Flower Corvettes

[robj250]

I never used to have problems sinking Flower Corvettes in the earlier years, but now in the 1943s using TIII I can't sinking them using the magnetic trigger and torpedo set for 4 metres.

Any suggestions?

Rob

[Jonathan]

Blow em' away with your deck gun? They're not that big....are they?

[GoldenRivet]

i noticed a few occasions where a specific class of flower corvette was impervious to torpedoes - impact detonators - even if on a 90 degree impact would pass through the ship.

not sure how, when or if this was corrected.

but a question comes to mind... why waste a torpedo on a tiny warship worth very little tonnage and virtually no renown?

even in a defensive role?

they are easily evaded, relatively slow, have poor surface fire power, carry a limited number of depth charges and the list goes on.

its like going rabbit hunting with a 20mm chain gun.

that one wasted torpedo could make the difference between going home with 10,000 more tons or going home with nothing else other than to brag about how you "pwned" what amounts to an armed trawler worth less than 1,000 tons.

[Jonathan]

i noticed a few occasions where a specific class of flower corvette was impervious to torpedoes - impact detonators - even if on a 90 degree impact would pass through the ship.

not sure how, when or if this was corrected.

but a question comes to mind... why waste a torpedo on a tiny warship worth very little tonnage and virtually no renown?

even in a defensive role?

they are easily evaded, relatively slow, have poor surface fire power, carry a limited number of depth charges and the list goes on.

its like going rabbit hunting with a 20mm chain gun.

that one wasted torpedo could make the difference between going home with 10,000 more tons or going home with nothing.

I love that I canalwyas look to GoldenRivet for advice...

[GoldenRivet]

but its true though... i mean there may come a day when you are backed into a corner and have to take a shot at a flower corvette, but if thats the case you have already made a series of tactical and/or judgemental errors OR you just got caught way off guard.

under normal operations - the way i see it, and this is just my opinion - there is virtually no point in even taking that shot.

The object of the game is to find and sink the big ships... thats really all there is to it.

your sole purpose as a u-boat commander is to blockade England from vital war materials and supplies

you accomplish this objective by only one means - engage enemy shipping with your concentration of fire being directed at the ships which can carry the most numerous or the most vital of war goods.

this translates to sinking large cargo ships and tankers. flower corvettes and destroyers (in fact most warships) dont even make the list. an unharmed allied warship is in fact helping you accomplish your objective of depriving england of vital war materials. it helps you because as long as the warship is afloat - it consumes fuel, it consumes oil, it consumes manpower, it consumes armament. if you sink the inbound fuel, oil, manpower and armament faster than they are able to replace it... your side is winning.

[robj250]

Blow em' away with your deck gun? They're not that big....are they?

I cannot surface in the middle of a convoy. I'll get blown away with every merchant that has guns; plus the DD and DE.

So, half the time I have to take out Flower Corvettes and Armed Trawlers from periscope depth.

In the average convoy now-a-days, I find at least 5 - 6 warships and it's almost impossible to avoid them all and I get blown to bits. So, I take out the DDs and DE when necessary.

Besides, I doubt an Impact torpedo set at 1 metre depth would take out a Flower when it's a bow shot.

What else am I supposed to do? I get rid of the nusance DE or DD that are coming at me, then I can attack the convoy, picking on the juicy targets like tankers and Troop Transports. I don't bother with other warships that aren't coming my way.

Rob

[GoldenRivet]

approach the convoy with stealth. at night if possible.

it is best to do this from about a 45 degree angle off the port or starboard bow ahead of the convoy.

when you have closed, very slowly, to within about 1500 meters. fire at the largest merchants within the convoy lanes.

fire at the furthest merchant first working your way to the closest so that you can time the impacts to be relatively close together so that when the first explosion takes place the convoy's evasive maneuvers will have hardly no time to throw off your remaining shots' solutions.

DO NOT watch the fireworks through the periscope.

DO NOT leave the periscope up any longer than you absolutely have to - it can be a radar magnet.

after your last shot leaves the tubes, rig for silent running and set your depth as deep as you dare go.

if possible reverse course and deploy 2 oe 3 decoys on the way down in the turn... drop one decoy at about 30 meters depth, drop the second decoy at about 70 meters depth and drop the third decoy at about 100 meters depth.

creep away at 2 knots or less.

follow the convoy - and repeat the process tomorrow night.

edit: one other thing... you are only going to sink 2 or 3 ships at a time by using this method... it will take a few days to make a few attacks, but in the end you will have probably pecked away at about half the convoy's sending all the largest boats to the bottom at least.

[robj250]

approach the convoy with stealth. at night if possible.

it is best to do this from about a 45 degree angle off the port or starboard bow ahead of the convoy.

when you have closed, very slowly, to within about 1500 meters. fire at the largest merchants within the convoy lanes.

fire at the furthest merchant first working your way to the closest so that you can time the impacts to be relatively close together so that when the first explosion takes place the convoy's evasive maneuvers will have hardly no time to throw off your remaining shots' solutions.

DO NOT watch the fireworks through the periscope.

DO NOT leave the periscope up any longer than you absolutely have to - it can be a radar magnet.

after your last shot leaves the tubes, rig for silent running and set your depth as deep as you dare go.

if possible reverse course and deploy 2 oe 3 decoys on the way down in the turn... drop one decoy at about 30 meters depth, drop the second decoy at about 70 meters depth and drop the third decoy at about 100 meters depth.

creep away at 2 knots or less.

follow the convoy - and repeat the process tomorrow night.

edit: one other thing... you are only going to sink 2 or 3 ships at a time by using this method... it will take a few days to make a few attacks, but in the end you will have probably pecked away at about half the convoy's sending all the largest boats to the bottom at least.

@GoldenRivet

I know that is the technique to use; however, what you may not know is that I make movies of my missions. Therefore, I need to use different tactics.

[Oberon]

Blow em' away with your deck gun? They're not that big....are they?

Do you use GWX? I've just had most of my upper deck shredded by an armed tugboat!! I wouldn't have taken it on but the bugger chanced upon me in shallow waters whilst I was lining up on a pyro ship and he started dropping ash cans, so I thought, well, he's only a rowing boat with a couple of machine guns and a pop gun up front.

Three dead, three injured and a blackened fore deck later the tug took a hit to his ammo storage and blew up pretty spectacularly before sinking like a stone. Unfortunately I then hit another F$£"*()$£"&*()king seamount on the way back to Wilhelmshaven and sunk.

Oberlt Elric seems to have an extreme death-wish...wherever he goes British Destroyers and geography seem to follow... :damn:

Anyway, I've learnt my lesson and will try to stick to my standard GWX doctrine...if it has a gun, avoid it like a case of crabs.

[KeptinCranky]

Take the time to look a the Flower's hull in the museum or ingame sometime, It's a nice rounded bathtub shape, guaranteed to have most impact torpedos bounce off at any angle... as to why you mag shots fail to explode, a flower corvette has a draft of 5 meters, if you set the running depth to 4 the eel will bounce off and sink. :D

apart from that, the trick to flower corvettes is to let them sink themselves, see my post in screenshots thread.

If you absolutely feel you have to sink an escorts, take out the most dangerous ones, a proper DD or black swan, leave the trawlers, tugs and flowers alone, they really not worth it.

[Jonathan]

Blow em' away with your deck gun? They're not that big....are they?
Do you use GWX? I've just had most of my upper deck shredded by an armed tugboat!! I wouldn't have taken it on but the bugger chanced upon me in shallow waters whilst I was lining up on a pyro ship and he started dropping ash cans, so I thought, well, he's only a rowing boat with a couple of machine guns and a pop gun up front.

Three dead, three injured and a blackened fore deck later the tug took a hit to his ammo storage and blew up pretty spectacularly before sinking like a stone. Unfortunately I then hit another F$£"*()$£"&*()king seamount on the way back to Wilhelmshaven and sunk.

Oberlt Elric seems to have an extreme death-wish...wherever he goes British Destroyers and geography seem to follow... :damn:

Anyway, I've learnt my lesson and will try to stick to my standard GWX doctrine...if it has a gun, avoid it like a case of crabs.

No I do not use GWX. I am running what I think they cal "stock" or "Vanilla" configs and installs of the game.

[robj250]

Take the time to look a the Flower's hull in the museum or ingame sometime, It's a nice rounded bathtub shape, guaranteed to have most impact torpedos bounce off at any angle... as to why you mag shots fail to explode, a flower corvette has a draft of 5 meters, if you set the running depth to 4 the eel will bounce off and sink. :D

apart from that, the trick to flower corvettes is to let them sink themselves, see my post in screenshots thread.

If you absolutely feel you have to sink an escorts, take out the most dangerous ones, a proper DD or black swan, leave the trawlers, tugs and flowers alone, they really not worth it.

I never looked into the museum for the Flower, but I picked up the drafts for all the ships from someone's post on subsim and have it in pdf format. In that ship chart it says the Flower's draft is 3.5. That is why I have been setting my mags at 4 m.

Next time I will set the mags at 5.5 m.

Thanks for letting me know that.:rock:

Rob

BTW, I'm using a heavily modded version of SH3, not GWX.

[KeptinCranky]

In that case I can't be sure about the draft thing, but the Hull shpae problem definitely applies, there's a few other ships with similar issues like the small tanker and to some degree the tugboat.

Any ship that has less than 2 meters of vertical hull before the bottom starts curving is a problem with impact eels for me, so I tend to go for the mag shots as well

[robj250]

In that case I can't be sure about the draft thing, but the Hull shpae problem definitely applies, there's a few other ships with similar issues like the small tanker and to some degree the tugboat.

Any ship that has less than 2 meters of vertical hull before the bottom starts curving is a problem with impact eels for me, so I tend to go for the mag shots as well

What about when the Atlantic winds get to be 15 m/s? It makes your conning tower visible sometimes.

How does that affect firing a mag TIII at a Flower in SH3 not GWX?

Rob

[KeptinCranky]

Yes, definitely, the Ship is riding up and down a lot and plunging into waves and whatnot so the eel might very well either run too deep, too shallow, detonate prematurely or miss completely.

I try not to engage anything in stormy weather but if I have to I leave the escorts entirely alone, they're far less effective in those sort of conditions, I try to go for the biggest ships with impact eels set fairly shallow, 4 meters or so, much better chance of hitting.

Interestingly enough, most of the people injured while serving on Flower Corvettes specifically during WWII didn't suffer from damage caused by enemy action but from broken bones due to heavy weather, those things were basically seaworthy but turned out to be a very unstable and uncomfortable ride during storms. :hmm:

[Oberon]

Flower corvettes would roll on wet grass IIRC

[robj250]

Take the time to look a the Flower's hull in the museum or ingame sometime, It's a nice rounded bathtub shape, guaranteed to have most impact torpedos bounce off at any angle... as to why you mag shots fail to explode, a flower corvette has a draft of 5 meters, if you set the running depth to 4 the eel will bounce off and sink. :D

apart from that, the trick to flower corvettes is to let them sink themselves, see my post in screenshots thread.

If you absolutely feel you have to sink an escorts, take out the most dangerous ones, a proper DD or black swan, leave the trawlers, tugs and flowers alone, they really not worth it.

@KeptinCranky
I took a look through the GWX Museum and the SH3 Museum and they both state that the draft of the Flower Corvette is "3.5 m" NOT 5m

Rob

BTW: I did not see a C2 or C3 Cargo ship, nor a T2 or Y3 Tanker listed.

[KeptinCranky]

Not every country has C2 and C3 ships...also in GWX they're called Medium merchant and Large Merchant respectively

[robj250]

I am now on a new mission heading for ET11. I was notified of a convoy when I was off the coast of Africa. The weather is terrible. On plotting the intercept, I figure it will be a daylight attack. Should I attack in the daylight, because my conning tower will be bobbing up and down in the waves.

Or, should I shadow and wait for nightfall.

Remember, I make movies of my missions.

Rob.

[deepboat]

I intercepted a convoy in the CF grid lightly escorted by 2 Black Swans and one corvette.I noticed that the Swans were riding unusually high in the water but not as much as the flower. It was literally floating on top of the water with it's prop turning but the ship itself wasn't even moving. How do you compute a solution requiring a positive depth? Aerial torp? I saved the pic with Ctl+ F11 but couldn't figure how to post it.:o

[robj250]

I intercepted a convoy in the CF grid lightly escorted by 2 Black Swans and one corvette.I noticed that the Swans were riding unusually high in the water but not as much as the flower. It was literally floating on top of the water with it's prop turning but the ship itself wasn't even moving. How do you compute a solution requiring a positive depth? Aerial torp? I saved the pic with Ctl+ F11 but couldn't figure how to post it.:o

Upload you picture to ImageShack and then put the link to that pic u uploaded in your subsim post. Use the forum link, you'll figure it out.

Your link would look something like this, but remember, your picture canot be any wider that the width of the subsim page.

http://imagenumber.imageshack.us/imagenumber/theirnumber/thepicturename.jpg

thats imagenumber.imageshack.us/imagenumber/theirnumber/yourpicturename.jpg

that's how you get it on this page, I think, but I think you have to put in front and afterwards.

Give it a try.

Rob

[Sailor Steve]

And now for something completely different: the reality.

1) Corvettes were indeed sunk by torpedoes, some of them almost certainly with impact pistols. This is also possible in the game, it just doesn't happen all the time.

2) In stormy weather it was difficult to attack anything. Whole convoys would sometimes turn into the wind and become stationary, using just enough power to mantain direction and position. The u-boats couldn't do anything about it, because torpedoes were just as useless in extremely heavy weather as deck guns.

3) Shooting corvettes with deck guns: In real life the corvette has pretty much the same gun as the u-boat, with one major difference: it takes quite a few 4" shells to put down even a 900-ton surface vessel, while a submarine is just waiting to sink. Even it one hit doesn't sink the u-boat, it will almost certainly turn it into a very poor surface ship.

"But if I surface behind him, he can't bring his gun to bear!" Nicholas Monsaratt recounted one time a u-boat tried this; the 40mm AA gun at the stern of the corvette promptly killed every German sailor who tried to get to their deck gun. The u-boat never had a chance.

[Jonathan]

And now for something completely different: the reality.

1) Corvettes were indeed sunk by torpedoes, some of them almost certainly with impact pistols. This is also possible in the game, it just doesn't happen all the time.

2) In stormy weather it was difficult to attack anything. Whole convoys would sometimes turn into the wind and become stationary, using just enough power to mantain direction and position. The u-boats couldn't do anything about it, because torpedoes were just as useless in extremely heavy weather as deck guns.

3) Shooting corvettes with deck guns: In real life the corvette has pretty much the same gun as the u-boat, with one major difference: it takes quite a few 4" shells to put down even a 900-ton surface vessel, while a submarine is just waiting to sink. Even it one hit doesn't sink the u-boat, it will almost certainly turn it into a very poor surface ship.

"But if I surface behind him, he can't bring his gun to bear!" Nicholas Monsaratt recounted one time a u-boat tried this; the 40mm AA gun at the stern of the corvette promptly killed every German sailor who tried to get to their deck gun. The u-boat never had a chance.

I think this just brings to light how really different real life is from this game. I mean that will all respect and honesty.This game is an enigma universe unto itself, and I enjoy it that way!

[Nerazzurri]

but its true though... i mean there may come a day when you are backed into a corner and have to take a shot at a flower corvette, but if thats the case you have already made a series of tactical and/or judgemental errors OR you just got caught way off guard.

under normal operations - the way i see it, and this is just my opinion - there is virtually no point in even taking that shot.

The object of the game is to find and sink the big ships... thats really all there is to it.

your sole purpose as a u-boat commander is to blockade England from vital war materials and supplies

you accomplish this objective by only one means - engage enemy shipping with your concentration of fire being directed at the ships which can carry the most numerous or the most vital of war goods.

this translates to sinking large cargo ships and tankers. flower corvettes and destroyers (in fact most warships) dont even make the list. an unharmed allied warship is in fact helping you accomplish your objective of depriving england of vital war materials. it helps you because as long as the warship is afloat - it consumes fuel, it consumes oil, it consumes manpower, it consumes armament. if you sink the inbound fuel, oil, manpower and armament faster than they are able to replace it... your side is winning.

I do agree with you, of course that is the way the game should be played - merchants are the targets.

However, to play devils advocate, you 'could' , make a case for spending a torpedo on an escort if it happens to present itself, rather than hunting it - if that was to be the modus operandi of the KM service, you would surely be depleting the number of escorts faster than they could be replaced. Thereby you would be placing a manufacturing burden on the Britain (let's face it, there's a limit to how many destroyers you can buy) that she unlikely to meet. Even less likely because a shortage of escorts would mean an easier job for the rest of the KM, or even you on your next patrol.

So although I agree that merchants should be our almost singular target (and that is the way I play), as that corresponds with historical reality, there is, I feel, a case to be made for those who would rather engage the escorts first.

But isn't that why this game is so good? It's so appealing to so many people, who all hold different views on playing it. Long live SH3! :rock:

[Jonathan]

I have always found that if I blow an escort/DD up with an eel, I willl not have that extra one when I need it to finish off a huge cargo or even a battleship. Discretion, in this case, is the better part of valor.

[robj250]

I am in an Atlantic storm and I just took out 2 ships in the convoy and then a J C Class destroyed came after me and I had to dive quickly but I did receive some damage. The torpedoes were set for megnetic depth for the ships.

Rob