i really like the “mouse vs cat” game between Uboot and surface ships and how it is very dangerous to be in surface for a submarine when there are planes in the sky!!!i really find this event very well made!!!hope WWII submarines will be add soon!!!thanks again for this event!!!:)-just maybe a FW200 instead of an He111-
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Some final thoughts.
As noted by many, the He 111 was borderline pointless - I never used a single spawn, unlike the Catalina, which I used if my DD got sunk. I get that the arctic convoys were attacked by German torpedo bombers, so the inclusion of the 111 was a fair call. In retrospect - and given the power of the PBY in this event - maybe the battles over the Bay of Biscay could have provided better inspiration: the Germans employed Ju 88C heavy fighters to counter allied Liberators, Sunderlands, Wellingtons which were hunting U-boats in transit to/from the mid-Atlantic. (Eventually the RAF deployed Beaufighters and Mosquitoes to counter the Ju 88s taking a toll on the ASW aircraft. See Bloody Biscay by Chris Goss). Given the effectiveness of the PBY in this event a Ju 88C heavy-fighter counter might have been more useful than the He 111.
Damage models.
Within 500m or so I found DDs almost invariable sustained ‘unrepairable damage’ from surfaced U-boat 37mm guns - at least I hope it wasn’t the 20mm guns… C’mon, 6”, 8” cruisers hardly ever do that! In return, 5” salvoes hitting surfaced U-boats rarely caused the ‘unrepairable damage’ that really should be standard in those cases.
Once submerged that ‘tankiness’ disappeared. Maybe that’s why so many event U-boats did what no RL U-boat would choose to do, by surfacing and going head-to-head with a DD? It’s hard to tell from 3PV, but I reckon lethal DCs can be at least a submarine length away (67m for a Type VIIC); I’ve been killed by a bomb the moment it hit the water and I was at 30-something metres, heading deeper.
Paper from 1935, Lt Cdr Doughty USN, re WW1 experience.
Admiral Jellicoe concluded post-war that a DC needed to explode within 14’ (4.5m) to instantly kill a sub; within 28’ (9m) to disable; and within 60’ (19m) to ‘demoralise the crew.’ At least 1000 DCs were dropped for every U-boat kill.
NavWeaps also has a lot of details, eg, the magnetic pistol on the US Mk 8 DC was set to detonate between 20’ and 25’ from a U-boat (6 or 7 metres). That contained a 270 lb charge.
Wikipedia’s Depth Charge page is pretty much in line with these figures. The UK Mk VII (290 lb amatol) was estimated to be lethal at 20’ (6m) and would force a U-boat to the surface at twice that; in 1942 when the amatol was replaced by torpex the distances increased to 8m and 16m. The USN Mk 4 & 7 needed to be within 15’ (4.6m) to rupture the pressure hull (kill). “Most U-boats sunk by depth charges were destroyed by damage accumulated from an extended barrage rather than by a single charge, and many survived hundreds of depth charges over a period of many hours, such as U-427, which survived 678 depth charges in April 1945.”
If we’re generous with the distances quoted above we could say DCs could insta-kill within 10 metres (pretty much the height of the Type VII). However, I feel they’re way more deadly than that. Aside from sinkings at PD or slightly deeper, where I’m sure DCs exploded within 10m, I don’t think I was ever sunk by a DC that was as close as the height of the sub. Insta-death was standard, with less serious damage being rare and often almost pointless as it could be fixed in a couple seconds. Death was almost always instant and not the result of accumulated damage.
DDs didn’t need the enhanced DC lethality given how much hand-holding they got in every other way. The skill for the DDs was knowing torpedoes come out the front of the subs and mines come out the back. Locating and tracking subs just happens for you. Just be careful about how you approach the subs and you can’t go far wrong, as most DC attacks will result in a kill.
Edit: and finally… BR3.7 for the typical WW2 sub? So facing ASW vessels like HMS Blackpool with Bidder passive homing torps and Limbo mortars capable of firing DC patterns from 400 to 1000 yds all around the ship, or Soviet sub-chasers with active/passive SET-40 torps. Might need a rethink on BR.
Battle of Atlantic summary:
Pro:
- quite well ballanced game (depend from experience of players)
- extremelly good game immersion (one of th best WT event ever played)
- playing uboat a little harder than expected (in comparision to escort ship)
- perfect soundtrack
- real-look gameplay (no battery / air limits) like at “another games”
Con:
- visible spawn points for opponent’s team (sub quite often put mines on escort spawn)
- same weather conditions (missing bigger waves / no waves + dusk / sunny / night)
- no night battles at all (why? with flares may be a good challenge)
- no other nation scenarios (US sub vs JAP escort at Pacific / ITA sub vs GB escort at Mediterranean)
- more merchants at convoy nice welcomed (still need 10 ships to destroy)
Scenario bugs:
- fire underwater
- explosion underwater
- torpedo active (may explode) just after fire
Questions:
- no ram possible?
One of the best event I have ever played.
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YOU COULD RELOAD THE BOMBS??? O.o
the event was set in arcade settings:
- type VII doesn’t go that fast irl
- sonar on minimap and submarine highlighted in blue when close
- PBY was also way too maneuverable
i’d bet the sonar on highlighting wouldn’t come in rb, and the subs would also be a bit slower
I agree. Even if it’s in a beta form, the submarines in Battle of the Atlantic are incredibly fun to play. I would love to see a major tech tree for submarines for the nations that had them.
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The mines, while probably necessary here for balance, were silly. Naval mines did not just sail up from the ship to hit a vessel passing directly overhead. Submarines try to AVOID large underwater concussion forces close to them. They needed more of an activation timer.
The ASW armament really needs some kind of indication where it’ll hit the water, even if it’s fixed range.
Submarine torpedo range should have been longer, and yes, larger deck guns could have been employed. One thing I saw a lot toward the end was players going 1-2 m deep and firing their guns basically from the waterline. Yeah, that’s not actually a thing you can do. Guns should only have been able to fire when fully surfaced.
All and all, it was fun enough, I’d play it again.
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How would the sonar be implemented then? I would say that on the minimap is only real place where to put it. The HUD is already quite cluttered with DM, Hit cam, Radar, Minimap, Chat and Battle log.
Adding sonar as separate HUD element seems like bad idea.
imo it wouldn’t be worse then plane with Radar + RWR
most subs and early destroyers don’t have radar anyway, only passive/active sonars
problem is, the question of space for ships UI will come eventually, modern ships have radars with absurd ranges (200, 300+ km) and i don’t see those just sitting as a tiny circle in a corner.
Maybe they could set a keybind where you can display it enlarged, and same for sonar ?
I would say it would because the planes don´t have minimap and hit cam present in the hud which both take lot of space. Just look at these two images I really don´t know where you would fit the sonar view.
I think that the minimap display is brilliant space saving idea and I don´t think it is as OP as it might seem in the event.
The historical limitation will nerf the sonar hard - speed limitations, range/depth limitations, tracking ability ect. what we got in the even was essentially 1950s or 60s (with nerfed range) sonar against WW2 subs.
Yeah. You just had to fly back to the starting point. Reloading for the PBY took 10 seconds, reloading two torps on the He 111 30 seconds.
ha good point, i forgot about the minimap
just to clarify i don’t think it would be OP, it was just a personnal display preference.
Talking of sonar in the event : i noticed the destroyer gets a return signal if it is in the red circle area of the sub (the ones that changes size depending on the amount of noise the sub makes)
shouldn’t those 2 be completely unrelated ? i don’t think an active sonar depends on how much noise the target makes ? or maybe i’m missing something idk
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Are submarines coming to naval? It would be the only thing that is able to get me to play naval honestly.
My gripes:
- Automatic AAA fire from ships and its aimbot like accuracy. There should be no automatic AI targeting. In fact the smaller caliber cannons should have no AI control at all. Everything should be aimed solely by the player.
- Spawns are too close on the open sea which results in spawn to spawn fire.
3 Likes
as I understand @Stana_WT it is programmed as a global parameter, I guess changing this parameter would also change the rewards for normal encounter missions
Or a parameter attached to the ship type, to change this parameter only for an event you would have to create a new ship type I guess
My final comment on this event :
It was much fun, I didn’t expect a fully balanced event and I don’t expect it in the near future, many things have to be improved and then tested again.
In general I think it will be very difficult if not impossible to integrate U-Boats into a normal game mode like Domination , e.g. most game types last only 30 minutes or less depending on the number of farming bots.
But integration into EC should be possible and I’m hoping for that.
And because Xmas is not far away I’m hoping for the next event on Xmas.
Yes, long story short it was not possible to change it exclusively only for that event.
I think overall an extremely fun event the only issue I had with it was the amount of mission score received from actually going for the cargo ships was so low that it made more sense to just go after the destroyers.
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Honestly what i think is interesting is that since submarines are so cheap, theyre available to a lot more nations. Thus, i think all ten nations could support a small sub line.
Hope we get to test something like the I-400 or I-13 next event.
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