RAM
01-03-07, 10:04 PM
By "Serious" I mean atlantic convoys. During the first 2 patrols I was assigned to patrol the eastern coast of Britain, and I ran into a couple of north-to-south convoys which were quite easy to deal with. Now this is the first Atlantic convoy I've fought, and man... I'll describe it and you get the idea on what do I think about GWX.
As a foreword I'll say I work with all realism settings on xcept map updates, weapons officer assistance, and outside view. I can't stop it...I **need** to see the eye candy ;). But I don't use it as a cheat, I'm honest to myself and never use it during my attacks or to maneouver out of harm's way.
Well, here I was travelling from Germany to CG85, my assigned patrol zone. It's July the 6th, 1940. Very rough seas, 15m/s winds, boring trip so far (I detected a DD north from Scotland and fired a couple of torpedoes to it. Should've not done it, they were duds and the DD did a couple of circles to see if he could sniff me. Then he moved away), and I'm receiving a lot of radio traffic about new U-boat bases on the Western side of France and about some british warships near casablanca. So sad that I'm still in the AM quadrants, just N from Ireland...for the time I arrive there no british ship will be there for me...
And there it comes. Radio message telling me there's a convoy WSW from me, moving with a ENE course, speed 4 knots...wait a second, 4 knots?...did they forgot to kick off the hand-brake or what?.
Well, whatever, the slower they go the merrier for me, as they won't be hard to intercept. I plot an intercept course to meet the convoy in 4 hours (message received at 17 hours-something, so it will be night when I arrive), adjust my speed to 9 knots -my estimation for an intercept in the moment I want, four hours later- and there I go. TC to 64 with a stop each 10 minutes for a manual review of the horizon, just in case something comes my way or the speed of the convoy is wrongly reported (4 knots??? WTF??? are they turtles or what?).
I reach the interception point at 23:15 more or less with two, well in fact, three NASTY surprises for me.
Suprise number 1: the waves here are HUGE. I've had to attack in more or less bad seas before but this is the worse I've seen so far. If I need to do a scope attack, I don't know how am I going to keep a proper periscope depth without showing half my casing each 5 seconds...
Suprise number 2: It might be 23:15 ,but there's a LOT of light. It doens't seem night, but a somewhat darker version of a dusk. With this light I'm not going to attack on the surface. O $hit...look at Surprise number 1... eeeeeeeewwwwww...
Suprise number 3: seeing hte first 2 I almost feel grateful for it. There's no ship in visual range. How was I going to attack a convoy in this conditions?...well, thankfully they aren't here to kn...er...is that smoke on the horizon???
and it was.
oh, well, lets see what is what I have near me. I lower speed to a crawl (3 knots) and point my bow to the smoke. I don't dive. I want to know what I'm going to go against because after I dive I know I won't see too much through the periscope with this seas. Time goes by, its a destroyer zig-zagging. Must be the van escort.
Good news: the convoy will be behind and I'm in a good position judging by the general direction he's going.
Bad news: I spotted the damned smoke from some 6km and was able to discriminate his lines at some 5200m. No, this is definitely not a dark night :damn:
Time goes by, I still refuse to dive. I want to know at least how many colums are there and a general speed reading of the whole convoy before I dive. I'm not going to periscope depth with this seas until I'm ready to attack, that means I'll have to go deep and infiltrate the convoy only by sound. It will be easier if I have some visual fixes to know where I can come up without hitting a merchie...I stop the engines not to get any nearer the DD.
Soon I can see the smoke columns of the merchants. Not that later I can distinguish the fore ships. The convoy has 5 columns, but I have no idea on how many ships there are per column (don't really need that info either). Estimated speed is around 3-4 knots. And now I know why...with this seas the merchies are cracking the sea open with each plunge... heh, I'm not the only one seasick here.
There is another smoke column to the starboard side of the convoy, far from the starboard merchants. I assume there's another escort there. Oh well...
Anyway, time to dive. The van DD is getting near for my confort (around 3800m now). I set 25m depth, silent running, 3 knots and go to map to plot a course that will take me near the mid column of the convoy, just past the 2nd column line, for the time I go to periscope depth. And in a perfect 90 deg cross vs the convoy heading.
I set all my torpedoes (all steam, I don't like electrics after I had to see a CV steam by at 4500m without me being able to send a damned electric one at it) to fast running and 5m depth. That should cover any big target I find in there. now...time to crawl.
I crawl, and crawl, and crawl. Convoy crawls and crawls and crawls. Time crawls (lol, time passed by really slow, I can tell ya). From the hydrophone readings on the map I can tell that I've estimated my plot decently enough, for just 2 minutes before coming up to PD the contacts directly to my starboard side changed from being under 90 to over 90 deg and the ones to my port side from over 270 to under 270. I've just cleared a column, so I have a good shot against the next one.
Ok...I order 13m (no way in hell I'm ordering PD with this seas). As I cross the 20 m depth I open all torp doors. when I hit 15m (well, this it's pure sarcasm, the damned depth gauge goes from 14m to 17m so fast I can't see it, so rather than hitting 15m I'm boucing around it) I raise my periscope to the highest I can so when I arrive the ordered depth (more sarcasm here) I can see what's around me.
Ok. A wave.
Wow. another wave.
Hey! was that a wave?.
One wave more!!!!!. I can't see cr...
(as the scope rises over the wave level...)
WTF?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?! that's not a merchant!!!!
Ok, ok now lets do a little stop here. No, it was not the rodney (seems everyone finds her lately, lol). Ok, after this little suspense break...lets go.
In front of my surprised eyes I find that the ship just in front of me, lined up for a perfect 90º shot, is a Southampton light cruiser!!!!. Well, well, don't laugh at me... for all you bloodthirsty BB-assasins it might be laughable, but the bigger warship I've ever seen (other than that damned CV which sailed away because I had no steam torpedoes :damn: ) has been an auxiliary cruiser. So I started trembling of emotion and almost fired the torpedoes right away before a question struck so hard I almost fell over in pain...
What's the draught of a Southampton class CL?...
Down periscope, open the damned ID book. Click-click-click, I was clicking faster than a Warhammer maniac on speed. Finally I found it.
"Draught:5m"
...thank god I looked at it...fast visit to F6 screen, running depth changed to 3.5 metres. Up scope, I look again. There he is. I ask the WO for a torpedo firing solution. I point the first launch between turrets. Second eel just under the bridge. Third eel pointed towards the aft superstructure. Last torpedo headed towards the aft turret.
I swing the periscope around. There's a Large Cargo (not too long ago known as a C3 ;)) ship bearing 170. I wait some 5 seconds (to simulate I'm giving estimated range and AOB to the TDC guy), then ask the WO for a solution, and fire the aft torpedo.
That's it, down periscope, I order 1/3 ahead, 80m depth,and shift-F12 and move the cam towards the cruiser just as the first torpedo slams on it. Second explodes too. Third doesn't (maybe a dud?. Or maybe the ship was jumping so wildly in this damned sea that it hit so low that it did not explode). Fourth goes off too.
As I rejoice seeing how the CL sinks, I hear another explosion. I swing the camera around and see my aft torpedo has hit the Large Cargo in its fore hull (roughly at a place 1/3rd of its lenght). I damn my bad luck: never had too much success with any torpedo hitting before the superstructure. Given that I have no torps left on the tubes (and that I refuse to reload after attacking a convoy so the escorts will be all trying to hear me), this one won't sink. I know it, such is life, and anyway I just bagged a CL, the first since I started playing SH3. So I'm a happy skipper.
I go back to F2 screen, and order WSW course (180º from the convoy's heading, to exit it through it's back) and when I hit 50 meters I slow down to Ahead slow. Sure enough there are warship sounds on hydrophones but I hear no ASDIC neither any DC...they don't find me.
Some 40 minutes after the CL was sunk, I get a "Shes going down!" message. WTF???? I think. I go to Shift-F12 and move my cam towards the ship I hit with my torpedo...never seen this one happening with just ONE torpedo on an impact setting of 5m, hitting on a C3 (ok, Large Merchant :lol: ) ahead of the machinery. The ship has its bows REALLY low and lower and lower they go with each wave that passes by.
My impression: this hit would've made her nose-heavy in calm waters but this extremely rough sea has caused the flooding to be much worse than what I could expect when I firstly hit...finally the ship puts the bows under Titanic-style (it doesn't break, tho :P), and plunges to the bottom...
what happened with me?. Well, I slowly (and silently) crawled to the back of the convoy. Noone heard me (rough seas may be terrible for periscope sightings, but I bet the allied sonar guys hate it too ;)) and a couple of hours later I was reloading torpedoes and surfacing for another go at the convoy...
but that is another story ;).
PD: for if the text is too long or I wrote too badly for you to get the idea...GWX ROCKS!!!!!!...never seen those waves nor have been forced to do such an approach to a convoy!!!!...and the damage model!!! I NEVER expected that cargo ship to sink with just one torpedo, and on the bows!!!!...
One question ,tho...night of the 6th to 7th july 1940, 23:15...and a lot of light on the sky. Is that to be expected?...I thought that only happened at much northern latitudes....
As a foreword I'll say I work with all realism settings on xcept map updates, weapons officer assistance, and outside view. I can't stop it...I **need** to see the eye candy ;). But I don't use it as a cheat, I'm honest to myself and never use it during my attacks or to maneouver out of harm's way.
Well, here I was travelling from Germany to CG85, my assigned patrol zone. It's July the 6th, 1940. Very rough seas, 15m/s winds, boring trip so far (I detected a DD north from Scotland and fired a couple of torpedoes to it. Should've not done it, they were duds and the DD did a couple of circles to see if he could sniff me. Then he moved away), and I'm receiving a lot of radio traffic about new U-boat bases on the Western side of France and about some british warships near casablanca. So sad that I'm still in the AM quadrants, just N from Ireland...for the time I arrive there no british ship will be there for me...
And there it comes. Radio message telling me there's a convoy WSW from me, moving with a ENE course, speed 4 knots...wait a second, 4 knots?...did they forgot to kick off the hand-brake or what?.
Well, whatever, the slower they go the merrier for me, as they won't be hard to intercept. I plot an intercept course to meet the convoy in 4 hours (message received at 17 hours-something, so it will be night when I arrive), adjust my speed to 9 knots -my estimation for an intercept in the moment I want, four hours later- and there I go. TC to 64 with a stop each 10 minutes for a manual review of the horizon, just in case something comes my way or the speed of the convoy is wrongly reported (4 knots??? WTF??? are they turtles or what?).
I reach the interception point at 23:15 more or less with two, well in fact, three NASTY surprises for me.
Suprise number 1: the waves here are HUGE. I've had to attack in more or less bad seas before but this is the worse I've seen so far. If I need to do a scope attack, I don't know how am I going to keep a proper periscope depth without showing half my casing each 5 seconds...
Suprise number 2: It might be 23:15 ,but there's a LOT of light. It doens't seem night, but a somewhat darker version of a dusk. With this light I'm not going to attack on the surface. O $hit...look at Surprise number 1... eeeeeeeewwwwww...
Suprise number 3: seeing hte first 2 I almost feel grateful for it. There's no ship in visual range. How was I going to attack a convoy in this conditions?...well, thankfully they aren't here to kn...er...is that smoke on the horizon???
and it was.
oh, well, lets see what is what I have near me. I lower speed to a crawl (3 knots) and point my bow to the smoke. I don't dive. I want to know what I'm going to go against because after I dive I know I won't see too much through the periscope with this seas. Time goes by, its a destroyer zig-zagging. Must be the van escort.
Good news: the convoy will be behind and I'm in a good position judging by the general direction he's going.
Bad news: I spotted the damned smoke from some 6km and was able to discriminate his lines at some 5200m. No, this is definitely not a dark night :damn:
Time goes by, I still refuse to dive. I want to know at least how many colums are there and a general speed reading of the whole convoy before I dive. I'm not going to periscope depth with this seas until I'm ready to attack, that means I'll have to go deep and infiltrate the convoy only by sound. It will be easier if I have some visual fixes to know where I can come up without hitting a merchie...I stop the engines not to get any nearer the DD.
Soon I can see the smoke columns of the merchants. Not that later I can distinguish the fore ships. The convoy has 5 columns, but I have no idea on how many ships there are per column (don't really need that info either). Estimated speed is around 3-4 knots. And now I know why...with this seas the merchies are cracking the sea open with each plunge... heh, I'm not the only one seasick here.
There is another smoke column to the starboard side of the convoy, far from the starboard merchants. I assume there's another escort there. Oh well...
Anyway, time to dive. The van DD is getting near for my confort (around 3800m now). I set 25m depth, silent running, 3 knots and go to map to plot a course that will take me near the mid column of the convoy, just past the 2nd column line, for the time I go to periscope depth. And in a perfect 90 deg cross vs the convoy heading.
I set all my torpedoes (all steam, I don't like electrics after I had to see a CV steam by at 4500m without me being able to send a damned electric one at it) to fast running and 5m depth. That should cover any big target I find in there. now...time to crawl.
I crawl, and crawl, and crawl. Convoy crawls and crawls and crawls. Time crawls (lol, time passed by really slow, I can tell ya). From the hydrophone readings on the map I can tell that I've estimated my plot decently enough, for just 2 minutes before coming up to PD the contacts directly to my starboard side changed from being under 90 to over 90 deg and the ones to my port side from over 270 to under 270. I've just cleared a column, so I have a good shot against the next one.
Ok...I order 13m (no way in hell I'm ordering PD with this seas). As I cross the 20 m depth I open all torp doors. when I hit 15m (well, this it's pure sarcasm, the damned depth gauge goes from 14m to 17m so fast I can't see it, so rather than hitting 15m I'm boucing around it) I raise my periscope to the highest I can so when I arrive the ordered depth (more sarcasm here) I can see what's around me.
Ok. A wave.
Wow. another wave.
Hey! was that a wave?.
One wave more!!!!!. I can't see cr...
(as the scope rises over the wave level...)
WTF?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?! that's not a merchant!!!!
Ok, ok now lets do a little stop here. No, it was not the rodney (seems everyone finds her lately, lol). Ok, after this little suspense break...lets go.
In front of my surprised eyes I find that the ship just in front of me, lined up for a perfect 90º shot, is a Southampton light cruiser!!!!. Well, well, don't laugh at me... for all you bloodthirsty BB-assasins it might be laughable, but the bigger warship I've ever seen (other than that damned CV which sailed away because I had no steam torpedoes :damn: ) has been an auxiliary cruiser. So I started trembling of emotion and almost fired the torpedoes right away before a question struck so hard I almost fell over in pain...
What's the draught of a Southampton class CL?...
Down periscope, open the damned ID book. Click-click-click, I was clicking faster than a Warhammer maniac on speed. Finally I found it.
"Draught:5m"
...thank god I looked at it...fast visit to F6 screen, running depth changed to 3.5 metres. Up scope, I look again. There he is. I ask the WO for a torpedo firing solution. I point the first launch between turrets. Second eel just under the bridge. Third eel pointed towards the aft superstructure. Last torpedo headed towards the aft turret.
I swing the periscope around. There's a Large Cargo (not too long ago known as a C3 ;)) ship bearing 170. I wait some 5 seconds (to simulate I'm giving estimated range and AOB to the TDC guy), then ask the WO for a solution, and fire the aft torpedo.
That's it, down periscope, I order 1/3 ahead, 80m depth,and shift-F12 and move the cam towards the cruiser just as the first torpedo slams on it. Second explodes too. Third doesn't (maybe a dud?. Or maybe the ship was jumping so wildly in this damned sea that it hit so low that it did not explode). Fourth goes off too.
As I rejoice seeing how the CL sinks, I hear another explosion. I swing the camera around and see my aft torpedo has hit the Large Cargo in its fore hull (roughly at a place 1/3rd of its lenght). I damn my bad luck: never had too much success with any torpedo hitting before the superstructure. Given that I have no torps left on the tubes (and that I refuse to reload after attacking a convoy so the escorts will be all trying to hear me), this one won't sink. I know it, such is life, and anyway I just bagged a CL, the first since I started playing SH3. So I'm a happy skipper.
I go back to F2 screen, and order WSW course (180º from the convoy's heading, to exit it through it's back) and when I hit 50 meters I slow down to Ahead slow. Sure enough there are warship sounds on hydrophones but I hear no ASDIC neither any DC...they don't find me.
Some 40 minutes after the CL was sunk, I get a "Shes going down!" message. WTF???? I think. I go to Shift-F12 and move my cam towards the ship I hit with my torpedo...never seen this one happening with just ONE torpedo on an impact setting of 5m, hitting on a C3 (ok, Large Merchant :lol: ) ahead of the machinery. The ship has its bows REALLY low and lower and lower they go with each wave that passes by.
My impression: this hit would've made her nose-heavy in calm waters but this extremely rough sea has caused the flooding to be much worse than what I could expect when I firstly hit...finally the ship puts the bows under Titanic-style (it doesn't break, tho :P), and plunges to the bottom...
what happened with me?. Well, I slowly (and silently) crawled to the back of the convoy. Noone heard me (rough seas may be terrible for periscope sightings, but I bet the allied sonar guys hate it too ;)) and a couple of hours later I was reloading torpedoes and surfacing for another go at the convoy...
but that is another story ;).
PD: for if the text is too long or I wrote too badly for you to get the idea...GWX ROCKS!!!!!!...never seen those waves nor have been forced to do such an approach to a convoy!!!!...and the damage model!!! I NEVER expected that cargo ship to sink with just one torpedo, and on the bows!!!!...
One question ,tho...night of the 6th to 7th july 1940, 23:15...and a lot of light on the sky. Is that to be expected?...I thought that only happened at much northern latitudes....