to that line. If ship one is going to be 1200 yds away when it is in firing positon and ship two is going to be 600 yds away in firing position (because they are stagered and not in a straight ling) then I would be getting the positon of the second ship given to me because using simple math (thank you Pythagoras) he is actually closer to me. He is farther away to port but closer in distance. So when I raise the periscope ship one has already passed. If I had bearing on all three ships I would know ship one is almost in position to take a couple torpedos home for lunch. Since I don't yet know how to use the sonar I have to rely on the sonarman for the bearing and "Up scope" when I feel it is time. And have found that doesn't work. So while I am trying to learn the sonar, I use the map, since (correct me if I'm wrong) those would be the bearings I would get in real life. Like Nisgeis comment I wouldn't get the super accurate distance. Am I correct that I can only get actual distance by pinging. The hydophones (is that the proper term) would be able to tell closing or going away but not actual distance, due to the level of the sound? And I certainly don't want to go pinging away at Destroyers! Merchants maybe.
Anyway just being able to sneak in and get out undamaged and alive is an accomplishment for me. The rest will come later.
My only other sim that I play is Falcon4, it is super real, but the big difference is the documentation is excellent. I counted it once and I think it was like 600+ pages and along with a forum similar but not as helpful as this one, I could jump in and do full realistic right away. I think UBI dropped the ball on this one. without the forum I would never be able to even think about ever playing realistic.
Again, I can't say it enough, Thank you all not only for the help but the encouragement. I'll get there someday, then I am going to write my own missions.
Of course now that the "Add-on" is out I hope the supporters of the Pacific fleet don't all disappear.

I think I will go play with the sonar for a while now, I have a great mission saved in the Solomans, like on person commented it was like shooting fish in a barrel. In about a 250 mile section from the refit station to the area when they enter the "corridor" I sank 61 merchants and tankers, that's when I got a little bored and went after the task force at the beginning of this thread. A great place to practice sonar and see if I can figure out what it is telling me.

Peabody

[Rockin Robbins]

WernerSobe's manual targeting tutorials? He has two on TDC/PK work and another one (slurp!) on sonar only targeting. You might have to look on page 5 for my links if his are down. His sonar only targeting is the most fun you can have in SH4 in my opinion (of course it's my opinion, I'm writing it!:rotfl: ). WernerSobe's videos are worth any mod out there in adding to my enjoyment of the game.

[SuperCavitation]

That was a great read, Peabody! Loved it!

[howler93]

Peabody,

loved it! It's amazing to read all the patrol logs of engagements here on this site...talk about an immersive game! A 10 for originality too, Peabody...I've never read a tutorial on what NOT to do. Somehow I think it'll be quite useful for folks
Don't sweat the difficulty level...as previous posters have stated, it's essential to work your way into the 100% range. Since I made the switch to manual targeting, I've had to let go of any hopes to target multiple ships in a convoy...I just can't do it well/quickly enough to pull it off with any reliability. When I try, I always end up with two slightly damaged targets, and nothing to show for my wasted fish in the patrol log. Anyway, keep it up and thanks for the good read!

Howler

p.s. Ditto on the recommendations for WernerSobe's tutorials...helped me tremendously. Learning to use the attack map to cross-check your sonar and visual readings was the key for me. I haven't whiffed on an attack since then, thanks to WernerSobe. Not to say that I don't miss...I just don't have those times when your target slowly lumbers along in front of you, all juicy and fat and waitin' for it with a perfect 90 degree angle, and then you yell, "FIRE!" and all you fish run off in the opposite direction, as if afraid of their target. Glad those days have passed!