Shadowing a Convoy.

[mowgli99]

Hi all. I havent been here in the past couple o' weeks but anyway to the point. Whenever i find a convoy i either attack or lay off due to various reasons. Most of the time after i attack i can never find the convoy again(to strike yet again). So my queston is, is how are you supposed to succesfully shadow a convoy. Is it a guess or do you use hydrophone tracking.When i use hydrophone tracking i am going to slow to catch up and if i speed up I always get picked up by escorts. Any help at all would be appreciated again. Thankyou yall. I have always wanted to strike again and again till the convoy disappears but alas i cant. --mowgli p.s my writing may be sloppy as i am still sufering from jetlag.

[GoldenRivet]

you are going to get about as many suggestions as there are forum members...

ill start us off hahaha


what i do is quite simple. First, when you spot a convoy observe them from great distance. using the pencil tool mark one of the ship's positions on the map... trail them for a couple of hours and mark again. you now have "mark #1" and "mark #2"

Use the ruler tool and start at mark one, draw a line straight THROUGH mark #2 and continue to extend the line out about 100 KM ahead of the convoy. BUT MAKE SURE YOUR LINE PASSES THROUGH BOTH MARKS.

This has established the convoy's "Mean course" now there is no guarantee they will hold this course for any length of time, but it gives you an idea of where they will be over the next several hours of travel.

Your first attack should be executed by very early night - perhaps 2000 hours local time.

after your initial attack, break off to either the port or starboard side of this "mean course" line and set your own course to parallel it.

Speed out (on the surface if you can) several KM ahead of their mean course line while reloading your tubes for the next attack. your next attack should occur perhaps 5 or 6 hours after the initial attack. perhaps 0200 hours local time. Once you have reached what you think is a good position, submerge slightly to one side of the convoy at very slow speed and silent running, perhaps as deep as 50 meters and wait until the convoy is in range before ordering periscope depth. if you do this directly in front of the convoy, the lead escort will almost always find you so it is vital to be off to one side slightly of their mean course line. when you are in position and feel confident - attack.

repeat the process, observe the convoy from afar to changes in their course and replot their mean course line again and again if you have to.

Using this method you can peck away at a convoy with 2 attacks per night while shadowing them for several days or until you run out of torpedoes.

[KeptinCranky]

To add a few things, if your sailing parallel to a convoy at a certain speed you might want to get ahead of it, so go a bit (or a lot) faster than they are going, ocassionally do a quick dive to PD, remember to go to slow speed right after you give the order to dive or an escort may hear you, listen for them and make sure they haven't changed course, if they have changed course catch up with them again so you have at least one merchant in visual range, now from that merchant's course you can roughly determine where they changed course, you now have about 50km from that point to attack, after that they may(!) change course again, nothing is quite so frustrating as having placed your boat in a perfect attack position and lying in wait for them and then have them turn away at the last moment:-?

if your early on in the war say 1939 or 1940 you might also try attacking on the surface at night, there's a few threads with hints and tips for that so I won't repeat them here, doing so makes it a lot easier to track the convoy after your attack, also watch for damaged ships that didn't sink, they often burn for a long time which makes them easy to spot

[Heibges]

If you have the 16KM Mod you can truly follow a convoy at the edge of the horizon. This is probably my favorite mod in the game.

[Brag]

to add what the Kaleuns above had said:

When overhauling a convoy, plot your course at least 10 kms to the side of the convoy course.

Keep in mind that often convoys change course at sunrise and sunset. I like to attack about an hour after sunset, when twilight allows me to see the targets well.

On the Operation Spinnennetz map (in the stickies section) you can see at least the track of one convoy from Freetown to near the Western approaches. It took two weeks of shadowing.

Reporting daily contacts to Canovaro at BDU while shadowing a convoy will help a lot in maping transatlantic convoy routes :D

[Mooncatt]

yeah its a good tactic but after you make your first attack the convoy just starts to zig-zag and if you run away they will almost certainly have changed course AND you will probably have most of the escorts trying to find you. by the time the escorts have given up i usually find the convoy is out of range of the hydraphones anyway.

[Brag]

Moon, if you paralel thalst known mean course of the convoy, your chances are excellent of regaining sound contact within an hour after resuming the chase.

[KeptinCranky]

Exactly! If you let the escorts get you down and let the convoy go on its way that means they have won! unacceptable!

besides, if you're careful enough and sneaky enough the escorts will give up at some point, ideally after 30 minutes of blasting merry hell out of a patch of ocean fairly far removed from your actual location, you can then hear them head straight back to the convoy at high speed and since you know the convoy's approximate speed you can make a fair guess based on the escort's course as to where the convoy is. then base your intercept course on that.

Then it's a matter of re-acquiring contact, doing an end around and beginning another attack, of course by the time radar becomes a factor it gets trickier

[Heibges]

If you submerge, shouldn't you do a saftety 360° soundcheck before you surface? You would lose almost 30 minutes on the convoy every time you do a soundcheck.

[Brag]

Your soundman will get the contact in a minute or so. Sure, you loose a bit of time, but not much. All you're doing is confirming the convoy has not changed course and that you're gaining. As long as I'm behind the convoy, I check every two hours. Once moving ahead, every hour.

[KeptinCranky]

you can manually do a soundcheck while submerging, you may not hear everything that's far off but a convoy is audible a long way off. It's kinda hard to miss, just do one 360 sweep, you'll hear the convoy and any other ships that are closer than 10km for sure.
So go to PD and slow speed at the same time as soon as your boat gets to 10 meters and/or 2knots listen, find convoy, surface and step on the gas....might lose you 5 minutes with most convoys, the ones that go real fast like 10knots or more are tougher but also few and far between

[mowgli99]

Thankyou all again. Ya i'll try these suggestions tonight. My problem was mooncats problem. Evading destroyers and never reaquiring afterward. How far away should i be while going paraelle?

[GoldenRivet]

far enough away so that you can at least see one or two merchants in the group. 6 to 8KM unless you are using the 16KM visibility mod then further is better.

Be aware, the flanking escorts will break away from the convoy and search on the convoys flanks for U-boats once in a while... try to exploit this gap when it presents itself.

also be aware that at the wars midpoint on through to the end - surface shadowing will be all but impossible.

[mowgli99]

Well shadowing near the end is another story. Later on i attack and getas far away as i can.