Tips on contact acquisition in Baltic

[Capt Black]

Ive been prowling the Baltic on search patterns (manual and Trevally Script search patterns) and have not so much as heard a prop turning. Any tips on how to increase my contact success rate?

[gap]

Originally Posted by HeirBallz

Ive been prowling the Baltic on search patterns (manual and Trevally Script search patterns) and have not so much as heard a prop turning. Any tips on how to increase my contact success rate?

Are you playing the OHII's Baltic Operations mission?

If so, I wouldn't be surprised at all not being able to pick any Polish contact.

In real life from about 29 to 30 Aug 1939, three U-boats, U-31, U-32 and U-35, had been waiting off Gdynia (located in the Gulf of Danzig and base of the Polish Navy at that time) for the start of the hostilities.
When it became clear that the 3 destroyers that they should have gone after (ORP Burza, ORP Blyskawica, and ORP Grom) had already been secretly withdrawn to UK in the context of Operation Peking, they were called back at base in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven.

In the immediate aftermath of the German declaration of war on Poland, (1 Sep), 3 Polish warships were sunk on 3 Sept (the gunboat ORP General Haller, the minelayer ORP Gryf, and the destroyer ORP Wicher), and 2 more on 14 Sep (the destroyers ORP Czapla and ORP Jaskolka), but all of them by Lutwaffe bombers. As far as I know, no Polish merchant ship was either sunk by any U-boat.

As you can see no mutch action for Ubootwaffe in the Baltic. Had Trevally replenished it with Polish targets, he would have distorted the history but, as this is a game and not a strict historical reconstruction, I would patrol anyway the area between the Oresund strait and the island of Bornholm for late warships on route to England.

EDIT

P.S @ Trevally: if you happen to read this post, I would change the mission requirements from sinking 4 ships to sinking (or even, if possible, just reconing) 1-2 warships.
Also, it would be cool if you could modify its dates to something like 31/08 - 15/09/39. We should start our campaign in the middle of the Baltic, (similarly to the vanilla tutorial mission) somewhere off Memel, and waiting for the start of the ostilities before taking action.

[Trevally.]

[Capt Black]

Great Intel. Thank you.

In fact after I made the post I caught a Hog Island Type A freighter in the pinch area Trevally is showing.

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by gap

P.S @ Trevally: if you happen to read this post, I would change the mission requirements from sinking 4 ships to sinking (or even, if possible, just reconing) 1-2 warships.
Also, it would be cool if you could modify its dates to something like 31/08 - 15/09/39. We should start our campaign in the middle of the Baltic, (similarly to the vanilla tutorial mission) somewhere off Memel, and waiting for the start of the ostilities before taking action.

Hi Gap



Yes - this sounds like a good idea (realism where possible)
I will change this in patch 1 (patch 1 may soon be a new version)
The campaign can be set st start during the tutorial so as soon as it has finished and you are on your way to Kiel - the campaign has started

So I would encourage everyone to play the tutorial with OHII the ctds with it has been fixed for some time now

[gap]

Originally Posted by Trevally.

Hi Gap



Yes - this sounds like a good idea (realism where possible)
I will change this in patch 1 (patch 1 may soon be a new version)
The campaign can be set st start during the tutorial so as soon as it has finished and you are on your way to Kiel - the campaign has started

So I would encourage everyone to play the tutorial with OHII the ctds with it has been fixed for some time now

Hi Trevally

Wouldn't be possible to get rid of the ridiculous merchant sinking requirements of the tutorial? If possible, I would entirely replace the tutorial with an improved version of your Baltic Operation mission, instead of linking them together.

[Trevally.]

Originally Posted by gap

Hi Trevally

Wouldn't be possible to get rid of the ridiculous merchant sinking requirements of the tutorial? If possible, I would entirely replace the tutorial with an improved version of your Baltic Operation mission, instead of linking them together.

I can change some of it

The cinematics, objective names and some actions would have to stay as they are scripted into the mission:-

def ShowNextObjectives( objective ):
 name = objective.ObjectiveName
        if name == "ReachObservationPeriscopeObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "RotateObservationPeriscopeObjective" ), False )
        if name == "RotateObservationPeriscopeObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "LockOnFirstShipObjective" ), False )
 if name == "LockOnFirstShipObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "FireTorpedoObjective" ), False )
 if name == "FireTorpedoObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "SelectNextTorpedoTubeObjective" ), False )
 #
 if name == "Sink the ship or fire all 4 torpedoes":
  #Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "Sink 2 more ships to complete the objective" ), False )#it's done by triggers 
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "OpenTAIObjective" ), False )
 if name == "OpenTAIObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "PlotCourseToSecondShipObjective" ), False )
 if name == "PlotCourseToSecondShipObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "Reach second ship area" ), False )
 if name == "Sink 2 more ships to complete the objective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "Dock at Kiel" ), False )
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "OpenNavigationMapObjective" ), False )
 if name == "OpenNavigationMapObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "PlotCourseToKielObjective" ), False )
 if name == "PlotCourseToKielObjective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "SetTimeCompressionTo1024Objective" ), False )
 if name == "SetTimeCompressionTo1024Objective":
  Mission.SetObjectiveAsHidden( GetObjectiveByName( "ReachKielObjective" ), False )
 ShowFeedbackForAllObjectives()

But these are set within an mis file and I can change that.
So we would need to come up with a tutorial that had the following points:-

1. goto obs scope
2. rotate scope
3. lock on target ship
4. fire torps
5. sink ships or fire x4 torps
6. open TIA
7. plot course (set waypoint)
8. sink 2 ships
9. use nav map
10. plot course to Kiel
11. set tcx 1024
12. reach Kiel

So many of these things are fixed, but some can be changed:-

1. Targets
2. map zones (possitions)
3. more or less units - any type