U64 Traverses the Suez Canal!

[maillemaker]

And you know what? your mod list gave me some inspiration, I mean about these:
1) Real Depth Charge
2) TDW_DC_Water_Disturbance_v4_0_SH3
3) Q Ship mod GWX3.0

I run to learn about them, but if you desire to elaborate on them feel free to do so . I expecially like to know your personal feelings & feedback about the three above mentioned mods

I have run with these so long I don't remember what 1 and 2 do any more, or what the game was like without them.

Number 3, though...heh heh heh it's a good one. Just last patrol I closed on a lone freighter at night and engaged with guns at close range only to discover it was a Q ship and it beat me up pretty good before I could sink her.

My only complaint with the Q-ship mod is that there is only one ship style of Q-ship, and I can pretty much identify them on sight now. I slipped up with the one above because it was night and I had forgotten about Q-ships it had been so long since I saw one.

I wish there were more variants of Q-ships, or even better, if the Q-ships looked just like the rest of the game's merchant vessels.

What does the moonlight mod do?

Steve

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

Number 3, though...heh heh heh it's a good one. Just last patrol I closed on a lone freighter at night and engaged with guns at close range only to discover it was a Q ship and it beat me up pretty good before I could sink her.

My only complaint with the Q-ship mod is that there is only one ship style of Q-ship, and I can pretty much identify them on sight now. I slipped up with the one above because it was night and I had forgotten about Q-ships it had been so long since I saw one.

I wish there were more variants of Q-ships, or even better, if the Q-ships looked just like the rest of the game's merchant vessels.

Could you (or someone else) please be so kind and give me a link to that thing? Cause I have tried searching in the SHIII mod section but no luck till now (I use the advanced seatch function and I curse the tons of result I obtain; the culprit, I suspect, is the word "ship" in "Q-Ship", that assure hundreds of results...

Originally Posted by maillemaker

What does the moonlight mod do?

Simultate nighttime light caused by the moon (in reality it use an ambient light, but it do so in a clever way). Give a somewhat nicer visual effect (so it's cosmetic) but also it *should* slightly comes in play for visual sensor consideration.
Here it is:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...Moon+light+mod

[maillemaker]

I used Google to find this thread on it:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=149513

If you scroll down a bit you will see a version for GWX3.

Well, U-64 bought the farm last night.

It was July 1942. We were off the coast of the United States, off the continental shelf just off Charleston.

We received a radio notification of a ship contact in shallow water, so we made a dash for it. On the way, we spotted a Fletcher class destroyer. I decided to use my tried and true down-the-throat shot to take him out.

It was a bright sunny day, with flat seas, so we manned the deck gun and lobbed a few shots at the destroyer to get his attention, which we promptly did.

He ran straight at us, and we at him, until he got within pinging range, and I let my torpedo fly. Sadly I had forgotten to set the target speed back to zero, and so my torpedo went in the wrong direction. I made a quick correction and a follow-up shot but he was too close and the torpedo did not arm.

We tried to turn away, but we were too close. The destroyer hit us with an earth-shattering crash and the tearing of steel. Then we heard an explosion just aft of us. The sound man reported, "She's going down!"

We tried to open the hatch to the conning tower, but it was jammed shut. So we went out the aft hatch. The conning tower was...just gone. Completely sheared from the hull as if a giant scythe had come along and cut it away like grass. To our stern the Fletcher class was sinking rapidly by the bow and on fire, with men jumping off the sides into the sea.

With no bridge to station outlooks upon, we turned towards the open sea at flank speed, completely blind down below.

Within minutes we were rocked with explosions and we could hear the roar of aircraft engines. We were knocked down to 17% hull integrity and extreme damage. The port diesel was destroyed. Flooding. I put the damage control team to work, and we went for periscope depth with only 20 or so meters under the hull.

We got submerged, but I guess there was a fuel leak or they could see us in the clear, calm shallow water, but another burst of bombs fell on us, and knocked us down to 7% hull integrity.

Even at only periscope depth, the hull began to come apart around us, and we sank to our shallow grave.

Steve

P.S. I was surprised as in game we could not station any men on the bridge as it said "compartment destroyed". I had thought that if this happened the game would continue sticking your men on the bridge and killing them one after another. I was relieved that did not happen, but in the end it didn't matter.

[Zosimus]

Sad, especially since it was completely avoidable. I guess you learned the hard way to triple check your torpedo settings.

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by Zosimus

Sad, especially since it was completely avoidable. I guess you learned the hard way to triple check your torpedo settings.

I guess he learned the hard way not to engage warship when not stricktly neccessary, at least if he really worry about his ship and men lives

[Btw, maillemaker, nice AAR! And thank you for the Q-Ship mod link!]

[Zosimus]

Originally Posted by banryu79

I guess he learned the hard way not to engage warship when not stricktly neccessary, at least if he really worry about his ship and men lives

[Btw, maillemaker, nice AAR! And thank you for the Q-Ship mod link!]

Well, I can't really say what that's like because I assume he has better torpedoes than the steam-powered ones I'm working with. As far as I understand his real death came from the airplanes that caught him in shallow water. Certainly he should have set his TDC to speed: 0 before lobbing a few shots to get the destroyer's attention. War is war, and the U-boat job is to sink enemy ships. Personally I aim for ships with large tonnage, but to each his (or her) own. Based on his experience, he calculated that his tactic would work. Since he probably knows better than I do, I assume that it would have worked, had he gotten the targeting computer on board with the plan.

[maillemaker]

Based on his experience, he calculated that his tactic would work. Since he probably knows better than I do, I assume that it would have worked, had he gotten the targeting computer on board with the plan.

Yeah, but banyru is really right, in reality you'd never pull the tail of a tiger like I do.

But, as I've said elsewhere, I have learned how to "game the game". I operate within the limits of the game, but I do operate fully to the limits of the game. It's hard enough to beat (I have not made it to the end of the war on 100% realism yet) so I'm ok with that.

I have found that the escorts in ST3 are predictable enough that I can, about 90% of the time, take them out at will.

If you allow them to detect you, they will charge you. They sill either come straight in, which makes life easy, or, more usually, they will make a zig-zag approach. But they will almost always start pinging you and drive straight in when they reach 400 meters. Your torpedoes need 200-300 meters to arm. If you have IDd the escort and know its draft, and set a mag torpedo, you can usually nail them on their attack run. Even with a steamer set at fast speed they cannot evade.

But, you need your stern (or bow) pointed directly at them on firing. And in heavy seas sometimes the ship will dip low and cause a dud impact on the nose. And if you miss, watch out.

Generally, if you are running away from them, and thus using your stern tubes, if you miss you can generally, at flank speed, avoid a collision, and if you are lucky you will be close alongside them in their turn so that neither their aft-dropped nor side-launched depth charges can touch you.

If you are backing away from them, with your nose pointed at them, it's a lot harder to avoid a collision if you miss.

Of course later in the war when hedgehogs appear this tactic no longer works. But by then you should have homing torpedoes.

Most of the time I make a "traditional" attack, in that I slip inside the convoy and fire from within, reloading and attacking until the escorts figure out the deal and then I dive and evade.

But if I am detected on approach, I go on the offensive and draw off the escorts and kill them one at a time as they leave the convoy and come after me.

The only downside here (aside from missing ) is that on occasion you wound the escort but don't sink it. The AI makes them immediately give up pursuit and they return to their picket position in the convoy. Which makes night surface attacks harder afterwards as they are sitting their with all their nice radar and guns when you reload and resume your attack on the convoy.

Once I get homing torpedoes, though, all bets are off. I use the bug where you can switch from the torpedo load screen to any other screen and back so that I can load as many of any kind of torpedo I want. Then I intentionally draw off the escorts and nail them with homing torpedoes. It's still a bit tricky as sometimes the darn things chase off after someone you are not hoping to hit but generally they work out fine.

With a Type XXI and a belly full of homing torpedoes you can wipe out convoys.

Steve

Steve