Surface Battle
 

For all my years playing SH3/GWX I never saw a surface ship battle, until....

1942 running my patrol North of Tunis and I get a radar warning and submerge to periscope depth. As the boat goes under I hear gun fire but see no splashes near me. I checked my external view and saw three British Destroyers moving fast and firing their bow guns. There were splashes near them from where they were taking fire. I then got hydro readings on another group of ships. Since I had their bearing I went to camera mode and flew along over the water until I found the Brit Destroyers.

From there I followed their course and there were the Italian Ships. The battle shaped up to be the three Brit destroyers vs two Italian destroyers and two Small Merchants. The Italians were heading from the North to the South. The Brits were heading in column from the East directly at them, thus allowing their T to be crossed. Many shells were exchanged and you could see the clumps of splashes from salvos coming down.

At first it looked like the Brits were going to wipe out the small convoy, but the lead destroyer slowed, listed and began to sink. The combined Italian ships shifted their targeting to the second Brit destroyer. The small Merchantmen were firing away and as the ranged closed got some hits. Finally the 2nd Brit destroyer slows and it's bow begins to go under. It and it's predecessor had also hammered one of the Italian Destroyers which began to slow.

Finally the third Brit Destroyer was on it's own and put some damage to one of the Merchants before it too went down, almost simultaneously one the battered Italian destroyers sank.

The Italian Convoy continued on it's course, with one Merchant falling behind.

End score 3 Brit Destroyers sunk, 1 Italian Destroyer sunk, one Merchant Crippled and the other ships slightly damaged.

Pretty exciting stuff.

David I

A Break
 

After two frustrating patrols where I saw nothing the entire 55 day first patrol, followed by a 30+ day patrol where I was constantly chased off a convoy finally resulting in serious depth charge damage and a limp home, on the this next patrol, I've managed to intercept a convoy where one of the escorts is on fire.

It sunk half hour after I contacted the convoy, so now I'm not going to wait any longer for BdU orders; I have the entire port beam of the convoy unprotected, an opportunity that can't be passed up.

Clear night/calm seas. Again.

Just got orders from BdU to shadow. Ha ! Not passing this fox/hen house chance up. Be Aggressive !

U 11 Type IIB 1939/2019
 

Started new career in August 2019 to commemorate the beginning of WWII, 80 years ago ...

Left W'haven on 10 October 1939 for Second War Patrol in Qu.AO41 (Skagerrak).
Harbour was under enemy air attack while leaving port - all enemy planes were shot down by the Naval Flak batteries protecting W'haven.

Enemy air patrols reaching all the way to the west entry of the Skagerrak. Mixed weather and seas while in area of operation, good weather and seas in the Kattegat.

Returned to W'haven on Oct. 29 via the K.W.K, having sunk 8 merchants for 12032 BRT, 5 of which were fishing vessels being sunk with the M.G.-2cm-C/30 and all of them being polish blockade runners heading for England.

Torpedo hits: 3
Torpedo failures: 2 Eto detonated prematurely.

My Chief Machinist was killed in a freak accident while on leave and had to be replaced.

During the overhaul, a new battery AFA 44 MAL 570 will be installed.

Received orders for Third War Patrol:
- Patrol area Qu. AN 26 (East of Fair Isle Passage)
- Departure scheduled for Nov. 26 ...

I sunk the HMS Hood!

I wish i'd taken some screenshots as I was doing it, I had no idea which ship it was though, I made contact slightly after 2am on 8th of November 1940. A huge allied task force comprised of Battle ships with a side guard of Destroyers and Cruisers happened to be coming directly towards my allocated patrol sector of BF 15 SW of the Scilly isles. I went into silent running and sat there at periscope depth where I calculated the task force would pass.

However I ended up being much closer to the central line of battleships than I had planned, I let the 1st battleship go past as I crawled backwards then upped periscope and let loose a salvo of 4 torpedos from U-93 at 5 second intervals. All 4 hitting the same spot on the starboard rear of HMS hood. I crash dived immediately and took U-93 down to 120 metres, 4 destroyers were circling the sinking Hood pinging me and dropping depth charges.

The only place I had to hide was directly beneath the heavily listing but stationary hood at 120m depth where I waited for 4 hours, oxygen running very low, constantly looking out for the worrying message of "She's going down!" which would mean I would either lose my cover or get crushed or both. The last destroyer finally stopped circling and went to re-join the task force.

It didn't look to be sinking any further so I returned to surface and gave HMS Hood the coup de grâce with the Stern torpedo. At which point she sunk to the depths..

This is my first proper campaign run with Oxygen, batteries, fuel, Compressed air and realistic damage enabled (I'm not quite up to manual targeting or navigation yet) and I never managed anything like that even on Easy mode, I usually would act like a true noob and let off torpedo's at about 3000m distance and leg it whenever I saw a convoy or task force, or go crashing into a submarine net/mine even on easy mode. I feel like I have now truly experienced the fun of this game for the first time, when a situation seems completely dire and all odds are against you yet you prevail.

https://i.imgur.com/IM5z9hI.jpg

Fought my way thru to a Campaign, was able to obtain a Type XXI and made it to the Caribbean. Liked to hunt there due to the tanker traffic.


Anyways, down to my last 4 torps, ALL Type V accoustic's, found a nice fat T-3 tanker and hit him will ALL FOUR. Then watched him creep away at 1 knot -- why I always liked having a deck gun. Bummer.


End of campaign as by time I got back to base message announced war was over!



Started a new one, from Wilhelmshaven in a Type II (fun) but now into 1/41 in a type VII I renamed U-96 -- probably the boat I will hang onto until 6/44 when I can get another XXI. One patrol amassing 40K+ tonnes and have gotten the Knights Cross with swords/gold leaves/diamonds.


Looking forward to Drumbeat!

A while ago I tried starting a late campaign in GWX with an XXI, didn't do to well as in my first mission the base at Bergan was attacked within a minute of me leaving port by a formation of about 20 B17's, half of which decided to come for me. Water was too shallow to dive, the powerful AA guns on that thing managed to shoot one down by some miracle. Ended up having to restart about 3 times before I threw in the towel on running into shallows in the Fjords attempting to get into the North Sea!

Good to know yet another continues to enjoy the GWXperience https://i.postimg.cc/QMcDTt9v/wink.gif

BE MORE AGGRESSIVE! https://i.postimg.cc/ZRchwMLc/pirate-1.gif

Greetings, Jimbuna. Until I had to give up the game a few years ago due to health reasons. GWX was the way to go for me. I'm now awaiting arrival of a new gaming desktop so I can try some of the newer, hardware intensive mods. However, I am hoping to overhaul my gaming notebook and keep it for GWX. It needs to be disassembled, cleaned and CPU paste reapplied as it has, from they first year I owned it, eventually become prone to overheating. Even with two internal cooling fans.

As far as I know, and someone please tell me if I am wrong, GWX is the only mod that uses a flooding damage model to sink ships instead of hit points as do all the others. I would love to be wrong in this belief.

Edit: I just consulted my GWX Gold manual:

The original Grey Wolves (TGW) shared the damage model developed for “Not Your Grandmother’s
Mod” (NYGM), which focused on sinking ships through flooding effects, with a lesser emphasis on
critical hits than in stock Silent Hunter III and very little ability to destroy a ship through structural
damage.

^ Read from page 64 onwards for Damage Model details.

http://www.silenthunter.cz/tgw/Manual_V3.0_Final.pdf

Considering I hadn't got passed 1941 in my previous campaign and had only run into a neutral Hurricane at that point I was completely complacent of Air attacks, jumping into 1945 to the sight of a swarm of B17's straight out the gate that i presumed was the usual ME-109's circling above the port was a shock! I only really wanted to do it to see how the XXI handled, and hadn't considered the completely different tactics required at that stage and the increase in allied power. I had a look through the museum at all the multitude of Allied aircraft and warships after that brief experience and my palms started sweating!
:k_confused:

GWX Gold + H.sie's V1681 patch

I just witnessed something happening in a convoy attack a few days ago, which made my jaw dropped and left me in a state of utter shock and confusion.

Just as I opened my tube to sink a second target she instantaneously exploded and sank right in front of my sights, just when I was about to fire my eel. I was like WTF???? Right then, heavy firefight began around my scope and all hell broke loose, gunfire lighting everywhere through the pitch darkness. Utter mayhem.

From the glow from fired star shells I recognized at least two surfaced German u-boats firing their deck-gun at other merchant ships at very close range. Those that were armed fired back, while others burst into flames and sinking.

I had inadvertedly stumbled into a coordinated, surfaced wolfpack night attack. I am 99,9% certain my target was in fact torpedoed - and kill-shot - by the AI. Wow. :o

I've seen a similar scene in both GWX and NYGM. The NYGM one I was out of torpedoes so I just retreated to a safe distance and watched the show. Went on for awhile. Saw a periscope off the port side of my sub too.

Both times were when I called in a wolfpack though. I know NYGM has separate packs attached to a few convoys that activate when the player contacts the convoy.

I think GWX has something similar, but not sure.

Swordfish Scourge
 

So i've started a new 1939 campaign, starting in a Type IIA with the highest difficulty settings i've tried so far.. The Type IIA really is a clunker, I upgraded to a IID as soon as possible and by comparison it handles so much better. My second IID patrol I was assigned AN14 north of Scapa Flow and my god... I have never seen so many Swordfish aircraft, not really thinking I powered through to the centre of the square before I started being attacked by Swordfish aircraft, coming three at a time.. I literally shot down 12 of them in the space of 14 hours before retreating into the North Sea, having to crash dive every 30 minutes when a new echelon of Swordfish flew at me until the weather thankfully turned from clear skies and sill sea to heavy fog and waves (the only time i've EVER been happy to see this weather).

Is having this many aircraft repeatedly attack you normal in January 1940? did I kick the hive by shooting so many of them down? Literally only stopped because I ran out of Ammo, I don't know how the AA gunners on the Bismark had such a tough go at it, they explode like balloons filled with hydrogen from a couple of well placed 20mm bursts.

January, 1941 NYGM patrol
 

Running convoy battle during one night. Course 140. Called in wolf pack starting at late afternoon. Once the sun had set, received notice that the pack was assembled, attack at will.
First attack, I had to deal with escorts before and after attack. Submerged/depth charged for approx. an hour. Believe escorts had to go after rest of the pack at that time, though not sure.
Second and third attack, they were busy with the rest of the pack. Had convoy all to myself.

Out of a 15 or so ship convoy, only three left at attack's end. Two tankers and a cargo.
I bagged six for 42k tons during three separate surface attacks; two ships each attack.
Three medium cargos, two cargo steamers, one Arandona Liner.

Calm seas, 4m/s winds, clear night. Fired from 2k to 3.5k range, (hit the liner at 3.5k) 90 aob, decks awash 1-2 knots. Three torpedoes failed to hit.
Two topside torpedoes left. Broke contact with the rest of the "convoy" to reload these once daybreak arrives and if the seas remain calm.

Got smashed by a chain of depth charges in October 1942.

Was 210 meters deep and felt safe at that depth, like 99% of the similar situations in the past. The escort pass over me and I heard the blasts in successive blows... boom... boom... boom... getting louder. The boat started to roll and shake... rolle and shake... then massive damage reported, with massive floods in the engine rooms. :doh: The u-boat got lost by floodingm down at a whooping 465 meters deep.

NYGM wolf pack
 

Tracked/sent contact reports on a large convoy all day in 1942 west of Gibraltar. Night comes, and BdU tells me attack on my own anyway, no pack available.

Windy, clear night, not ideal conditions but worth a try. As I'm approaching for my attack, I see a ship get hit.

I got driven off before firing on this attack, but was able to attack later as though there was no pack I had called in, there was one attached to the convoy per NYGM, and the escorts got busy with them clearing the way for me.

I ended up sinking two ships, the pack got seven more. They hammered the convoy; saw ships getting hit, escorts fighting the pack, ships going down, etc.

Was a nice surprise to have an unexpected pack help out.

Total after a three game day running battle; 12 out of 21 ships sunk. Pack had seven, I had five.

Another 1942 NYGM convoy
 

Pack sank ten ships this time including a carrier and all escorts including one chasing me when it was hit !
I sunk five from it over two days, total loss to the convoy of 15 ships.


More details here: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...4&postcount=20

Somebody wants a Knights Cross or shiny stuff to put on the one he has.

I just spent over 10-game hours, most at TC x1, and had a convoy get away. This in NYGM, September 1941 in VIIC U-264. Convoy, seemingly outbound from Gibraltar, encountered in BE96 while in transit to patrol area DH12.

After more than eight-hours shadowing from ahead it changed course from 310* to 070* and at the same time a Corvette spotted me and turned to attack. Presumably was spotted because the change in aspect from stern-on to broadside as I had been observing that escort without counter detection from the beginning of the shadow. By the time I evaded (12-depth charges dropped, none close), my DR plot had the convoy about 50 km away and night just a half-hour or so away. Given the prospect of a high-speed, stern chase towards the UK at night, with at least one escort between my boat and the convoy, decided to let it go and return to base course. BdU was not amused.

-C

BdU says you will soon be hearing sleigh bells...............coming at you........... on the Eastern Front !


That's some course change.


The pack subs have torn these convoys up.
The career prior to this one had six patrols for just short of 180k tons. Knight's Cross, Oak Leaves, Swords, Diamonds before going to a staff job.


Current new career (same crew minus transfers/promotions) is two patrols in, 50k plus tons. Got jumped once by a destroyer group in a storm, minor damage.