Rough weather

[maillemaker]

Bad weather can be a real killer. Visibility can be so low that you can't see them until it's just time to fire.

Early in the war (before 1941) you can get away with this, as usually the merchants don't have guns. If you run into a ship like this that has guns, like a destroyer, they will paste you before you can get under.

You can use your sonar to try and shadow them until weather is favorable.

Magnetics are risky in bad weather. The more waves, the more likely a predetonation is. Predetonation is unlikely under 500m though - I've never seen it in-game. However, normally with magnetics you try and shoot under the hull, and in rough seas the ship may buck so much that your torpedo passes under it without going off.

As said above, I tend to run torps shallower and with impact pistols in rough seas.

Steve

Zig zagging means you've been detected. Attack over.

Disengage. Then you can take up the chase again in a few hours, if the weather permits.

An attack in Heavy Fog is not a good idé.
Visibilty 300 meters and under.
Torpedo arming reqires 300 meters and over.
Realy simple math says it isn't worth the risks.

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Snestorm

Zig zagging means you've been detected. Attack over.

Disengage. Then you can take up the chase again in a few hours, if the weather permits.

An attack in Heavy Fog is not a good idé.
Visibilty 300 meters and under.
Torpedo arming reqires 300 meters and over.
Realy simple math says it isn't worth the risks.

Visibility that poor you usually end up running into the other boat! If you have fair-poor visibility and can see about 1000m or so you still have a shot of the large ships, though it will require either some measure of manual targeting.

You'll need to watch the movement of the boats and wait until the point when they zigzag towards your heading. Once they've started turning towards you plot the solution, unlock the scope and aim the recticle towards the forecastle of the ship, maybe a bit ahead of it using a medium to low depth setting. Imagine the ship is a baseball bat and you need to time your pitch (for this analogy assume you're in batting practice) so that when it reaches the batter the ball is in the position where his bat is swinging such that it makes contact.

[kapuhy]

With really bad weather (like, you can see the target at 300-350 meters and your crew spots it at 200), I had some success attacking from stern tube at point blank range, something like this:



Red - enemy ship, black - U-Boat, green - torpedo path. I position myself on parallel course, overtake him and then turn 90 deg. away. With torpedo already pre-set in TDC, I fire when he starts to fade into the fog at about 300 meters. Even a zigzaging ship has little chance of dodging a shot at this distance (especially if it's big, and I don't even try to attack small ships in such a weather).

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

With really bad weather (like, you can see the target at 300-350 meters and your crew spots it at 200), I had some success attacking from stern tube at point blank range, something like this:



Red - enemy ship, black - U-Boat, green - torpedo path. I position myself on parallel course, overtake him and then turn 90 deg. away. With torpedo already pre-set in TDC, I fire when he starts to fade into the fog at about 300 meters. Even a zigzaging ship has little chance of dodging a shot at this distance (especially if it's big, and I don't even try to attack small ships in such a weather).

That's about the only way I've found to do it, and it's difficult to pull off, unless you can plot an intercept from sonar bearings. Even then, it's difficult to be in perfect position, last time I did it, I took damage from the explosion.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

With really bad weather (like, you can see the target at 300-350 meters and your crew spots it at 200), I had some success attacking from stern tube at point blank range, something like this:



Red - enemy ship, black - U-Boat, green - torpedo path. I position myself on parallel course, overtake him and then turn 90 deg. away. With torpedo already pre-set in TDC, I fire when he starts to fade into the fog at about 300 meters. Even a zigzaging ship has little chance of dodging a shot at this distance (especially if it's big, and I don't even try to attack small ships in such a weather).

That or staying paralell to him, and firing off a 90 degree shot at 200 to 300 meters.
The torpedo travels about 100 meters before starting it's turn.

Either way can be pretty risky, and requires the TDC to be preset.
If he sees, and turns toward us we loose.

Without the element of surprise, the whole thing is just a big crap shoot.
Not my style.