So whats wrong with escorts? They cant find me not matter what

[crazypete]

I can be blazing along at full speed ahead in the middle of a convoy at periscope depth in broad daylight in calm seas with the scope all the way up, loading torpedoes and they simply dont hear me! The entire time I have been playing, I've only been sunk twice by escorts. Many times by aircraft and every time I go for a surface duel with a DD but once I dive, if they dont nab me on the first fullspeed pass, I'm gone.

What gives?

Do I need to sit back with this game and wait for the first user realism pack?

[AVGWarhawk]

I run into a large array of DD and reaction of the DD. Some DD find me like I have my lights on waving white flags screaming at them with a loud speaker. Sometimes, like last night, they are next to me, looking at me in full regalia but motor on by like I was a fishing boat. I seem to be getting a mixed bag of DD reaction. I can not put my finger on it but it is certainly odd. Wait for 1.2 patch to get on the modders hard drive. I'm sure someone will beef up the DD.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I run into a large array of DD and reaction of the DD. Some DD find me like I have my lights on waving white flags screaming at them with a loud speaker. Sometimes, like last night, they are next to me, looking at me in full regalia but motor on by like I was a fishing boat. I seem to be getting a mixed bag of DD reaction. I can not put my finger on it but it is certainly odd. Wait for 1.2 patch to get on the modders hard drive. I'm sure someone will beef up the DD.

I can be running at 2knts on silent running, and they seem to home in on me like bees returning to the nest.

[AVGWarhawk]

Like I said, FBT, it is a mixed bag. Sometimes they are just killers and other times it is like a cruise ship in the Bahamas

[crazypete]

and while we are on the subject of inconsistency...

I put 5...5!!....fish into a medium composite and it just kept on bobbling low in the water. I shot it front, back , underneath, at the waterline, in the stern. Then the game crashed so I didnt even get to ultimately sink it. It must have had a cargo of cork!

Meanwhile....

I put 1 fish into a modern euro superiner and it sank like a rock

[AVGWarhawk]

No doubt there are some inconsistancies but 99% of the time, my experience with the inconsistancies have been very rare. My targets go down and the DD 99% of the time are aggressive. I got my first 1% stupid DD last night. I have had only one merchant with five tin fish hits that would not go down. I had to finish it off with the cannon.

[SteamWake]

Strange,

I ran accross a convoy last night. It must have been a very high priority as it was escorted by no less than 6 ships.

I laid in wait when by accident (duh !) I hit full speed ahead (had speed telegraph in speed mode vs 1/3 full etc and wanted to back up a bit). Anyhow as soon as the words "New speed 23 knots" came out of the WO's mouth all the escorts on my side of the convoy turned for me and hit flank speed.... Dident take them long to find me and finish me off.

Thank goodness I had a save game as I refuse to die to stupid interface mistakes.

I reloaded and laid in wait. Eventually lined up a Huge liner (14k tons) and sent her to the bottom. Well let me tell you I was ready for it. As soon as the first fish hit I crash dived and changed course.

Well I had kicked the hornets nest all 6 destroyers closed in on my location and crapped all around me. First time Ive seen this. It was like rush hour. They were scooting, coasting, dc'ing. A regular cluster muck.

Only by luck, and my superior skill we avoided being crushed.

[Snuffy]

Last night I seemed to have honey on my arse .... I had 3 DD coming for blood.

They circled my position as I tried creeping along at 1/3 and silent. I dropped to 35m, and they were droppin DCs at 15m. It was a beautiful thing.

After about 2 hours of chasing and trying to tag me, they gave up and headed back to their convoy.

[Bill Nichols]

Originally Posted by crazypete

I can be blazing along at full speed ahead in the middle of a convoy at periscope depth in broad daylight in calm seas with the scope all the way up, loading torpedoes and they simply dont hear me! The entire time I have been playing, I've only been sunk twice by escorts. Many times by aircraft and every time I go for a surface duel with a DD but once I dive, if they dont nab me on the first fullspeed pass, I'm gone.

What gives?

Do I need to sit back with this game and wait for the first user realism pack?

My experience (little tho it is): Inside the convoy I'm pretty safe, but as soon as I go outside of it, the DDs are on me like fleas on a dog.

[AVGWarhawk]

From my experience with exception of the 'Love Boat' coming by me last night and did not take notice, the DD are not bad. I think we just might be used to the GWX hounds as compared to the hounds of SH4 sniffing you out.

[TheSatyr]

Seems realistic enough to me. In R/L most Japanese escort captains took their jobs seriously but a few seemed to have an "It's somebody elses problem" mentality about it.

You do read about the more laickadasical escort commanders in some of the sub books. Those "How did that DD/DE NOT see me?" moments.

[crazypete]

Me and my big mouth!

I ran across the carrier battle group from hell last night. So I get the surface ship spotted message and go up to have a look to find in horror that there are 3 destroyers about 2000 m off the starboard bow. I hit dive then do some deckgun action waiting for the sub to go down and get a lucky shot and it breaks the middle DD in half (my first halfie!!). I save....cause why not.

Then it seems the other 2 cant see me. more disappointment.

Well, it seems these 3 were the vanguard to a carrier battle group. From that point on, no matter how I tried to escape (and the CBG was BVR mind you), an aircraft would always spot me then 3 DD's would show up from over the horizon and smoke me. These guys had sonar and used it vigourously, they dropped depth charges, they took turns. They ran a train on me.

REAL AI! Carrier airpower! Airdropped depth charges! The beauty of it all! Bravo! Bravo! I feel like I'm actually in the war now!

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by crazypete

Me and my big mouth!

I ran across the carrier battle group from hell last night. So I get the surface ship spotted message and go up to have a look to find in horror that there are 3 destroyers about 2000 m off the starboard bow. I hit dive then do some deckgun action waiting for the sub to go down and get a lucky shot and it breaks the middle DD in half (my first halfie!!). I save....cause why not.

Then it seems the other 2 cant see me. more disappointment.

Well, it seems these 3 were the vanguard to a carrier battle group. From that point on, no matter how I tried to escape (and the CBG was BVR mind you), an aircraft would always spot me then 3 DD's would show up from over the horizon and smoke me. These guys had sonar and used it vigourously, they dropped depth charges, they took turns. They ran a train on me.

REAL AI! Carrier airpower! Airdropped depth charges! The beauty of it all! Bravo! Bravo! I feel like I'm actually in the war now!

I have noticed most Convoy Escorts are VERY poor if they even try and search at all. Most of the time they STOP with the convoy (or slow down to 2 kts). Only a FEW times (like 3 or so) have they ever come after me.

Now escorts with BATTLE groups.... they are DEADLY! Almost always find me and nuke me out of the water.

[OddjobXL]

This does strike me as fairly realistic. You do read about submarine captains surfacing in the middle of convoys and engaging in surface attacks until the escorts can get in and come after them. I'd never try that in SH3 GWX! Every single escort seems deadly competant. It definitely makes for a much more challenging engagement but, for my tastes at least, mixing it up a bit works better.

Last night, for example, I was trying to pick off a stricken ship after the merchant escorts finally got bored of looking for me and hauled off. But my air and battery were low. I was down to one torpedo which I wanted to save for emergencies. Came down to a dawn deckgun attack for me. Now the destroyers were still visible on the horizon chasing after the merchant convoy of theirs. In SH3 I might have just cut my losses and gone home rather than risking the wrath of those evil psychic bastards. In SH4, I'm thinking I might just roll the dice! And rolling the dice is always more fun than cutting your losses. That's why Vegas works.

So I come up and have the lads plink away on the waterline. We're orbiting around the freighter at a low speed. I wanted to hit as many different compartments as I could in order to flood her faster. Eventually I start hearing shells wizzing past and distant cannons firing that don't belong to me. Well, I've read about sub captains taunting gunners by "shaking a tail feather" (gunners would commonly aim, evidently, at the most visible part of a ship in low light which would often be the phosphorescent wake - though I doubt this is modelled in the AI) so I did the same. Put them on a 180 bearing and zigzagged. They couldn't hit me but they were getting closer. Finally my guys cheered! Enemy unit destroyed! The merchant was sinking.

We crashdived below the thermal layer, snaked our way out of the old position while silent running, and then played dead. At least I had air now!

I will say this, though, the convoys slowing down to a crawl or stopping when a ship is damaged is annoying. It does take alot of fun out of an engagement and needs to be fixed. The reason I was so low on air and batteries is because I was trying to wait for the other ships to leave the area before I went after my victim. And they wouldn't even move for the longest time. Then they putted away at 2 knots.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally Posted by Faamecanic

I have noticed most Convoy Escorts are VERY poor if they even try and search at all. Most of the time they STOP with the convoy (or slow down to 2 kts). Only a FEW times (like 3 or so) have they ever come after me.

Now escorts with BATTLE groups.... they are DEADLY! Almost always find me and nuke me out of the water.

I've experienced incredible and inept escorts in both task forces and convoys, and I don't think that's the issue. When they slow down to 2 knts they're actually not being dumb... they're listening for you and communicating with each other. If they're going fast they can't use their sonar effectively because of their own prop noise. What they don't seem to do, is figure out bearing from where you must have fired from and motor over there before they start their search. I think if they see your scope or your sub through the water or make a positive sonar contact then they are quite good and very challenging to evade... but if you fire from inside the convoy, well away from the escorts, and go deep before they know what's going on... then they aren't going to vector in and search so they seem incompetent.