Need FaT advice...

[Herr Russ]

Here's the deal.. Playing patched Vanilla.. Current boat IXC3..

I'm ideally situated North of a Huge convoy traveling right towards me at 9 kts. The 4 bow tubes have 2 electrics & 2 FaT's loaded.. Internal spares are 2 steamers, 2 electrics & 2 FaT's I believe.. Not sure of the total amount, but all internal spares are full.. My Torpedo room is fully manned & has a solid green bar.. No eels left in the stern.

Escorts (5) are a Hunt 3, River Escort, Flower Corvette, Black Swan & a Clemsen..

Misc. merchants, tankers, liberty cargos & a troop ship make up the columns..

I've run this convoy twice and both times have gotten the snot knocked out of me.. (Not playing DiD).. The best I managed to do with 5 shots (1 reload) was to sink the Swan & Liberty Cargo and crippled the troop ship and a T3.. The other escorts basically pinged me & blew me out of the water.. The Swan caught a FaT running a pattern but had totally destroyed both scopes & conning tower by then..

How do you set the dials on the FaT's, especially the first initial run dial.. Is it set for distance or time??

Should I fire the FaT's first & then the other fish??

Can you pull a torpedo out & replace it with another kind, if you don't have an open spare slot??

I'm toying with the idea of taking on the escorts first with the electrics & then fire the FaT's towards the remaining escorts & hope to hit them or take out a cargo ship when they run their ladder pattern.. I usually fire my fish, dive deep & try to evade while reloading my tubes..

Any advice would be helpful.. Thanks!!

[Herr Russ]

Finally figured the FaT's out.. Thanks for the help :roll:

Still having problems w/ the escorts. I don't see how they can still detect me while I'm 190 meters down, silent running & they're making DC runs... Finally dodged them with knuckles & decoys.. Currently on the surface, pulling in my last bow external and heading back towards the two crippled Liberty Cargo's (Last save).. Played ahead last night & found a black swan heading in my direction.. Think I need to send a FaT her way :arrgh!:

[Keelbuster]

Let me guess - it's perfectly calm sea? In these conditions, depth doesn't help you. They can find you with active sonar. You need to get distance. I'd stay at PD, or damn close (~40m). This way you can see your attacker (or at least his keel), and you can make the critical evasion move at the right time. Then flank to escape. You need a good flank run and then drop silent, with a short silhouette (show him your baffles) and you might just get away. Use decoys during the flank run if you have them.

Part 2 - is it >1943? If so, you might not want to get close to the convoy. This is what FaTs are for. You launch them in from a safe distance, and the pattern-running makes up for your crappy Target Motion Analysis and accumulated error over distance. In 44 I wouldn't go into a convoy in still water - you'll be busted for sure. In that case I stay at the periphery and fire in all 6 in pattern running, or acoustic homing, etc. Just fire and forget, and get away alive. DiD.

[Herr Russ]

Thanks,

You nailed it right on the head.. It's 1943 & a very calm night..

Since I had almost an hour to get into position, I went way off of the starboard flank and worked my way closer.. I usually like to get in within 1000 meters, but this time fired all tubes from about 3K yards. Just at about max range for my electrics.. I then turned tail & got out of there before the fireworks started.. I had 3 out of 4 impacts so that wasn't too bad. I just need to get home tonight and deal with that black swan since she's keeping me from claiming 2 crippled liberty cargos..

[Penelope_Grey]

hmm.. fat advice, the only things I can recommend is a good diet and some moderate regular exercise. Nothing sorts fat out quite like it.

[Keelbuster]

I had 3 out of 4 impacts so that wasn't too bad. I just need to get home tonight and deal with that black swan since she's keeping me from claiming 2 crippled liberty cargos..

atta boy:up:

[Corsair]

Pfff... don't tell me about Black Swans, just out of two hours of pounding by two of the buggers before they had to catch up with their convoy... nasty things they are...:yep: that was a sweat to get out alive... each 4 K gun and 2 racks, you can wait a while before they run out of cans...