Tips, please?

[DeutscheQuality]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Are you running TMO 2.5 Update BH or regular TMO 2.5?

You were at 9km which is little less than 5 nautical miles and at 150 meters which is just under 500 ft (very deep for a Salmon class) and at 1 knot(too slow, there is not much sound difference between 1 kt and 2 kts, long as RPM is under 100 and on sillent runnings. At 1 kt, you are practically immobile.

Were you on the surface prior or did make contact when submerged? I ask this, as it is possible you were detected prior, when submerging.

Did you have silent running activated? That is key. Unfortunately on approach in the sim, need silent running active in most cases.

What was the state of the seas? I assume calm.


Unusual to be detected at that range unless making a lot of noise, so another possibility that comes to mind is a unseen aircraft spotted your sub as it passed overhead and alerted the warships. TMO aircraft can see subs under water in appropriate conditions and in late 1944, they get MAD, so can detect submerged submarines at deeps at 300 feet or deeper even.

Thing about approaches and evading sonar is there is more to it that getting under the cone. Your profile to the beam matters so with your bow pointing vs your broadsides. Sea state, enemy speed, if you are below a thermal layer etc matters. You were not picked up by active sonar at 9 km as does not have that type of range, you were heard by hydrophones or spotted as mentioned.

AI has two statuses...normal and alert. They are always using active sonar in normal mode...but you only heard the ping if the beam is near your sub or focused. I hate this aspect of SH 4 but its a hardcoded thing and the fix someone put out, is outdated and does not work properly with modern modded versions of sim. If they don't pick you up on active or passive, oe visual, or not told by another ship where your location is, they will slow down and listen for your sub.

Approach quietly and time your attack so you can keep 1500 yards minimum from escorts, so they don't detect you. Keep your profile to the escort minimal. Key is to time approach to let the lead escort go by and if there is a flank escort, time it so can be at firing point to attack and let torpedoes hit before flank escort detects you.

About when the destroyer make contact and the sea state, it was an calm sea, basically no wind. And he detected me on the surface. Trying to resume the approach: I detected him by the radar, full ahead, plot his course (i use the map contact on) and with caution, choose the place to attack him at PD at a distance of 1.800 meters. I don't know really how to explain this, but when he detected me on the surface (at the 9 kilometers) i was something like 1 minute to dive to periscope depth.

Most of my attacks are like this: Found a target, plot his course, full ahead and by the radar, continue to tracking him untill i am a good distance ahead of him, so i can simply get near his presumed course and wait the moment i can finally see him through the periscope and get all the data for the torpedos, and launch them. Don't know if is a good method, but that's what i do (for now), and im ready to improve if this is an bad method