Silent Hunter 3

[Allen]

Well, had a little play last night, what a fantastic game! Did the first three training missions and exams easy peasy, taking out ship with the deck gun is easy, but slow, taking out planes with the flak gun is pretty enjoyable. Then it came to the 4th training missions. Torps.

OMG, how difficult is it to score a hit??? About 50% of the torps I fired just hit the hull of the targets and sunk, nearly all the others missed by a mile! I think I actually only got 1 hit and the ship didn't sink!

So, what's the secret to torps? Someone share it with me please!

[Allen]

Excellent on the first 2 though, using the exposive rounds on the merchant ships has a nice effect, when the ship goes up it breaks into bits and sinks, looks really cool.

I think I need to read tha manual more. How do you change rounds? I just kept firing and firing with whatever was in there first. Took ages to sink anything!

[Ferral]

When you go into the view of the deck gun you will notice bottom right of the viewfinder it shows 4 types of shells. One it starts you with is the armour piercing (far right) if you left click in the viewfinder area you get the mouse pointer, just click on the one thats 2nd from right (you start with around 150 of these rounds) then click back in the viewfinder area to regain control of the gun.

I found that this ammo worked best on the medium sized merchants, use a mixture of both for the larger ships and tankers. With the smaller boats aim for the crates on the deck first and take them out and then take out the 4 masts to sink it.

[jeNK^]

Try setting the Torpedos Pistol to Magnetic. This way it only needs to be within a metre of the ships hull and KABOOM!!1

It does do less damage, but the chances of the torp going off are much increased. It is also very handy for awkward angle shots, where normally the torp would glance off.

[jeNK^]

I find for artillery, hitting the waterline several times will sink the ship - aiming for critical areas - engine room, fuel tanks etc.

Once you've at the waterline a fair bit, the ship will sink, but it may take some time

[Allen]

Try setting the Torpedos Pistol to Magnetic. This way it only needs to be within a metre of the ships hull and KABOOM!!1

Sorry, how do you change the Torp settings? Can't remember reading about that...

Would help for me, I doubt I'd be able to hit at 90° all the time!

I find for artillery, hitting the waterline several times will sink the ship - aiming for critical areas - engine room, fuel tanks etc.

And how can you tell where the engine room and fuel tanks are etc?

[jeNK^]

On the TDC screen (F6) there is a small switch which has I and M on it, I is for Impact and M is for magnetic

There is also a depth gauge, sometimes fiddling with this makes a huge difference, particularly when facing either HUGE ships such as Battleships and Carriers, or really small ships such as Coastal Merchants. (i.e. It's better to hit lower, so on huge ships, going a bit deeper is good as you can break the keel = ship in two pieces and of course for small ships, the hull won't be as deep in the water, so you need to set slightly shallower else torps go underneath.)

The different areas of the ships just comes from experience and memory - if you get to within 1000m of a ship, and have AOB within 10 degress, look up the ship in the book and you will see the critical areas highlighted. Usually when hitting with artillery, you'll just have to remember or guess where they are. Hitting the command tower is also a winner as you will kill the crew and the ship will become disabled.

[Allen]

Blimey, complicated!

Thanks for that, I'll have to check it out. Only played for about 1 hour last night, think I did pretty well. Just wanna get the hang of torps now!

[jeNK^]

Aye, I've got most of the theory sorted, I just can't put into practise very well.. so far, in career mode, I have only sunk 1 merchant, I've already died 4 times as Destroyers have aimbot I swear.

It's the difficulty that makes it so rewarding

[Skii]

Aye, I've got most of the theory sorted, I just can't put into practise very well.. so far, in career mode, I have only sunk 1 merchant, I've already died 4 times as Destroyers have aimbot I swear.

It's the difficulty that makes it so rewarding

With destroyers, the first thing you MUST do is go as deep as possible and rig for silent, their hydrophone is as good as yours and they can literally hear a pin-drop on board your sub. As he gets close, go to flank and do a 90 degree turn, you need to get out of his path, this is also his blind spot so you need to capitalise on it and scarper away as he circles for another run.
Rig for silent @ 3 knots and get as deep as you can, as he approches and you get the depth charge warning, go flank. I've escaped 2 destroyers in 25m of water by just timing the sprint and the slow silent crawl right

[Skii]

Some interesting reading

[McMav]

, I have only sunk 1 merchant, I've already died 4 times as Destroyers have aimbot I swear.

Fs Jenk yer gash

[jeNK^]

'kin reg man, I tell thee!

[Allen]

Some interesting reading

You're right there.

Nonetheless, the U-boats were by then taking out about 300,000 tons of shipping a month.

Can you imagine what the bottom of the oceans must look like? I know they're deep and all, and most of this lot will probably now be completely covered, but what happens to all this metal? I mean, when it decays, it must go somewhere in the sea? I mean, would it be a pollutant to the ocean or something?

[Skii]

You're right there.


Can you imagine what the bottom of the oceans must look like? I know they're deep and all, and most of this lot will probably now be completely covered, but what happens to all this metal? I mean, when it decays, it must go somewhere in the sea? I mean, would it be a pollutant to the ocean or something?

The metal - not a problem, there are vast coral reefs and many species of creatures quite happlily thriving on old wrecks, many of which are protected natural habitats, fish like wrecks, gives them a place to hide

Oil and fuel - thats a different matter, obviously you wouldn't have had a ship carrying the amount that a modern supertanker can carry, but even so I would have thought there would have been a significant ecological effect from all that tonnage

[Allen]

Skii, this is an amazing article! I never even knew they had built a submergable aircraft carrier, let alone as long ago as 1923!!

The funny thing is, it sank when they accidently opened the hanger doors whist partially submerged!

It's amazing, 11m tonnes sunk by the German U-boats before the armistice in 1918.