Quote:
Originally Posted by Zero Niner
June 1942, on patrol in the South China Sea off Hong Kong. It's night time and radar picks up a small convoy headed my way from the south, which turns out to be a CH-28 class sub chaser in the lead followed by a merchant ship astern.
I manage to get ahead, submerge and lie in wait. The escort passes me without noticing me, and I launch 2 torpedoes at the merchant, both hitting. The ship soon stops dead in the water, and I pass underwater to its other side but before I can manoeuvre into position to launch a 3rd torpedo sonar picks up another merchant coming my way from the north.
I deal with this 2nd merchant then fire a 3rd torpedo at the first merchant which sinks it.
Throughout this engagement, apart from firing a few illumination shells, the escort does nothing. It does not seek me out, or go to high speed to chase me down even with the 2nd merchant taking hits. It does not race to where it thinks I am and drop depth charges. Instead it just sits dead in the water (map says "stationary") and only starts moving slowly on its northerly course when the ship it was escorting sank.
I'm not sure if this behaviour is an anomaly or normal. I've not had many hours in FotRSU, but when I played GFO the escorting DDs would race towards me and drop depth charges. It would circle around stricken ships even if the rest of the convoy moved on. So the difference in AI behaviour is quite stark, to say the least.
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Several possibilities or a combo thereof...
In stock/GFO escorts have best or close to it, in sound gear and sonar, so no difference between say a subchaser and a top of the line fleet destroyer. In reality, there was quite the difference especially until later phase in war. The top of line vessels such as destroyers received the best gear, a sub chaser like the CH-28 in 1942 would not have the best gear and probably not even the best of crews. So while he was alerted, could not detect you submerged so never had a fix on your location. Stock had a limited roster and made every ASW vessel the same basically. When he was sitting still, he was listening trying to locate you, you have been out of his hydrophone range. I had to adjust this in TMO 2.5 to solve this issue, it was happening too often. Mods such as FOTRS and TMO have various types of vessels. So facing a second line vessel with a likely unskilled crew, 1942 and all is likely the major issue.
Another factor could be the weather...sea state matters, if had choppy seas, likely made it difficult for them to locate you. If you were on silent running, that has an effect as well. It appears the way the sim does silent running is your sub has two types of electric engines, regular and then a "silent drive", when silent running is active, your sub operates on these engines and does not emit the normal noise. Unfortunately, if you're on silent running and some distance away , can make it difficult to locate. Then again in most situations one has to go to silent running during approach to get close enough to fire or will be heard. This can great situation where escort does not hear your boat even after alerted, even after sinking etc. This can make for anticlimactic and boring patrols if happens often. I usually cut silent running just after torpedoes hit, to simulate those moments when alerted escorts are searching, then when have to dive to rig for depth charge, rig for silent running and they will come to attack.
In summation...
You were facing a second line vessel in early war, likely the crew settings was set to competent or below. What sensors it does have may need tweaked to be a bit more sensitive if you got away with that much.