Keeping safe distance

[Xander SoS]

Alfredo,
I think SH5 with Wolves has the most exciting surface attacks, thanks to relatively blind enemies. From my experience you can get pretty close on the surface (within 3000m) and even closer running decks-awash (400m-1200), given the right conditions: night and favorable moon placement. In theory, the closer you get to targets, its harder for them to see you as lookouts sit much higher than the uboat conning tower, leaving you entirely under the horizon.
Keep the target between you and the moon. I'm not exactly sure if the moonlight is coded in, but it honestly seems to work for me (and it at least lights up their silhouettes).

For single merchants i get under 500m and sit deck-awash waiting..I try to attack convoys from a further distance with slow torpedoes to get away, but Ive been able to get within 1200m or less of destroyer destroyer screens.

As for them seeing your periscope at that distance at night seems odd: perhaps they heard you? Also, time compressions above 8x seem to increase your detectability when submerged.

Originally Posted by AlfredoZ

Hi,

I play SH5 with WOS mod since a few days (BTW thx to the community for making the game playable). I played SH since the very first edition in the early nineties, but not excessible. When I purchased SH4, I experienced an overheating of my GFX card and my screen went black after several minutes of gameplay, so I stopped playing it. SH5 was bugged so bad, that I gave up after a few days. But now I made another approach on it with Wolves Of Steel and... YES! Finally it's fun!!!

What I wonder about is, if there's some kind of rough estimate for the distance I have to keep from my target to not be seen.
I guess it depends on if I'm surfaced or submerged with periscope, if it's day or night and how fast I'm going. But can one roughly say, if that and that is the case, keep X km distance?


I experienced several times, that I spotted smoke on the horizon, but couldn't recognize if it's friend or enemy from a distance of more than 10 km. So I had to get closer. As the ship travels at a speed f.e. of 7 kts and eventually moves away from me in some kind, I would run out of batteries before I could recognize the flag, if I would go all the way submerged. So I have to face a surfaced solution to outrun it. And here's the problem. How far away should I stay to not being detected?
There was also a situation, where the enemy saw my attack scope at night at approx. 4 km distance by night. I was going like 6 kts, but hey... 4 km??? It's a damned stick and it was dark... I barely could see the ship's silhouette, so that confused me a bit.


I know of Otto Kretschmer, who even sneaked deck awash into enemy convoys at night and fought them from the inside of the convoy without being spotted. So there must be a rough rule for it.

Would appreciate any info on the distance I've to keep to stay safe of being spotted.