Topic: Anyone playing Silent Hunter III?

[Jack Morris]

59K on the new patch? That is so frigging awesome! Did you hit a convoy that got split up? I had one near Liverpool during the severe weatherstorm and visibility was about 500!

My most is just slightly over 50k on one patrol, I will have to get very, very lucky to have a patrol such as yours BW!

[IAF Lyrkiller]

I am about to sneak into Hartlespool and do a raid. and I am doing an unorthodox way of getting in there. (I dont give out trade secrets).

It seems to be the easiest port to sneak into.

[Jack Morris]

Just got back into Brest from my trip around Ireland and my Liverpool excursion.

They really need to let us downgrade awards, I have a seaman running around with just about everything because he got a medal here and there at the right time! 

[Dallas]

Played the last training mission last night and the funniest thing happened. The mission was
against a convoy of 5 merchants, 1 destroyer, and 1 little armed boat thingie. I had just sank
3 merchs, wounded 1, and the last one was sailing away. I then decided to surface and
try out the deck gun. I take a couple of shots at the destroyer and the armed boat. The
destroyer hit me a couple of times so I dive my sub and go silent. While under I can still
hear the 2 boats shooting. I go to scope depth and the 2 boats are shooting at each other.
The little boat cripples the destroyer. So I fire my last torp and kill the destroyer, surface and
nuke all the remaining ships with my deck gun. Fun stuff.   

[Jack Morris]

LMAO, if only I could get such luck! Hard to believe an armed trawler beat up a DD. On the new patch those DDs waste no time in zig zagging at flank speed so they can utilize all guns if you are on the surface, and now I've got freighters (usually the nimble coastal merchants) that try to ram me!

[oldmanken]

I'm pulling my first parol since reinstalling with 1.4b.  I've decided for a career with the 7th based out of Kiel, and my first mission has me going out to BE96 (the middle of the Atlantic).   I manage to bag a couple of small cargo ships on the southern coast of Norway, and then I have a cool little encounter just north-east of Scapa.

I had a contact report show up on my map to the north-west of me, as I was heading west to round the northern tip of the UK.  So, I continue plugging along, as my planned course should bring me pretty close to an intercept.  The weather starts to get bad during the interim, and by the time I make a second contact with him (he's slightly north and east of me now), a storm has set in and you can't see a bloody thing.  I turn to intercept, and as I get half way to rendevous I go to peri depth to turn on the hydros.  I pick him up pretty quickly, and it's not long before I have him in visual range.  Unfortunately I made the mistake of surfacing and thinking i could use my deck gun...not realizing that you can't in stormy weather.  He passes my bow, and I make a turn to follow in order to torp him when he disappears into the fog.  I go under again to use the hydros but he's moving away and I can't keep up.  As I surface to return to my plotted course, he pops out of the mist again, but is gone quickly and I decided not to follow him.  Would have been too much of a hassle to find and follow him.

I'm not even half way to my patrol zone yet...bloody cool encounter though.

[Brush Wolf]

It looks like you got lucky there Jack, 59,000 for two tankers and only 7 cargo ships, very good. I don't think it was a scattered convoy although the two time I got a pair of ships they could have been stragglers from one.

I have had a couple encounters like you had Ken although the last time the ship bearing down on me was a DD and he was coming for bear. I went to flank to avoid the ram and once I was clear I went to periscope depth. I then swung around to bring the bow tubes to bear and fired one from 400 meters and another from 350 and one hit but didn't sink him so I put one more into him to finish him off. You can see him going down in the rain and fog several posts up.

[Jack Morris]

I tried a transfer to 2nd flotilla and Lorient because I'm in early 41 and they have the 9B boats. That port is unflucking real to get out of! No speed 4 or 6 or 8, nooooo, you get stuck going most of the way at speed 1! The thing is that once you get out of Lorient and the channel, that is one sweet ride! Lots and lots of torps and AA guns, mmmmmmmm.

Anybody been with 7th yet? They do not get the 9s until 43, but I imagine they leave from St. Nazaire? I wonder if that port is as bad as Lorient? Brest is such a breeze and you can compress time pretty smoothly and safely until you get out of port.

[J. Carney]

Anybody been with 7th yet? They do not get the 9s until 43, but I imagine they leave from St. Nazaire? I wonder if that port is as bad as Lorient? Brest is such a breeze and you can compress time pretty smoothly and safely until you get out of port.

St. Nazrine is a straight shot into open water IIRC... think a German version of Liverpool.

[Dracho]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/launch_gms_battle_atlantic.shtml


Play with this flash game..

Okay.. I'm loading the patch and going after 70,000 tonnes.

[Jack Morris]

I think you are right about the AI there Wolf, that type 9 is sweet and they got me at BF 17 which is sooo close to the British Isles but I have NEVER encountered such accurate aircraft in my life, and for some reason the weather is always rough for the guns but I'm looking at the deck going man, in the 7 my men would get wet and stay at their stations and this deck is dry and they say "we cannot go out there, it's too rough."

I'm going to transfer to St. Nazaire and see what is up over there. Brest is awesome but 1st flotilla will never get the 9 boats. 

[IAF Lyrkiller]

The adventures of U-50.

This adventure of U-50 will be funny, and some very serious. Here we go: ((BTW, I will post pics of this patrol)I am not at my desktop syst).

Upon leaving Wilhelmshaven, I set a course for Hartlepool. Two days later, I reach the coast of Engliand and plan a course for getting into Hartlepool. going up the coast, I stay as close to the shore as possible. Abou half way up, we spot the dreaded V&W DD. I order periscope depth and watch the DD. After passing by him, I am very near Hartlepool. I stop all engines and wait for sunrise. i then make a course for the T2. I swing my bow tubes toward her and fire to eels and sank her. I then hurry over to the other part of the harbour and I was thinking that the other ships would try to flee and dont after the first explosion. Upon entering the other part of the harbour, the C2 will be next. I line up my bow tubles and fired of 4 eels and she would not go down. So I surface and start to shell it. I still did not go down. I threw everything including the kitchen sink at it and it still did not go down. And by that time i was spotted a DD and made a made dash for their dockyard. Now you are thinking is he mad? I am thinking for the survival of my U-boat.

So, getting into that dockyard was a feat in of itself. i turned my sub and w/ about 2 feet to spare I ease her in. ((starboard side)I do have a pic). In the meantime, the Brit DD tried to make his way into the dockyard and found it very difficult to get in. Now I am thinking the Brits are really mad that they could not get me w/ Wabos. It finally backs off and waits for a second V&W DD, in which it does the very samething that the first one did and backs out. Now I am thinking, oh great, I am trapped. but I am not. I still have two stern eels left.
Meanwhile, the second V&W makes a big mistake. It goes 90 degrees AOB and i line up the perfect shot and hit it in the rear end. It goes in reverse and sinks stern first. Then the first one shows up again, then backs off. I reload my stern tube and line up another shot and crippled her. The DD was down in the bow. Now, I have a chance to escape and took it.

So, in the end I took out:
1 T2
2 Coastal merchants 1 is not mentioned
1 severely dmged C2 and V&W DD.

The only thing that survived was a Small Merchant also not mentioned in my storey

All of my theories have tested out correctly

[Jack Morris]

I had a T3 that I fired 4 torps at and only one exploded! I would have used the deck gun because I was so angry but stormy weather prevented me from doing so. 

[Dracho]

I've started a new patrol with the latest patch and am averaging 26000 tonnes per patrol, but I'm only on my 3rd patrol and have not found myself in a convoy yet.  The destroyers are MUCH nastier, the gun crews seem lazier, and multiple escorts now seem too coordinate rather than hunting you individually.

I tried an October 1939 foray into Scapa Flow and was literally chased out by trawlers and one of those hateful Van Destroyers.

I'll post 80,000 tonnes before the end of the week though..

[Jack Morris]

Put on officer on the bridge of the conning tower while you have your gun crew on deck, I noticed a BIG difference in load speed. 

AI is killer on this game, is it not? 

[Dallas]

I've been having fun playing the single missions. The game is bugged though. If you
surface and get the destroyers firing at you and then dive, the destroyers will start
shooting at each other. This happened again to me while playing the mission where
you have to sink the Guadalcanal (sp?).

I really liked the mission to sink 3 aircraft carriers in a convoy. Fun, fun, fun. Think
the mission is called XXI (something like that).

[Dracho]

Put on officer on the bridge of the conning tower while you have your gun crew on deck, I noticed a BIG difference in load speed. 

AI is killer on this game, is it not? 

They have to be willing to man the gun before they can shoot at anything.  I'm on my 4th patrol with this new career and they have yet to find sea conditions to their liking.   Kreigsmarine my arse.  Bah!  These gunners are contractor labor from the Weak Sister School of Naval Gunnery.

[Dracho]

Well, I've gotten 55105 tonnes on a patrol on this patch.  I probably could have gotten more, but I diddled around and spent 5 torpedos sinking 4 Hunt I destroyers.  Perhaps next time out.


22000 tons of tanker helped make up for it.  But I took easy shots at 2 coastal merchants and a small merchant in a convoy, rather than trying to set up follow-on shots on the big cargo ships.  The escorts were like a pack of hornets.

[FRA.E.Kehakoul_XC]

The last line in the subs configs got an addition after 1,4,.. i currently play a second carrer with the XXI boat, and found the comment, cannot man  AA guns ,stupid, i had 8 ms wind speed,.. ,The XXI gun turrets are completly enclosed no reason to make them notavailable at higher wind speeds.
For that open sh3/data/submarine/NSS_Uboat21.cfg
Open with notepad, go to the properties section, last line,
tormConditions=15,0.1;max wind speed [m/s], max rain intensity [0,1]

Storm conditions set to 15 in this example , but just for this boat.
While you are on it set the max depht for torpedo launches to 100 meters as  this is the  historicaly correct value for the XXI.
This is doable in mid campaingns without hurting the savegames.

[IAF Lyrkiller]

At long last, I finally managed to get well over 27K tonnes, last night. U-50 is still going strong. I did get the Iron Cross w/ Oak leaves and Swords, after that patrol. U-50 is also is showing her age. T-VIIB. Will get a VIIC as soon as I get more Renown.

My theory on sneaking into harbours does work. (see my previous post).