what do you think about this?

[raduz]

okay, playing vanilla at 98 percent realism, so last night I intercepted a large convoy (3.00 am) and let it pass next to me, as I was not in good position and too far. however, after a couple of minutes, i started to follow it and my WO spotted the last escort, at the end of the convoy. it was a vw destroyer and i decided to engage him with my deck gun. i was at his back and it was completely dark so he didnt see me. when he has was hit, he didnt even know where the shells are coming from. he just accelerated and started to turn around . but he didnt discover my position as i was pretty far (perhaps 4000 m or so). he took 10-15 shots and when he finally noticed me, it was too late and he went down. before he died, he called a flower corvette but i managed to sink her too (although my u-boat has been damaged by her gun).

i just want to know if you think this tactic is completely unreal, unfair, or do you use it sometimes? thanks

[Corsair]

Imho it is totally unrealistic to think U boats would deliberately engage destroyers on a deck gun duel. It can only have a chance to work in the vanilla game where warships are stupid.;) Btw to score regular hits at 4000m, you must have a hell of a gun crew !
I'm also surprised you can sink a DD with 10 to 15 shells...

[raduz]

Btw to score regular hits at 4000m, you must have a hell of a gun crew !

first, the sea was totally calm and then, I manned the deck gun myself:) but to be honest, I humbly admit that the deck gun in the stock game is very accurate and i am sure it is completely different in nygm/tgw.


I'm also surprised you can sink a DD with 10 to 15 shells...

ok, maybe it was 18 shells, but why not? the DD is loaded to the top with the high explosive, so why are you so surprised when after nearly every hit the depth charges explode?

okay, i knew you will tell me it is unreal:roll:

[melnibonian]

I think attacking a warship with your deck gun is madness. This is because usually any warship would instantly fire up flares (to light up the area) and then give you the full gun salute. Also don't forget that the warships are a much more stable platform to hit as they are high above the water, where you are on a very unstable boat. Therefore it's more difficult for you to fire and aim than it is for them.

I know that in the stock game you can do things like these but in NYGM/GW and in GWX things are a bit more realistic, so when you see a warship you dive.

[HunterICX]

:cool: Enjoy as long as you can, because once you installed GWX.
you're going to hate Escorts

[The Munster]

My favourite toy, the Deck Gun and I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it but when only 2 shells hit out of 5 [at night] at 4000m, it's simply not worth it.. DIVE !!

[AS]

Hi, just consider this:

U-Boats were hard to hit due to their small siluette. A critical hit was only possible when the hull was damaged. Now I the hull was almost completely under water when surfaced, only about 3 or 4 inches (=10 cm) sticked out of the water. All the other stuff you see from your U-Boat is like a coat wrapped around the actual hull.

So, it definitely wasn´t that easy to damage a U-Boat while on surface, BUT IF only one shell hit the hull, the U-Boat wasn´t diveable anymore or lethally damaged at once.

The case you desribe is absolutely unrealistic anyway, because no crew would mount the gun and wait for getting blasted away by enemy machine gun fire while risking the whole U-Boat!

In short: if you see a destroyer, move around it or dive.

Cheers, AS

[Sailor Steve]

Nicholas Monsarrat's book The Cruel Sea contains an account of a damaged u-boat surfacing behind a Flower-class corvette. Since the corvette can't bring its 3-inch deck gun to bear right away, the 20mm AA crew opens up, killing everyone on the u-boat's gun crew and bridge almost immediately. The next man out of the conning tower hatch was carrying a white sheet, so the corvette's crew stopped firing while the u-boat crew abandoned ship.

That's how those surface battles went in real life. Even using one 20mm gun, the surface ship still won.

[Incubus]

I think attacking a warship with your deck gun is madness. This is because usually any warship would instantly fire up flares (to light up the area) and then give you the full gun salute. Also don't forget that the warships are a much more stable platform to hit as they are high above the water, where you are on a very unstable boat. Therefore it's more difficult for you to fire and aim than it is for them.

I know that in the stock game you can do things like these but in NYGM/GW and in GWX things are a bit more realistic, so when you see a warship you dive.

I don't see how GWX can make surface engagements any harder than they already are. I don't attack escorts on the surface (unless its a torpedo boat) for the simple fact that I can't afford to trade shots with them. A DD also takes quite a few hits, maneuvers around quickly, and fires back with many shots of its own.

As for warships themselves, in my IXD2, if I see one traveling at <14 kits, they're fishfood. I have enough eels to spare 1 or 2 on a DD, and since my boat has all the handling capabilities of a double decker bus in an ocean of pudding I'm sometimes better off taking the fight to him.

[Jimbuna]

I think the tactic is completely 'unreal' :nope:

What Steve has made reference is the true reality :yep:

[Sailor Steve]

[I don't see how GWX can make surface engagements any harder than they already are. I don't attack escorts on the surface (unless its a torpedo boat) for the simple fact that I can't afford to trade shots with them.
There are people who brag about surfacing behind corvettes and sinking them with the deck gun, since in the stock game they're too stupid to turn around and shoot back.

I, too, always run from escorts. If they don't act historically at least I still can. GW and NYGM are both much better about this. Can't wait to see how it is in GWX.

[The Munster]

[I don't see how GWX can make surface engagements any harder than they already are. I don't attack escorts on the surface (unless its a torpedo boat) for the simple fact that I can't afford to trade shots with them.
There are people who brag about surfacing behind corvettes and sinking them with the deck gun, since in the stock game they're too stupid to turn around and shoot back.

I, too, always run from escorts. If they don't act historically at least I still can. GW and NYGM are both much better about this. Can't wait to see how it is in GWX.

This reminds of the foolish act of impatience on my part and will keep it short and sweet; In the dead of night, I torpedoed a Hunt and thru the periscope, I could see it in flames but it was still moving faster and away from me. When it reached 1700m, I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and surfaced the boat to finish off the Hunt with the Deck Gun. Bad move.. the Officer, my recently awarded Knights Cross holding Gunner and 2 aids got wiped out before we got a shell off plus damage to the Sub. Needless to say, I don't do anything like that now.

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl:

I remember last year someone posting that he torpedoed a merchant and surfaced to finish him off with his deck gun, only to have machine gunners kill his crack gun crew!

I'd completely forgotten that until I read your story, Kpt Munson.

[Wave Skipper]

let me see, Karl Schroeder or something like that, had family in Austria I believe.

[Jimbuna]

[I don't see how GWX can make surface engagements any harder than they already are. I don't attack escorts on the surface (unless its a torpedo boat) for the simple fact that I can't afford to trade shots with them.
There are people who brag about surfacing behind corvettes and sinking them with the deck gun, since in the stock game they're too stupid to turn around and shoot back.

I, too, always run from escorts. If they don't act historically at least I still can. GW and NYGM are both much better about this. Can't wait to see how it is in GWX.

This reminds of the foolish act of impatience on my part and will keep it short and sweet; In the dead of night, I torpedoed a Hunt and thru the periscope, I could see it in flames but it was still moving faster and away from me. When it reached 1700m, I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and surfaced the boat to finish off the Hunt with the Deck Gun. Bad move.. the Officer, my recently awarded Knights Cross holding Gunner and 2 aids got wiped out before we got a shell off plus damage to the Sub. Needless to say, I don't do anything like that now.

Your personal experience being so similar to the rest of us testers leads me to believe we shall see a change in the present culture of 'gung ho' behaviour :yep: :up:

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

[I don't see how GWX can make surface engagements any harder than they already are. I don't attack escorts on the surface (unless its a torpedo boat) for the simple fact that I can't afford to trade shots with them.
There are people who brag about surfacing behind corvettes and sinking them with the deck gun, since in the stock game they're too stupid to turn around and shoot back.

I, too, always run from escorts. If they don't act historically at least I still can. GW and NYGM are both much better about this. Can't wait to see how it is in GWX.

This reminds of the foolish act of impatience on my part and will keep it short and sweet; In the dead of night, I torpedoed a Hunt and thru the periscope, I could see it in flames but it was still moving faster and away from me. When it reached 1700m, I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and surfaced the boat to finish off the Hunt with the Deck Gun. Bad move.. the Officer, my recently awarded Knights Cross holding Gunner and 2 aids got wiped out before we got a shell off plus damage to the Sub. Needless to say, I don't do anything like that now.

Heh . . . quite the shocker, I'm sure.

I usually do not target destroyers or escorts, instead working to strangle the enemy's war efforts by sinking his merchants. :arrgh!:

However, now and then I do wind up potting one. Usually that's a result of having one pass by within 400 meters and abruptly start pinging me. --grumbles--

In this instance it happened to be a Hunt destroyer. It was early '41, and I'd been creeping in at an angle, to slide just behind him then past on my way to a nice juicy convoy. Over 15 minutes I'd been watching the escorts approach, timing their back-and-forth sweeps. For whatever reason (Bernard, perhaps? ;) ) I'd just started creeping my way past when, at 450 or so meters, the destroyer abruptly went to flank speed, turned my way and started pinging.:o

I'd already pre-set tube 1 in case of that contingency: a steamer set at 4.5 meters, magnetic pistolled and highest speed. The world's quickest range, bearing, AoB and speed check, and LOS!

Seconds later (and in the immortal words of Mr. Marvin Martian) there was an earth-shattering kaboom!

I watched the destroyer drunkenly reel past, fully aflame amidships, then dropped the scope, pushed my speed up to ahead standard (heck, it wasn't as if they didn't know I was out there now!) and continued on my way towards the convoy, reloading the tube as I went.

About 5 minutes later I went back to ahead slow and popped the scope up. I glanced behind me, and the destroyer was still reeling, heeling to the side and heaving to in a circle about a klick behind me, still merrily blazing away.

Turning my attention then to the convoy I started making finicky refinements to my course and speed, looking over the ships and selecting which ones were ripe for the picking. Now and then I'd ask my sonarman for the nearest warship, getting back in reply the closest was still at least long range.

A few minutes later, and I started to frown. Was that high-speed screws I was hearing? Nooooo. Impossible!

Heh.

I turned the scope around 180 (speaking of which, even using the control key it still seems to take forever to pivot the 'scope around. is it just my system that it's slow?) and yelped.

Remember "Jurassic Park?" The movie? The scene where the Tyrannosaur is chasing the Jeep, and the guy looks in the side mirror, where the legend says 'object in mirror are closer than they appear', and just sees this big ol' toothy maw slavering at him?

At 1.5 mag, all I saw was bow, with a big old bone in its teeth. That destroyer that I'd torpedoed, set aflame and lamed, turned out to be not all that lame after all. In fact, they seemed pretty determined to take some German U-boat butt along with them to the bottom.

How I managed not to get terminally damaged from the ashcans, or managed to get missed by ramming, I've no idea. It certainly wasn't (much as I'd like to claim otherwise) due to my magnificient Skippering skills, that much I'm certain of.:oops:

In closing, I guess what I've learned is that the only safe destroyer is one already on the bottom . . . wayyyyyyy down below.

[mookiemookie]

I don't target DDs with the deck gun. That's like suicide in my book. As someone already said, one well placed shot from their guns and your diving capabilities are shot all to hell (literally!). Not a position I want to put myself in.

I don't even target them with torpedos either, unless its one of those "stern shot, perfect 180 degree bearing, 500m away" deals.

[Tachyon]

If you're really lucky or with some clever manoeuvering , you can actually make another DD shoot the DD chasing you by "Accident" . Happened to me on 3 occasions, and all the DDs were sunk :|\\