Tactics: Lay on ground

[Heldinio]

I've read the diary of a WW1 Uboat seaman lately. Their usual tactic to hide from enemies was laying on ground for hours and waited till the enemy ship was out of hydrophone range.

I found this tactic very useful for myself ingame aswell (I'm at the very beginning of the game, patrolling at GB eastcoast) and I have the impression that ASDIC wasn't able to ping me as I was laying on the ground whereas they pleased me with tons of waterbombs when floating.

Do you fellow seaman have the same experience that laying on the ground is a legit tactic to hide from enemies systems?

[kandnil]

I depend on that tactics whenever it's feasable. I want a depth of more than 150 meters though.

[er.tz]

Yes it is. The ascid had problems to know depth (until the last stage of the war) and to ping submarines sitting at seabed. It does not recognize its position very well and get confused with the seabed that reflects sound. It is simulated in the game too.

But staying in the seabed has their problems too, you can lose the air in the submarine and when you emerge enemy can stay there waiting for you. So in my opinion stoping in the seabed and moving, changing course, moving and stoping in the seabed etc is a safer tactic and you can trace a slow escape route.

It is not simulated in the game (it should, i hope someday is implemented) but oil leaks was a thing, and there is a real danger to show your position if you stay too many time in the same place. So sitting in the seabed was not recommended for very long periods.

"30.) By careful supervision, the submarine should be prevented from leaving traces of oil (leaking oil tanks, etc.). Patches of oil may also be left behind when submerging, as a result of a residue of air in the compressed air cells. Consequently, the submarine should not remain near the place where it has submerged."

"259.) Passive behavior on the part of the submarine, consisting in continually lying on the bottom of the sea, results in a danger that the position of the submarine will be betrayed by leakages from certain parts of the body of the boat (traces of oil). Consequently, stationing oneself on the bottom should be resorted to only as a temporary expedient, as a protection against specific deep-sea echo sounding (see No. 254, b), or when the submarine has already sprung a leak."

[captainpanda34]

i use to do it too; got plenty of damage and leaks, so i avoid crush depth if the bottom is not too deep: gives plenty of time to fix things, there, in the mud :D

[SpaceBikerV]

This was done even in ww2. The uboat handbook mentions it

[wolf310ii]

Originally posted by Heldinio:

I have the impression that ASDIC wasn't able to ping me as I was laying on the ground whereas they pleased me with tons of waterbombs when floating.

Finding an u-boat at the seabed was hard, but not impossible, depending on the depth and angle the ASDIC hit the boat. The type of ground also played a role, soft mudy ground gives an different echo than a hard steel hull.

One u-boat was MIA and suspected to be sunk by depth charged near the north american coast, because of the report of an US destroyer.
Decades after WW2 the u-boat was found near the African coast.
The u-boat reported sunk by the destroyer was just an sunken shipwreck, they picked up with ASDIC and depth charged it until an oil spill came up.

[Bllasae]

The percentage chance of sonar detecting you goes down the closer you are to the seabed, you can see it in the icon on the right.

[Tschingta]

Drunk or sober, I always lay on the ground to ambush the enemy

Especially large convoys with huge destroyer screens
when the screen passed me, I come to periscope depth in the middle of them and find the biggest targets by observing (not locking in a single target)
Then you need good hit placement and during reload I zig zag
When I am out of fishies to fire I go to silent running and sink back to the bottom after zig zagging some more

Viel Glück!

[PafunaMT]

It is by far my favorite tactic in waters 200m or less. I chose Brest as my station and pick patrol sectors in and around the UK. It's not foolproof, especially if they sail right over you, but combined with sonar decoys and a sprint to a hiding place, it's exceptionally effective. As your crew gets more experience, they can specialize in silent running, and it greatly helps avoiding detection by hydrophones.

[Twelvefield]

I agree with all the above. For stealth, lying on the bottom is a useful tactic. For evasion, it's not so great but sometimes you have to do it. Evading, you want some movement. Very slow, quiet movement with direction changes if you are being hunted, and mad sprints at top speed if depth charges are exploding: the detonations churn up the water for around 30 seconds, making hydrophones nearly impossible to use.

[Tikigod]

Originally posted by Heldinio:

I've read the diary of a WW1 Uboat seaman lately. Their usual tactic to hide from enemies was laying on ground for hours and waited till the enemy ship was out of hydrophone range.

I found this tactic very useful for myself ingame aswell (I'm at the very beginning of the game, patrolling at GB eastcoast) and I have the impression that ASDIC wasn't able to ping me as I was laying on the ground whereas they pleased me with tons of waterbombs when floating.

Do you fellow seaman have the same experience that laying on the ground is a legit tactic to hide from enemies systems?

It's certainly a possible tactic and the game does factor in such things with your sonar detection signature dropping based on your proximity to the seabed, though at the end of the day this is still just a game with very fixed AI behaviours, and those behaviours are based more around typical U-Boat tactics.

So whilst dropping low, staying stationary and waiting is a tactic that can work, it's also the thing the AI behaviour has been kind of built around which ends up meaning it's not the most effective or efficient tactic you can be doing as a player.

At the end of the day, the most practical and efficient tactic seems to be to just strike your targets from as far a distance as possible (at least 4km away is ideal), then once the strikes are about to hit or miss, just immediately dive and move at full throttle out of the situation.

Because of the initial behaviour the AI warships use when going to alarm state and looking for something that's just tried to attack them or their convoy, with the 4km+ lead way and already being submerged and moving at full throttle away, the AI warships tend to end up hovering around a area some distance away from you and rarely will one get all that close to you as you slink away.


It's probably not really a 'Authentic' tactic though, and a lot of people will instead favour the less efficient but truer to real life approach for the more emotional/immersive feelings that come from feeling like you're behaving like a real U-Boat captain.