Let's commence Operation Monsun! (Update Q-7)

Index:

Cleve Blakestein:
Part 1: Set Sail for Fail
Part 2: Blakestein's Blue Balls
Part 3: Convoy Quest
Part 4: Convoy Quest Redux: Deluxe Enhanced Ultimate Edition
Part 5: More Like the BULLSHIT of Scapa Flow (and other assorted comedy)

TheNamelessPrick:
Part 6: Hijack
Part 7: The Second Coming: Worst Update EVER
Part 8: How to Fail 101*: Shallow Waters + Terrible Weather = This Update


CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF ALLAH: THE RECKONING
CHAPTER 2: COPYPASTA FOR THE FÜHRER
CHAPTER 3: DUD FOR THE DUD GOD!
CHAPTER 4: HERP THAT DERP, HERR KALEUN!
CHAPTER 5: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A CONVOY
CHAPTER 6: CONVOYS. CONVOYS NEVER CHANGE.
CHAPTER 7: WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' TORPEDOES

In an effort to raise general Codex awareness about gnarly video games as well as dispel myths of SH3 + G.W.X. superiority, I've decided to at least briefly LP Operation Monsun. For those of you who are unaware of the Silent Hunter series, they're WW2 submarine simulators that gained probably most of its current fan base and popularity with SH3. It's pretty much Das Boot: the video game. Unfortunately, like a great deal of potentially good games, they're invariably released in a state of buggy shitstormitude that puts anything released by Bohemia Interactive to shame. (Silent Hunter 5 was released without a properly working stadimeter. If you don't know what that is, you'll see later.) Fortunately, after a few official patches, modders appear and save the day, eventually coalescing their works into giant megamods that dramatically alter the game. The most popular of these is the Silent Hunter 3 Grey Wolves Expansion mod, or G.W.X. It gets alot of press and is generally considered to the ultimate in pretending to be Jurgen Proch- well, a u-boat captain.

I'm challenging the notion.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134922
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=158764

In this corner, we have Operation Monsun, a robust megamod made primarily by one man. It's for Silent Hunter 4 + expansion and thusly incorporates all of its core improvements over SH3 while re-adding the Atlantic theater as well as the u-boats that weren't otherwise present. The optional expansion to it includes improved destroyer AI, various environmental effects, a new attack periscope, and probably some other crap that I've forgotten about. What I find, personally, is that G.W.X. features a great deal of atmospheric fluff that, while pleasant, doesn't actually constitute gameplay. SH4 + OM, in my experience, has better destroyer AI (painful fucking destroyer AI if you use the hardest optional mod. I use the slightly wimpier one), various cool features like aircraft dropped homing torpedoes that will fucking destroy you, and of course a much better campaign - Lurker's (the OM modder) real claim to fame. The dude models all his convoys and transports after historical records. It makes it more difficult, generally, to find convoys and ships. You can check his cited sources in the OM thread, as well as his Run Silent, Run Deep Campaign thread. It also should be noted that it's possible to get various atmospheric fluff mods separate from OM to make the experience a bit more like G.W.X., but I don't bother.

Also, be advised that I'm not really an expert at this. My word isn't gospel. If you see me do something wrong, point it out and I'll be a better player for it. That said, I will be explaining most of my actions as well as various features the screenshots show me using so as to familiarize any newcomers. I also haven't played in a long time, so the first updates will probably be rocky at best, but hey, it'll be funnier that way. Did I mention this is going to be ironman? Coz it is. If I die I'll just restart at a different port at a different time. Oh and I was gonna post Das Boot pictures along the way but I deleted it recently so meh.

Anyway, I think that's enough bullshit for now. Time to put on my oilskin and my captain hat...



]Part 1: Set Sail for Fail


Here is where you select your captain's name, the year you start in, the Flotilla you start in, and what u-boat you'll be using. In OM, you may only use u-boats that were historically available to the flotilla you've chosen. At least, I think so, because I'm having trouble seeing how he reconciles the availability of the type XXI in this mod with the fact that only a few of them ever made war patrols.

Anyway, on my choices here: we need to send some limey cunts to the bottom and I feel Cleve is the perfect ubermensch for the job. I'm starting so early because I haven't played in a long time and starting later will get me real fucked, real fast. When I get my sea legs back so to speak, I'll probably do something retarded, die, and restart slightly before or during Black May to make things more interesting. I'm using a type IX because it carries more torpedoes than the other currently available classes, and because I fully intend to miss a bunch before I'm settled in, I'm giving myself a bit of buffer.



Back in the office, there isn't much to do. There's no real upgrades to put on the ship, and we don't have any renown so we can't use it to put on any really good crewmen, so we'll get to all that crap later. For now, the only useful thing to do in port is re-arrange the torpedo selection. There are currently two types available: steam powered, which goes faster, farther, and is less prone to failure. Sounds good right? Except it leaves a visible wake, which means if the ship you're shooting spots it early enough, it can actually change course and avoid your shot. For that reason, even if you have a really good firing solution, I rarely if ever do long range shots with them. That said, however, I generally prefer them to the alternative: the electric powered, wakeless PIECE OF SHIT. First off, it's slow as fuck so I find myself considerably more likely to miss. Secondly, and this is the real kicker, they dud like the wind. Like it's their job. All torpedoes have a chance of hitting and not exploding, but these ones have perfected it to a science. I carry a few of them, because occasionally I'm able to make use of its inability to be spotted, particularly if I'm firing at a convoy and I want to hit two ships that are different ranges. In that case, I like to fire the wakeless torpedoes at the farthest, wait, then launch the considerably faster steam versions at the closer one so the detonations on both ships are close. Not only does this prevent the farther target from seeing the torpedoes and changing course, but it also prevents it from changing course after seeing one if its pals go up in flames.

For that reason, I keep two steam, and two electric loaded in the front tubes, then have two electric backups because I simply use them less. All other torpedoes on the boat are steam. Anyway, time to undock.



You'll notice that the map shows the Pacific theater. Presumably it's hardcoded, and he can't change it. We're actually based out of Wilhelmshaven.


Already, if you've played SH3 you'll note the lack of band and nurses, respectively playing music and throwing roses.



The time of day is different because my screen capture program went nuts and I restarted.

I'll take this time to explain the interface. On the lower right you have a meter that shows fuel, battery, compressed air, and CO2 levels on the ship, depending on what button you have pressed. Next is the engine. You can set 5 different speeds forward, and 4 backward, or alternatively change the dial to a more specific selector in which you can simply choose what knots to go. The next is the compass. The top of considered your bearing 0. If you click 20 degrees left of it, the ship will turn 20 degrees left. You may alternatively bring up a panel that allows you to adjust the rudder instead. And last is the depth in meters. That's the shallow depth meter, allowing you to more easily click on precise depths around periscope level. The alternate shows lower depths. On the left you have the various commands available to you. Every gray panel has an entirely different set of blue/yellow icons for different commands. There's alot. We'll explain them as we go.

Also, the pair of binoculars you can barely see in the screenshot are mounted on the deck. It's called the target bearing transmitter. They see far as hell and are what you use to do collect data for surface attacks.





I go to the map and set a course for our destination. Normally, you'd want to head north and go all the way around England, but since Cleve is so incredibly manly we're going to go straight through the English channel. Untermensch shy away from this for a variety of reasons, such as: it's fucking stupid. It's narrow, constantly patrolled, and worst of all is very very shallow. You really can't hope to escape depth charges. Even in the middle in some places it's only roughly 20 meters deep. In any event, we're not worried, because even if the boat goes down, I have it on good authority that Cleve's titanium bones can survive crush depths at least 100 meters. I'm pretty sure he'll survive. As a side note, in my foolishness I actually clicked crash dive instead of plot course while in the harbor. That was smart.

Things go acceptably. Forced to dive once by an aircraft a bit northeast of the Channel. No big deal. First ship contact is made a little after the entrance, west northwest of Calais. Bearing 80.



A quick look with the TBT shows that it's fucking BULLSHIT. Note how it says "patrol craft" in the ship type when I hover over it. The game doesn't automatically identify what ship you're looking at, but it does tell you the type of ship it is, and patrol craft are rubbish. They're little boats with a machine gun or cannon or two on them. Smaller even than a corvette. They occasionally possess some kind of ASW (anti-submarine warfare) ability but they're not worth worrying about, or bothering with. However, we ought to be safe since we're in the canal, and the waters are awfully shallow. I dive, and run submerged for a few hours. The sonar man picks up various warships passing by, and I confirm that they're all "patrol crafts" of various sorts with the periscope. After a few hours, however, the sonarman picks up what he believes to be a merchant, bearing roughly 350, heading our way!

If this boat was commanded by a subhuman troglodyte he'd probably take note of all the dangers of attacking a merchant ship in broad daylight, surrounded by patrol ships in roughly 25 meters of water. Luckily for Codexian spectators as well as the crew of U-whatever, we suffer from no such affliction and will be attacking without hesitation. Regrettably, for our first attack, I documented this somewhat poorly, so screenshots will be more scarce than I'd like.



Alright, he's coming in our direction and will probably pass very close to us. Getting a good shot will require almost no effort. This will be a good time to demonstrate the Fast 90 targeting method. Alright, the first thing you need to do when beginning a torpedo attack is identify the ship or ships you're firing at. Normally, playing on 100% realism, you have to do this manually, by staring at the target til your fucking eyes bleed while comparing it to pictures in the recognition manual. OM, however, adds such a ridiculous amount of merchant ships that flipping through the pages to identify the target would take so long by the time you actually found the correct entry, Grimoire 2 plus expansion would be released. To counteract this, there's a button to make your damn crew ID it, leaving you to just find the entry. (which still takes long) To demonstrate just how many new ships this mod has, look at the designation. It's an M-KF-M (I). That means there's also an A, B, C, D...maybe they skip a few letters, I dunno. But they're all variations of the same boat. And there's probably no less than 5. And it's like that for every single merchant, of which there are many. KF-K-M and KF-KF-M-K and M-K-K-M and maybe even K-K-K for all I know.

Anyway, it's decline in one area, but incline in another. I'll take it.

So this particular merchant is a M-KM-M (I). The next thing you need to is determine range. In the above screenshot, you'll notice there's a double image of the ship. That's the stadimeter at work. In regular SH, you'd simply drag the mirror image down onto the real one until the waterline of the mirror image touches the highest mast of the actual boat. If you've identified the ship correctly, you'll get its range. But OM includes a mod called KiUB, that replaces the old attack periscope with a new one, and requires an extra step.



The range isn't found automatically. When you bring up the stadimeter, there'll be a black line accompanying it. When you place the image in position over the highest mast, wherever the black line rests on those little green lines going up is the height in degrees. So, using this cool little tool right here, you must now move the middle circle until the degree you specified is lined up with the black line on the top. Once that's done, you look at the ship's mast height, which is in this case 29m. Find 29 on the innermost circle. It's to the right a bit. The second number on the inner circle will then correspond with the mast height to give you the range. You can see in this screenshot 29 is aligned in between 5 and 6, so 5500 meters is the range.

I realize that's probably a little irritating to follow without having the game right in front of you to mess with, so for anyone who cares, here's the KiUB manual. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=152590



Meh, and here's what I mean about somewhat poor documentation. The following screenshots are a bit spaced out. With the range found, we go into the navigation map and measure out with the ruler 5500m on whichever bearing you took the measurement, which in this case was 346. If I was zoomed in more, you'd see what direction our sub was facing (roughly west-southwest) and a circle around it telling you bearings, making it easier to draw the line accurately.

Now, we've got one position plotted. Now we have to...oh for fuck's sake I'm retarded. I forgot to engage the chronometer. What I meant to say is we'd wait 3 minutes and then take another range and bearing, but I forgot to start the stopwatch that comes with the game.



Right, so mark 2 was made with the chronometer started, and mark 3 was made 3 minutes later. I fucked up the bearing a bit on mark 3, but it should be okay. Now, you take the ruler and draw a line between them, and seeing what range the boat has traveled. It says here 450. Provided you've done everything correctly, that means the boat is going 4.5 knots. We'll just say it's going 5, which is very probable and a common speed for the slower merchant boats to be traveling at alone.



Look on the right, and what bearing I have the scope at. This is the difference between fast 90 targeting, and shooting normally. Putting the scope to 0 and turning on manual input to the torpedo data computer, we set the speed to 5, and the angle to 90. Which way depends on where the ship is coming from. In this case, it's port. After that's done, we reactivate automatic TDC input. On u-boats, the bearing and angle on bow are tied directly into the periscope. This means as I move the periscope right or left, the angle on bow will adjust itself automatically to the correct number, provided the original entry was correct and there's been no change in course. But the AOB, right now, isn't close to 90. We have to make it that way.



Angle on bow is a complicated term essentially describing on what bearing you are from the enemy. If the enemy is coming straight at you, it's 0. If you're to the left of him at a perfect right angle, it'd be 90 degrees port. This means the AOB constantly changes at the ship moves, hence the periscope's handy feature of constant updates. What we have in this screenshot is a line, using the first two marks I made, showing the ship's projected course. In the upper left is my boat, I position it so when the ship intersects with my bearing 0, the AOB will be roughly 90 degrees. If you look really hard, you can see a protractor marking, going through the course and towards my ship, showing that it's roughly 90. We're shooting close so it doesn't need to be exact. Plus, fast 90 is a forgiving method of targeting - slight deviations will still usually produce hits.



So now it's on bearing 70, and we're just waiting for it to get closer to 0 so we can fire. I've change the settings on both steam torpedoes to run fast, which decreases range but increases speed, to use magnetic detonators, and to run at a depth of about 10 meters. The ship has a draft of 9.5.

So back to fast 90, the advantages of this are a tolerance for error, and the fact that we no longer have to worry about range. If you're firing at a perfect 90 degree angle, range becomes irrelevant. Why?



That's why. You simply fire when the ship is at a certain bearing depending on its speed. If it's closer, it has less time to travel to get to bearing 0, and the torpedo has less time to reach the range of the target. If it's farther, it has a longer way to travel, and so does the torpedo. If your calculations are correct, they intersect.

More detailed guide if anyone cares: http://www.subsowespac.org/forum/index. ... 375.0.html

In our case, having the KiUB mod, we keep the periscope on the target until the dial in the very upper right, impact angle, reads 90. Easy eh?

But I seem to have forgotten one minor detail.



I left my periscope up in broad fucking daylight the ENTIRE TIME, and now this cunt has seen me. He's starting to zig and zag, and is probably increasing his speed. I fire the first torpedo slightly early, anticipating the speed increase, and the other on time. What's worse, is that he's probably sent out a signal and those "patrol craft" are coming for me RIGHT NOW, rather than when the torpedoes actually hit, costing us precious time.





That's the first torpedo hitting - way back. Not an optimal hit. Expecting the second one to miss and definitely not expecting the ship to sink on account of that lousy hit, I go to prime the other torpedoes...the electric ones I complained about earlier, since we don't have time for a reload.



Smoke on the horizon...patrol craft beelining for us. There's another one as well. Gotta make this quick. Fortunately, the other torpedo hits in roughly the same spot, and they appear to have caused too much flooding for the ship to move, or destroyed its propeller. It's nearly at a dead stop. Makes these next shots easy.



I go to clear all the TDC data. Don't need it anymore. Since the ship isn't moving, we need only point the periscope at it and FIRE!



Jesus fucking CHRIST, both of the electric torpedoes dud, despite using an impact fuse and having an excellent impact angle. Were I the sort of lesser man that resorts to memes, I'd probably have posted several thousand emoticons now. With the patrol craft ever approaching, and this asshole not sinking, I'm wondering if we'll even manage to get the kill. I decide to start turning to use the aft tubes when...



Enemy destroyed message. Jesus fucking christ, those two wakeless torpedoes were a complete waste.



But at least this dude's dead and we can jet. Now that I think about it, you're also supposed to check the ship's flag to make sure you're not destroying neutrals. I didn't bother. Pretty sure it was hostile.

Now the patrols are pretty damn close and we've only got 23 meters of water to play around in. We dive to 20 and run silent while adjusting course to the northeast. Silent running makes you go slower, and prevents things like repairing and torpedo loading that cause noise for enemy hydrophones to pick up. Fortunately, there's really nothing to screenshot, as I heard a few explosions that may have been depth charges, but nothing close. After a while of silent running, night comes and we've left the scene of the crime reasonably safely behind us.



I surface and set engines ahead standard. Come daybreak, we're accosted by an enemy aircraft.



I order the dive, but it can take a few minutes. Meanwhile I scan the horizon for the aircraft, seeing nothing. As we slip under the water, I can hear the engines buzzing above us. Bomb detonations ensue as we're only 10 meters under. I decide to run the rest of the channel submerged by day, surfacing only by night. The rest of the trip occurs without serious incident.



Aaand we've finally reached our designated patrol point, slightly northwest of Spain there. That'll be all for now. I realize that was an awful lot of explanation, but explaining the features is a bit of a one time thing. Now that fast 90 targeting is out of the way, we'll usually sink ships without any incredibly verbose commentary.

Anyway, suggestions? Screenshots too big, too small? Probably update in a day or two.

Huzzah! Great choice of game for an LP, always loved sub sims and you look like you can actually play one.

Woot, looks interesting.

Does this game+mod feature missions in the Mediterranean? I think Gibraltar it's far worse to cross than the English Channel.

Damn, this is pretty cool. I could probably never play this, what with all the geometry shit and everything but watching someone else play this looks entertaining.

Cassidy said:

Does this game+mod feature missions in the Mediterranean? I think Gibraltar it's far worse to cross than the English Channel.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure it does, though I've honestly never been to the Mediterranean in SH4. SH3 definitely had it though. It stands to reason, however, that this mod features it, considering how completely this guy has modeled the campaign. Maybe I'll pass a bunch of time after this patrol and see if they send us anywhere fun. Could probably just start at an Italian port, but then we wouldn't have to run Gibraltar and it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

SoupNazi said:

Damn, this is pretty cool. I could probably never play this, what with all the geometry shit and everything but watching someone else play this looks entertaining.

Click to expand...

Some people get pretty scientific about targeting, but the methods I use are pretty simple. It all looks complicated at a glance, but then you actually do it and realize it's not rocket science. I will say however that the system does allow for a great deal of variety and technique, and the better you understand it the better off you are. Wish I was better myself.

How does SH5 hold up nowadays? I never touched it because of bugs that it's supposed to have, and some bullshit Ubisoft (which doesn't matter if you not remove it from inventory, I guess), but maybe it's been patched by now?

Also, nice choice, will be following.

Quilty said:

How does SH5 hold up nowadays? I never touched it because of bugs that it's supposed to have, and some bullshit Ubisoft (which doesn't matter if you not remove it from inventory, I guess), but maybe it's been patched by now?

Also, nice choice, will be following.

Click to expand...

I like to read Subsim at work and try to keep tabs on how SH5 is progressing. Without having actually played it, my verdict is it still has too many AIDS to even consider playing. Not that it's relevant; I'll never buy it so long as it has that stupid fucking DRM. Although, there is a new pirate release that hasn't been nuked yet. Someone download it and tell me if it works.

I would totally download SH5, but only if they patch out all the bugs and shit.

YES! The LP is here! :D

oh my, i am not yet done reading the first post, but i must say EXCELLENT WORK always wanted to see one of these new gen sub sims, my last one played was 688 attack sub..

also very nice touch for the captain selected;

respect! or should i say :brofist:

Thanks for the great LP, but when do we get to the part where you machine gun the lifeboats?

For an exciting playthrough you should allow the outside camera. I know it makes things too easy in a real game, but all the 'cool stuff' you can show off in an LP is worth it.

Hints for the laymen here: You can use 'auto' mode for torpedoing, whereby you just need to get yourself into a good 90 degree position and the AI works out the mathematics for you...while this does nothing for me, plenty would probably prefer it.

Also, from what I can see, SHV is dumbed down rubbish. Pickup 3 or 4 and have fun.

edit: Cleave definately has some balls throwing a fleet boat (type IX) through the Channel and in the Bay of Biscay (is the mod a little poorly optimised for placement? Only type II's and VII's should be in that shallow water).

overtenemy> i'm curious: why did you not use the cannon to sink the merchant after it was crippled by the torpedoes ?

and yay we made it past the channel, can't wait for moar.

I have fond memories of SH3. One of the institutes at my campus (Technical University of Denmark) at the time had a cinema in the basement. They claimed it was for research into 3D display technologies, but mostly it was because they wanted a THX certified cinema, complete with a good projector, 5 rows of sofa seats and an absurdly expensive surround sound system. Since the projector and speakers were hooked up to computers, we naturally rerouted them to a computer we'd brought along and played SH3 in a close to 1:1 scale. :D

The hideously expensive surround sound system really came through when we accidentally surfaced in the middle of a british convoy and shells came a-flyin' from every direction.

DwarvenFood said:

overtenemy> i'm curious: why did you not use the cannon to sink the merchant after it was crippled by the torpedoes ?

and yay we made it past the channel, can't wait for moar.

Click to expand...

The Patrol boat horde.

Blackadder said:

For an exciting playthrough you should allow the outside camera. I know it makes things too easy in a real game, but all the 'cool stuff' you can show off in an LP is worth it.

Click to expand...

Yes, I may enable it for next patrol. I enjoy showing what it's like to play the game, but there'll be better explosion screenshots I suppose with it on.

Blackadder said:

Cleave definately has some balls throwing a fleet boat (type IX) through the Channel and in the Bay of Biscay (is the mod a little poorly optimised for placement? Only type II's and VII's should be in that shallow water).

Click to expand...

I didn't check depth while I was there (I'm done with the patrol now) but I'd imagine it was past crush depth. It's true however, that patrolling there wasn't particularly taking advantage of the type IX's immense range, and that going straight through the channel in a type IX is even more stupid than in a VII. But remember, we started in Wilhemshaven, and France isn't conquered yet. I'd imagine the mod will send boats from the Flotilla we're in off to either Drumbeat or Monsun if we make it that far on account of the fact that it contains type IXs. The dude's usually pretty good about that sort of thing.

Blackadder said:

Also, from what I can see, SHV is dumbed down rubbish. Pickup 3 or 4 and have fun.

Click to expand...

They are getting there ...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=173147
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=171973

Still a lot of work considering how the game just "ends" at the middle of the war.

Drakron said:

Blackadder said:

Also, from what I can see, SHV is dumbed down rubbish. Pickup 3 or 4 and have fun.

Click to expand...

They are getting there ...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=173147
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=171973

Still a lot of work considering how the game just "ends" at the middle of the war.

Click to expand...

Yeah the AI mod looks pretty great, it's why I wanted to pirate the game and give it a shot. But the sheer amount of modding to make it less irritating...removing crew morale, removing those ridiculous abilities, removing the halos that surround everyone, tweaking your game to make the stadimeter work whatsoever (seriously how did that get by? I have a high bug tolerance, but you can't shoot torpedoes without a stadimeter...), and your watch crew failing to spot things when there's a decent amount of time compression. Meh. Give it a year and a half, I say. Maybe there'll be a working pirate release then, or Ubi will have fucked off with the DRM.

Part 2: Blakestein's Blue Balls



When we last left off we reached our first patrol area. Now, there's nothing to do but sail around for days on end til we stumble across enemy shipping, trusting that BdU knows what the fuck they're doing. The sea is a little rough, but otherwise it's pretty clear.



There's a button on the map to automatically set waypoints in a search pattern. The idea is that many merchants are sort of slow. Even if you miss one going one way you might catch him going another. You can set the waypoints yourself of course, which I often do, I just didn't bother this time.



Three days go by and we see nothing at all. It's like I'm really on Das boot!!!!



But really, since we remained on station for the specified time, the objective is complete. We can stay here, or do whatever we want really, but what you SHOULD do is report to BdU. They'll then assign you to another area.



Looks like we're headed a bit west of Ireland. We start heading off when, FUCK YEAR! Ship spotted!



Visibility is a bit screwy, but it's definitely a merchant, and it doesn't appear to be part of a convoy or I doubt we'd have seen it first. We're very early in the war, so merchants will pretty much never have any guns on them, allowing us to score incredibly effortless kills by simply driving up to them and sinking them with our own deck gun. We begin to cruise in for the kill.

I get a bit closer and decide this time to actually check the ship's nationality before sending it to the bottom, considering our proximity to Spain. I see a flag I don't recognize and head to the manual to investigate.



PANAMA. Fucking blue balled. Oh well, off to Ireland.

We get to our patrol point and it's much the same. 3 days of nothing. We go to the next patrol point, a bit further west, and once again fail to spot anything at all. But our next point looks like a winner.



In my experience, you can't fail to kill SOMETHING in that general area, especially if you venture closer to the coast. There's also usually all destroyer task forces patrolling around, but honestly they're not much of a threat at this point.

On the way there, we spot a ship in the dead of night.



Lawd, it's a freaking destroyer. It's a pretty black night, and visibility is incredibly poor. I don't even bother diving because he's very unlikely to see us. I turn towards him and note that we're able to send in a contact report, indicating that we're close to a convoy. Surface night raiding convoys in the early years of the war is immensely fun.



Yeah unfortunately, this wasn't a convoy but a task force. Very probably one of those all destroyer ones I was talking about. But since he was bearing 280 when we saw him, going the opposite way, we really have no chance of intercepting. When they're not escorting slow ass merchants across the sea, warships cruise pretty quick. He fades from sight in a few minutes. Now, when you radio in a contact and BdU tells you to engage, you get an extra objective to sink a few ships from the convoy or task force. But since we failed to do that, the objective remains incomplete, and next time we report in to get assigned a new patrol grid, command will just say "Yeah keep on doing what you're doing" because you still have an incomplete objective. Don't think there's any way to fix this, and we're stuck with it.

Anyway, it isn't before long after reaching our destination that a ship is spotted.



Visibility's a bit poor but seas are calm, and it's definitely unescorted. It's important that seas are calm because you can't man the deck gun if the waves are too big and the boat is rocking everywhere. Plus torpedoes run a bit screwy. Anyway, we close in for the kill.



Jerk makes us go around him a bit to finally spot his flag, but it finally enters our sights and we let it rip. Now, you can either fire the deck gun yourself, as I'm shown doing here, or have your crew do it. Having your crew do it makes more sense on a few levels. First off, when you manually aim the gun, it's extremely accurate. Impossible to miss. Pretty sure the rocking boat made it pretty likely that you'd miss shots here and there. Your crew can and will miss. Secondly, you can manually use the gun even during storm, a bug that I doubt will ever be fixed at this point. It was fixed in SH3, but not SH4. And lastly, in the interest of maximum LARPitude, it just doesn't make sense for a captain to be firing the deck gun. Nevertheless, I take a few shots to try to set it on fire and see if I can get any screenshots of parts falling off. Doing things like hitting the smoke stack will cause it to fall off the boat and start fires.





I don't manage to kill the smoke stack, but I do start a fire. Anyway, after that I just told my crew to do it.



While it may look cool to shoot the upper decks, especially if the ship is carrying ammunition, it's generally wasteful and ineffective. Word on the street is the most efficient way to sink a ship with the deck gun is to aim for the waterline, close enough to the boat that the shell has enough momentum to pass through the little bit of water and hit below decks, making a hole below the water and causing flooding. Sinking the ship by flooding will generally save you ammo and will allow longer, better patrols.



After a bit of shelling, we get confirmation that it's been destroyed. Since we were in a bit of a jam back in the Channel, we didn't really have time to watch the first one sink. Let's enjoy the sights this time.















Some freight remains at the surface. Often times, when the ship is destroyed life boats full of people will be deployed. Due to a request earlier in the thread I will machine gun them whenever possible. For some reason, there weren't any this time.

No other ships are spotted for the remainder of our time in this grid. Probably because of this fucking storm.



What a shame. Because it's on the way home and is generally a moderately target rich environment without being incredibly high risk, I take us directly north of England, west of Scapa Flow.

For a good long time, we see nothing. Eventually, we get a radio contact report of a ship in our vicinity.





The course given by radio contact reports is generally estimations, so what I've done is plotted his course until it became close to us, then set a way point to that position, then more zig zagging around his approximated course. We also set engines to full, which burns more fuel, but traveling faster in this situations increases your chances of finding the target.



Too bad the nights are dark as hell and it's been storming the entire time. I dive a few times to see if I can pick anything up on the hydrophone, but no luck. I almost wasn't going to mention it here, but the reason we didn't find the ship wasn't the storm. It's because I'm fucking stupid. The ship's course was 045. That's heading Northeast, not Northwest. The course I assumed he was taking is in fact 315 degrees. I probably wasn't thinking clearly because we had just done a port angle on bow, which for U-Boats just starts at 1, rather than 359. Blue balls of my own making.

Well, we're starting to run a little low on fuel. We could stay a bit longer but goddamn I just don't feel like it, so I set course for home.



We reach Wilhemshaven without incident and dock.



Over 10,000 tons wouldn't be bad for a real U-boat captain, but playing Silent Hunter, even with a mod that makes ships more rare, it's a bit shit. I expect more out of future patrols. To put it in perspective, if we were playing vanilla with a type IX, it'd pretty much be impossible to come back sinking less than 50K. More than likely, it'd have been closer to 100K. I like it better the way we're doing it, makes finding and sinking a ship pure joy, but admittedly it makes the LP less exciting.

In any event, if nothing fun happens next patrol, I have a few ideas to get us killed.



And we're back in the office. There may be a few things for us to do now.



This chart isn't random. As dates progress, the top U-boat aces will eventually reach their proper tonnage, with Kretschmer taking the lead. But for now we're whooping his ass, even with our lame patrol.



No medals. Lawd. Could've at least given me some U-boat badges, dick.



Not sure how I feel about this. I remember upgrades not costing any renown in OM, but apparently crew doesn't as well. Admittedly, buying things with renown feels a bit off in a sim as it is an abstraction and decidedly gamey. But it makes a degree of sense. The more successful you are, the more likely you are to have the latest crap. I mean, if you have a schnorkel, and you have the choice between giving it to Erich Topp and some no-name captain that probably won't make it past his first patrol, well, it's not really a choice at all.

Anyway, we only make one change to the crew. There's a petty officer with the damage control skill and we recruit him to replace one of these useless fucks I have doing it. Their stats are rubbish. The only thing that prevents me from replacing them with crewmen with more skill in mechanical/electrical is that I have no idea how the damage control skill works. The U-Boat Missions expansion pack for SH4 added special skills crewmen could have. Some made sense, like Master Engineer, which increases repair speed across the boat and allows you to repair items that are completely destroyed. Works passively. Sounds good to me really, very Das Bootish.

What made less sense were skills that allowed your sound man to use the hydrophone and constantly give you the speed, course and exact position of every ship around you. Active skill, lasted like 30 minutes, had a fucking cool down. Now that's . So Lurker changed them all around in OM to exclude stupid crap like that, and in so doing added a few new ones like damage control. Really have no clue how it works.

On crew, the skills are pretty self-explanatory. If he's got good mechanical, put him on damage control or the engine room. Good watchman, well, put him on watch. You get the picture. Efficiency is something that decreases the longer you're on patrol, and also I believe decreases with fatigue. When you're on patrol, one of the rows going left to right will be on duty while the others sleep/masturbate. Using the battlestations command puts everyone on duty and gives them an efficiency boost. But obviously, you can't leave it on all the time. They'll get exhausted and their efficiency will turn to shit.

Looks like that's it for now. Update Friday, probably.

Part 3: Convoy Quest



And we're back. This time we've been ordered a little west of Gibraltar, a pretty target rich environment, so I'm not feeling the need to brave the channel just for the sake of spicing things up. We'll go the long way around. Type IXs have alot of fuel anyway. Oh, and I forgot to turn on external camera, so I still can't take screenshots of anything I can't actually see from my U-boat. Oops. Next patrol.



Radio contact nearby us, heading 295. 295 really is Northwest this time, I promise. We have no approximate speed, which is a shame. If we did we could plot a more precise intercept. For now, we sort of wing it.



After arriving along its course, I decide that it's probably ahead of us and speed off northwest after it. It's the wiser decision, since even if we're ahead of it, we can always turn around. Conversely, if we went southeast looking for it and it was really northwest, well, it'd be long gone.



Shit actually works this time and before long we have a target.



I let my crew deck gun it rather than waste any torpedoes. Thing freaking splits in half. Bit XXX-TREME for a deck gunning. Who loaded the shells, Shepard?





Continuing on our way, we spot another ship a little Northwest of Spain, once again from fucking Panama.



But at least we're seeing things. I've got a good feeling about this patrol.



Before long yet again another ship has been spotted, this one from the Netherlands. I don't even know if we're technically at war with them yet, but fuck em, we'll find out the hard way if we get bitched at.





They die in a fire. Curiously, nothing we've sunk so far has produced life rafts. I'm wondering if Lurker somehow didn't enable them for all the new ships he added with Operation Monsun. Sadface. Anyway, we've yet to reach our first patrol grid and we've already topped last patrol's tonnage.



We're almost there when I decide to do a dive. Occasionally, during the night or just poor weather conditions, I'll do a dive to see if there's anything around. When it's really bad, the hydrophone will exceed your visual range. Typically doesn't produce results unless you're actually expecting something in the area, but hey, these things happen, and what do you fucking know? My soundman stumbles upon what is very obviously a bigass convoy.

We turn 90 degrees to the west and give the engines all they've got. Also preemptively get the crew to battlestations so the watch will spot things more quickly.



They start spotting crap before I can see it even using the TBT. So far no escorts.



God I wish I'd remembered to enable external camera. Spotted at least 6 targets now, a few of which are tankers, and no escorts. But since it's so dark, it's a little difficult to paint the picture properly with screenshots just from the boat. Oh well. Now, wolfpacks usually operate on a sort of hit and run basis. Convoys would typically have multiple columns of merchants, with the most important ships in the middle, with escorts spaced around. U-Boats would then begin to pick off the outer most vessels, run away and reload then repeat until the convoy was swept clean. Eventually, that's what we'll be forced to do when escorts increase in number and are fit with radar, and merchants have deck guns. But for now?

CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE



We get an objective from BdU to sink freighters. I was considering bypassing the initial column and going straight for the tankers, but I'm beginning to suspect that this convoy may be unescorted. It's pretty rare. In fact I don't think I've ever seen it in the Atlantic theater, but in the Pacific I've seen a few unescorted Jap convoys, even with Lurker's mod for it. That said, I just go for the nearest target, in this case the ship that can be seen to the left of the message in the above screenshot.



Since it's so dark, I didn't manage to see any of these jerks til we were pretty close to them. If you remember from the first post, the reliable speed gathering technique requires 3 minutes. They're not exactly moving fast, but I'm not about to sit here this close and wait 3 minutes to get an exact speed. We could simply fudge the values. I'd say these guys were probably going 7 knots. But what if I said there's another, even LAZIER option?

In the above screenshot, I'm simply firing the torpedo completely by feel. I'm pretty close, probably under 500 meters from the target, and it's not moving terribly quickly. Instead of taking the time to do an exact shot, I simply aim the TBT slightly ahead and launch a torpedo, then accelerate to move on to the next target. Nigger targeting like this will eventually be made obsolete by merchants carrying guns, making getting that close on the surface a risky proposition, as well as destroyers getting fit with radar, who will easily detect you if you stay surfaced. So we might as well employ it while it's still available.



Good hit, right under the smoke stack. It might even sink if we gave it long enough. But who's got time?



After maneuvering past it, towards the tankers, I see it's dead in the water. Perfect time to line up a shot with an aft torpedo, all the while approaching the next column.



As I turn back towards the crippled vessel I'm greeted by a disturbing sight. Star shells. Seems I miscalculated. There are escorts, I just accidentally slipped past the screen, having seen none of them. There's probably two or three all together. Whatever, let's make it quick then. Without stopping I launch the aft torpedo.





Another good hit. He's toast.

Reaching the next column, I aim to replicate the feat on a tanker, all the while keeping an eye out for the escorts which are almost certainly making good time in our direction.







The two torpedoes I put into the tanker hit forward. I'm not sure it'll sink, but I'm loathe to expend another torpedo on this cunt. But we've got at least two escorts coming right for us. Decision time.

It seemed likely to me that Cleve's testicles are also titanium, we take the manliest route possible: sitting still while firing the deck gun in the middle of a hostile convoy.







That wasted a bit of time regrettably, and now we've got a destroyer fairly close. The ship in the right of the screenshot is our next target. We're going to accelerate, putting the merchant in between us and the destroyer so it can't fire its guns at us at least, then turning and firing the two aft tubes at it. If we're lucky we may yet escape the escorts on the surface and not have to dive and deal with depth charges, assuming they don't know precisely where we are, since one of them is bearing roughly 220 and the other is probably 70. Turning a few degrees port and setting the engines to max may save us.



Yeah, that doesn't work for shit. The destroyer comes in to view on the right there long before we properly have a shot. It doesn't appear to have seen us quite yet, since the light wasn't shining right on us and we weren't being fired upon, but the issue thusly becomes if he DOES see us, we'll be fired at immediately, and if the cunt is lucky enough to hit us we'll have some destroyed bulkheads for sure. The water here is over 1000m deep - certain death if we sink. With that in mind I ordered a dive, but...forgot to set speed to slow as hell. When we get down we make so much racket they know PRECISELY where we are. It's a good thing I didn't start in 1943. With all this shit I keep forgetting, Cleve would be long dead, impossible as that may seem.

Looks like I may have SERIOUSLY MISCALCULATED. Could this be the end for Cleve?!?



There's the other one, coming for us.

I fire both aft torpedoes at the merchant while I still have the chance, even though it was a bit of a waste. It wasn't a very good angle.



Around now is when I start hearing the chilling ASDIC pings. Since we've made a shitload of noise already, my first priority is to take her down as far as we can, as fast as we can. CRASH DIVE! Crash diving sets the desired depth to 180 feet and sets your speed to max once the boat is angled down, causing it to dive faster.



Warship is bearing 156, closing, and we're only at 43 meters.



There's our soundman, doing this thing. You actually see him turn the hydrophone. He reports that the warship is now bearing 349...oh wait. That means it just passed over us. Depth charges in the water, almost certainly.

But I've often times found, in SH3 at least, that if you're diving really quickly during a destroyer's attack run, the charges will be set for the wrong depth and miss. I'll also point to the fact that it'll take more than some weakling socialist crumpet nigger to take down Blakestein.

What's the worst that could happen?







Fucking piece of shit type IX, diving slow as shit. Guess I can't pull that crap in Operation Monsun. We've been hit. Let's see how bad.



The lights flicker momentarily, causing everyone to look like jungle monkeys.



Crap, the engine room bulkhead is damaged. The crew are slightly hurt. No fatalities.



We're now involved in a race against time that we're powerless to actually affect. The torpedo room and engine room bulkheads aren't completely destroyed, and they need to be fixed before the flooding becomes critical. If the water gets to the top there of the room panels, it's the bottom for us. The damage isn't even that bad really, but you know what IS bad? Our fucking damage control crew. That guy I put on last update better pull his weight.



The water in the engine room rises, and we're now at 120 meters or so. Curiously the ASDIC has stopped. Think we may be too deep for their early war tech to deal with. With the ASDIC stopped, we're in no real damage, so I reckon we'll stop around 130 meters and level off.



The stern torpedo room bulkhead is repaired and the water is pumped out, but I'm getting a little nervous about the engine room. Even if we could stay afloat, what the hell are we going to do without an engine? We also keep sinking, against my wishes. 150 meters. Bit too much. Let's try to back it up a bit. I set the engine to back slow, then emergency back when it has no effect.



We sink like a fucking rock. Right, because I have the desired depth set higher than our current depth, the nose is facing up, meaning reverse actually makes us SINK. I correct the mistake and set engines to full ahead.



Before long, we're at a safe 140 meters, and the bulkheads are repaired with the water in the process of being pumped out. We don't even have the warships as sonar contacts anymore. Maybe they thought we died or something. Anyway, earlier, when we shot the two aft torpedoes at that merchant before we crash dove, one missed, and the other hit. What it hit, exactly, I don't know, but if it's crippled I want to kill it. Periscope depth!

I take a look around with the periscope (forgot to screenshot this) and see nothing on fire or not moving. But more importantly, what I don't see are any destroyers lying in wait. That's extremely odd behavior for this game. They have a tendency to dog you. I once had three destroyers circle me for hours while I was run aground west of Scapa Flow making repairs so I could actually rise again.

My shaken confidence is now returning, but we have no good shots currently, everything is too far ahead of us to hit with any certainty, so we decide to surface and continue right the fuck where we left off.



oh hay friend









Four torpedoes and a few shells later, two more tankers are down and we are getting the fuck out of here! That last one was nearly a ten thousand tonner, too.

I set course for the west and don't look back. We aren't caught.

Now, you can stalk convoys for days on end if you want to, slinking back to reload, then getting ahead of them for another attack. Or if you're really ballsy, try to kill the escorts, then sweep the whole convoy yourself in one go. But I had to go to work and was feeling pretty fulfilled, so I just decided to break contact altogether and head towards our actual patrol point. Tally for that was 10 torpedoes shot, 4 ships sunk, 30K tons.



This is where we are currently, and this...



is the list of ships we've sunk so far, plus a 4K tonner that wouldn't fit in the screenshot. Yeah I'd say after this patrol, Herbert Schultze can go fuck himself. Cleve's gonna be the Fuhrer's favorite.

Patrol will resume in a day or two.

That was pretty cool, and so dramatic in only the third part! Very good. Cleve better keep using his testicles more than his head in these encounters.

Cleve is credit to the aryan race!

Still no liferafts?