TWOS: So, about convoys, stealth and AI...

[Fifi]

Hi Spraki,

1) no hydrophones on freighters, some have search lights

2) at the beginning of war, freighters were not armed. Do not remember the starting year for them to be armed though

3) silent running is necessary only within a close radius of escorts.
By night, escort can’t see you even surfaced if not too close. You can run decks awash too, to avoid detection also. Escort can’t hear you when you are behind them ( they hear their own prop)
Best is to anticipate the convoy path, and wait all stopped submerged…if possible 90 degrés from the path.

4) don’T leave your periscope too long out the water!

5) surface attack with escorts is suicide

6) you can manually choose the torpedo type for refitting imho

Cheers

[Spraki]

Originally Posted by Fifi

Hi Spraki,

1) no hydrophones on freighters, some have search lights

2) at the beginning of war, freighters were not armed. Do not remember the starting year for them to be armed though

3) silent running is necessary only within a close radius of escorts.
By night, escort can’t see you even surfaced if not too close. You can run decks awash too, to avoid detection also. Escort can’t hear you when you are behind them ( they hear their own prop)
Best is to anticipate the convoy path, and wait all stopped submerged…if possible 90 degrés from the path.

4) don’T leave your periscope too long out the water!

5) surface attack with escorts is suicide

6) you can manually choose the torpedo type for refitting imho

Cheers

Thanks.

About #6
Hmm, I will have to check that. Last I tried, it wouldn't let me drag drop anything.
I will check again though!


edit:
Provided admins won't mind, I've just repurposed the thread with new newbie questions. Hope it is ok to do a little bump.

[XenonSurf]

#7:

Torpedos with magnetic detonators will easily fail early in the war by not exploding if they don't hit the target at a 90° angle. TWoS reflects that as well as other torpedo failures, so dud torpedos have orverall a realistic percentage in your actions. Late in the war this percentage should be sensibly lower (but is it? I don't know...)

[Captain_AJ]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

#7:

Torpedos with magnetic detonators will easily fail early in the war by not exploding if they don't hit the target at a 90° angle. TWoS reflects that as well as other torpedo failures, so dud torpedos have overall a realistic percentage in your actions. Late in the war this percentage should be sensibly lower (but is it? I don't know...)

This I totally disagree. What is the difference between a magnetic detonator and impact?

magnetic detonators as implied will go off near the vicinity of the ship keel. It does not matter if the ship is at a 90-degree OR A 1 AOB ANGLE. btw THE WAy USING AMAGNETIC DETONATOR ON A ON COMING DESTROYER IS VERY USEFUL AT 0 -1 AOB ANGLE any torpedo for that matter will destroy a ship if IF ALL THE VARIABLE ARE Correct, AOB. Speed, Distance. An impact will need to contact the ships hull .

[XenonSurf]

Maybe you are right, excuse my horrible mistake
If I'm well informed, the German U-Boats were about to wipe out a big part of the English fleet in the Norvegian Sea at the beginning of the war. If the torpedos were not so terribly faulty this would have succeeded and I think that as a result England would not have played any further role in the war, forced into a disadvantageous peace treaty with Germany.

We all know that History is different - indeed by a very close call IMO, due to defective torpedos - what an irony.

Now, what was the technical defects of the torpedos? Impact-type failures? Or failures of the first magnetic-type ones? I'm not an expert in this, and besides: it's not that I care very much about either, but what I know is: These torpedo defections were a turn-around in the European sea war.
In the Pacific region, the USA had similar problems with their torpedos at the start of hostilities. Magnetic torpedos or not? I would have to open a book and not learn very much, except that hitting ships full-broadside (90° angle as I said) was the best technique for minimizing duds; with German U-Boats or American ones!
The Kaleuns had their clock in their hand and gave the fire orders. I don't think they did care about this technical stuff, they didn't have to know, they were confident in their weapon engineers...

Back to SH5:
With the 2 torpedo types that I can chose from at the start of campaign, I'll chose to hit ships full-broadside and a little above the recommended keel depth for best results. If I don't do it, I will score a lot of misses, with magnetic, impact or whatever.

[XenonSurf]

#9:


According to the TWoS tips (for the moment I'm not going to risk my own opinion here - see above):


"Aim for engine room! Engine room on most merchants/warships is located slightly behind ships superstructure".


In Auto TDC this is a milkrun, but not so in Manual TDC. I'm not that good to make such an adjustment yet, if so it must be done at the last moment I guess, but I'm happy to deduce from it that torpedos can make more or less damages, and probably the nr. of torps to sink a ship will vary because of it. That's realism.


For you Spraki, and lovers of technical stuff: It's worth to read the SH3 WAC5 documentation about scenarios, or the SH3 GWX3 500+ pages manual. It contains most of the details you ask in your thread, plus a lot of historical background. Then there a lot of docs in the TWoS mod itself, located in the game folder.

[Spraki]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

#9:


According to the TWoS tips (for the moment I'm not going to risk my own opinion here - see above):


"Aim for engine room! Engine room on most merchants/warships is located slightly behind ships superstructure".


In Auto TDC this is a milkrun, but not so in Manual TDC. I'm not that good to make such an adjustment yet, if so it must be done at the last moment I guess, but I'm happy to deduce from it that torpedos can make more or less damages, and probably the nr. of torps to sink a ship will vary because of it. That's realism.


For you Spraki, and lovers of technical stuff: It's worth to read the SH3 WAC5 documentation about scenarios, or the SH3 GWX3 500+ pages manual. It contains most of the details you ask in your thread, plus a lot of historical background. Then there a lot of docs in the TWoS mod itself, located in the game folder.

Thanks. I will check that 500page manual!

Still a whole bunch of questions to figure out !