Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks

[ichso]

I believe you, RR.
But so far I don't own a radar on my boat, so drawing very unprecise lines might be a bit more realistic than if I had one .

I think I don't play for realism at this point when drawing all the map contacts by myself. It's mostly for what feels the best or most realistic or whatever. I just like to see stuff on the radar or through the scope and then work out the map overview by myself. Has a touch of 'bringing it all together' or however one might describe it.

It is also a matter of what specific part of the submarine theme you want to be simulated. If you turn map contacts on you play more of a skipper's view where you only have to make your judgements based on the already evaluated information.
My approach is a bit more crew-based, probably. If someone's job on the crew is drawing map contacts than I simulate it by doing it myself. But when drawing I don't play the captain anymore I play the navigator or some other officer at this point. Both ways have their own appeal to them.

But something in between satellite guided, realtime updated maps and drawing unprecise line based on unprecise estimations and readings would be great, that's true .

By the way, what is it that TMO does to provide less cheated information ? I only really used RFB so far. Maybe I try a switch for comparison.

[Rockin Robbins]

OK, TMO plotting fixes:

Friend/Neutral/Foe and merchie/warship colors are killed, both on ship position plots and sonar vectors. This is information that sonar, radar, and in most cases, visual sighting would not give you. TMO totally nerfs it with black for everything.

Target silhouettes are replaced with round position markers. Same as above, information not available to real observers. In the stock game you can even identify a radar target by its shape, a definite no-no if you're seeking realism. And you know the length of your target right on the plot. All that is TMI! Round target position indicators for everybody!

Target ID, course, speed text is gone! Sight a target on the horizon, whip over to your nav map, click on the colored silhouette and see identification, course and speed? Don't try that with TMO. Nerfed. "Fast" was a giveaway a narrow speed range. No more, you have to determine speed for yourself.

x on the attack map is gone. This one I don't necessarily agree with. The back end of the vector is still the torpedo impact point, so no real harm done, but comparing TDC data to actual position was central to real targeting. No captain would shoot a torpedo without confirming the value of his solution and many shots were stopped by the officer in charge of the TDC (could change from boat to boat) announcing "bad solution. Do not shoot." He knew this because he was comparing the position output by the TDC to plotted position and finding that they didn't agree. You can't do this with map updates off. A real skipper would lose his command if he were to waste torpedoes in this manner. TMO preserves your ability to perform this indispensible function without letting you cheat.

Is that it? I think so. I'm working strictly from memory on my work computer. So, what is the weakness of the TMO plotting system? There is one.

That is perfect positioning of visual targets on your plot. It's interesting. The mission editor lets you assign a spawn point for a target and say "start this guy within 10 miles of this spot." But it doesn't say, "Ok, this is a visual target, fog, rough seas, 4500 yards, plot this anywhere within 500 yards of its real position." In other words, the game could plot with a random error within a certain uncertainty determined by the qualities of the sighting, but the devs chose not to. They had already done 9/10 of the work in their mission editor!

In the example above the 500 yard uncertainty could be different, based on visibility, range, sea state, sub crew experience, etc, so that each sighting would have its own tailored uncertainty. The position would then be plotted in a random direction and with a random error up to the uncertainty number in position. Add that to the wishlist for Silent Hunter 5!

So what do you do? Throw out the baby with the bathwater, kill the map updates, drive your sub with a paper bag over your head and claim you're playing realistically? Or use the TM plotting system and just don't take any measurements off visual positions?

I think I'd have a problem deciding if I had a boat without radar. Neither would seem right and I might end up turning map updates off, although that would also kill my air radar: an unacceptable situation. I'm not happy with either way if you don't have radar. You might be best served using TMOplot and not measuring anything from a visual position on the nav map. It's not perfect but its the best we have for now!

[ichso]

My above method of course estimation is not all that good as I hoped I'm afraid It worked well a couple of times because the plotted bearing lines where almost in parallel to each other. But if they are divergating then my suggestion of picking an arbitrary point on the first line is not correct.

At least this method can be refined a bit in this way:
First draw the first bearing line and track your movement as well as letting the stopwatch run until you draw the second bearing line. And at this point you should be able to get a range estimation via stadimeter for example. Then you have one fixed point on the second bearing line and with that and the estimated length of the targets line of travel you can eventually draw this one and read the target's course off of it.

[Rockin Robbins]

I consider it good enough for preliminary sightings. Remember, precision is not necessary at that range. All you are trying to do is put your sub in the ballpark for a successful approach. As things get closer together you can worry about precision.

You are just trying to bring target and sub together on converging courses that will put the sub in attack position. This is plenty good enough for that. It's an approach strategy, not a shooting strategy. As such it's useful and belongs here. It's easy enough by inspection to determine whether you are on a converging or diverging course. If you find yourself diverging it is entirely possible that no attack is possible.

Good contribution!

Great work Rockin
This will help those New to the game
in Multiplayer too,
Salute

[Rockin Robbins]

Absolutely! Everything used in single player can be used in multiplay. But many things encountered in multiplayer can never be experienced in single player mode. Hope we have lots of multiplayer visitors here in this thread!

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Absolutely! Everything used in single player can be used in multiplay. But many things encountered in multiplayer can never be experienced in single player mode. Hope we have lots of multiplayer visitors here in this thread!

Totally agree,
Now lets ask the Multiplay Community Members,
Let them decide,
But may I disagree,
Many things encountered in Multiplay,
Goes beyond single player,
Why?
listening to others on TS,
Live in gameplay,Multiplay,
Hearing their emotions in gameplay Surpasses Single Mode,
Even Career Mode,
Try It,Blows you away,
Listening Live as you play Hear a Captain lose his Sub?
Or hit a Target?
Sink A Ship?
Emotions Run high,
Try it somtime

[Mikeb213]

Guys I need some help, I hate having to go deep, I really really hate destroyers and I wanted to know if anyone has some tips or tricks to deal with these bastards. If I remember right Mush Morton and Dick O'Kane would battle it out with these guys, how can we do that? So far the best trick I have found either gets me dead or I can blow him out of the water. I stay at PD running away from the DD at flank speed until he stops zig zaging back and forth then I let him have to from my aft tubes. I get them about 40% of the time......so it really doesn't work out very well. Ideas?

[Rockin Robbins]

Ok, first, are you running TMO? With any other mod combination your task will be easier, but the method is usable with TMO with great caution.

I use a yo-yo technique when submerged. At first, I never go deep unless I am forced. I am at periscope depth, above the sonar cones, and much harder to find than if at depth. Especially in TMO be sure that you are at silent running and 100 RPM for max stealthiness. If conditions are calm, good luck. Not much of anything will help you there with TMO. With other mods don't worry about it.

Now at periscope depth you can evaluate the skill of the escorts better. What you get is what you get, and can be somewhere in the intelligence range of rock to Albert Einstein. Either extreme is relatively rare. Is he clearly clueless as to where you are? Fine, don't panic. Just continue setting up your target. He's not it, by the way because he's not so bright.

If he's making a real run at you, he will accelerate sharply, go to fast ping and turn directly toward you. There will be no mistaking his intentions. Then it's time to decide whether you will try the down the throat shot, more likely to succeed if you're not using TMO, or just avoid.

He's pinging, so he's not listening to you. Time to go ahead emergency. Dive with the "d" button and pull the periscope down. Hold your heading until he's just before the drop point and then make a 90º turn to port or starboard. If this were real life, you'd go port, as all Japanese escorts were trained that you would go right. As you hit the thermal barrier, go to silent running. Time to evaluate.

Is he continuing to make runs? How close is he? If he's making runs on your last known position he has no idea where you are. If he's following you and dropping overhead, he either anticipated your tactics or knows where you are. Change course and see what he does.

Put the bad guy astern and wait for a time when you are pretty sure he doesn't have you pigeon-holed. Don't sit down there dummy! There's work to do! Every second you're down below the layer, you should be asking yourself "why can't I come to periscope depth NOW? If you can't come up with a good answer, it's time to try something.

So what are you waiting for? I said we're using a yo-yo tactic, come to periscope depth and let's see if we can make something happen! It may be that as you rise through the barrier, Mr Escort changes whatever he's doing and saunters your way. Don't panic, just dive at silent running below the barrier and make a 30 or 45º turn and go back to looking for another apparent opportunity. Ask yourself the magic question often.

But if he continues cutting his nails as you ascend to periscope depth, you're about to cause great harm, maybe. Keep your stern pointed at him and pop up that scope preset for his bearing. Keep it up for no more than 30 seconds. What's he doing? Most likely he's circling your last known position.

Can you get to the convoy? If so, it's time to maneuver for another shot. Are you too far away? It's time to slink out of there at periscope depth or do battle with the escort.

If you choose to do battle the best way is the down the throat stern shot. Shooting at him while he's circling is a sucker's game of chance. Stick that periscope up there as far as you can. Hit ahead full and wait for a reaction. No reaction? Hightail it out of there, surface, end around and have another go at the convoy.

If he follows you, you'll know it. He'll accelerate to high speed and come right at you. Set up a couple of stern torpedoes for zero gyro and wait. Make sure you keep him on bearing 180. Go to the attack map and wait until he's at 400 yards, shoot one and immediately hit dive. As you pass 100', turn to the port, do the dive below the layer and hit silent running, changing course again below the layer. If all went well, you heard a boom during the process and can return to the surface.

If you didn't hear a boom, resume the process. "Why can't I return to periscope depth NOW and do great harm?" Rinse and repeat as necessary.

[Spectator]

Rockin Robbins encouraged me to post in this thread, so here's my take on a vector analysis attack as seen here on the last picture

I made a video that shows the whole process from target spottet, till target on crash dive ->

(Don't get confused that I chose 90° for my approach, you can do this with any angle! It's not limited to 90° like seen on the Dick O'Kane Method picture. This is the method in the last picture, which of course is similar, but there are some important differences.)



In case the video leaves some questions, here's what happens, step by step:

Determine the target's speed: There are many ways to do this. The one I choose in this video is the so called "3 minute rule". You mark the current position of the target on the map, then you wait 3 minutes and mark again. The distance beween those two marks in yards represents the target speed. In the video the two marks are 900yds away from each other, that means the target runs at 9kts.

(In the video the "no map contact update" realism setting is disabled, so the marks are pretty straightforward. However, usually I have that option enabled, so there's no contact updates on my map. It's still pretty easy to mark the target on the map without those automatic updates, you should try it, it's no big deal and adds to the immersion if you like micromanagement. All you have to do is to get target bearing and distance and draw it on your map, maybe I'll make a tutorial Video about that too )


Planning the approach: After determining the speed with the 3 minute rule, you have 2 marks on your map, let's go ahead and use them for another task. Take out your ruler and draw a line that crosses those 2 marks, and there's your target track. To increase accuracy you can add some more marks before you draw the line, or add them later to verify your estimation of the target's course.

In the video I drew a line that's 9nm long on the map. The reason I did that is, that it gives me another piece of information without me having to calculate, ... a vessel running 9kts will travel a distance on 9nm in exactly 1 hour, so no I know exactly where the target will be 1 hour from now. (You have to make sure that the 9nm are measured between the target's current position and the end of the line if you chose to do it like seen in the video. Of course you can use other tools to measure and mark those 9nm on the map, that's up to you )

Now that i know where the target will be, I take out the protractor and draw a 90° angle for my approach at the 9nm point. I want to be within about 700yds of the target when I fire my torpedoes, so i make sure to plot my course accordingly. Make sure that, if you have a similar setup on the map, concerning your position relative to the target's position, that you don't get too close to the target while approaching your "hunting spot" on the surface. Better run faster a bit further away to get out of sight (I ran at flank on a parralel course until i intercepted my 90° approach line just to make sure. Of course flank isn't really necessary, but I won't get into detail on those calculations in this tutorial)


Getting the lead angle: Now we are at ~00:50s in the video, it's time to find out the lead angle for the attack. The lead angle is where your periscope will point to later, while your ship points to the impact point, the 9nm "hunting spot" in this tutorial.

What you do now is, you draw a line from the impact point towards the target. The line's length is the target's speed * 100 yards, so in our example it's 9kts * 100yds = 900yds. Then you draw a line representing the torpedo speed of 46 kts (4600yds) towards your boat. The last stept is to measure the angle between the torpedo line and the imaginary line from torpedo line end point to target speed line end point. If that sounds too cryptic, check it out in the video, I hope that will show it better.
In this tutorial with an approach angle of 90°, a target speed of 9kts and
mk14 torpedoes on high speed setting running 46kts, our lead angle is 11°.


Setting up the shot: Make sure your boat is properly aligned, so that your bow points at the impact point. What follows now is always the same process, no matter how far you are away from the target (the closer the better in terms of accuracy, therefore i chose ~700yds)

Go to the periscope, make sure your periscope is at 0° and then enter the following data into the TDC:

- AoB = 0 -> send
- Speed = 0 -> send
- Distance = max (turn the distance wheel to the right, should give you about 1200yds in the tdc after you send it) -> send

Now turn your periscope towards the target until you match the lead angle, in this example 11° to the left which means you have to go to 349° (360-11°). If the target would cross your view from right to left you would point your periscope at 11°.

Set up your torpedoes to run at high speed (46kts). You can also do this with slow running torpedoes or totally different speeds if you have some fancy modded ordnance, just use the proper yards representation when determining the lead angle.

You won't need to touch the gyro dial! Your "spread" will be archieved by the target travelling along it's course, you'll see further down.

Don't forget to open your tubes before you shoot, the time it takes to open them will mess up your solution, so better open them early.

That's it for the Setup. Leave the position keeper OFF, you won't need it.


The moment of truth: When the target is close to your lead angle - I usually monitor the target with sonar until it's about 10° away from the lead angle, so in this example I raise the scope when the target passes 339° (not sure if I did that in the video, might be a bit later there, don't get confused ).

Now all you have to do is, wait for the target to pass your scope and fire at the parts you want to hit. What I usually do is, I shoot the first torpedo as soon as the bow is in the center of the scope, then wait for the center (usually between command deck and funnel for a merchant) to fire #2 and finally i put a third one under the last 3rd of the target (usually that's the stern mast)


And that's it. If everything went right, the target should be on its way to some deep sea exploration.


//sidenote: 90° isn't a good choice for this method, especially with mk14 torpedos. Those fish tend to turn out as duds very often if you hit the target at 90°. Chosing a steeper angle reduces the dud risk, and since this method's advantage is the fact that you can choose any approach angle you want, you should use that.

[rsvette12]

Wonderful stuff guys, thank you.

Regards, Rich

[Rockin Robbins]

Best illustration of a vector analysis attack so far! The fact that you did choose a 90º angle to the target track shows the relationship the vector analysis has to the Dick O'Kane attack. But as you say, the beauty of the vector analysis attack is that it is just as easy to do at any angle to the track.

Note that no calculators or pieces of paper and writing instruments were harmed here. Everything is done within the game and there's not a calculation to be seen.

Also note that the TDC and the PK are not used here. (You do need to check that the speed is set to zero and/or the AoB is set to zero or 180) No Easy AOB mod came anywhere near this attack. It can be done in a U-Boat as well as a fleet boat with equal ease.

So, if it's that good, what are the weaknesses of the vector analysis attack? If you compare it with the Dick O'Kane and John P Cromwell attacks, it has only one weakness: you MUST know the correct speed of your torpedo. If you figure 46 knots for the fast Mark 14 and accidentally leave it on the 31 knot slow speed, you miss by a mile. In the other two constant bearing attacks the TDC remembers the speed of the torpedo and figures the lead angle for you.

But that's it: the only gotcha in a vector analysis attack. I highly recommend it! Thank you, Spectator, for the best tutorial I've seen on the vector analysis attack.

[Kapitan Soniboy]

Hey

I downloaded the Cromwell attack and the Dick (by god!!) tutorials. Want to say thanks because this is really fun to do. Still have some trouble with the Cromwell attack method though, but with a little more practice it will turn out good in the end. Very satisfying to sink a ship with sonar only.

Did they really manage to sink enemy ships without ever raising the periscope?? I mean really... at that time?

Thanks

(sorry if it's anything wrong with my english)

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Kapitan Soniboy

Hey

I downloaded the Cromwell attack and the Dick (by god!!) tutorials. Want to say thanks because this is really fun to do. Still have some trouble with the Cromwell attack method though, but with a little more practice it will turn out good in the end. Very satisfying to sink a ship with sonar only.

Did they really manage to sink enemy ships without ever raising the periscope?? I mean really... at that time?

Thanks

(sorry if it's anything wrong with my english)

Your english is great!

With the Cromwell attack, the main hazard is that the target sees the approaching torpedoes. Then he only has to turn 45º into the torpdoes to avoid them. During the daytime, this is a good time to use Mark 18s. At night use the fastest torpedo you have.

At the beginning of the war, doctrine was that all shots were to be taken with sonar only, as it was thought to be too dangerous to raise the scope in close combat with the enemy. In practice before the war they did have success hitting single ships that way.

However in the real war, a single target was pretty rare. Even in the game, it's difficult to use sonar only in a crowded situation. What happens if you ping one target on your first observation and another for your second? You've just created a fictitious target and will hit nothing! There are many ways to miss using sonar only and our submarines found most of them.

Then successes started to come when aggressive younger commanders who were willing to buck the system and use their periscopes to obtain more accurate targeting information. They obtained several times the hit ratio.

As a matter of fact, after the advantages were discovered, Admiral Lockwood made periscope attacks official policy. Even then the real life ostriches (we don't just have them in the game, they were a real life problem) had to be rooted out and relieved of their commands when they were unwilling to take necessary risks to obtain success. Later, Lockwood had to go through round 2 of removing ostriches for those captains who insisted on remaining submerged all day, ruining their combat readiness during their nighttime recharging ritual.

[Kapitan Soniboy]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Your english is great!

With the Cromwell attack, the main hazard is that the target sees the approaching torpedoes. Then he only has to turn 45º into the torpdoes to avoid them. During the daytime, this is a good time to use Mark 18s. At night use the fastest torpedo you have.

At the beginning of the war, doctrine was that all shots were to be taken with sonar only, as it was thought to be too dangerous to raise the scope in close combat with the enemy. In practice before the war they did have success hitting single ships that way.

However in the real war, a single target was pretty rare. Even in the game, it's difficult to use sonar only in a crowded situation. What happens if you ping one target on your first observation and another for your second? You've just created a fictitious target and will hit nothing! There are many ways to miss using sonar only and our submarines found most of them.

Then successes started to come when aggressive younger commanders who were willing to buck the system and use their periscopes to obtain more accurate targeting information. They obtained several times the hit ratio.

As a matter of fact, after the advantages were discovered, Admiral Lockwood made periscope attacks official policy. Even then the real life ostriches (we don't just have them in the game, they were a real life problem) had to be rooted out and relieved of their commands when they were unwilling to take necessary risks to obtain success. Later, Lockwood had to go through round 2 of removing ostriches for those captains who insisted on remaining submerged all day, ruining their combat readiness during their nighttime recharging ritual.

Wow you sure know alot! One more thing. I tried diving to 140 -150 feet the first time I wanted to perform a sonar only attack. The maximum depth for torpedo launching is something like 150 feet (I think). I experienced some problems when trying to figure the enemy ship's course and speed. I recieved false information about the target's range. Do you think it has something to do with the depth I was in (thermal layer?) ?