At what point do the escorts get down right nasty?

[MarkShot]

I must say 1943 is beautiful change.

Attacking and sinking merchants was no harder than it was in 1942, but now for the first time I am surrounded by four escorts and they are all pinging away. They are sticking with me and dropping DCs.

Wonderful!

Yes, I am having fun now!

If it gets to droll,
I can give you a few weapons for the allies that may change your mind.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

...but I have yet to be challenged by this game. So, I think I will test the limits. Also, it is only by facing hard situations do we develop the skills needed to play games at the most challenging levels.

I think that the experience you've had 'running the drill' with various submarine simulations... over and over... from AOD to SH3, may in actuality be working against you now.

In that respect, I'm almost certain that the machinery of the AI in SH3, even following GWX modifications, will be a disappointment to you.

Some may view this as a 'cop-out' or evasion, but typically we avoid discussing definitive ranges and the maximum 'reach' of various elements that relate to the ASW aspects of GWX. Many of these elements are subject to little if any variable factor. Discussing them in any real detail would remove the 'challenge' you seek altogether and would spoil the uncertainty for many many users. Once you KNOW a thing... you cannot unlearn it.

I can understand if you derive a bit of pleasure from finding the limits and boundaries of various matters by analysis... but bear in mind a question, "Do I really want to know the exact answers?"

Sometimes a simulator player can be his own worst enemy.

[MarkShot]

I will continue on with 1943. I think that perhaps this is where the game should start for me.

Now, perhaps those who have said that convoy hunting is fool hardy in 1943 and beyond speak wisely, but then I will try anyway.

Why?

Well, as we all know the real sub captain did his best to find easy victims to sink and avoid risk. This makes total sense for war, but makes for a boring game. The fun of commerce raiding is getting in and getting out.

So, I think I will actually bypass lone merchants and go after convoys. I do believe as a general matter of principal in convoy attacks, one should strive to attack and disengage without being detected (meaning, of course, they know you are there, but they do not have sensor contact with you). The superior player does that. The inferior player allows himself/herself to be detected and then attempts to break contact. And, of course, the very inferior player fails to break contact and dies.

Now, I am not sure if in SH3/GWX2 post-1943, if one can attack and disengaging without being detected. But I will see if I can develop techniques at this. Various standards are:

(1) Shoot long range - give yourself time to displace and dive before the torpedo puts everyone on alert.

(2) Sprint - briefly before they come looking for you to displace. I don't think this work here, since they are so atuned to engine noise.

(3) Exit out the back - pass under and out the back of the convoy using its noise and confusion to cover your escape.

(4) Wolfpack - wait until others have attacked and are taking heat, then you attack. (no wolfpacks here)

(5) Attack in very poor visibility - surface out of visual and sprint away on the surface. (Won't work with radar or will it? Since everyone with be using active/passive sonar, then maybe no one will have their radars on.)

(6) Deep, deep, deep - go and stay so deep that they cannot pick you up. (Might work here, but you'll need to make 3kts to keep from sinking deeper.)

Then, there is breaking contact:

<to be continue tomorrow>

---

I agree that understanding the mechanics will take some of the challenge away, but what fun is a game such at this if one only plays the sure thing or depends on blind luck. One must make calculated gambols based on skill if one is too have a sense of achievement.

Tonight was the most fun I have had in four weeks of GWX 1.03 and 2.00. I love the tension of the hunt and the escape. I am glad everyone kept saying to me 1943, since I was ready to shelve the game. Instead now I am really up for playing it.

[harzfeld]

I noticed a huge circle icon on map representing convoy, I wonder why or what it means? Even most convoy reports showing square icon. I have attacked two convoy after they showed up as circle on world map, I noticed they were huge and alot of whale factory, tankers, large merchants, etc. I learned the best method to attack that kind of convoy using G7a going set at slow or medium speed for further range at night time until new electric torpedoe type comes out that should go twice further than G7e.

I noticed one IXB was around 10,000m away from me joining the attack, but too bad it didn't submerge, it got shelled at. I think that IXB was firing deck gun at convoy and its escorts, that IXB got finished pretty quick. I wish it could have submerged and fired torpedoes so that would make it easier for me move in while escorts move away being busy dealing with that or other Uboats. It would be a good decoy.

[harzfeld]

a further to add, when there's a huge convoy, I kill the leading escort with pleasure, so I can attack the same convoy for 2nd or 3rd times after reloading torpedoes. It pain to sneak into while there's leading escort, so answer is take it out then. I usually do that in IXs, but rare for VIIs.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

I must say 1943 is beautiful change.

Attacking and sinking merchants was no harder than it was in 1942, but now for the first time I am surrounded by four escorts and they are all pinging away. They are sticking with me and dropping DCs.

Wonderful!

Yes, I am having fun now!

I notice you have no problem in using the advantage of coloured contact lines

[Grayson02sept1980]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I notice you have no problem in using the advantage of coloured contact lines

:rotfl: LMAO :rotfl:

100%

[MarkShot]

Yes, it is hard to break the old habits of AOD and SHCE. There are other things which I do that would make some say, "My game is more real than your game." That's fine with me. I play games as I enjoy to play them. For games like these, I mainly like being in charge of the boat and not running individual stations or role playing a single crew position. Nor, do it want to overwhelm myself with tedious details. If I did only one thing in this game and handles sonar at TC1, I could easily maintain a decent map of contacts. Given time, I am sure I could learn to decently estimate speed and range via sound.

I know that "no map contacts" would make the game entirely different, but just too tedious for me. One of the biggest advantages SH3/4 gives over AOD and SCHE is being able to range these lines. You don't have that in those other games. That's not to say that it is imposssible to range the lines. You usually do it by bearing rate (speed of swing), sound of props through the hull, and strength of pings.

One thing that SHCE gives you easier than AOD or SH3/4 is that it shows which contact is doing the pinging. This allows you to prioritize the orientation of your boat.

Each of these games have specific strengths, weakness, focus, and behaviors. That's why I still play them all. I like SH3/GWX, but I don't find it supercede that which came before it. In the same way, I will play SH4/TM and SH4/RFB. They offer some new things, but also lose things too.

I am very happy to have four so different and varied WWII subsims to enjoy these days. Life has never been better. (Now that I have seen 1943, it will be the starting for me from now on.)

Thanks, GWX Team!

[MarkShot]

I think square contacts have matching log reports. Round contacts only show up on the map. I don't know why that is.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

I think square contacts have matching log reports. Round contacts only show up on the map. I don't know why that is.

Unless I'm misinterpreting what you mean here........Round contacts usually refer to submarines. The lead vessel in the convoy is the deciding factor of what is shown.

Sooooo....if I'm correct in my assumption, the round contact should signify a convoy with a submarine at the front, or a 'lone' vessel that is a submarine.

Just ignore my ravings if I understood your post incorrectly.

[MarkShot]

I trust you are right as you know the game engine much better.

Back to realism ... why hunt convoys 1943 and beyond and be suicidal?

Well, maybe there is an element of realism to it. One BBC documentary I like on the U-Boat war, points out that Doenitz and his captains knew that they could no longer win it. However, they decided to push one (even if suicidal).

Why?

(1) National pride and honor.

(2) Keep the pressure on the enemy. The psychological war.

(3) Force the enemy to commit ships and planes to defending the convoys and hunting the U-boats that otherwise might have been dropping bombs on German cities or German troops or supply lines.

So, perhaps it might even be realistic to but heads with convoys until the bitter end, since many died rather than be prudent. But me, I am just playing a game (intellectual exercise).

I certainly do not want to glorify these crews and men. For if they had succeeded in strangling the island fortress of England and crushing the USSR. The World their efforts and sacrific would have bought would be one not fit to live in for many of us who play these games.

[bigboywooly]

Jim is correct re circle map icon of convoy
Radio reports for that convoy are coming from a shadowing uboat

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

...why hunt convoys 1943 and beyond and be suicidal?

Well, maybe there is an element of realism to it. One BBC documentary I like on the U-Boat war, points out that Doenitz and his captains knew that they could no longer win it. However, they decided to push one (even if suicidal).

Why?

(1) National pride and honor.

(2) Keep the pressure on the enemy. The psychological war.

(3) Force the enemy to commit ships and planes to defending the convoys and hunting the U-boats that otherwise might have been dropping bombs on German cities or German troops or supply lines.

So, perhaps it might even be realistic to but heads with convoys until the bitter end, since many died rather than be prudent. But me, I am just playing a game (intellectual exercise).

I think a part of it was also something most gamers and all gamblers experience: the "this time it's gotta work?" syndrome. If we just keep trying, we have to win. We just can't lose. It can't really be happening.

[MarkShot]

Well, I have been playing and practicing 1943. Some initial impressions:

(1) Attacking and getting into the convoy doesn't seem any harder than in earlier years using the same techniques. The key is knowing the convoy's track and understanding the formation. Creeping in and coming about and the choosing the right time to shoot.

(2) I have a saved game where they have me cornered. I did a little practice with it and I was sunk. I need to spend more time with it and see if I can break contact. I am not sure if it is possible.

(3) After the attack, disengaging hasn't proved very hard. The important thing is to continue the same stealth tactics that got you in initially. Which is 1-3kts and start heading deep.

Very strange about SH3.

In AOD and SHCE, when a merchant goes boom, the escorts come racing to the likely location of a submarine. Of course, if you have set up the situation well, you are not there when they arrive. But the important thing is they come generally as fast as they can. Thus, they don't leave time much time to depart the area.

In SH3, I find the escorts seem to come over very casually despite their great speed potential. Thus, if you shoot a good distance away from any escorts, you stand a good chance of creeping away, since the escorts come over very casually to investigate the situation. Now, you may say that if the escorts raced over, they would not be able to detect you. True. But they need to be looking in the right spot first. One the key rules of ASW warfare when you got a sub is to box it in quickly before the AOU (area of uncertainty) has time to expand and grow.

Thus, given where the merchants were hit; some triangulation and the max speed of the sub ... the escorts should be able to close on a likely area fairly fast and commence the search. They do not. They allow the sub 2X to 3X more time than the minimum available to displace. At the same time, this translates into the potential area where the sub may be of an exponential increase in the area necessary to search.

In summary, escort logic is weak on the screen and on the hunt:

(1) The screen is too rigid of a formation that fails to cover much of the convoy's perimeter. Worse yet, the lead elements search a very narrow footprint.

(2) When hunting a sub, escorts fail to use their great speed to maximum advantage. When they have detected a sub and lost it, they tend to keep blowing holes in the same location rather than expanding the search area in a logical fashion and/or boxing the sub in.

(3) So far, it seems the one thing that the escorts do well is prosecute a contact which they continue to hold on their sensors.