SH3 GWX3 escorts too smart after 1943?

[bartpl]

Hello there my fellow Kaleuns!
As a devoted SH3 GWX3 player I have a question, since I hit really huge wall in mid-1943. Which really discourage me from playing anymore. And I am still hoping to at last get that XXI command!
I mean escaping escorts after convoy attack in mid-1943 and later gets harder and harder, and makes me think that the only good choice if one want to survive is... not to attack the convoy. I tried several times already, starting a new campaign after being sunk, and every time I end up at the bottom of the sea. The thing is most escorts are possible to evade using methods described in GWX manual. However there is always one or two destroyers which always know your position, and you cannot fool them anyway. No matter what you do, bottom the boat (it doesn't work in SH3, have anybody heard of any mod fixing this?) or go really deep, like 250-300 m (thermal layers also don't work here I suppose?) I mean OK, if two DDs follow you, one can track you and other attack. But if just one destroyer keep following and attacking you, alone, for 20, 30, 40 hours, keeping to do so even when it used up all of his depth charges... Is this really realistic behaviour? Or rather should it give up finally and get back to guard convoy, revealing U-boat position to HK group or allied air forces? I noticed for example, that when you stop your sub just in the middle of DD's circling pattern, it will circle around you endlessly, doing nothing but turning the same direction with constant speed (yesterday it was about 1 hour 15 minutes; when I bottomed the boat at about 120m depth - DD was still circling the same way; when 20 minutes later I stood up from the bottom, started engines again and left "the magic circle" I was instantly DCed). I suppose that in real life DD's skipper would at least change circling direction in order to regain sonar contact or get a proper position to drop depth charges. I mean real people don't act that way, they act with elasticity to changing conditions, they also sometimes make mistakes. "Veteran" DDs in GWX3 don't make mistakes - why? (Yesterday, trying to evade that very destroyer I used up all of my decoys strictly following the tips in GWX 3 manual - and he got fooled only once, for two DC attacks, then found me again in no time).
As I mentioned before, I had this kind of situations before and I ran desperate, trying to sink destroyer with an acoustic torpedo (I managed to do this, but in couple of minutes I got three more destroyers on me and I got sunk) or with a deck gun (this time I managed to survive surprisingly to myself). I mean I know Kriegsmarine lost the war but is it really fair? Historically accurate? If I can't escape, using external view, than I suppose
it's like every single U-boat which tried to attack an allied convoy after 1943 and later got sunk.
Any useful tips? Mods? Ideas?

Oh, and one more thing. Sometimes weather could change in literally 5 minutes from clear blue sky to fog and heavy precipitation. It's so annoying when you approach your target. You take estimations to it's range and speed, hide the periscope and when you raise it five minutes later you can see nothing... I have never seen this kind of weather change in real life... Can anyone tell me is there any mod helping with this?

Many thanks in advance for reading my lengthy post and replying

[TECHNICOLOR]

Welcome to the Forum!

Please post the mod list in the order that they appear in JGSME.

[Jimbuna]

What you are experiencing after mid 43 actually reflects how it was for a U-boat in real life I'm afraid.

As the war went on, fewer successes were achieved and the number of U-boats lost steadily grew.

Welcome Aboard Kaleun

[Mittelwaechter]

Adapt your tactics. Hunter-Killer-Groups will stay with you to kill you. They don't waste DCs on you, but wait for you to run out of air if the situation is right. And if they run out of DCs they may still wait for you to surface, to demonstrate their artillery skills.

From '43 on your only chance to survive is to avoid being detected.
Make good use of your torpedo's stand off capabilities and enjoy every home port sighting with no or only a few sinkings.

Releasing bolds will attract addiditional DDs if they are around - resulting in more ears to listen for you.

Take the weather as it comes. You manouvered your U-Boot into that fog bank you were not aware of. You didn't sweep the horizon before lowering your periscope, did you?

Stop whining, Herr Kaleun - and welcome aboard.

[bartpl]

Hi! Thanks for your interest

List of my MODs in JSGME (in order):
GWX-16 km atmosphere
GWX-Enhanced Damage Effects
GWX-No Medals on Crew
Wooden_Lifeboats_Mod_1.1
Waterstream+Exhaust Combi V2.3 for GWX3
Supplement to V16B1*

*h.sie realism and gameplay hardcore mod, currently all options active (although without this last mod I experienced the same behaviour of escorts)

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by bartpl

Hello there my fellow Kaleuns!

Hello! and welcome aboard shipmate!

Originally Posted by bartpl

I hit really huge wall in mid-1943.

Said every real life U-boat commander who ever saw mid 1943.

You see, GWX, among other things, is super realistic. In stock SH3, anyone could hop into Sh3 and make any number of rookie mistakes and survive the whole war as a U-boat ace. Now, thats all good and well except for the fact that its not very accurate.

Some 40,000 U-boat sailors went to fight in World War 2... 75% of them never saw daylight again.

Think about that for a moment. Go stand next to those other three gentlemen against that wall, and im going to just go ahead and shoot 3 of the 4 of you at random. The odds arent good.

Originally Posted by bartpl

escaping escorts after convoy attack in mid-1943 and later gets harder and harder, and makes me think that the only good choice if one want to survive is... not to attack the convoy.

And, this is more or less where the U-boat tactics went in reality. By mid 1943... convoy attacks were suicide, even for seasoned aces. It was a situation where the capabilities of destroyers and aircraft to hunt and destroy u-boats were so highly developed - the technology needed for u-boats to evade them just had not come along yet. Even operating at the maximum envelope of performance for the u-boats couldnt guarantee escape.

after the onset of 1943... you are no longer the hunter, you are the hunted wolf, but you still have a fearsome reputation. You are out manned, outnumbered and outgunned.

your tactics from this point on should be to avoid convoys, and prey on those merchants and warships still foolish enough to sail alone into your domain and pray that orders come to cease hostilities.

Originally Posted by bartpl

The thing is most escorts are possible to evade using methods described in GWX manual. However there is always one or two destroyers which always know your position, and you cannot fool them anyway. No matter what you do, bottom the boat (it doesn't work in SH3, have anybody heard of any mod fixing this?) or go really deep, like 250-300 m (thermal layers also don't work here I suppose?)

Thermal layers are simulated through the use of SH3 Commander which modifies the sensors file to limit the depth at which active and passive sonar can reach, this value is randomized every time you launch the game using SH3 commander... sometimes the thermal layer is far deeper than you can dive, other times it is down around 140 or 150 meters. it changes each time and it is up to you to find it.

at any rate, the maximum sensor depth for escorts is 300 meters. And depth charges will "un-spawn" ie disappear at 300 meters. so if you have one hell of a boat and can reach 305 meters and the depth charges arent set to explode at say... 295 meters... you might just make it out by exploiting this limitation of SH3's software.

Originally Posted by bartpl

I mean OK, if two DDs follow you, one can track you and other attack. But if just one destroyer keep following and attacking you, alone, for 20, 30, 40 hours, keeping to do so even when it used up all of his depth charges... Is this really realistic behaviour? Or rather should it give up finally and get back to guard convoy, revealing U-boat position to HK group or allied air forces? I noticed for example, that when you stop your sub just in the middle of DD's circling pattern, it will circle around you endlessly, doing nothing but turning the same direction with constant speed (yesterday it was about 1 hour 15 minutes; when I bottomed the boat at about 120m depth - DD was still circling the same way; when 20 minutes later I stood up from the bottom, started engines again and left "the magic circle" I was instantly DCed). I suppose that in real life DD's skipper would at least change circling direction in order to regain sonar contact or get a proper position to drop depth charges. I mean real people don't act that way, they act with elasticity to changing conditions, they also sometimes make mistakes. "Veteran" DDs in GWX3 don't make mistakes - why?

It has more to do with the way SH3 is coded, and not the way GWX is set up. When an escort looses you, it will try to re-acquire you. If it does re-acquire you it will renew its efforts to attack.

It will generally rejoin the convoy, but only after the convoy has gone outside a specific range (not sure the exact number)

GWX is meant to make the AI as aggressive and as realistic as possible to guarantee you a 75-80% change of failure all the while operating within the confines of SH3's hard code. yes, a person would behave with a certain degree of elasticity in their decision making, and in simulation games this has so far proven most impossible.

take flight simulators for example. In some flight simulators i can always count on a Me-109 rolling into a split S when i latch onto his six. is this normal behavior? probably not, is it realistic? again, probably not. is it a tactic in use by fighter pilots? sure it is.

Originally Posted by bartpl

I mean I know Kriegsmarine lost the war but is it really fair? Historically accurate? If I can't escape, using external view, than I suppose it's like every single U-boat which tried to attack an allied convoy after 1943 and later got sunk.

and that as they say, is the rub.

Lets look at statistics on U-boat losses

1939- 9 lost
1940- 24 lost
1941- 35 lost
1942- 86 lost
1943- 239 lost

In the first 6 months of 1943, the Kriegsmarine lost almost as many u-boats as they had lost - combined - over the first 4 years of war.

May 1943 - as it came to be called "black may", 40 U-boats were sent to the sea floor. it was around this time that the admiralty determined the losses were unsustainable and the u-boat war could no longer serve much purpose.

1943 in terms of boats and men lost, was the deadliest year for the U-boats. deadlier than even 44 and 45

Originally Posted by bartpl

Oh, and one more thing. Sometimes weather could change in literally 5 minutes from clear blue sky to fog and heavy precipitation. It's so annoying when you approach your target. You take estimations to it's range and speed, hide the periscope and when you raise it five minutes later you can see nothing... I have never seen this kind of weather change in real life... Can anyone tell me is there any mod helping with this?

There are some weather mods, search the download section of the forums. i personally just roll with the SH3 GWX weather. none of the mods has completely solved the weather problem 100%

to be honest it has been one of the number 1 complaints with SH3 since its release back in 2005

I wish you the best of luck out there!

[Marcello]

Basically what you see is realistic. After May 1943 it was perfectly normal to lose a couple of dozen of u-boats per month with little to show for it.The only rational reason Donitz pressed on was to tie down allied assets, particularly bombers, and force them to stick to the convoy system, inefficient from a transport point of view.
Escorts could be increasingly spared to pursue contacts and contacts were increasingly pursued beyond the limits of u-boat underwater endurance.
For example to counter the snorkel u-boat offensive in british waters in late 1944 and early 1945 the Royal Navy sent over four hundreds surface escorts to the area. While the snorkel and bottoming usually enabled the u-boats to reach the assigned zone once they fired at something they were as good as dead, with escorts swamping the surroundings and not leaving until the u-boat was pretty much confirmed to have been destroyed.

As for thermal layers SH3 commander kinda does them and there is some mod for simulating bottoming. But in general the u-boats were massacred regardless.

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

From '43 on your only chance to survive is to avoid being detected.
Make good use of your torpedo's stand off capabilities and enjoy every home port sighting with no or only a few sinkings.

It is difficult but not impossible. I have come through the war on a couple of occasions, even with regular convoy attacks. If you start your career on a Type XXI in '44 it's actually quite easy. If you manage through the two first patrols with a reasonable result you can build up cred so you can bring 8-12 homers out with you.

Much of this is due to a certain defense technique against the escorts I have developed - bow or aft deflection shots with the T1 on max speed and magnetic fuze. This usually cuts down on the chasers when I am eventually put under. Even then it is possible to get away with active maneuvering on very slow speeds and silent mode.

I never go below 150 meters as I have selected random crushing depth. Also malfunctions and sabotage. When I start a career I as fast as possible see to that my repair and torpedo crews are upgraded, and there is enough of them, so I am ensured speedy repairs and reloads. The sonar people and AA and deck gun crews, too.

I never lay still when chased. The result is inevitable. Short sprints with course changes can be effective. Watch the sonar when he is turning his tail towards you. Get outside the circle.

From the Fall of 1943 home-seeking torpedoes are available. I see to save up on cred to get more than those normally allocated when possible. Correctly used those are real life-savers.

When one gets to the Type XXI summer '44 everything gets easier. More homers, faster submerged sprint speeds, better Bolds.

Advice: Whatever you do, do not attack a convoy in flat sea. Heavy seas help you a lot to get away.

If you are detected by a far-away escort in open sea, and he comes after you (he will), turn your tail to him and dive to max. depth on max. speed. Drop a bold halfway down and start a turn to 90 degrees off the diving course, switch to silent mode. Creep away. It shall usually start dropping d/c's at the point you dived. Oh, yes, I have the impression that it sometimes helps to change depth, even go up to periscope depth.

If/when you are getting desperate down there and there is only one subchaser prepare for a quick rise to periscope depth with a following fan shot. Decide on spread, torpedo depth and expected angles before you raise your periscope.

Don't give up! Or as some here say - be more aggressive!

Fred

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Leandros

Don't give up! Or as some here say - be more aggressive!

Fred

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!!

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!!

Never gets old

[maillemaker]

Like others have said, by 1943 things get rough.

What I find is that after mid-1943 about your only hope for hitting a convoy is to switch to steaming torpedoes and make a single attack from stand-off range. You'll be shooting from the side of the convoy from outside the flank escort's detection range. FAT pattern-running torpedoes are good but at the range you will be firing at they won't have much juice left in them for much pattern running.

The trick is to fire your bow tubes and dive for the red line, undetected, silent running at less than 100 RPM on the screws. Your stern tubes should be full of homing torpedoes and not used except in an emergency.

Once you are detected you are in deep doo-doo. Convoys by this time often have 6 or more escorts, and they will call up support from nearby if it is available. Sitting still does nothing in the game. Nor does bottoming the sub. They will pound you into mud. Once detected, your only choice is to come to periscope depth and try some trick torpedo shooting to kill the escorts. Homing torpedoes can be very helpful here but they don't always work and you have to be careful they don't swing back around and nail your own boat. If you run out of torpedoes while they are hunting you it's basically all over. If they hear you they will sit on top of you until you run out of air, even if they run out of depth charges.

The days of sailing into the midst of a convoy and shooting and reloading are over.

Oh, and stay out of shallow water.

Steve

[Leandros]

You've covered the essentials here, Maillemaker! I may add that the worse the weather, the better. Or vice versa.

Fred

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Never gets old

It's the way I tell em

[Rammstein0991]

And this is why I never atack convoys even early war, I generally prefer to go North/west of Ireland as often as possible where there always seems to be lone targets.

[maillemaker]

Whew, you are passing up some easy tonnage early war with convoys.

Sometimes they only have a single escort, or two. Take out the escorts and you can surface and use your deck gun to wipe them out since the sim does not make the convoy disperse and early war they won't have deck guns of any kind.

A few times with a Type IX I have completely annihilated entire convoys of a dozen ships or more. Not realistic but it is fun to look at your map and see nothing but a big smear or red sunk ship icons over 20 km!

Steve