RAM
12-28-06, 08:30 PM
Well, first of all I don't know if this was done by german U-boats but I'm certain that it was a tactic used by allied submarines in the Far East against japanese light escorts. So it IS realistic (just in case someone says it won't happen in WW2).
The whole idea of doing this started when I read Edward Young's "One of our Submarines". Mr. Young was the first RNVR officer who got a submarine's command in WW2, HMS Storm. He was very successfull in Storm, mostly on his patrols on the Far East theater. In his books he describes a couple of very exciting and daring surface actions against enemy light warships, and from those actions I took the idea of doing this in SH3
The reason I didn't post anything about this before is that pre-GWX gun actions were unbelievable. The gun was way overpowered and/or too stable for a submarine deck. However with GWX it's much harder to hit anything with it, so now you can pull this trick without feeling a cheater.
Ok, Whole thing is...when an enemy light escort (armed trawler, Flower class FF...) detects you or gets a hint of you being near him, he will hunt you down and try to sink you with Depth Charges (obviously). If he gets you in the surface, he will come straight at you shooting from far, far and away, farther than what you can expect to hit with the 88 or 105mm because of your pitching deck. He will force you to dive (either because the holes in your hull or because you volunteer to do a crash dive ;)), and then he will try to get you with DCs.
Well, you can turn tables on him. What would happen if you surface next to him when he less expects it, to immediately vomit fire on his weaponry before he even knows what's happening?...Those ships have only one 4'' gun. It all comes down to speed and skill. If you're fast and accurate enough to take off his gun before he hits you hard-he's dead.
Take this for instance (just happened minutes ago in a career I'm currently playing): patrolling CG85 while submerged, I got several sound contacts, and after estimating course and speed, I surfaced and ran to the estimated point of interception. Crew spotted two enemy freighters (large and small merchant) and one armed trawler sweeping ahead of them. All french (date: 6 June 1940, hour, 5:30 am). I order periscope depth, silent running and approach the point where I intend to launch.
I set up a simultaneous shot on both cargo ships, coming from their side, and I Send 2 torpedoes to each one of them, estimated distance, 900-1000 metres. Everything goes smooth until one of my torpedoes chooses to explode too early. The other three impact. 2 on the big ship, 1 on the small one.
Scope up, I see the armed trawler (well past my position now) turning on the reflectors (not sure if its said this way in english) and start a turn towards me even when it's clear he still doesnt know where I am. Scope down. I wait for a couple minutes, scope up. Both merchants seem to be injured but none of them is certain to sink. I only have the aft torpedo loaded but I don't feel like doing a 180º with an escort looking for me. I won't reload and make noise with that escort nearby. In 1 hour it will be daytime and so I won't get another chance to attack (hard to shadow such a small force on the surface-and much less with Gibraltar so near).
So either I let them go and hope for progressive flooding to sink either of them, or I must engage again. With deck gun. And I do so.
I turn the submarine head on the zig-zagging escort ,and then I say bye bye to silent running. Flank ahead until I raise 5 knots, blow ballast, action stations everyone (damage control party ready for action). The U-boat rises to surface in mere seconds, and before the "we are detected!" message pops up, I already have the deck gun manned. Flank ahead still on, the uboat accelerates fast towards the enemy who's still doing a mere 6 knots. And all he can see of me is my small and hard to hit front profile.
Before I man the deck gun I already knew a rough distance for the enemy escort (1500m), so my first shoot will be a bit over that distance (to hit the upper works of the escort. Target is not sinking it, target is disarming it). By the time I fire, he will be turning towards me and firing back, so every shot counts.
Use x1 sight on the gun. that way you can SEE your gun elevation and your gun's tilting up and down because of wave motion. If you use zoom, you won't be able to measure neither of them and more than not you'll miss much more than you hit. And you must be accurate (and FAST) to pull this out.
First shot is for ranging purposes, but you should get a hit if you know what you're doing. From there onwards do your best and aim for the forecastle to smash his 4 incher. If you do it, he's done for good.
In this battle I missed first and second shots. Third one smashed the bridge. Fourth one blew up the enemy gun. The guy had good accuracy, tho. Even while I was head on towards him (I was a VERY small target profile for him to hit), he was able put one 4'' on my bow spaces which caused some damage (but nothing too important) before I got his main gun. So remember, this IS dangerous. But if you're fast and accurate, you will survive and he won't.
After getting rid of his main gun, I proceeded to get near him to sink him...now a word of warning...
It's been ages since I've tried this move and seems GWX has changed a bit or two about damage modelling...they fire with MGs (expected)...and those MGs HURT!!!! (totally unexpected, lol). I lost one of my gun crew hit by enemy MG fire before I could blow up those spots too. But in the end the armed trawler was a defenceless torch over the water...and then I had two damaged merchants waiting for my attention. And they didn't last long (the larger one blew apart from bows to rear with just 3 shots that turned the ship into an inferno-tasty ammo cargo I bet ;)).
The second one took a couple minutes more. Sank it and ran the hell out from there, just in case any other enemy ship was coming to see the fireworks.
From "Flank ahead&Blow Ballast" order to "crash dive", the whole action lasted roughly 4 minutes.
I secured 17000 tons of merchant shipping (14500+2500) I might had not sunk had I not engaged on the surface. And the armed trawler sank too (I stopped firing at it as soon as it was silenced).
I would say that doing this should be the exception and not the norm. It's dangerous for your ship and your crew (as my dead crewman can testify). But when the situation calls for it, its a good last-resort move. The enemy for sure doesn't expect you surfacing that close to them, and at those small distances, your accuracy doesn't suffer as badly as in longer ranges, so if you're fast and accurate enough, you will win the battle.
Needless to say, DON'T pull this one against more than one ship, or against anything bigger than a corvette (and if the corvette has more than one main gun mount, you'd better not do it either), because stakes will be against you. Also, be sure that you know how to accurately shoot at pin-point locations from distances of 1000-1500m. If you have problems with shooting accurately with your gun, DONT do it either.
Ok, this is it. Hope you liked the idea, and if you use it in your careers, I hope it works for you as it has worked for me :).
The whole idea of doing this started when I read Edward Young's "One of our Submarines". Mr. Young was the first RNVR officer who got a submarine's command in WW2, HMS Storm. He was very successfull in Storm, mostly on his patrols on the Far East theater. In his books he describes a couple of very exciting and daring surface actions against enemy light warships, and from those actions I took the idea of doing this in SH3
The reason I didn't post anything about this before is that pre-GWX gun actions were unbelievable. The gun was way overpowered and/or too stable for a submarine deck. However with GWX it's much harder to hit anything with it, so now you can pull this trick without feeling a cheater.
Ok, Whole thing is...when an enemy light escort (armed trawler, Flower class FF...) detects you or gets a hint of you being near him, he will hunt you down and try to sink you with Depth Charges (obviously). If he gets you in the surface, he will come straight at you shooting from far, far and away, farther than what you can expect to hit with the 88 or 105mm because of your pitching deck. He will force you to dive (either because the holes in your hull or because you volunteer to do a crash dive ;)), and then he will try to get you with DCs.
Well, you can turn tables on him. What would happen if you surface next to him when he less expects it, to immediately vomit fire on his weaponry before he even knows what's happening?...Those ships have only one 4'' gun. It all comes down to speed and skill. If you're fast and accurate enough to take off his gun before he hits you hard-he's dead.
Take this for instance (just happened minutes ago in a career I'm currently playing): patrolling CG85 while submerged, I got several sound contacts, and after estimating course and speed, I surfaced and ran to the estimated point of interception. Crew spotted two enemy freighters (large and small merchant) and one armed trawler sweeping ahead of them. All french (date: 6 June 1940, hour, 5:30 am). I order periscope depth, silent running and approach the point where I intend to launch.
I set up a simultaneous shot on both cargo ships, coming from their side, and I Send 2 torpedoes to each one of them, estimated distance, 900-1000 metres. Everything goes smooth until one of my torpedoes chooses to explode too early. The other three impact. 2 on the big ship, 1 on the small one.
Scope up, I see the armed trawler (well past my position now) turning on the reflectors (not sure if its said this way in english) and start a turn towards me even when it's clear he still doesnt know where I am. Scope down. I wait for a couple minutes, scope up. Both merchants seem to be injured but none of them is certain to sink. I only have the aft torpedo loaded but I don't feel like doing a 180º with an escort looking for me. I won't reload and make noise with that escort nearby. In 1 hour it will be daytime and so I won't get another chance to attack (hard to shadow such a small force on the surface-and much less with Gibraltar so near).
So either I let them go and hope for progressive flooding to sink either of them, or I must engage again. With deck gun. And I do so.
I turn the submarine head on the zig-zagging escort ,and then I say bye bye to silent running. Flank ahead until I raise 5 knots, blow ballast, action stations everyone (damage control party ready for action). The U-boat rises to surface in mere seconds, and before the "we are detected!" message pops up, I already have the deck gun manned. Flank ahead still on, the uboat accelerates fast towards the enemy who's still doing a mere 6 knots. And all he can see of me is my small and hard to hit front profile.
Before I man the deck gun I already knew a rough distance for the enemy escort (1500m), so my first shoot will be a bit over that distance (to hit the upper works of the escort. Target is not sinking it, target is disarming it). By the time I fire, he will be turning towards me and firing back, so every shot counts.
Use x1 sight on the gun. that way you can SEE your gun elevation and your gun's tilting up and down because of wave motion. If you use zoom, you won't be able to measure neither of them and more than not you'll miss much more than you hit. And you must be accurate (and FAST) to pull this out.
First shot is for ranging purposes, but you should get a hit if you know what you're doing. From there onwards do your best and aim for the forecastle to smash his 4 incher. If you do it, he's done for good.
In this battle I missed first and second shots. Third one smashed the bridge. Fourth one blew up the enemy gun. The guy had good accuracy, tho. Even while I was head on towards him (I was a VERY small target profile for him to hit), he was able put one 4'' on my bow spaces which caused some damage (but nothing too important) before I got his main gun. So remember, this IS dangerous. But if you're fast and accurate, you will survive and he won't.
After getting rid of his main gun, I proceeded to get near him to sink him...now a word of warning...
It's been ages since I've tried this move and seems GWX has changed a bit or two about damage modelling...they fire with MGs (expected)...and those MGs HURT!!!! (totally unexpected, lol). I lost one of my gun crew hit by enemy MG fire before I could blow up those spots too. But in the end the armed trawler was a defenceless torch over the water...and then I had two damaged merchants waiting for my attention. And they didn't last long (the larger one blew apart from bows to rear with just 3 shots that turned the ship into an inferno-tasty ammo cargo I bet ;)).
The second one took a couple minutes more. Sank it and ran the hell out from there, just in case any other enemy ship was coming to see the fireworks.
From "Flank ahead&Blow Ballast" order to "crash dive", the whole action lasted roughly 4 minutes.
I secured 17000 tons of merchant shipping (14500+2500) I might had not sunk had I not engaged on the surface. And the armed trawler sank too (I stopped firing at it as soon as it was silenced).
I would say that doing this should be the exception and not the norm. It's dangerous for your ship and your crew (as my dead crewman can testify). But when the situation calls for it, its a good last-resort move. The enemy for sure doesn't expect you surfacing that close to them, and at those small distances, your accuracy doesn't suffer as badly as in longer ranges, so if you're fast and accurate enough, you will win the battle.
Needless to say, DON'T pull this one against more than one ship, or against anything bigger than a corvette (and if the corvette has more than one main gun mount, you'd better not do it either), because stakes will be against you. Also, be sure that you know how to accurately shoot at pin-point locations from distances of 1000-1500m. If you have problems with shooting accurately with your gun, DONT do it either.
Ok, this is it. Hope you liked the idea, and if you use it in your careers, I hope it works for you as it has worked for me :).