GWX diffuculty

[TwoGamers]

How much harder is GWX? Compared to stock?

[GoldenRivet]

its completely scalable.

you have the same realism settings as in stock.

where the "difficulty" comes into it... is in the AI, as the war progresses, it will be increasingly difficult to outwit the escorts.

Radar plays a more active role than in stock so surface attacks and surface intercepts become very very difficult to pull off - dare i say impossible after mid 1943. additionally guns on the escorts - as in real life - became increasingly radar directed, so they can be devastatingly accurate at long range.

GWX is just more historically accurate - so rather than having the stock 75% chance of surviving the war you have a GWX 75% chance of being sunk.

I survived several campaigns to wars end in the stock version

In GWX, i have managed to survive perhaps two or three campaigns to the end of the war - of course i play on 89 - 100% realism depending on how serious an experience i want.

[TwoGamers]

Thankyou

[TheDude107]

Another comment on the scaleable difficulty as mentioned above.

In late 1939-1940 you might encounter a convoy with a few escorts. The lead escort will usually move from side to side screening the front of the convoy, while the side and rear escorts just plow forward at medium speed until the convoy is disturbed. The max is usually around 3-4 escorts.

If you are detected by an escort at this stage in the war.... other escorts in the area may not "help out" a fellow escort, even if you have definatly been spotted and are being attacked by a surface ship. I think this has to do with early war communication or the anti submarine warfare skill of the crews(which increases as the war goes on, slightly randomised.)

Later in the war the convoy might have more escorts. The side and rear escorts will no longer just cruise straight ahead even outside of combat. Escorts will now start zig-zagging outside of combat to reduce the chances of you killing them.

Later in the war, once you are detected or a ship in a convoy is disturbed.... The escorts will seemingly use more teamwork to hunt you down. You will no longer see escorts searching for you when their friends have found you.

If you get detected/pinged at this stage in the war then this info is usually "shared" with nearby escorts who will arrive on scene to help quickly. They will also be better at depth charging runs. The depth at which they believe you are submerged at will be more accurate as the war goes on because the sonar is more advanced and has a searchlight like cone. (You'll know when you have been in this cone because your pinging is usually followed by a spot-on deptch charge run and screaming crew members.)

This basicly adds up to multiple escorts taking turns depth charging you with a good degree of accuracy as far as depth goes. You will have less of a chance at escaping once multiple escorts arrive on scene because you can't be in multiple blind spots at once.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

its completely scalable.

you have the same realism settings as in stock.

where the "difficulty" comes into it... is in the AI, as the war progresses, it will be increasingly difficult to outwit the escorts.

Radar plays a more active role than in stock so surface attacks and surface intercepts become very very difficult to pull off - dare i say impossible after mid 1943. additionally guns on the escorts - as in real life - became increasingly radar directed, so they can be devastatingly accurate at long range.

GWX is just more historically accurate - so rather than having the stock 75% chance of surviving the war you have a GWX 75% chance of being sunk.

I survived several campaigns to wars end in the stock version

In GWX, i have managed to survive perhaps two or three campaigns to the end of the war - of course i play on 89 - 100% realism depending on how serious an experience i want.

^

[javelina1]

Originally Posted by TheDude107

Another comment on the scaleable difficulty as mentioned above.

In late 1939-1940 you might encounter a convoy with a few escorts. The lead escort will usually move from side to side screening the front of the convoy, while the side and rear escorts just plow forward at medium speed until the convoy is disturbed. The max is usually around 3-4 escorts.

If you are detected by an escort at this stage in the war.... other escorts in the area may not "help out" a fellow escort, even if you have definatly been spotted and are being attacked by a surface ship. I think this has to do with early war communication or the anti submarine warfare skill of the crews(which increases as the war goes on, slightly randomised.)

Later in the war the convoy might have more escorts. The side and rear escorts will no longer just cruise straight ahead even outside of combat. Escorts will now start zig-zagging outside of combat to reduce the chances of you killing them.

Later in the war, once you are detected or a ship in a convoy is disturbed.... The escorts will seemingly use more teamwork to hunt you down. You will no longer see escorts searching for you when their friends have found you.

If you get detected/pinged at this stage in the war then this info is usually "shared" with nearby escorts who will arrive on scene to help quickly. They will also be better at depth charging runs. The depth at which they believe you are submerged at will be more accurate as the war goes on because the sonar is more advanced and has a searchlight like cone. (You'll know when you have been in this cone because your pinging is usually followed by a spot-on deptch charge run and screaming crew members.)

This basicly adds up to multiple escorts taking turns depth charging you with a good degree of accuracy as far as depth goes. You will have less of a chance at escaping once multiple escorts arrive on scene because you can't be in multiple blind spots at once.

thanks for sharing. I still find it incredible these men would still go out to sea, knowing they had a 1 in 4 chance of returning.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by javelina1

thanks for sharing. I still find it incredible these men would still go out to sea, knowing they had a 1 in 4 chance of returning.

there are two things most all young military men have in common in a time of war...

1. a sense of duty to country

2. a feeling of invincibility

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by TheDude107

If you get detected/pinged at this stage in the war then this info is usually "shared" with nearby escorts who will arrive on scene to help quickly. They will also be better at depth charging runs. The depth at which they believe you are submerged at will be more accurate as the war goes on because the sonar is more advanced and has a searchlight like cone. (You'll know when you have been in this cone because your pinging is usually followed by a spot-on deptch charge run and screaming crew members.)

This basicly adds up to multiple escorts taking turns depth charging you with a good degree of accuracy as far as depth goes. You will have less of a chance at escaping once multiple escorts arrive on scene because you can't be in multiple blind spots at once.

Problem is that there are not just depth charges, but hedgehog as well, which is a lot harder to dodge, as you get no warning (aside from the event camera if that is enabled) and the charges sink much faster. Even in a XXI things get really ugly once you have multiple hedgehog armed escorts coming after you.

[GoldenRivet]

dont forget das flugzeug

i think they are too easily spotted at night by the watch crew in SH3. In mid to late war, generally the first indication that an airplane had you dead to rights was the bright Leigh light beaming down on you, followed seconds later by a barrage of depth charges or bombs or rockets from which there was often no escape.



quite a ruthless foe really

piercing the night with radar, you cant see, and cant detect well even with the often faulty detectors...

it sees you though, from many miles away.

it dives in - engines idling. You cant hear it over the wind and waves yet still it comes down in the dark.

then in the last seconds, the light illuminates. and if the intense 50,000,000 candlepower light shined down on a German U-boat, the bombardier toggled a spread of bombs or depth charges.

from that little U-boat all you could do was hope against hope and often times that burst of adrenalin, that moment of fear and panic... that was the last thing you ever experienced in this world.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by javelina1

thanks for sharing. I still find it incredible these men would still go out to sea, knowing they had a 1 in 4 chance of returning.

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

there are two things most all young military men have in common in a time of war...

1. a sense of duty to country

2. a feeling of invincibility

Number 2 especially. It's always the other guy who'll get it, not me. Also hindsight plays a part. They didn't know how bad the odds were.

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

dont forget das flugzeug

i think they are too easily spotted at night by the watch crew in SH3. In mid to late war, generally the first indication that an airplane had you dead to rights was the bright Leigh light beaming down on you, followed seconds later by a barrage of depth charges or bombs or rockets from which there was often no escape.

quite a ruthless foe really

piercing the night with radar, you cant see, and cant detect well even with the often faulty detectors...

it sees you though, from many miles away.

it dives in - engines idling. You cant hear it over the wind and waves yet still it comes down in the dark.

then in the last seconds, the light illuminates. and if the intense 50,000,000 candlepower light shined down on a German U-boat, the bombardier toggled a spread of bombs or depth charges.

from that little U-boat all you could do was hope against hope and often times that burst of adrenalin, that moment of fear and panic... that was the last thing you ever experienced in this world.

Airplanes were deadly, but with a correctly employed snorkel it was possible to escape detection, most of the time at least. Surface warships however had the advantage of superior staying power, as they could attack, attack and then attack some more.

[GoldenRivet]

for the sake of suppressing a u-boat thats true, but i think it bears mentioning that the number of u-boats sunk by ships is virtually equal to the number sunk by aircraft.

additionally - the raised snorkel was useless in rough seas... in calm seas it was somewhat easy to detect with radar.

[Marcello]

The snorkel was no panacea, but it was anything but easy to detect, according to this report

The sweep width is then about 1/10 of a mile, only about I per cent of the value on a surfaced U-boat. In operations, therefore, Schnorchel has been very successful in countering radar detection. In the daytime, when visual sightings are also possible, its immunity from contact is not quite so great. The sweep width has been estimated at 0.6 mile

From what I recall the plan in case the XXIs were to be encountered in numbers was to essentially give up most patrol areas and massing the aircrafts to carry out overlapping searches in the path ahead of convoys. Surface escorts armed with forward throwing A/S mortars on the other hand retained most of their value against snorkel boats.

[Jimbuna]

A slightly differing set of information:

Finally, allied radar was still sensitive enough to be able to detect an object as small as a snorkel head. Although this was much more difficult compared to a surfaced U-boat, allied reports indicated that a surfaced U-boat could be detected up to a distance of 10km, whereas a snorkel head could be detected at only about 5km. Later, snorkel heads were coated with radar absorbing materials known as Tarnmatte. It was claimed that this reduced radar signature by up to 90 percent, although there were no definitive tests.

http://www.uboataces.com/snorkel.shtml