destroyers

[edwardallen]

havent been here in awhile because i dropped uot of sh4 out of frustration
because no matter what i do the subchasers always find me even at over
220ft and below thermal layers. Any advice that will work in a simulator
like sh4(I dont mean any kind of cheat)

[ColonelSandersLite]

Well, you don't mention what mods you're playing with but I'll try to give you a couple of pointers. This is what I would think of as destroyer evasion 101.



The first key to not getting killed by destroyers is to never get found in the first place. To not be found, attack from a position they are not expecting.

Put yourself in the head of a destroyer commander. The convoy you are escorting just got lit up on the starboard side. Where is the first place you're going to look for an enemy submarine?

The textbook classical torpedo attack position is 90 degrees AOB from the target that just got hit, about a thousand yards distant. The logical conclusion is that the first destroyer to get to that area should charge down the side of the convoy, moving down the thousand yard line, pinging like crazy. As far as I have seen, the AI in SH4 does this routinely.

So going back to the POV of the submarine commander, what's the one place you don't want to attack from? The first place they're going to look for you is about a thousand yards off the beam of the convoy so don't be there.

The next consideration is that you want to open the distance as quickly as possible. The more square feet of ocean they have to search for you, the less likely they are to find you. Unless they actually find you and start pinging you, you'll want to maintain silent running and creep away during your exit. If you have any experience at all, you'll know that your turn rate *sucks* at this speed. The less you have to turn to start opening the distance, the better!

Naturally, these two considerations mean adding distance and gyro angle to your torpedo runs. The closer you get and the straighter you shoot, the more risk you're adding to the attack run. As the submarine commander, it is your job to evaluate the tactical situation and determine the whole risk vs reward thing for yourself and there is no one size fits all right answer.



So moving on, you're attacking an escorted target, torpedoes away, and you immediately dive as deep as possible and turn away hoping to evade their search but you're hearing pings. For now, they're weak pings. It is very important to not panic at this stage. Maintain silent running and try to put the stern of the boat facing towards the destroyer to decrease the aspect angle. You may hear splashes and explosions behind you, but they're probably just trying to make you panic and go ahead flank. Again, it may take a bit of nerve, but don't panic. Just continue to creep away and try to keep the destroyers behind you. You may well lose them here.




Well, let's suppose you didn't lose them. Something has gone wrong. You went to ahead full when you shouldn't have, or you made a risky attack from the outset or the destroyers just got plain lucky and just happened to roll over your position after depth charging an arbitrary position. The first destroyer gets closer and the weak pings turn into stronger pings. Depending on your submarine's aspect, depth, the roughness of the water, and his distance, he still may not find you, but he probably will and you need to be prepared for that. Ensure you are at battle stations and the damage control team is fully crewed.

You absolutely can't be operating the sonar station to hear this but if you start to hear his engines overhead you're in probably going to be depth charged. Preemptively order a turn to about 45 degrees or so off of his expected course. If you can get any deeper, be sure to order that as well.

At this stage, you should not be in the hydrophone station, and you should be listening very closely. One of a few things is going to happen. He may roll right over you, in which case you should continue to creep away. He may roll past and start dropping depth charges well past you. In this case, keep turning away and hold your nerve. The worst may also happen and he may dump his depth charges right on top of you. If so, immediately order ahead flank. Finish your turn and straighten the rudder for maximum speed. You have *got* to get out of the kill zone or be destroyed.


Still alive? A few seconds after the last explosion order ahead 1/3. Ensure the rudder is centered to maximize coasting distance. If you have leaks, you better be sure to get on that as a priority. If his buddies are in the area, know that they will probably charge you as well in short order.


From here, it's all about situational awareness. You will probably only be able to slip away after all of the destroyers have charged. Keep tabs on them and know where they are at all times. The goal is now to find a hole in their attack pattern and slip through it. You may get lucky and get it in one, but it will probably take several tries.

[Gray Lensman]

edwardallen:

ColonelSandersLite's tips are right on when you are in the midst of a convoy attack situation, but if are you having issues with subchasers and other escorts spotting you from way off, several miles away and coming to your location and finding you anyhow,

see post #7 (re:detection range and evasion tactics) in this Link!

If they end up on top of you after following those long/medium range evasion tactics then ColonelSandersLite's tactics above are again in play for short range evasion tactics.

FYI, I use the TMO mod which supposedly gives the escorts a better chance at finding me if I get sloppy... The object as ColonelSandersLite points out is NOT to be where they think you were (the original datum point), whether in a close-in battle or just cruising between points A and B and as I pointed out in the link above, get in the habit of marking an X on the approx. location where you dived or where you fired your torpedoes from so that you have an on-map reference point for knowing where those pesky escorts are headed.

Once you get some successful practice evading escorts, you'll begin to actually enjoy the immersion they bring to the simulation making you evade or work your way around them.

edit> short AAR and Question related to it:

Lead-up: Yesterday, (mid 1942), I was given a photo-op assignment at Osaka... I head in thru Kii Suido... having only 3 torps left... figuring on building up the rep points for that final mission completion. Along the way, Dark, Dark, Night time, I run across a big fat juicy Nippon Maru (10,000 tonner)... Can't ignore that... I set up my normal 600 yard perpendicular attack and achieve 2 hits and 1 dud... Rats! the sucker slows down, but is not sinking, at least not quickly. Not wanting that juicy unescorted sucker to get away, I surfaced about 1800 yards from him and commenced flank speed manuevers to finish him off with my 3 inch pea shooter gun fire, LOL. All is going well. swinging left to right in large sweeping moves to bring the Aft mounted gun to bear and avoid return fire and just about the time I disable him and having suffered no damage to my sub... Bingo... he hits me with a lucky BB shot and damaged my STBD propeller shaft as I'm going under to observe him sinking... Anyhow, I got the kill and decided to abort the photo-op mission since realistically I didn't have any weapons left for defensive purposes, so I don't think a sub commander would opt to proceed defenseless into the heart of the Inland Sea.

So now, I'm egressing back out Kii Suido and happen upon a typical subchaser about 5 miles (10,000 yards) in front of me in pitch black dark (no moon), but I go ahead and submerge to radar depth using the scope just barely up enough to observe him as I closed thinking he wouldn't see me till at least less than 8000 yards, at which point I was going to start an underwater end around... Anyhow the subchaser heads my way, so I pre-emptively dive to periscope depth and he's still coming. Now I figure he must have seen me even beyond 8000 yards and in total darkness, so I go into my long distance evasion routine detailed in the Link above and he keeps on coming heading towards my datum point. As I'm evading away he keeps on deviating towards me (away from the datum point) even though at medium range I had reduced to 1/4 speed (4 knots) and then reduced to 3 knots w/silent running engaged when he continued to deviate directly towards me. Somehow, he managed to come right over the top of me. Now all this time, my damage control team is working on the damaged STBD propeller shaft, and I think work continued even at Silent Running since the repair time was slowly decreasing. (Historically, that's probably an issue, but outside the current discussion.). When he got to what I estimate to be inside 1000 yards, I dropped the speed down to 1 knot AND he still deviated towards me. I should add that this guy was NOT PINGING... At no time was he pinging... he was apparently purely listening while moving... I never observed him to STOP and listen

He made several passes over me during which I used tactics similar to ColonelSandersLite's above and I really thought I was hosed and a goner! Now about this time my damage control team had completed the repairs on the STBD propeller shaft and I thought MAYBE the simulation was cool enough to emulate excess noise from the damaged shaft and now that it was repaired I might be more successful in sneaking away. Sure enough, I was able to successfully slink away at 3 knots (100 RPM), silent running, where before I couldn't even shake him off at 1 knot.

My question for the old-timers out there... Is this simulation also increasing sub noise levels when items such as propeller shafts are damaged.? If so, that is damned cool and really adds to the immersion.

[propbeanie]

Ditto and ditto, and don't forget about your boat's size if you rely on the thermal layer. You're "passing" it, but still got about 40 foot of structure to get ~below~ it... and I'm not sure how accurate they model it in SH4...

[Gray Lensman]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Ditto and ditto, and don't forget about your boat's size if you rely on the thermal layer. You're "passing" it, but still got about 40 foot of structure to get ~below~ it... and I'm not sure how accurate they model it in SH4...

I added my edit above probably after your post... What is your opinion on noise level being increased due to a damaged propeller shaft? Am I right in thinking the sim is emulating that, or was the subchaser just plain lucky and I was finally lucky in shaking him off?

[ColonelSandersLite]

Here's some additional general tips:

I tend to mark my location on the map every time I get pinged. I also draw a 1000 yard circle and keep it centered on my estimate of their current search area. It helps me visualize the whole action in my head, if you know what I mean.

If you just sank targets in shallow water, be careful not to maneuver your sub into the wreckage. I would certainly never admit to having done that one myself...

At some point, the destroyers are going to break off the search and rejoin the formation. As a general rule, after an attack, try not to evade in such a way as to put yourself between the destroyers and whatever they are escorting. If you happen to be in their path when they return to formation, they can find you again totally by accident.

Another big tip is to save often. The game is glitchy. I think the infamous CO2 bug has something to do with being detected when you really shouldn't be. I generally give the game the benifit of the doubt, but I have had occasions where I have been detected from a *long* ways out when there was no way that could have possibly happened legit.



Re damaged prop shafts making more noise, I honestly have no idea.

[BarracudaUAK]

Personally, I attack.

If a DD passes by and finds me, then I attack.

What better way to screw with an AI that has been programmed "when you hunt him he will hide".

Oh, really? That's what I do? Thanks for telling me.

As ColonelSandersLite put it:

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

...
Put yourself in the head of a destroyer commander. The convoy you are escorting just got lit up on the starboard side. Where is the first place you're going to look for an enemy submarine?
...

Following that reasoning: DD: "What's the last thing a WWII sub is going to try to do? Most likely, shoot at me."

Hence:
What I do if they are looking for me is I try to get them while they are turning around to come to me, or to come back to me to make another pass.

YMMV, but steam torpedoes (assuming it's not a dud) will get them from the side, or it may make the destroyer turn away, disrupting the pattern.
Electrics they won't know are coming, so that's useful, but they are slower, making them harder to hit with.

It takes time to develop. I have blind fired a T1 in SH3, from 20m depth, just by watching the bearing helper tool around the sub, told the sonar guy to follow closest, and hit the DD that was circling me. Switch to manual, set the bearing, High Speed, and let rip at the right moment. Can be done with the periscope too. (much easier, range is easier to determine by how big it is in the scope.)

No "blind" shots with SH4 yet, but I have many using the periscope.
If you are not using manual it is easier. (I keep forgetting to turn it off before I start, then after cruising 2000 miles, I really don't want to have to restart to turn it off. Not enough time in the day to do that!) But if, like SH3, SH4 can be "point and shoot" with the scope, then it just becomes a "timing" thing.

Some consider it "unrealistic" and "not historically accurate".

I consider it a "missed oportunity" to not use every trick or capability in the book.
If I can hit it, I will, IF I choose to.

If you don't wish to try it, then don't. Your game, your boat, your choice. I won't be offended.

Hits are better than duds, any many will say that a using a torp on a DD is a waste.
But I ask you this: Is it a bigger waste to use the torp and risk a miss? Or is it a bigger waste to not try and get sunk? If you play DiD, then I'd say it's the latter.

Ultimately your greatest capability is fear, and although you can argue that an AI doesn't have "fear". You can confuse the poo out of it by doing things that are "against type".

Like not taking cover in a shooter that "cover" is the beginning and ending of the gameplay mechanic.

DDs are elusive targets. But then again, isn't anything that is challenging, also elusive?

Barracuda

[mobucks]

@ Grey Lemson

I don't think the increased noise of a broken shaft was what the DD was hearing. I'm pretty sure that is not simulated. What is simulated is the damage control team making noise while doing repairs. When at silent running you need to make sure they are off.

[Torpedo Death]

Hey guys, here's a question. How deep do depth charges go? If you're deep enough, can they explode above you and do no damage? I could be mistaken but I feel like that's happened to me a few times.

[propbeanie]

Supposedly, early war, the Japanese naval doctrine was that since no boat could survive depths below 300 foot, that therefore their depth charges didn't need to go that low. Probably a detonator issue. Mid to later war, they could go deep. Very deep. There are definitely much more knowledgeable folks than me about that, that could probably give a more accurate time frame for that.

One thing to keep in mind though, and this has happened to me on more than one occasion, is that the Veteran and Elite destroyers are much more "efficient" with their drops throughout the entire game, and seem to routinely ignore "early war Japanese Naval Doctrine"...

"Sir, we have flooding - Sir, the pumps are damaged - Sir, our batteries are damaged and leaking - Sir all our electric engines have been destroyed - Sir..."... blub blub blub...