Silent Hunter III Review

[Staga]

Wait 'till you get a IXD-2 with 2x Twinbarrel 20mm FlaK38s and one twinbarrel 37mm FlaK43 Zwilling... Heh it was raining Sunderlands; I wonder what would happen if they would crash on my deck

[Nefarious]

I'm using VII's until 42. No Point of getting a IX until I feel the need to visit New York. Might as well save your renown until type 21 truthfully.

Its pretty safe to say that Type IX is to big for operations in certain areas. So I'm saving up for New Conning Towers for trusty ole U55.

[Wotan]

SS are CNTRL F11...

If you hit the DEL key on the Keypad it gets rid of the interface/console.

I am headed out for the night but tomorrow I will post some SS of me taking out an entire convoy including the 5 escorts.

1  Class Destroyer
1 Hunt 1
1 Tribal
1 Aux (14k tons)
1 trawler

I then surfaced and had another 'field day' with my deck gun. I use the Convoy/Destroyer Mod and the 20% less Single Shipping Mod. I play with on every thing real except external so I can take screens. To bad there's no 'film' although I do see a 'replay folder' . I wonder what's that for?

I have several print outs that help calculate speed, AOB etc.. I use these as a quick reference rather then doing the equations every time. I enter everything into the TDC manually but I am always inside 600m before I take a shot. You can hardly miss at that range.

Finding the convoys are simple.

Once the radio report comes I mark the eastern corners of the sector where the convoy was spotted with 2 marks. Then I draw 2 lines back toward the obvious approach.

For example if the convoy in in AM 02 then the eastern corners get marked. I draw the lines from north Ireland and the small island off of Scotland.

Most convoys get reported (FYI since I use started using the escort fix all my convoys get reported as 'task forces' but the 6 knot speed gives it away) at 6 knots (11km/h) I plot a line from my boat to the furthest point from AM 02 that the convoy can reach from the eastern edge of the sector. I mark that point. Next I look at the message if the convoy is headed E then most likely its in the southern part of the sector. If it's ESE then its in the northern half. I then draw another line splitting the first two and set up my search north or south of that center line.

For example if the Convoy is in AM 02 headed east I search the southern half of the approach. I go head at Flank to the furthest point the convoy could have traveled and search. I stop every so often and submerge. I listen for contact.

Once I pick up a contact I just sit for a bit until I get a good plot of it's direction.

I then adjust my position to keep the sound contacts at 270 or 090  (depending if I am facing north of south) and wait. I keep adjusting my position to keep them at 270/090 until a get a visual. I then pick out the choice targets and set up to sink them. I either move back or forward to keep them 270 and above (or 090 and below). You don't need a visual to get a plot. In fact when in heavy fog (visibility inside 400m) You can sit if the contact and plot the course on the map easy enough.

If visibility is decent I identify a ship, plot its course, then get in position and wait some more.

It never fails. I find every one I look for and sink the crap out of umm.
 
I keep the periscope down and only bring it up to check my plot. I sit there engines at stop and 90% of the time the escorts don't know what hit them.

I pick 2 targets and kill them both then dive and reset using my course plot and wait again.

If the whether is good then I will go after the escorts first. The Class C  have no ASW capability neither do the trawlers and AUX. Submerged you can kill those without fear of being depth charged. The Tribal, Hunt and V & W however have depth charges and early on the Tribal's have ASDIC and will ping the crap out of you.

Once you get a good search area its just a matter of angles and math to in order to clean up.

Good Hunting...

[Furious]

Wotan,  post a screeny of those lines would ya?

[Wotan]

Here's the captains log from the patrol I described above.





And the RM I sent out:



I would post more screens of the actual attack but I ran out of room on my PH account.

Here's just one decent kill of a C Class:




I took a bunch of screens for Furious and here they are:

In image 1 I get the the RM that a convoy (task force) is headed east in grid AL 28.

I mark the eastern most corners of AL 28:



Next I draw 2 lines back toward the obvious approaches to port:



Next I split those 2 lines with a third as I described above. If the contact is headed east then I expect him in the lower half. If he is headed east-south-east then I expect him in the northern half. This doesn't always turn out to be true* but 90% of the time it does and it helps limit the search area.

*In this patrol it didn't turn out to be true. But I had another RM updating the postion of this convoy and was able to re-plot my search pattern.

My start point was correct I just needed to adjust the search north due to the new position update. The convoy was found in my original approach plot just north of the center line instead of south.

 The new position was AL 38 headed east at 6 knots. In the screens you can see my search south of the line is just out side of grid of AL 38. I adjusted north and picked up the contacts in the southern part of AL 38.[/b]

I then calculated how far the convoy could travel at 6 knots from the eastern edge of the grid. This will give me the most eastern postion possible for the convoy to have traveled and will mark the starting point of my search.

Since I was pretty close to the original grid I calculated how far the convoy can travel in 250 kmh (6 knots = around 11 kmh). It will take the convoy 23 or so hours to reach this maximum point.



I then figure out how far I am away from that mark and adjust my speed to arrive just before the convoy. In this case I cruised at 13 kmh and the distance was 235km. It puts me at the start of my search point in 18 hours.

[Wotan]

Once I get 'on station' I reduce speed to slow and set a search pattern focusing on the southern half* of my plot.

*see above remarks[/b]





At different points I will submerge and wait and listen. In this instance I got lucky as soon as I submerged my sonar dude pick up a contact at 337. This followed several other 'stops' in which I picked up the contacts far out. I would surface run at flank then submerge and stop, listen repeat.



*This after re-adjusting my search to the north. You can see I am now north of the center line in the southern part of AL 38.[/b]

After a bit of manuevering I establish visual contact. I had surfaced to close the gap some what and spotted the convoy at bearing 310 or so.



I submerged again and tracked the convoy taking range and bearing at different points. This gave me a general direction and allowed me to set up a much better pre-attack position.



Once I am in a good spot I pick out the choice target. In the case it's a 14k ton Aux Cruiser.

I manuever a bit get in close and fire a 4 spread. I fired 4 becasue of the weather and there was a tribal destroyer bearing 090. I wouldn't have had time for a second shot. I fired 4 from 600m and all hit:





I then took time to reset / reposition and reload and took out a T2 and a T3 tanker before being driven off by the 3 other destroyers.

3 ship 14k 10k and 11k.

[Curval]

Question:

Last night I had my second patrol out of Kiel.

I cut the corner at Scapa Flow and went through the north side of the passage.

I kept running into single contacts...some merchants, mostly C2s.  Some of these contacts I ignored, but others were set up perfectly for attacking.

I ended up using up all my torpedos on these contacts prior to reaching my patrol area and prior to spotting a convoy probably bound for Liverpool.

My question is:  Does it "matter" whether I take out 5 single ships not in a convoy scorewise?  I had no torps left for the convoy, which was well protected by destroyers, and I did surface and send a report of the contact back to base.  (I received a "Keep up the Good Work" message on the radio about an hour later.)

Does it matter that I sank individual ships rather than the convoy?

Does it matter that I was out of torps before reaching my patrol grid and simply sailed around it for 24 hours as ordered...do you get more renoun for sinking ships in the patrol areaa?

[Curval]

PS...Wow Wotan.  Awesome stuff again, thanks.

[Wotan]

Does it "matter" whether I take out 5 single ships not in a convoy scorewise? I had no torps left for the convoy, which was well protected by destroyers, and I did surface and send a report of the contact back to base. (I received a "Keep up the Good Work" message on the radio about an hour later.)

No it doesn't matter except that you get 'paid by the tonnage' (renown) not the the number of ships sunk.

Convoys contain a larger variety of ship types. You run across a 24k ton passenger line. That's 4 C2's. The Aux Cruiser is 14k, T3 12k, T2 11k C3 10k etc..

Of course the convoys are inherently more dangerous because they are escorted (I use the escort fix mod).

If you play with full difficulty then you don't get single ship updates marked on the map. To search out single ships with these settings is pointless. I use a mod that also reduces single ship contacts by 20%.

I only ever hit the single ships when they are C3s or if I can use my deck gun.

I just don't waste time chasing them. If I spot them and have and am in a good position I might go after them.

My patrols are typically -

Head to patrol point at 2048.

Stay on station for 24 hours then head to the western approaches and start looking for convoys.

Plot, track and intercept the convoy.

Sink the big boats

Stay with that convoy until I have killed everything I could and rtb.

What keeps it interesting is the hunt and the positioning. Other then that I would be bored to death with it.

I am on my 4th career. I play DiD (dead is dead). If I die that means starting over.

My 1st career I was killed in Type II near Scapa Flow.

My 2nd was the longest but I did died in My type IX trying to get of of Lorient at night. I ran a ground and my boat sank and the crew died.

On my third I tried to sneak past dover and was hit by aircraft then attacked by Hunt I destroyers.

I am on my 3rd patrol of my 4th career.

My goal is to survive the war.

[Pongo]

Anyone else had trouble with all Bioware D&D games having horrible black screen crashes only since installing SHIII?
3 different Bioware games are doing that on my PC since I installed. Are the copy protection schemes predatory?

[Siaf__csf]

Most probably just intrusive and buggy. I've noticed side-effects with other apps also.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Pongo
Anyone else had trouble with all Bioware D&D games having horrible black screen crashes only since installing SHIII?
3 different Bioware games are doing that on my PC since I installed. Are the copy protection schemes predatory?

Use the starforce cleaner, which wipes out the drivers, then try the the bioware games to see whether it helped.
Remember to reboot computer just for in case before running the games.
If the problem still persists, the cause isn't in Starforce and if the problem dissapears, then theres a reason to get angry.

I would be interested to know the results.
From both, you and Siaf.

[Pongo]

Opened up the case and the top of my CPU heatsink was jamed full of dust. Only maybe 15-20 % of it would let in air. I cleaned that out but apperanlty broke it worse because she wont even boot now. I have another powersupply Ill try but I would bet the thing was dying from cpu overheat.

[Wanker]

Hi guys, long time no see.

I've been playing SH3 since day one of it's release. Awesome game. I'm on my 6th patrol of my first and career, and I've been able to move from U-1, a type IIA boat, to my current ride of U-51, a type VIIB.

I have full realism on except for auto updates, which I have enabled.  

I was sent to grid AM54 on my 6th patrol and ran into my first convoy, a large one. It had only one escort(W&V destroyer), which saw me shortly after I first made vis on the convoy.  The escort charged me and forced me to crash dive. It made a depth charge run but missed. I could tell by the sound from the hydrophones that it lost me, so I came back up to periscope depth and chanced a quick look. 500M away off my stern, there was the destroyer, looking for me, but luckily for me, running perpendicular to my path. I quickly set up and launced a steel fish of love out my single stern tube. As soon as they saw the steam from the torp, they saw my pericscope and I saw small arms hitting the water around my scope. Down went my scope, and a few seconds later, the detonation of my torpedo sounded throughout the boat, greeted by loud cheers from the crew.

Since I have all external views and cameras disabled, I had no idea how much damage the escort took, but as I was diving down again, I was relieved to hear the groans and crashes as the destroyer's bulkheads imploded as it sank. My sonar man then confirmed that the enemy vessel was destroyed.

Coming back up to persicope depth, I scanned the convoy and saw no more escorts. What followed next was a slaughter, as I expended all my torps( except for the ones in surface storage) and 88mm deck gun ammo,  sending ten ships to the bottom. I almost sent a fish into a huge American C3 transport, but at the last moment I noticed old glory flapping in the breeze and the Sherman tanks(in 1940?!) parked on deck. So, I had to be careful of the neutral American ships as I picked my way through the convoy.

It was totally dweeby, but since it was my first convoy, I allowed myself just this one indulgence. I'm going to install the escort spawn bug mod and 20% single ship mod this weekend when I have more time.

I wish I would've snapped some pics, because I came >< close to getting rammed by one of the American ships that I was ignoring as I was focusing on destroying the British ships. I looked up just in time to see an American C2 bearing down on me.  Shouting for flank speed, I engaged full left rudder, and my erstwhile killer plowed on by within 10 meters of my stern!

Whew! What a fabulous game.  

[Curval]

Hey John!

I had a feeling you'd be playing this soon.