Convoy Approach Tutorial? Anyone plz :)

[Liszt_]

Could someone please provide a general convoy approach tutorial. I have been getting fairly comfortable with manual aiming but I still have great difficulty getting into range to start the manual firing process.

Cases in point:

When a ship is spotted from the surface is it general practice to go to periscope and start tracking it's bearing? Generally after finding the bearing you speed you will plan for an intercept course.

The problem I have with convoys is they will be surrounded by multiple destroyers going in ALL directions. Lets say I spot a destroyer far away. I go to periscope. It is clear that it is closing. As I dive deeper to ~40-60 feet and begin using my sonar I start getting notifications of multiple merchants at LONG range.

How to best figure out the general convoy bearing in this situation? If I pop to periscope the escort screen generally always nails me :) When I stay submerged long enough to get behind them...the warships travel way to fast for me to keep up.

ARGH SO FRUSTRATING :) HAAAAAALP!

[Onkel Neal]

Could someone please provide a general convoy approach tutorial. I have been getting fairly comfortable with manual aiming but I still have great difficulty getting into range to start the manual firing process.

Cases in point:

When a ship is spotted from the surface is it general practice to go to periscope and start tracking it's bearing? Generally after finding the bearing you speed you will plan for an intercept course.

The problem I have with convoys is they will be surrounded by multiple destroyers going in ALL directions. Lets say I spot a destroyer far away. I go to periscope. It is clear that it is closing. As I dive deeper to ~40-60 feet and begin using my sonar I start getting notifications of multiple merchants at LONG range.

How to best figure out the general convoy bearing in this situation? If I pop to periscope the escort screen generally always nails me :) When I stay submerged long enough to get behind them...the warships travel way to fast for me to keep up.

ARGH SO FRUSTRATING :) HAAAAAALP!

Your first statement is correct, as soon as you detect the targets, you need to determine their bearing and course, as best you can, from as far away as possible. The weather and lighting conditions determine how closely you can get while on the surface. If you are in a good position to pull the plug and approach slowly at periscope depth, do so when you are 8000 yards away. If you need to drive out in front on the surface, circle around from a distance. Like you said, you need to get in front of the convoy's patch. When you are on your final approach, sound general quarters.

Are you playing with the map updates on or off? My first suggestion would be play a few missions with the map updates on, you get a feel for the sonar bearings and rate of convergence when you are submerged. When you poke the scope up, you can see the ship icons. Mark them with the pencil and ruler, pull the scope down again. Keep doing this as you close to the intercept point. Don't leave the scope up too long or the escorts will detect it--that is modeled in the game :yep:

With the map updates on, you can see the DD's and their sonar coverage. If they are screening your approach, you may want to dive deep, find a layer, and let them pass. They cannot detect you from their stern, so claw your way back to PD, and quickly get a firing solution on the best available target. You won;t have too much time or your scope will be spotted at close range. If possible, choose overlapping targets. Fire a full salvo, and don't stick around to watch. Go deep and try to get clear. If you want to watch the results, use the external camera.

Hope that helps!
Neal

[Liszt_]

Your first statement is correct, as soon as you detect the targets, you need to determine their bearing and course, as best you can, from as far away as possible. The weather and lighting conditions determine how closely you can get while on the surface. If you are in a good position to pull the plug and approach slowly at periscope depth, do so when you are 8000 yards away. If you need to drive out in front on the surface, circle around from a distance. Like you said, you need to get in front of the convoy's patch. When you are on your final approach, sound general quarters.

Are you playing with the map updates on or off? My first suggestion would be play a few missions with the map updates on, you get a feel for the sonar bearings and rate of convergence when you are submerged. When you poke the scope up, you can see the ship icons. Mark them with the pencil and ruler, pull the scope down again. Keep doing this as you close to the intercept point. Don't leave the scope up too long or the escorts will detect it--that is modeled in the game :yep:

With the map updates on, you can see the DD's and their sonar coverage. If they are screening your approach, you may want to dive deep, find a layer, and let them pass. They cannot detect you from their stern, so claw your way back to PD, and quickly get a firing solution on the best available target. You won;t have too much time or your scope will be spotted at close range. If possible, choose overlapping targets. Fire a full salvo, and don't stick around to watch. Go deep and try to get clear. If you want to watch the results, use the external camera.

Hope that helps!
Neal

Thanks for the tips. I do play with ~77 realism right now. Map updates on. I only use the map updates on right now so I can verify my manual intercept charting and solutions.

Again though, my issue is getting within range and enough time to get a bearing and speed on the convoy in certain situations.

If we take the following example:
http://www.theispies.com/skoal/hypothetical.JPG

When I'm on surface my watch will first spot the destroyers and when I verify I'll see they are gunning RIGHT at me at high speed. I haven't had time to asses the situation, but just noticed the destroyers on the horizon. Do you hit PD and then get bearing and range on the destroyer? Their path is sooooo random as they circle it's usually pointless.

As said leaving the PD up will give away position so I usually in this position will dive to ~40-60 feet and check sonar.The "5000?" on the map represents a range estimation based on SO saying "Warship! Long range!" ...I'll start noticing the merchant contacts soon after so then I will know I have a convoy here.

The question then is....where do I go from here as far as setting up an approach? as far as trying to get a bearing and speed on the convoy? If sonar says merchant is closing do I wait till Medium range and take a quick peak and calculations at PD?

Anyway, any more advice would be great! :arrgh!:

Cheers,
Liszt

[MikeJW]

Its hard to explaine for me since my approaches are more instinctive than methodical. First, dotn worry about bearing and range on the destroyers. If they are screening then they are almost impossible to hit and you dont want to hit them anyway. If you do they know your there and will keep you down and you'll let the real prize escape. Stay submerged and try to work your way into the perimeter of the screen. If your not in position then back out, surface and plot an estimated course for the convoy and do an end around so you can submerge in their path and let them come to you.

[bert8for3]

You need to get a general idea as soon as you can of the convoy's heading, and you can usually get this from surface visual observation. If you're heading in the general direction of the convoy when you sight it, I'd recommend cutting your speed right down so that you don't narrow the range to the convoy to bring you into its sight. This outght to give you a bit more time to figure out the convoy's general direction.

If at all possible, stay on the surface (gives you better speed and manoeuverability) and keep to max distance while you figure this out. Depending on conditions (i.e it would be different if you come into sight at short range and convoy is heading straight for you ... you may have to dive), you may even want to turn away from the convoy to show them your stern, that way you're better able to maintain or even extend your distance from the convoy while you get a handle on their heading and speed.

Now that you've bought yourself some time, start looking at the convoy (merchants, not the escorts) to get a handle on its general heading. As general as is it coming towards you, going away, and left or right relative to you (you may have already been able to get this) ... putting your UZO (is it TBT in SH4 ... the targeting binoculars) on a particular ship in the convoy will give you and idea of the convoy's left/right tendency relative to you.

With a general idea of convoy heading, you can now decide on your tactics ... run around and intercept from ahead, submerge for impending attach 'cause they're heading for you on a decent intercept. You can now make a rough course adjustment to bring yourself onto an initial track for run around or whatever, which you can then refine as you continue to observe the convoy.

Hope this helps a bit, I'm no whiz at it, but this works pretty well for me.

[jimmie]

I think his question is how to get nearer once get in the position showed in his picture, rather than how to make an initial approach.

I don't know how sensitive escorts in SH4 but in plain SH3, they're not too good, so you could just dive slightly deeper than periscope depth and be quiet and wait until escorts past you and then you get in the middle of convoy. And this can be done in the middle of day.

With hardcore mod it's no longer possible, so attacks are basically limited in night time only (except you have long range torps and risks for a long range shot). In night time, according to reality, you should be able to get quite near even on the surface (no moon light and of course you have to slow down to make less noise and wake etc).

Books etc says to set yourslef up on about 45 degrees from convoy's course to approach. Yeah, then, I have not read any book what exactly to do after. Of course it depends on situation but at any rate, what they tell you is that you somehow time the escorts movement and sneak into them undetected ;)

So, after all, I'm also not answering the question :damn: But the thing is, real captains in the era had much much less information than us and thay couldn't practice or experiment with real enemy. So maybe it's really up to you, building your own best method..