First Career. First patrol. 0 Alive, 46 dead.

[Sawdust]

Originally Posted by blizzard_beast

Is there any way I could just press a button to have my crew switch shifts, or do I have to do it manually via drag and drop?

If you double-click on the name of the department with fatigued crew in it, the fatigued men will all be replaced. They'll be swapped for replacement crew from the rest quarters.

[Keelbuster]

I seriously recommend keeping your threat indicator OFF. It kills the realism and turns the game arcade. You end up spending all your time watching for the indicator to change rather than scoping the tactical situation. It also makes DC evasion way cooler when you can only guess how visible you are to the enemy.

Kb

[blizzard_beast]

Yeah, I switched it off as soon as I found there was an option to.

[Keelbuster]

Blizzard - about the planes - my new strategy is not to dive immediately (against the advice of many). I find that if you dive, and the plane has you spotted, it will conduct an uninterrupted bombing of your sub as it submerges. If it has multiple bombs, this could be fatal - then you start to take on water and sink like a stone. I've lost a few boats that way.

My new strategy is to go to the bridge, order Flank turns, and spot the airplane _myself_ with the binoculars. Then I make a judgement call - if the plane hasn't spotted me yet (i.e. has passed) I will dive to 40m as quickly as possible. If the plane has spotted me and is setting up for an attack run, I keep course, and as it starts its dive I order hard port/starboard, coupled, if weather-permitting, with a long burst from the flak guns. This can screw up its first run and cause it to miss with its bombs. Then I dive. Even if it hits, you are surfaced, and in a much better position to deal with flooding/damage.

This is in concert with my new strategies in avoiding DD attackers - only dive and hide when you have to. Otherwise, keep an eye on your opponent.

Kb

[Rosencrantz]

Well, just wondering what papa Dönitz would think...

[Heibges]

Originally Posted by svenks

And therein lies a big part of the problem: 1024TC is WAY too much to be running surfaced on a clear day and within aircraft range (which by the way is way too long, at least for the Hurrcane). The thing is, you'll only have 1/1024 of the time to react, as opposed to running TC=1. The sequence of events is:

BRGDS
Sven

This will happen at Real Time Time Compression as well as 1024X. You can be sitting there in perfect visibility, on the bridge, and the crew gives you almost no warning of the attack.

The edit of the Visual Sensitivity in SH2/Data/CFG/Sim from .01 to .02 seems to be the only thing that solves the problem, and it solves it in all Time Compression Settings.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by Oleif

haha, look at these new heros... all hot air and smoke....

A line from the film, yes?

[tbarak]

To re-phrase my prior post:

You should never cruise on the surface during the day for prolonged periods. Like has been said before, don't even do it in bad weather since there's a real danger of being rammed.

[Firebird]

So what do you do when you're constantly in bad weather? You can't stay submerged forever...

I surface once a day for about six hours to recharge and send of a position report (imaginary, of course).

[Heibges]

One thing I have learned and remembered since Silent Service on my PCjr (yes I was the one) was always stay submerged in heavy fog.

In SH3

1939 to 1941: Surfaced. Sounchecks at dawn and dusk.

1942: Submerged by day surfaced by night.

1943: Submerged by night, surfaced by day.

1944 to 1945: Submerged

[Ducimus]

heh, theres's a reason why IX boats are kinda rusty towards the end of the war They probably spend more time submerged then the VII boats.

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.

[tbarak]

So what do you do when you're constantly in bad weather? You can't stay submerged forever...

Well you can also just sit idle underwater to help conserve power until nightfall, you only need to pop up for a little while to replenish your oxygen which doesn't take long. Or creep along at slow speed to stretch out your battery power. Besides, other than the radar, your hydrophones have the greatest range for detecting the enemy. Stopping to listen is a very effective tactic for finding the enemy.

Then when you need to surface, use a low TC setting or intermittently drop down to 1x speed every say 15 kms to give the bridge crew time to scan the horizon. Cruising on the surface in bad weather is risky, but the odds are in your favour.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Boats don't rust underwater. It takes air.

Eh... you sure. I was about to accept your answer but the Titanic just hit me. That thing is one big rusticle! If it takes air to rust, then every ship on the bottom wouldnt have near the rust that they do, no?