help rookie skipper under attack!

[Keelbuster]

Originally Posted by Corsair

This might work in stock game or if there is only one DD over your head. If using NYGM or GWX and more than one DD, then one will sit there and listen while the other(s) do the attack run and will hear your flank speed burst. (Have been trapped often doing that)
Anyway they don't use active sonar for no reason, and if you're pinged it means you did something wrong... I do also quite often...
The only really good tactic is to get away without being detected at all, which is relatively easy during the "happy times", but forces you as the war goes on to shoot from further away and really think twice before making an attack, which I find is better than allowing to shoot at anything that moves in any conditions.

Well, i played NYGM for a few careers. I'm good, but I get detected sometimes. It's a reality of the business. Once I was detected in calm water by 3 black swans in the late war. They quickly began to ping triangulate me. What i'm saying is that in those circumstances, it does you no good to sit there at 1kts. You'll just get a DC up yer hatch. You have to move. And if you're going to move, move quickly. It's desperate. Yea - one's probalby listening, but two are actively pinging you. So you bail. You run like hell. In all the confusion, with one destroyer blazing away with depth charges, the one listening might not hear you for like 10 seconds. Those seconds allow you to reduce your profile and get a few hundred metres away. Sometimes, like 1 in 5 times, those few hundred meters will allow you to slip away silently - the next circle the DD makes with active sonar _might_ just miss you because of your distance and your slim profile. That's how i get away. It works. BOLD helps too.

I won't bet my boat on the 'sit deep and hope they don't find me' strategy.

Kb

[Corsair]

And anyway what is great in this game is that there is no "set piece" tactic, it's all depending of the tactical situation, the environment, the weather, the type of sub, the type of DD, the experience of their crew, the time of day/night, the year we're on, etc...
I think all the guys playing for some time now have been sunk enough times to know that what worked in one situation did not work on some other.
So we all developped our own tactics with experience, and although there are some general tips, it's part of the pleasure to try different things to find out by yourself.
My favourite tactic is definitely to plan my attacks so I have a very reasonable chance to get away undetected, even if it means sinking only 1 or 2 ships in a convoy instead of 4 or 5 (or even let it go). If we look at our careers, most of us will find that greed was the main reason why we got sunk.
I hate going back from a IXB or IXC to a IIa in Kiel in Sept 39 again...

[Corsair]

Originally Posted by Keelbuster

Well, i played NYGM for a few careers. I'm good, but I get detected sometimes. It's a reality of the business. Once I was detected in calm water by 3 black swans in the late war. They quickly began to ping triangulate me. What i'm saying is that in those circumstances, it does you no good to sit there at 1kts. You'll just get a DC up yer hatch. You have to move. And if you're going to move, move quickly. It's desperate. Yea - one's probalby listening, but two are actively pinging you. So you bail. You run like hell. In all the confusion, with one destroyer blazing away with depth charges, the one listening might not hear you for like 10 seconds. Those seconds allow you to reduce your profile and get a few hundred metres away. Sometimes, like 1 in 5 times, those few hundred meters will allow you to slip away silently - the next circle the DD makes with active sonar _might_ just miss you because of your distance and your slim profile. That's how i get away. It works. BOLD helps too.

I won't bet my boat on the 'sit deep and hope they don't find me' strategy.

Kb

Hey, you're the Kapt'n on your boat, that's why you get the big Reichmarks... It's your call.
Sorry don't know about late war, I play DiD and am probably not good enough because even if I am cautious, I never got that far yet ( but I am working on it).
Having 3 Black Swans on your back is surely not a good experience. Would think once you get there it's pretty hard to survive whatever the tactic.
This is why I do most of my homework on trying to understand why I have been detected so I try not to do the same mistake twice (I said I try...). I believe a lot more in the preventive part of the tactics, even if it means let a nice juicy convoy get away because it's daylight / calm weather / shallow waters.

PS : Anyway however fast you move submerged, they will always move faster than you... Also the deeper you are, the more time it takes for the cans to come to you and you can get away by increasing speed a bit without going to flank. I found flank speed was always giving a big "hey I'm here" signal and I try not to use it when submerged. I also tend to have always my rudder 10° to one side or the other as it changes aspect without taking on speed.

[Keelbuster]

Originally Posted by Corsair

I also tend to have always my rudder 10° to one side or the other as it changes aspect without taking on speed.

Ah - good to know.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Phil

how do you lower it to 1 kt?

Beside each of the three guages at the bottom right is a little button. Clicking it changes the Compass to a Rudder Guage, the Depth Guage back and forth from shallow (25 meters) to full, and the Engine Telegraph to a 'Knotmeter', which lets you select an exact speed.

[Phil]

Originally Posted by Morts

aight
dive your boat down there
go to around 210-260

nice tactics captain custard lol, just kidding

[Morts]

hey
it aint my problem ur boat got crushed:rotfl:

[Corsair]

To illustrate my previous posts, I had yesterday a close encounter with a Black Swan escorting a merchant in the Med March 42. Beautiful night, calm weather. I had underestimated the speed (was announced by radio as medium and I calculated my intercept a bit too short) So I was a bit far away and thought I could get away by increasing my speed at periscope depth to 1/3 to close up... False move...
Anyway she picked me up. Soon as I saw the searchlight on, I went to dive at slow speed silent running directly towards her so as to stay a short time in her sonar cone. Was pinged for a few seconds of course but as we travelled opposite directions the first DCs went boom behind me. Made my usual 10° rudder turns left and right. By the time she found me again I was around 120m. She always came at me some 30/40 degrees from one side (there the importance of being at the hydrophone station) so just by turning inside her course as soon as I heard the engines revving up for the run (and the bearing staying fixed), the DCs always were aside of me without having to increase speed more than to 1/3. After 45 mns she lost me and as I was moving on opposite heading to the merchant, she had to go back to her escort duties. I still believe silent escape works. Just stick your ears behind the hydrophone and don't panic. Of course I admit it's a little more tricky when they are 2 or 3 and when they have nothing else to do but chasing you around...