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Old 11-03-11, 10:22 AM   #2532
Hitman
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Do you (or anybody else) know whether there was some communication between the UBoats in order to co-ordinate a collective attack? (I remember to have read something about a "wolfpack leader")?
I have readed about cases where, early in the war, some uboats met at sea near a convoy and discussed the attack (Kretschmer, Prien, etc), but then each boat departed and conducted it separately in the same night. The was no radio comms, however, but instead signals to meet and then talk personally with a megaphone.

As the war progressed, the convoy battles expanded to several days because the uboats were many and well scattered around. So it happened that a contact holder shadowed and sent beacon signals to some uboats ordered by BDU to get closer, then those uboats attack that night and at the next day a new set of boats arrived, and BdU relieved from the task of shadowing the original contact boat and allowed him to attack.

As I said, I have never ever seen an instance where the opening of fire was coordinated. The only thing that was done by Bdu is sometimes to hold the attack until more uboats had gathered, and then authorize them to attack on that night.

As Randomizer said, the IXs were originally designed as wolfpack command stations at sea, but then BdU preferred to mantain control due to possible operational problems.
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