Question about harbor raids.

[rudewarrior]

I'm using the SH3Gen Mod, and I love it. My only complaint is that it seems to generate missions for entering harbors pretty late in the war. I would like to opt out of those missions if they weren't historically accurate for the time.

I would like to know if anyone knows either when these types of missions tapered off or when the last mission of that type was attempted (successful or not).:dead:

Thanx in advance.

[Stealth Hunter]

From what I'm aware, raids pretty much lasted till the end of the war. Frequency broke down dramatically, but they still happened.

[TarJak]

There was only one true harbour raid by a "fleet" u-boat (as opposed to midgets), this was in Scapa Flow (http://www.u47.org/english/u47_sca.asp) in October 1939 by Gunther Prien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_Prien). This was only done after careful reconnisance and planning.

Other than that the only U-boats that went near harbours were there to lay mines however this was pretty much discontinued by the end of 1940. In other words if you want to be historically accurate you shouldn't go near a harbour at all! The reason they are included in SH3Gen is to provide some variation for the player rather than go to patrol grid AM39 for 24 hours.

There were some spy drops on the Irish and British coasts by u-boats but these were largely ineffective as the spys they dropped were picked up by British or Irish authorities days after landing.

The Germans did experiment with midget subs but AFAIK they were not actually successfully used in combat and none in any successful harbour raids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seehund
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biber_%28submarine%29

[Brag]

:yep: :yep: :yep: Right, Tar. Prien's raid was a unique operation.

[Torplexed]

Other than that the only U-boats that went near harbours were there to lay mines however this was pretty much discontinued by the end of 1940. In other words if you want to be historically accurate you shouldn't go near a harbour at all!
Exactly. The British pretty much mined and netted every harbor to discourage U-Boats.

[rudewarrior]

In other words if you want to be historically accurate you shouldn't go near a harbour at all!

This is ultimately what I expected. From the info I had gathered on the forums, this seemed to be the case, but I sure got A LOT of harbor missions on SH3Gen. Now I don't feel the moral/military imperative to complete those harbor missions. Based on my limited knowledge, I couldn't see how sending a uboat into a harbor would really have the proper risk vs. reward balance. I just can't see sending a uboat through several destroyer screens to get a few ships that *might* be there and then having to go back out through those several screens. Oh, and all this needs to be done in shallow water. :huh: Just doesn't make operational sense to me.

Thanx again for the info.

[TarJak]

Yep your boat should be deployed in the Atlantic looking for an killing ships in transit.