"Breaking in" a convoy?

[Kuzz]

Hi everyone

It was a long time since I logged in here but I have recently started playing Silent Hunter again, mostly because of reading the new outstanding Swedish book “Wolves of the Sea” by Michael Tamelander & Jonas Hård af Segerstad. Now I have a question towards you veterans here:

In the book there are several events in where the German U-boats “break in” to a convoy during their nights attack. They approach with decks awash at a cloudy night and sneak into the midst of the convoy, where the stay at the surface and fire off all their torpedoes. As long as no ship blasts into fire, illuminating the scene, they stay at the surface, running at desired speed while reloading their tubes (they are not heard by hydrophone due to the rest of the convoys screws and ASDIC cannot detect them due to them being surfaced). In more than one occasion the U-boat is able to fire off all their torpedoes, sinking more than 5 or 6 ships before slowly moving away, this at the surface as well.

I have tried this in late 41 and early 42 in the game, and while I am doing it submerged, it does work exceptionally well. The destroyers search the perimeter around the convoy and often disappears way behind into the darkness. But does anyone know if this is possible to do decks awash, just as they did in real life? I am running the Grey Wolves Supermod.

A little reminder as well. On the community wiki it says the following about convoy attacks with torpedoes:
Try and get right between the columns. This way, you don't need to use any trigonometry and TDC. You can easily estimate the gyro angle and quickly fire off both bow and stern tubes very accurately. Now keep in mind, the destroyers will DEFINITELY know where you are now.
According to my tests, they don’t! And this was a realistic tactic until the invention of the radar.

Regards
Kuzz

[mookiemookie]

I usually set my depth to 7 m and presto! Decks awash, increased stealthiness. I know some people have modded their cfg files so that surface depth *is* decks awash, but I find it easier to just click the depth meter dial when I am in game.

As far as the destroyers go, I've found that even when you're submerged in the middle of a convoy column, they usually do beeline directly to your general position once you're detected. Which is pretty unrealistic as you probably wouldn't have been detected by sound with all those screws around you, but thems the haps.

[Tachyon]

This tactic was adopted in Das Boot (a similar one) , it worked fairly well, until they were spotted by the Destroyer (which was probably because of a full moon).

Moral : Don't try this under a full moon.

[Jimbuna]

Running at 'decks awash' is generally used by people in their gameplay so they can dive quicker when aircraft are spotted. An obvious adittional benefit must be a lower sillouette for ships to spot. When your torpedo impacts on the merchants the initial giveaway to the escorts should probably be from which side of the convoy column you are firing from. This will probably assist them in searching an area they estimate you to be in.

My moral is: SHOOT THEN DIVE !! :up:

[Razman23]

I think the biggest issue is the convoys themselves.

Does SHIII accurately protray them at the correct distances as they would be in RL?

I watched several vids (youtube) of old german propaganda films of the BDU and some shots show the convoy ships more spread out than what you see in SHIII.

Maybe someone can chime in on this since I havent really googled the info right off.

I usually run at PD when I slip into the convoy. I shot all my eels and then drop down deep. I run 90° away from the convoys course and when far enough away, surface, reload the tubes, bring in the eels from the outside, and then set a course to pass and get ahead of the convoy for another attack. With eels provided, it usually makes for about 3-4 attacks in this manner.

Note: Of course, this tatic may have to be changed when GWX is released. :hmm:

[bigboywooly]

In the stock game most convoy spacings were 500\600m
I have upped the spacings in the vast majority of GWX to 1000m so the convoys are spaced better
The upside are that ships have more room to turn so hopefully less chaos in the convoy
The downside is the escorts also have more room between ships to enter the convoy after you

[melnibonian]

Does SHIII accurately protray them at the correct distances as they would be in RL?

I watched several vids (youtube) of old german propaganda films of the BDU and some shots show the convoy ships more spread out than what you see in SHIII.
You're correct. SH3 has the convoy ships too packed together. If I remember correctly in GWX the ships are a bit more sread out but still closer than in real life.

EDIT: Sorry BBW I didn't see that you answer that point

Of course, this tatic may have to be changed when GWX is released. :hmm:
The fundamentals no but you will need to be more accurate with your navigation and more alert to the presence of escorts;)

[K_Sea6]

My thinking was that once torp's started going off in the middle of a convoy at night that the convoy would start firing off ilumination rounds into the air and using spot lights to sweep the area so it would'nt make since to me to stay on the surface unless you wanted to be detected.

Now I know the star clusters are RL and not in game so you don't have to worry about those so much (would be cool if they could be modded) but if you use GW as I do I do know they use spotlights to sweep back and forth and if you are unfortunate enough to get caught in a beam your busted!

Just my 2
K

[Tachyon]

Running at 'decks awash' is generally used by people in their gameplay so they can dive quicker when aircraft are spotted. An obvious adittional benefit must be a lower sillouette for ships to spot. When your torpedo impacts on the merchants the initial giveaway to the escorts should probably be from which side of the convoy column you are firing from. This will probably assist them in searching an area they estimate you to be in.

My moral is: SHOOT THEN DIVE !! :up:

After the way you gatecrashed on Churchill's birthday and stole his cigar, I doubt you have any morals left :rotfl:

[melnibonian]

Usually I try to position myself inside the convoy so I can use the aft tubes as well. I tend to move up and down the lines in order to cause more chaos. Once my torpedoes are fired I usually dive deep to reload (this depends on the year and the escorts) only to came up again to fire some more.

[Kuzz]

First off, thanks for all the replies!

As far as the destroyers go, I've found that even when you're submerged in the middle of a convoy column, they usually do beeline directly to your general position once you're detected. Which is pretty unrealistic as you probably wouldn't have been detected by sound with all those screws around you, but thems the haps.

Hmm, what year are you playing? I'm in an IXC boat in early 42 and I have already made three attacks in my described fashion. As soon as I come in under the first merchant I order full ahead and not once have the escorts turned on my position. As soon as my eels starts going off the whole convoy starts zigzagging... but the escorts starts to do a flank search as well as position a few DD's astern of the convoy. From what I have read, this is exactly the mistake the brits did in the early war days before they discovered the Uboats special tactic.

I usually stay at convoy speed in the mid lane and reload my tubes. After all internal reloads are exhausted I do a 90 turn and track the convoy at a distance of about 25 kilometers. It only takes two attacks in order to exhaust the IXCs eel storage in this way, and it really deadly.

Edit: And oh yes, running with decks awash seems rather risky... the ships usually light up as soon as my first torp hits, and searchlights travel around the conoy.

[TarJak]

I just finished reading a book (I won't tell you the name because I'm going to spoil the main plotline here), about an English officer trying to get to the bottom of hwo the Germans are getting inside the convoys.

The premise the author proposed was that the Germans dry chartered and crewed a number of Swedish ships, which then joined the convoys and during the course of the voyage, the "Swedish" ships would drop back from the convoy claiming engine trouble, rendezvous with a Uboat, and lead it back to the convoy providing radar and ASDIC cover until it rejoined the convoy. (Remember most convoys ran at aroun 6kt which is not much faster than a brisk walking pace).

Not badly written but I thought it was a fairly bizarre plot and I guess that spoiled the experience for me.

Otherwise it does shed some interesting light on some aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic that I was not conversant with prior to reading it.

[Corsair]

My thinking was that once torp's started going off in the middle of a convoy at night that the convoy would start firing off ilumination rounds into the air and using spot lights to sweep the area so it would'nt make since to me to stay on the surface unless you wanted to be detected.

Now I know the star clusters are RL and not in game so you don't have to worry about those so much (would be cool if they could be modded) but if you use GW as I do I do know they use spotlights to sweep back and forth and if you are unfortunate enough to get caught in a beam your busted!

Just my 2
K

Am playing NYGM at the moment and DDs often use starshells at night. Would be surprising they never do in GW ?

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/194/starshell512eg7.jpg

[Jimbuna]

My thinking was that once torp's started going off in the middle of a convoy at night that the convoy would start firing off ilumination rounds into the air and using spot lights to sweep the area so it would'nt make since to me to stay on the surface unless you wanted to be detected.

Now I know the star clusters are RL and not in game so you don't have to worry about those so much (would be cool if they could be modded) but if you use GW as I do I do know they use spotlights to sweep back and forth and if you are unfortunate enough to get caught in a beam your busted!

Just my 2
K

Am playing NYGM at the moment and DDs often use starshells at night. Would be surprising they never do in GW ?



http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/194/starshell512eg7.jpg

I beg to differ sir :nope: and they also use them in GWX :yep:

[bigboywooly]

They used them in GW too :roll:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/1425/op9mediumgh2.jpg

[plastik]

Usually I try to position myself inside the convoy so I can use the aft tubes as well. I tend to move up and down the lines in order to cause more chaos. Once my torpedoes are fired I usually dive deep to reload (this depends on the year and the escorts) only to came up again to fire some more.

@melnibonian can i ask how you keep up with the speed of the convoy?? for me i usually have to surface to make the u-boat fast and manouverable enough:hmm: thanks

[bigboywooly]

Most convoys are 6 and 7 kts so your uboat should keep up

[Jimbuna]

But potentially make a lot of racket in doing so for the DD's sonar to pick up :nope:

[K_Sea6]

I guess I was just to busy diving to notice the ilum.:oops:

[Razman23]

Does SHIII accurately protray them at the correct distances as they would be in RL?

I watched several vids (youtube) of old german propaganda films of the BDU and some shots show the convoy ships more spread out than what you see in SHIII.
You're correct. SH3 has the convoy ships too packed together. If I remember correctly in GWX the ships are a bit more sread out but still closer than in real life.

EDIT: Sorry BBW I didn't see that you answer that point

Of course, this tatic may have to be changed when GWX is released. :hmm:
The fundamentals no but you will need to be more accurate with your navigation and more alert to the presence of escorts;)

Thanks, yea I found it strange that the ships were so damn close together. Its almost as if all you had to do is shoot off an eel and you stood a good chance of hitting something. This actually happened to me. I was set up for a tanker when one of my eels went astern of the ship and missed but took out the last ship in the next row over.

I dont mind a little more 'action' from the enemy, it makes the game that much better.

Now if I could just get all those five parts of GWX downloaded when it comes out before the whole world knows about its release. :yep: :lol: :up:

[melnibonian]

@melnibonian can i ask how you keep up with the speed of the convoy?? for me i usually have to surface to make the u-boat fast and manouverable enough:hmm: thanks
Well if it is early in the war I can either surface and follow the convoy at a distance to plan a new attack or I can go ahead flank and keep attacking. If it's later in the war you have two options use the snorkel and keep up with them or fall behind, surface and follow them to plan a new attack. It is also a question of torpedoes. If I'm out of them there is no point keeping up with them. Usually I empty my internal ones once I come accross a convoy. The rate of success though deffers;)

[Corsair]

I beg to differ sir :nope: and they also use them in GWX :yep:
We don't differ sir...;)
I wrote "Would be surprising they never do in GW" which I could translate by "I'm sure they do...":D
You guys are jumpy...lol

[AS]

I´ve just returned from a patrol that may well have been my most exciting and probably most realistic SH3 (GW mod) experience so far...

I accidently ran into a huge convoy at daytime. Seeing that it was directly heading my way I dived and waited till the ships were around me. I went to periscope depth and had a good shot at 2 tankers in front of me and a small merchant at 180 degree.

Then I dived to 40m, reloaded my torps and went to scope depth again. Sadly, the convoy was too far away for a good shot now, so I had to be patient.

So far, so ordinary. Now here goes what made this so very special: I decided to shadow the convoy from behind until it got dark. When night had fallen, I just sped up and broke into the convoy from behind (never done that before!) With the destroyers at 90 and 270 degree at about 3500m I just headed the convoy´s course and passed huge merchants at less than 500m (!!!) without being spotted (it was really dark and I had deck awash, the waves hid my little VIIc very well, too).

I really felt like a real skipper, passing those HUGE merchants and tankers in the moonlight is just what I´ve read about so often. My main problem was to get into a good attacking position, which wasn´t that easy because I was too close to the other ships to turn, get them at 90 degree and shoot. So, everything went really fast then. I turned, slowing down, and hit a tanker at 309m (that was literally CLOSE!), while it gave way I attacked the next tanker behind the first one. Now hell broke loose and all those searchlights blinded my poor crew. I ordered flank speed, headed directly for a big merchant and dived closely behind her, zigzagged into the merchants direction to conceal my own noise and was... gone.:smug:

I proudly returned to my home base with no torps left and no damage taken.

Thanks to all those modders who made this come true!

Cheers, AS:rock:

[Jimbuna]

Congratulations AS :up: that is probably as nears to 'true life' as it got back in those days (1940s). This surely shows us all how well the GW dev team have been able to give us all an exciting and challenging 'life like' mod. :rock:

I know it's been said before but I'll say it again....GWX IS EVEN BETTER :yep: :D :up:

[Subwolf]

... but the escorts starts to do a flank search as well as position a few DD's astern of the convoy. From what I have read, this is exactly the mistake the brits did in the early war days before they discovered the Uboats special tactic.

I usually stay at convoy speed in the mid lane and reload my tubes. After all internal reloads are exhausted I do a 90 turn and track the convoy at a distance of about 25 kilometers. It only takes two attacks in order to exhaust the IXCs eel storage in this way, and it really deadly.

You must have a lot of battery power...

That tactic is very dangerous. When batteries are down to 50% you should move away from the convoy. As you know after the attack you will become the hunted, and I usually end up behind the convoy. The escorts knows that, and that's why they are waiting for me there. It's smart to have some battery power left if you have to engage them ;)

In medium fog I attack on the surface, quick in and quick out from the side of the convoy. The escorts can't see me...until they got radar.

[plastik]

@melnibonian can i ask how you keep up with the speed of the convoy?? for me i usually have to surface to make the u-boat fast and manouverable enough:hmm: thanks
Well if it is early in the war I can either surface and follow the convoy at a distance to plan a new attack or I can go ahead flank and keep attacking. If it's later in the war you have two options use the snorkel and keep up with them or fall behind, surface and follow them to plan a new attack. It is also a question of torpedoes. If I'm out of them there is no point keeping up with them. Usually I empty my internal ones once I come accross a convoy. The rate of success though deffers;)

@melnibonian
sorry for being so persistent:oops:

no snorkel yet, i'm ending 1940... what i do is leave the convoy from the side or whatever, surface and flank ahead so i can wait for the convoy to reach me again... not very original but it's just about the only convoy tactic i know.

as for keeping up with the convoy, if you go flank (submerged) you get detected quite fast (as soon as any destroyers come nearby), and you just manage to keep up, not outflanking them: you make 7 knots and so does the convoy (although admittedly the will be zigzagging so you could get some advantage there).

so without snorkel sorry but i don't get it: when in the convoy, either you go flank submerged and get detected while not making much advantage over the convoy or surface and have everyone spot you. the only tactic i can think of is leave the convoy and wait for them again ahead of their course. if i'm confused please let me know, it's always good to learn ;) . thanks!

[melnibonian]

@melnibonian
sorry for being so persistent:oops:
Don't worry about it I'm always glad to help in any way I can;)

as for keeping up with the convoy, if you go flank (submerged) you get detected quite fast (as soon as any destroyers come nearby), and you just manage to keep up, not outflanking them: you make 7 knots and so does the convoy (although admittedly the will be zigzagging so you could get some advantage there).
Well if it is early in the war you can get away with ahead flank even if destroyers are close by. As the years progress though it's getting dangerous. Also don't forget that if you are moving inside the convoy and especially under a merchant the destroyers have a difficult time finding you.

so without snorkel sorry but i don't get it: when in the convoy, either you go flank submerged and get detected while not making much advantage over the convoy or surface and have everyone spot you. the only tactic i can think of is leave the convoy and wait for them again ahead of their course. if i'm confused please let me know, it's always good to learn ;) . thanks!
Well it all depends on the year and the escorts. If you do not want to go ahead flank you can always surface and keep a paralel position to the convoy. That of course depends on the weather and on the radar the DDs have. Don't forget the hydrophones have larger range than the radar and you can always pick up the radar signals of the DDs. Once the signal gets really strong and the DD is close by then you go to silent running and deep. Once the DD is gone you surface again and continue the chase. Obviously if you try to do this in 1944-45 you'll most probably end up dead, so be really careful. Usually I tend to empty all my internal torpedoes in my first attack in order to cause as much chaos and damage as possible. Afterwards if I still have torpedoes I do chase the convoy. If you need any more clarifications let me know and I'll be happy to help in any way I can.

Good Hunting:up:

[AS]

If you´re really in trouble after a convoy attack best tactic evading the destroyers in a convoy is dive deep and "hide" beneath the merchants, then start moving into the the somewhat opposite direction of the convoy. It can be dangerous to stay too close for a long time because it´s quite possible that the merchants move on and the destroyers detect you if you are still too close around. Cheers, AS

[Mav87th]

Not the biggest hit poster here, but here goes nothing.

My last Convoy attack was against a convoy of 6 x 3 merchants and a whole bunch of defenders. 1xHuntII and 2xFlowerCorvets were spottet from the position 10.000m 90 deg. abeam right of the convoy.

The protection looked pretty thin in the right hand side front, with only one lead HuntII and one single Flower corvette on the right side. So i opted for an overtaking on the right side.

Going with all she could drag we skated at 20kts in mirror still water out to about 15.000m ahead of the convoy - i had allready measured the course and speed of it and preplaned where i would attack them. At the spot i dived to Periscope depth and waited......but as i raised the scope i could see that i 1) had calculated the convoyspeed wrong by a knot - they were almost on top of me and that they had altered course(to true North) and most of the convoy were going to pass behind me.

BUT. Good news were that passing right behind me was a Southhampton Light Cruiser. So i made a new gameplan as the Southhampton were on the front left side of the convoy.

A new overtake on the left side and setting up for an attack on the left front of the convoy.

setup tubes 1-2 for the Southhampton and 3-4 for a large merchant cargo ship. On each of them i sat one torpedo for impact 2m above the keel and one for magnetic discharge 0.5 meter under the keel.

The merchant were roughly 2000m away and the Southhampton 1000m.

Fired two eels (slow) on the merchant and then two on the Southhampton. The merchant were hit by the magnetic torpedo and broke in two. The second torpedo continued in through the convoy and ended up hitting a small merchant in the front (brave crew of that ship kept it moving untill i had to leave the convoy).

The second two eels (fast) on the Southhampton had the first one hit the boat about 10 meters front of the rear - blowing the left propeller off the boat. The Cruiser ignited in light fire on the rear deck. The second eel missed behind the boat - and was finaly lost.

After that i had about 2 hours of bashing from 1 HuntII and 3 Flower corvetts. They kept finding me even when i was at 160 meters in my VIIc (yes that is a bit deep in that boat). in this battle i lost three more eels in my early escape attempt to hit a destroyer that was pretty close to me.

Finaly i was "released" and could surface.

A thired overtake on the left side again (one eel left in the fore tubes total) This time i sat my attack up only for the Southhampton. The eel hit the Southhampton right in the armory - what a fantastic explotion.... She broke in two and sank before i had ordered Full ahead and dive to get away. I actualy did that pretty fast and managed to sneak away with a fast steep dive to 145m going WNW.


This is a pretty good picture of how i (1941) tackle convoys with 5+ escorts. The overtake to a preplaned ambush works very nice. I usualy go with about 10.000m in daytime to the nearest convoy escort durring the overtake in daytime and about 5000m to them at night. Then i setup my ambush about 15.000m in front of the convoy in their route and about 1000m from the predicted cource of the nearest lane in the convoy - that way i can fine tune my distance to the targets as they come closer. Trick is VERY sparse use of periscope and using a lot of paper to draw the attack on :)

[Hartmann]

:hmm: :yep: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/5/5a/250px-Aerial_view_of_a_convoy.jpg

a real photograph of a convoy

[TarJak]

Nice pic Hartmann.

I've seen 3 convoys converge (2 inbound,1 outbound), near the entrance to the Gibraltar Straits and boy was that a sight. I wish I'd had more torps though. There were merchants all over the place and facing in all directions whilst they tried to sort themseleves out.:arrgh!: Talk about a target rich environment!

Not the most realistic scenario i'll admit but made much worse I think by the narrow gaps between the columns. given a bit more space they may have been able to cope a little better.