Patrol technique SH4?

[holohw]

when given a patrol area and the radius do you guys just set search patterns or just go around in circles for the alotted time or do you just sit still? Doesnt seem that in real life a submarine would patrol in circles for 96hrs. Id assume a commander would be given an area but not a particular radius to stay within?

[Jimbuna]

Moved to more appropriate area.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by holohw

when given a patrol area and the radius do you guys just set search patterns or just go around in circles for the alotted time or do you just sit still? Doesnt seem that in real life a submarine would patrol in circles for 96hrs. Id assume a commander would be given an area but not a particular radius to stay within?

patrol until you find a shipping lane and then feast on it.

Read Run Silent, Run Deep by Ned Beach.
Read Clear the Bridge! by Dick O'Kane.
Read Silent Victory by Clay Blair.
besides being very entertaining, the books offer very real advice on how to command a submarine in time of war...even if it is simulated.
good luck.

[XenonSurf]

Don't move your sub too much, it only depletes fuel, and don't go into straits but stay just outside of them to increase your contact chances.
Going into a strait when you think a lot of ships can pass it is not only dangerous for you because of less maneuvering possibility against escorts who may even trap you coming from both sides of the strait, but it will also deny you to detect those ships which are outside (additionally, the landscape may limit your radar and sonar), so better be outside, you won't miss the ships coming out and you will spot more ships that want to go in.

And don't move too much unless you want to intercept a contact which you get from a radio report. This will be difficult if the contact is far away because the data you get in the report will not stay as is, ships will change their general course at some point (unknown to you). Always make a good guess where a convoy is heading to, which port, which strait etc. Also be aware that most task forces will be faster than your sub, you only have 1 chance to get in good position for firing.

A so-called 'search pattern' is only useful to do for an area in which you know for sure a convoy or ship is transiting, it's not useful to do to make chance contacts, you can then as well stop your engines and wait.

US subs can make sonar detection of ships while on the surface, this is greatly exagerated in SH4 and doesn't reflect reality, but it works, meaning you don't need to dive to listen for possible contacts lol...


I hope these ideas heip,
XS

[jimmbbo]

Sorta similar to Xenonsurf, on the time controlled patrol missions I tend to park the boat in the 50 mile zone unless near a known shipping area then I'll move toward them and park the boat as close as possible while remaining within the patrol zone to run out the 48 hour clock, using TC in target poor areas.

After accepting a seek and destroy mission, I head towards the nearest shipping lanes then zigzag across them at low speed. Since the criteria is tonnage sunk in these missions, there is a great deal of latitude as to where the patrol is completed. Don't know if the game is designed this way, but have never been admonished nor penalized for really stretching the definition of the search area.

Good hunting!

[Havan_IronOak]

I understand that in the stock game, many of the areas that were assigned were pretty poor choices to patrol so I guess there's some realism there.

I'm running FotRSU and it allows a larger radius for your patrol area (130 nm?) After a number of patrols out of Cavite, Surabaya and Freemantle, I transferred to Pearl.



My first patrol out of Pearl (March 6 1943) has me patrolling the area immediately outside Manila Bay. My Patrol area started North of the mouth of Subic Bay and extended south as far as Mindanao.



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=2141816063


This is the first boat that I've had where I really understood how to get the SJ Radar to work right. It's my absolute "luckiest" patrol to date. Haven't been in area for 5 days yet and have sunk 9 ships totaling over 90,000 tons.

I generally do follow a search pattern of sorts trying to cross as many of the historical convoy routes as possible at 2/3rds speed during the night and 1/3rd speed through the day (much of which is submerged) generally 10 minutes at a time while airplanes are within 6 nm. before returning to radar depth and then surfacing.

I'm pretty sure that by moving about a bit you can expand the effective area that you're covering and that does increase the odds of encounters.

I try to concentrate on choke points and pass those as often as possible. Not all are this lucky e.g. after patrolling an area SE of Taipei I tried to interdict two convoy routes north East of there on a free range mission. No luck.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=2141809826

[XenonSurf]

Also avoid shallow waters like the plague. In SH4, the whitest zones on the map are shallow with only 48-55 feet deep from what I could see, meaning that even if there is no risk to run aground at depth < 20 (they have taken this risk out for the pacific theater in SH4 I think, but not sure), you are visible after diving for all trained escorts and also for planes which you then must attack instead of diving (yeah they see you underwater in clear weather and calm sea).


There are usually 3 or 4 depth zones:

Blue zone with > 1000 feet deep.
greyish zone with 300-1000 which is still fine;
Not always: Bright grey zone up to 250 feet, can be fine against a single escort only.
Bright white zone with less than 60 feet deep which you should avoid at day and pass quickly during night only.


Mission mechanics:
In FOTRSU, I think missions and their operation areas work this way: you can leave the mission area to sink ships but you must stay in total within the circle for the time of patrol days requested, for example if you are requested to patrol 5 days in your area (which is within the circle) you can stay 2 days in the circle, then leave it and return, then patrol 3 days in the circle after which you get a message for the mission completed. You are then free to do what you want until you decide to hit the 'Report Status' button, which will get a new mission. Don't press that button if you decide to return to port! Sitll I'm not 100% sure it works that way, but that's what I've seen during my last longer patrol. In all cases, you get renown points for every ship you sink, in your patrol area or not.



XS

[jimmbbo]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

Also avoid shallow waters like the plague.
There are usually 3 or 4 depth zones:
Blue zone with > 1000 feet deep.
greyish zone with 300-1000 which is still fine;
Not always: Bright grey zone up to 250 feet, can be fine against a single escort only.
Bright white zone with less than 60 feet deep which you should avoid at day and pass quickly during night only.
XS

+1 on shallow water patrols... If assigned a 48 hour stint in the "Jawa" Sea or the SW Yellow Sea, I'll find a location with at least 200 ft depth if possible and TC the assignment away on the surface, diving if needed.

I only attack convoys if I have at least 300 ft depth and an exit route with at least that depth available.

I prefer to have at least 100 ft "chart depth" to attack unescorted merchantmen, but a juicy target may draw me in for the attack if I can maintain periscope depth.

FWIW, on harbor attacks or photo missions, I have never run aground at periscope depth, albeit with single digit depth to keel numbers

[Macgregor the Hammer]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

patrol until you find a shipping lane and then feast on it.

Read Run Silent, Run Deep by Ned Beach.
Read Clear the Bridge! by Dick O'Kane.
Read Silent Victory by Clay Blair.
besides being very entertaining, the books offer very real advice on how to command a submarine in time of war...even if it is simulated.
good luck.

Excellent reading list for patrol and tactic techniques! You might want to add 'Thunder Below!' and 'USS Seawolf'

[Col7777]

On this subject, I tried what I posted above about placing myself somewhere and activating the time excel, even did a tour around but not a single ship.
So that idea seemed to be out of the window lol.

Is there a way to generate targets without having to script them in a mission.
I'm not familiar with the workings of the mission editor, what does the Trigger and Radius do?

Col.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Col7777

Is there a way to generate targets without having to script them in a mission.
I'm not familiar with the workings of the mission editor, what does the Trigger and Radius do?
Col.

no idea what they do.

HOWEVER, if you are using the ME (mission editor), why not open the various enemy convoy layer files (\data\campaign\.mis) and check out the convoy shipping lanes? clearly, this takes the mystique out of the game, but since you clearly frustrated with the lack of game-activity, perhaps this perusal behind-the-curtain, so to speak, will be enough to get you on your way.

it is my concerted opinion, unless you are adept at SH4 modding, that you take great pains to NOT change these dotMIS files. Doing so can and will screw up your installation requiring you to do a complete de-install/re-install.

[Col7777]

Thanks Marco, I have a few installations of SH so this one I'm messing around with.

What I wanted was to get more in Europe than Asia, so it looks like I may have to script the mission/s myself in that area, unless someone knows a way or can point to some missions.

Col.