Evasion of Sonar and Depth Charges Tutorial?

[Gargamel]

I haven't seen a video on this, but there's only two main points, with a bunch of finer points.

Low and Slow.

Go deep. I used to go to 200-250m. The crew starts yelling at you, but you can ignore them, for a bit. On my first patrol with a new boat, I would always test dive to 200m, then slowly dive 10m at a time more until I started taking damage. Then I knew how deep I could push my boat.

Go Slow. Manually click the rpm gauge to it's lowest setting (45 rpm comes to mind, I know I'm wrong on this). You'll only be moving about 1 kt, enough to maintain control and depth. The boats won't hear you.

If they start a charge run, you can sprint away from them until the charges stop, then return to dead slow.


Course, it's been a while since I played, but that usually worked for me.

[Aktungbby]

DrRemulak!

[Niume]

This tactic always work s

[Fubar2Niner]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

I haven't seen a video on this, but there's only two main points, with a bunch of finer points.

Low and Slow.

Go deep. I used to go to 200-250m. The crew starts yelling at you, but you can ignore them, for a bit. On my first patrol with a new boat, I would always test dive to 200m, then slowly dive 10m at a time more until I started taking damage. Then I knew how deep I could push my boat.

Go Slow. Manually click the rpm gauge to it's lowest setting (45 rpm comes to mind, I know I'm wrong on this). You'll only be moving about 1 kt, enough to maintain control and depth. The boats won't hear you.

If they start a charge run, you can sprint away from them until the charges stop, then return to dead slow.


Course, it's been a while since I played, but that usually worked for me.

@Gargamel

This is interesting kaleun, what mods do you use? I can find no way to get below 200 mtrs. Depth gauge only shows 200 max, no way do I want to crash dive Also I cannot find a way to actually click on the rpm meters in a way that inputs a setting! Really interested to learn how you do this

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[bstanko6]

Pressing D gives a dive order. Press D and watch the meters. Press A to even the dive planes and stop the dive. So even if your gauge does not go past 200m you can still dive past.

The engine dial changes over to knots. Hand select the knots you want to travel at to get the RPM you want. For my type 9 i get 50rpm at 1 knot.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by bstanko6

Pressing D gives a dive order. Press D and watch the meters. Press A to even the dive planes and stop the dive. So even if your gauge does not go past 200m you can still dive past.

The engine dial changes over to knots. Hand select the knots you want to travel at to get the RPM you want. For my type 9 i get 50rpm at 1 knot.

Yes! ^ This. Like I said it's been a while, and my answer would have been a little vague.

I'm thinking I may do a reinstall and start playing again. Computer changes have had me not playing for a while. I I was running a bunch of mods, but it was basically just GWX with some other enhancements, no cheat like stuff though.

EDIT: OH! I think I was using the large dials mod, that helped do controlled dives. And IRRC, you could click somewhere on the depth gauge to change readouts to a deeper gauge. Maybe that only worked for normal and shallow though...

[bstanko6]

I just want to add to the evasion. My tip is don't be the guy that just goes deep and waits to be depth charged. There are a few things to be done when hunted:

1)if surfaced attempt to run away. The uboat has really fast engines. You can run away from most escorts.

2) don't just dive deep! Evade! If you know you are hunted, and there is time, hit flank, dive around 100m and get out of the area you attacked from. I generally place a 5k ring around the boat, pick a direction and get out of the circle. Don't just dive deep and wait. Crash dive and get out of town. Only when they are on top of you will you want to go deeper and slow down!

Most guys send torps and want to watch the fireworks... don't do that. Send your torps and get out!

[bstanko6]

Also to add, if you are really deep and and a D.C. Hits you... you have fewer chances of surviving.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by bstanko6

I just want to add to the evasion. My tip is don't be the guy that just goes deep and waits to be depth charged. There are a few things to be done when hunted:

1)if surfaced attempt to run away. The uboat has really fast engines. You can run away from most escorts.

I think this is wrong. Most of the escorts I remember playing against could easily run me down. And they have better deck guns. Once they start firing on you, it's time to dive and change course. By the time they get to your last known position, you'll have moved far enough away they can't find you. And later on, you aren't even given a chance to surface, as their radar will pick you up way before you get within firing range.

2) don't just dive deep! Evade! If you know you are hunted, and there is time, hit flank, dive around 100m and get out of the area you attacked from. I generally place a 5k ring around the boat, pick a direction and get out of the circle. Don't just dive deep and wait. Crash dive and get out of town. Only when they are on top of you will you want to go deeper and slow down!

Running at flank can easily attract escorts from quite a distance, especially later in the war. This will work, as you mentioned, if you are far enough away, but if you're that far, your chances of a good hit are quite limited. Shooting and scooting is a sound plan, but if you are far enough away, they won't know where to look to start with. If you are giving them extra data to work with, they'll figure it out quicker. So fire, dive, and cruise quietly away. You can get use medium speeds, but I'd hesitate to go flank unless I know they won't pick me up.

Also to add, if you are really deep and and a D.C. Hits you... you have fewer chances of surviving.

If you go really deep, they have a reduced chance of hitting you. While you are right, there is an increased risk of repairing damage while at deep depth. But that is easily offset by the reduced risk of being hit. And if they do hit you at depth, that means they have your depth figured out. By coming up 50-100m to help the repair crews, you'll get out of the crosshairs. If you're already shallow (<150m), diving deeper only compounds the damage.

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

Sadly, the thermal layer is not modeled in vanilla SHIII or any mods that I know of. If it was, then the only thing any of us would have to do is get deep (very, very deep) and slowly creep away at one or two knots.

However, everyone here is giving you ways to become undetected and prevent being depth-charged. I'll give you some tips that I've learned for how to avoid being critically damaged when a destroyer does make an attack run. (This will be from an internal view; no external or free camera)

Go to the command room view and listen...you should be at depth already, and moving anywhere from 1-4 knots. (For these purposes, let's say you're at 75 metres.) The sonar pings will be very intermittent, I'm sure you know this is the destroyer, trying to get a lock on you.

Once the sonar becomes more consistent, be ready to go to flank speed. There will be a point where the sonar cuts out, and you will hear the destroyer's screws as he starts to go above you. At the point where the sonar pings stop, go to ahead flank, and go either hard to starboard or port while diving...the depth charges are already set for a certain depth, which will be the one where the destroyer last had you contacted.

With practice and a certain amount of luck, you should be able to get off scot-free, or at least with minimal damage.

Late-war, however, the odds get heavily stacked against you, with the introduction of Hedgehogs and Squids. With these, a destroyer will keep you contacted, set up for a perfect attack run, and fire these ahead of themselves on your position. Good news: they only explode on contact. Bad news: They only need to hit the hull once, maybe twice on some of the larger submarines, to sink you.

Just be glad they didn't add the Allied anti-submarine torpedoes.

As for avoiding being detected...

Run silent, run deep. Rig for silent running unless you have absolutely critical damage (i.e, your submarine is sinking) This will stop all repairs, reloading, anything that is non-critical. Manually set your speed to 1 or 2 knots, and stay on a course to break contact with the convoy/task force you were engaging; in most instances, the escorts will only drive you off, not hound you until the end.

Remember, if you survive, you can surface to repair, rearm, and recharge in order to go back into the fray. If sunk, well...you can't.

Also keep in mind that any hostile ship that you contact/engage will report your last known position and heading, and depending on your location, that means you'll get some friends in the form of aircraft and hunter-killer groups.