I finished the war.

maillemaker · 01-19-10, 11:39 PM

Well, after a couple of years of playing off and on, I finally made it to May 1945. I was off the coast of Spain when we got the dispatch to surrender.

It was actually kind of sad watching port after port fall into "enemy" hands.

Some fun things: I made it into Valletta and wiped out the defecting Italian warships.

I sank the HMT Aquitane or Aquitarious or whatever it was. Found it in a convoy.

I now want to start over in 1939 with "dead is dead". Before, I saved my games and would re-start if I died. I've got external cam turned on and auto TDC, but those are my only conceits. I may turn off external cam this time around, but I enjoy the scenery.

Here are some things I have learned about SHIII:

1) Aircraft aren't so bad after all.

If you have a radar detector, you can always get under water before them come in and get you.

2) Snorkles aren't so great.

They make you blind to radar, so aircraft come along and blow you up because they see your snorkle. Better to just sail on the surface so your radar detector works.

3) Don't be afraid of escorts.

Originally, I tried to play the game "realistically", ignoring the escorts and firing all my torpedoes at big ships in convoys, and then trying to go deep and evade. I'd say in game you can only successfully evade maybe 30% of the time. In calm seas with more than one escort, you can forget about getting away. With three or more escorts, you are done for. You just can't move fast enough under water to get away. So I quit trying. I would launch my foreward tubes at convoy ships, and save my rear tubes for escorts. Acoustic torpedoes are AWESOME. But even without them I got pretty good at nailing circling escorts. My favorite trick was to run very noisy, ping the sonar, etc, and get an escort to chase me. If they are stupid, the run in a straight line for you, and then you just point your ass straight at them 180 degrees and fire a magnetic torpedo under them at 500m range. They are toast. If the escort is smarter and comes after you zig-zagging, then wait until they are almost on top of you and drop a noisemaker. The escort will usually reverse engines and hover over the noisemaker. When they stop, fire a magnetic torp under them as above.

I actually started to make it a habit to take out the escorts first, and then use whatever was left over on the convoy.

If the Germans had gone into the war with Type XXI's and acoustic torpedoes they would have ruled the seas.

Steve

01-19-10, 11:39 PM	#1
maillemaker Sea Lord Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 1,639 Downloads: 75 Uploads: 0	I finished the war. Well, after a couple of years of playing off and on, I finally made it to May 1945. I was off the coast of Spain when we got the dispatch to surrender. It was actually kind of sad watching port after port fall into "enemy" hands. Some fun things: I made it into Valletta and wiped out the defecting Italian warships. I sank the HMT Aquitane or Aquitarious or whatever it was. Found it in a convoy. I now want to start over in 1939 with "dead is dead". Before, I saved my games and would re-start if I died. I've got external cam turned on and auto TDC, but those are my only conceits. I may turn off external cam this time around, but I enjoy the scenery. Here are some things I have learned about SHIII: 1) Aircraft aren't so bad after all. If you have a radar detector, you can always get under water before them come in and get you. 2) Snorkles aren't so great. They make you blind to radar, so aircraft come along and blow you up because they see your snorkle. Better to just sail on the surface so your radar detector works. 3) Don't be afraid of escorts. Originally, I tried to play the game "realistically", ignoring the escorts and firing all my torpedoes at big ships in convoys, and then trying to go deep and evade. I'd say in game you can only successfully evade maybe 30% of the time. In calm seas with more than one escort, you can forget about getting away. With three or more escorts, you are done for. You just can't move fast enough under water to get away. So I quit trying. I would launch my foreward tubes at convoy ships, and save my rear tubes for escorts. Acoustic torpedoes are AWESOME. But even without them I got pretty good at nailing circling escorts. My favorite trick was to run very noisy, ping the sonar, etc, and get an escort to chase me. If they are stupid, the run in a straight line for you, and then you just point your ass straight at them 180 degrees and fire a magnetic torpedo under them at 500m range. They are toast. If the escort is smarter and comes after you zig-zagging, then wait until they are almost on top of you and drop a noisemaker. The escort will usually reverse engines and hover over the noisemaker. When they stop, fire a magnetic torp under them as above. I actually started to make it a habit to take out the escorts first, and then use whatever was left over on the convoy. If the Germans had gone into the war with Type XXI's and acoustic torpedoes they would have ruled the seas. Steve