Do American Subs do Surface Night Atacks?

[Rhodes]

As the title goes do American Subs do Surface Night Atacks, to the convoy's? Sneak past the escorts and unloaded 6 or more torpedos on the targets? Or they only atack submerged?

Other question, don't know if is real. In Torpedo Run, when they rise the attack periscope, the skipper was on his knees almost every time, in other scenes they put the periscope all the way up. So, american subs had 2 positions for the attack scope or a free height control like SH3 (or like u-boats or other subs, correct if wrong).

Final: is historical correct, in march 1942, being ping by japonese destroyers and discovered, when being at silence speed and moving away from the destroyer in a perfect T position, i.e. my sub was bering 270 moving away?

[Egan]

They did do night surface attacks although, in his book 'Silent Running' Jim Calvert writes that his skipper Tommy Dykers on the Jack - who seems to have been a great surface attack expert - was eventually viewed by his superiors as not having the aggression to carry out periscope attacks where he was more liable to be attacked and depth charged. I don't know whether this was a general belief in the sub command considering how devestating a surface attack can be.

[Overkill]

Read Thunder Below by Adm. E. Flucky. He conducted some of the most successfull night surface attacks durring the war.

[WFGood]

Originally Posted by Rhodes

As the title goes do American Subs do Surface Night Atacks, to the convoy's? Sneak past the escorts and unloaded 6 or more torpedos on the targets? Or they only atack submerged?

Other question, don't know if is real. In Torpedo Run, when they rise the attack periscope, the skipper was on his knees almost every time, in other scenes they put the periscope all the way up. So, american subs had 2 positions for the attack scope or a free height control like SH3 (or like u-boats or other subs, correct if wrong).

Final: is historical correct, in march 1942, being ping by japonese destroyers and discovered, when being at silence speed and moving away from the destroyer in a perfect T position, i.e. my sub was bering 270 moving away?

Yes, US submarines did make night surface attacks. For example, CDR Ramage of the USS Parche made some devastating surface attacks against escorted convoys. He was awarded the CMOH for such an attack in July '44. It was a serious departure from pre-war doctrine, and as such was heavily discouraged early in the war. It wasn't until many of the older skippers had been replaced and torpedo issued were largely resolved that the crews began to innovate. Most pre-war training taught submarine skippers that they would easily be detected and sunk which caused an overabundance of caution.

[Steeltrap]

Another factor not covered by the sim is that USA subs suffered periods of blindness through their periscopes. This was due to the attack scope having a narrow head (to minimise chances of it being spotted) which meant they were unable to draw a great deal of light through them. So in periods of low light they were, effectively, blind.

As others have said, it took the abandonment of pre-war doctrines for subs to start demonstrating their potential. One reason Dudley Morton of Wahoo was so famous is he is widely regarded as the first skipper to demonstrate what an aggressively handled fleet boat could do.

The sim has the problem of you inevitably being spotted before reaching firing position on the surface. This is unrealistic as subs were very difficult to see with their low, narrow profiles. Sure, bright moonlight meant surface attacks weren't possible, but with that much light they could use their scope, so it didn't matter.

SHIII required considerable work by modders to enable surface attacks - I suspect this is the same situation in SHIV.

[Chock]

You could try what I managed last night:

I torpedoed three ships in an eight-ship convoy from periscope depth (8200 yards for the furthest one, which is probably my best shot ever I think). They were escorted by three destroyers coming into the channel to approach Hiroshima (which is fortunately quite deep in places). One sank since it got hit by four torpedoes, but the other two kept going at about 2 knots. So I sneaked in under the thermal layer and surfaced between them (took bloody ages, even on accelerated time). The two crippled ships shielded me from the destroyers and I was able to finish one of them off with the deck gun. Then it was back down to 250 feet, silent running on and thank-you very much and goodnight. And yes, that was on manual TDC and all the hard settings.

Good old Gudgeon, she never lets me down

On the subject of which, Gudgeon (the real one) apparently, attacked a ship once on the surface and then sat there whilst it sank, and the crew were allowed up on deck to watch. Not something the backroom boys normally got to see.

[Rhodes]

Thanks , and about the second and third parograph?

Chock, great attack!

[jhelix70]

Another factor not covered by the sim is that USA subs suffered periods of blindness through their periscopes. This was due to the attack scope having a narrow head (to minimise chances of it being spotted) which meant they were unable to draw a great deal of light through them. So in periods of low light they were, effectively, blind.

In other words the scopes werent effective on a dark night--half the reason for undertaking a night surface attack (the other half is the speed at which the sub could operate is of course much faster than when submerged). I think by the game not addressing this we are missing a major part of sub tactics.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

SHIII required considerable work by modders to enable surface attacks - I suspect this is the same situation in SHIV.

Already fixed

[Snuffy]

The ones I pilot do ...

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Steeltrap

Another factor not covered by the sim is that USA subs suffered periods of blindness through their periscopes. This was due to the attack scope having a narrow head (to minimise chances of it being spotted) which meant they were unable to draw a great deal of light through them. So in periods of low light they were, effectively, blind.

I'm not sure, but if you mean this was a problem limited to "USA scopes" it would be bollocks though. Nazi periscopes had the same problem. This is why both sides also introduced observation scopes, which would allow more light to get through than the narrow attack scopes (and could be tilted upwards for searching the sky, too).

Problem in these modern games with lightsources/light conditions is that it's difficult to consider the human factor as well as the AI in how "good" the visibility is. In the old games, with no "real" lightsources, visibility was either 0 or 1. In good conditions, you and the AI would both see like 20km, while during a dark night the enemy ship would appear on the screen at 5km or whatever, and would then also be there for the AI. Today, you, the human, might see or might not see something on your monitor, depending on your gamma settings etc., but the AI still has the old "0" and "1" parameters to decide whether or not it can see and what. So there will be arkward results like you seeing ships in the night which are not spotted by the crew, or vise-versa. To avoid that, the game would also have to incooperate a simulation of the human eye - which is not going to happen anytime soon in gaming.

[jhelix70]

Night surface attacks are historically accurate, but it is not really possible to make attacks resembling those in the WW2 sub skipper's memoirs in SHIV as it is now. Why? Japanese warships can detect you with their air-search radar from long range.

A good fix for this is to disable the type 13 air search radar in the AI_Sensors file (located under the library folder). Just set the max range value to 1. You'll need a hex editor or the minitweaker.

[Seaman_Hornsby]

Originally Posted by jhelix70

A good fix for this is to disable the type 13 air search radar in the AI_Sensors file (located under the library folder). Just set the max range value to 1. You'll need a hex editor or the minitweaker.

Thanks, mate. I'll have to check into getting a hex editor to make some changes. Good work identifying this one too, it's been puzzling me enough to make me an ex-lurker!

[jhelix70]

What part are they not addressing? Scope attack at night or surfaceattack at night?

Scope attacks are too easy at night, thus we are not forced to adopt the night surface attack. We can stay safer underwater.

[XanderF]

Originally Posted by jhelix70

Scope attacks are too easy at night, thus we are not forced to adopt the night surface attack. We can stay safer underwater.

You need this mod. See if that doesn't make "pitch black" night attacks through the periscope more difficult for you.