Am I doomed?

[maillemaker]

It's January 5, 1945.

I just made a stellar attack on a convoy, and came back for seconds. Over 50K sunk.

Made the mistake of launching all my homing torps, and there are now 2 destroyers upstairs that won't let me go. They are out of DCs, but have been following me for 4 hours. I'm at 250 meters with 99% HI. I dare not go deeper.

Seas were fairly rough 4 hours ago, but it's daylight now I have no idea what is going on up top.

I'm down to about 15 on the battery, but tons of air left. If I have to I can surface and put the snorkle up for a few seconds to grab air, but I'm sure they will shoot me down if I try to run very far on it.

Am I doomed?

Steve

[Admiral Halsey]

What type of boat are you using?

[Raptor]

The short answer - you're screwed!

If you have a snorkel, it's a late war year. That means the allies have dedicated hunter-killer groups with or near the convoys.

These murdering wolves won't leave you. They'll let the escort take the convoy away while they just sit on top of you. They know their chances of a death blow are minimal when you're down deep, so they'll hold onto most of their depth charges and wait for you to surface when you run out of air and/or battery. They may drop an occasional "present" just to force you to move and use up more battery.

Check with your sound man. If the DDs are still there, it's suicide to come up and try to snorkel. Radar will see the snorkel at night and they'll hear your diesels running.

Your only hope is to creep away using silent running and very slow speed, changing course often to try to stay astern of most of the DDs. Unfortunately, you don't have the battery life left for that.

Write your will on waterproof paper, surface, and hope to surrender before they blow you out of the water.

[maillemaker]

I'm in a Type XXI, of course.

And I escaped.

It's cheesy, but I'll take it

After being kept down for 12 hours, with the 2 destroyers just making false passes over me, I surfaced to try to run with a snorkle.

While running with the snorkle, one of the escorts rammed me and ripped his own guts out. We took damage but lost no hull integrity at all.

With one escort left I went back to 260 meters at flank speed then cut the engines and drifted.

The single escort could not keep me tracked and they gave up. After a few hours I was able to come back up to periscope depth and sailed home on snorkle.

We live!



I might make it to the end of the war yet. This will be my first time playing with absolute 100% realism including no map updates, dead is dead.

Oh, and I took down over 62,000 tons of shipping from that convoy.

Steve

[VONHARRIS]

Well done on your escape and your success.
I still haven't made it that far.
Latest time in the war for me is January 1944.

[BigWalleye]

Good move. Congrats on getting away.

Unfortunately, that tactic wouldn't work in R/L. "... cut the engines and drift...." and you lose depth control. Especially true if you are running silent with the pumps off.

If you'd like to try a more prototypical simulation, before you go out on your next patrol, activate h.sie's and Stiebler's patches. Make sure Stiebler's Silent Running Fix is turned on. Then, when you try to drift at depth while silent, you will find yourself slowly settling deeper. You'll have to run the motors periodically to hold depth (wihich makes noise and uses amps). This creates a delicate (and nerve-wracking) trade-off. More like what a real sub skipper would have faced.

[maillemaker]

I did not cut the engines completely, just cut back to 1-0 knots. I find that just clicking the "slow" setting is not low enough to avoid detection, you have to manually choose 1-0 knots to get your engine revolutions under 100 RPM for true silent running. But this looks like "stop" on the telegraph.

Even without those mods depth keeping was tricky - my sub kept wanting to slowly rise over time. I guess my chief over-trimmed the tanks as a safety precaution.

The most unrealistic part I think was getting rammed and the destroyer blowing up and not much happening to us.

I vaguely remember this bug from stock SH3 days - you could ram an enemy merchant with your conning tower at full speed and destroy it with minimal damage to your sub. In reality it probably would have sheared the tower off of the sub and sunk it!

Steve

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

I did not cut the engines completely, just cut back to 1-0 knots. I find that just clicking the "slow" setting is not low enough to avoid detection, you have to manually choose 1-0 knots to get your engine revolutions under 100 RPM for true silent running. But this looks like "stop" on the telegraph.

Even without those mods depth keeping was tricky - my sub kept wanting to slowly rise over time. I guess my chief over-trimmed the tanks as a safety precaution.

The most unrealistic part I think was getting rammed and the destroyer blowing up and not much happening to us.

I vaguely remember this bug from stock SH3 days - you could ram an enemy merchant with your conning tower at full speed and destroy it with minimal damage to your sub. In reality it probably would have sheared the tower off of the sub and sunk it!

Steve

Are you using GWX? IIRC, GWX gives the sub a slight positive buoyancy. NYGM trims negative, and stock, I have heard, is neutral. Slight positive buoyancy is generally safer. But silent running adds an additional problem. Pumps are shut down, and there is always a slight inflow of water, making the sub gradually heavier. Plus, at depth, the pressure hull is somewhat compressed, decreasing the internal volume and lowering the buoyancy vice what it was at/near the surface. The result is that the boat drifts lower with time. To compensate, you must increase shaft rpm and/or turn on the pumps. Either alternative increases your sound signature. Stiebler's Slient Running Fix simulates this, regardless of which megamod you are using. It works whether the boat is initially trimmed positive, neutral, or negative.

I believe there is at least one mod which addresses the ramming damage issue, but don't know offhand which it is. Of course, USS Growler famously survived a collision which sank a steel-hulled IJN patrol boat. Growler was a Fleet boat, and collision survivability might be comparable to a Typ XXI. But Growler took serious damage, although still (somewhat) capable of submerging.

Cheesy? Yebbut, cheese tastes better than salt water. Savor it!

[maillemaker]

I'm using GWX.

I don't think I want a mod that makes my boat not keep depth, realistic or not. I think twice I've sunk my boat by not noticing a very slow increase in depth and I've jacked the time compression up and BANG black screen of death.

I don't mind it when I'm damaged or something (I think I had some slight flooding when it happened to me before so it was my own stupidity).

Cheesy? Yebbut, cheese tastes better than salt water. Savor it!

LOL!

Steve

[maillemaker]

Growler's bow after the collision:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US...5_Bent_Bow.jpg

I don't feel so bad about my survival now.

Steve

[maillemaker]

As a result of this action, after the collision, Growler was raked by machine gun fire. The captain, unable to get below, ordered his sub to dive without him. He earned the Medal of Honor for his sacrifice.

Two other men died in the attack also.

Steve

[BigWalleye]

Commander Howard W Gilmore, USN. Gilmore was awarded the CMH and a sub tender was named for him..

[Tonnage_Ace]

If I remember correctly, the type XXI can go to 300m if the hull is 100% and you're desperate.
And the drift is pretty crazy too, it can glide for a while before it comes to a stop