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#4552311 - 01/14/21 09:46 PM SH3 single mission  
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
33lima Offline
Senior Member
33lima  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
Belfast, NI
These pics are from one of the easier, more fun missions included with SH3 that will be familiar to most players. It starts with the player on the surface almost directly ahead of a large but weakly-escorted convoy, early in the war before the widespread availability of ship-borne radar.

[Linked Image]

The mission objective is to sink at least 25,000 tons and I've opted to play with the default Type VIIB.

The bridge watch are alert and spot the convoy at once.

[Linked Image]

I've recently installed the FM new interiors mod which includes the diesel room; IIRC these pics were taken after submerging, and the animated camshafts were still.

[Linked Image]

There's no sign of machinist Johann of 'Das Boot' fame; just the fellow above who's standing next to the door into the e-motor room astern (not modelled) and another one, seen in the pic below, studying some logs or manuals, at the door leading into the galley and petty officers' accommodation (which is modelled, complete with 'smutje' or cook).

[Linked Image]

This is the trimming panel from the re-positioned F2 control room view. Turn to face forward and the upper part of your view is largely obscured by rows of large sausages swinging from the deckhead. Apparently, the mod arranges things so that the quantity of these and other stored food items deceases with fuel usage!

[Linked Image]

Here are the helmsman's instruments in the conning tower. I believe these are used in place of the duplicates at the front of the control room, below, when the boat is running on the surface (although one of the many excellent photos taken by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim aboard U-96 and featured in 'U-Boat War' - a must-have book for any enthusiast - show the helmsman still in the tower with the upper hatch shot and the boat just submerged, perhaps before the control room position was manned). The port and starboard engine telegraphs are on top, both currently set to 'kleine fahrt voraus'.

[Linked Image]

Also on the starboard tower wall is the vorhaltrechner or torpedo data controller, with the base of the attack periscope to the left of the shot.

[Linked Image]

We start the mission just outside of the oncoming convoy's starboard column. I quickly submerge and manoeuvre so as to be able to cut into this column from the outside, going to 50m and silent running so as to be able to slip under the widely-dispersed escort. This is the view from the opposite side of the convoy, looking roughly towards my sub's position. At this point the convoy is steaming a straight course, with no zig-zag.

[Linked Image]

Once level with the convoy just outside its starboard column, I turn hard towards it, increase speed and race into position inside the convoy. From here, I fire off all my torpedoes, taking the more distant targets first and concentrating on tankers. I get three hits from the four eels, including this one, the tanker being the only ship of the four to go down.

[Linked Image]

The escorts can only look on while they race to get into a better position, like this Hunt Class destroyer.

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One of my targets was this armed merchant cruiser, but she escaped unscathed.

[Linked Image]

After the attack, I went back to silent running and slipped away to the south and astern of the east-bound convoy, without being detected. My plan was now to let the convoy get ahead, surface astern of it and while the tubes are reloaded, catch it up as darkness falls, for a night surface attack.

...to be continued!

Last edited by 33lima; 01/14/21 09:48 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)

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#4552429 - 01/15/21 04:30 PM Re: SH3 single mission [Re: 33lima]  
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
33lima Offline
Senior Member
33lima  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
Belfast, NI
Darkness has fallen by the time the bridge watch picks up the convoy ahead, as we slowly overhaul it.

[Linked Image]

Incredibly, all I can see is merchantmen - the escorts are no-where in sight. It's still a nerve-wracking business, as we rattle right into the midst of the convoy from dead astern.

[Linked Image]

Once amongst the ships, I turn to starboard, aiming to get into a position between the columns from which I can shoot tankers with both bow and stern tubes.

[Linked Image]

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Tempting though it is to go for closer targets, I stick to my plan and target the tankers, apart from one large freighter who will get a shot from the stern tube. There's no reaction at all from the enemies all around us.

[Linked Image]

Having fired off all my eels for the second time, I make a high-speed withdrawal to the south-west, leaving a couple of tankers hit and burning. The single hit on a large freighter turns out to be enough to break her back and she's the only victim to go down.

[Linked Image]

It's about this time that I realise that we have an escort coming up astern. He looks set to cross from port to starboard.

[Linked Image]

I try to present our smallest profile to the escort, but he keeps on coming and closing the range.

[Linked Image]

Have we been detected? I think probably not yet. But it's only a matter of time if I stay on the surface. So into the cellar we go.

[Linked Image]

This does the trick and I'm able to creep anxiously away at 50 meters. But I'm not quite finished with this convoy yet.

...to be continued!

Last edited by 33lima; 01/15/21 04:32 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)

#4552438 - 01/15/21 05:02 PM Re: SH3 single mission [Re: 33lima]  
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
33lima Offline
Senior Member
33lima  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,712
Belfast, NI
By the time the last three internally-stowed eels have been loaded, I'm back on the surface and stalking a large tanker, who is straggling and may have been hit earlier. My torpedo snakes off at about 45 degrees gyro angle.

[Linked Image]

Got her!

[Linked Image]

And this time, she goes down.

[Linked Image]

My last two torpedoes also hit and sink tankers. First to go is one of the smaller varieties, which was still burning from an earlier hit...

[Linked Image]

...then another of the larger tankers, with a hit from the stern tube.

[Linked Image]

Emboldened by the seeming absence of any remaining escorts, I then order the deck gun manned and we start chewing them up with HE shells aimed at the waterline. Second victim is another large tanker, for which I jump into the gun layer's seat myself.

[Linked Image]

By the time I decide to call it quits, we've sunk well over fifty thousand tons, double the mission target.

[Linked Image]

One of my pet peeves with stock SH3 is that the bridge watch will be largely denuded if the deck gun is manned. The more eagle-eyed will also have noticed that this is not the same sub featured in the second of the two daylight shots in the first post - the latter has the more prominent 'folded over' lip to the wind deflector at the front and sides of the top of the conning tower - so they're probably SH3's early Type VIIC, not the VIIB featured by default in this mission. On that subject, the variety of U-Boat types, sub-types and conning towers is one of the many things I really like about SH3 - I've been checking out SH5 and U-Boat and nothing I've seen looks close to even un-modded SH3, in most respects that matter to me, not least breadth and depth (sic!), gameplay and sheer historical immersion.

[Linked Image]

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Last edited by 33lima; 01/15/21 05:06 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)


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