Quote:
Originally Posted by MKalafatas
I'm in the old S-boat north of Luzon, 1st patrol out of Manila. Clouds, precipitation, heavy fog, high winds for days.
Got incredibly lucky to find an unescorted merchant traveling alone --- and when I say "find" I do not mean visually. Fired blind from astern after tracking four hours on sonar, and incredibly got a hit. Finished with deck gun, sighting by the flames.
Two days later, same storm, I'm tracking a northbound convoy which includes both high-speed and low-speed screws. Can't afford to ping for range due to the escorts. Really not sure how to approach this problem. If I try to pull ahead it will mean trusting my fix on their course, because submerging to get a fix will slow me down too much.
Probably I'll end up firing a blind spread, hoping to hit something --- unless someone has a better idea?
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My advice would be to end-run. Using the sound data you can establish a general idea of the convoy's heading and range. The initial part of the attack - when you are BVR and listening to their distant screws - you have all the time in the world; you can stop your vessel (for ease of calculating), and record numerous marks at the point at which the sound heading indicators fade out. Enough marks give you sufficient information to give you the convoy's general heading and speed. Using that data, surface and race like hell to a point far ahead of the convoy's path.
Bad weather is a gift from the Gods for sub Captains; you don't need sight - you have sound. Once you're in their path ready your torps and prepare for quick, sharp observations the moment a ship looms out of the darkness. Bad weather is difficult for you, but it renders destroyer escorts to almost useless - at least in the early-war vanilla game. Be satisfied with one successful hit per attempt; unlike the surface-dwellers you have the advantage of time.