Question on historic priorities

[Commander Gizmo]

When I'm hunting a convoy in the first 2 years it is often difficult to decide whether to take out the escorts and have a field day with the cargo, or just hit the cargo for max tonnage.

Did the uboat captain/crew get more recognition for sinking warships or cargo?
Historically, could it really make a dent in the British navy to sink the destroyer escorts whenever possible rather than focusing on the cargo?
Which was the main focus at the time?

[richardphat]

Uboot priority was to sink merchant ship or sometime capital warship. And about the manual recognition , im not sure

[Commander Gizmo]

Thanks for the quick answers. Why were destroyers not seen as worthy targets?

I actually meant recognition as in reknown, fame, congrats.

[U-46 Commander]

Becuase the transports were carrying the badly needed war supplies for Britian. These were top priority to be sunk. Destroyers were to be left alone unless detected and then you could sink them.

[richardphat]

Hmm let me say this and it might asnwer to your question. The only way UK to survive during german threat was convoy coming from america or from other countries. So the more merchant ship you sink, the weaker UK is...... so sinking dd wont help the german winning the war but sinking the merchant convoy for UK.........
And in game simulation i would recomment merchant too since they are slow, their tonnage is more important than a simple DD with 1k of tons. While DD is too risky and you might bring the end to your crew and sub

[kylania]

The entire point of the Battle of the Atlantic was to stop material shipping. Every ship destroyed equaled far more than it's tonnage in supplies used for the war. A lost destroyer did nothing to stop the tide of war, since it was easily replaced. A lost merchant ship filled to the mast with war supplies was worth far more.

Here's a quote from an "Instructional Handbook" the American's had during the war as quoted in Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days (page 423) which can help explain how much each merchant ship was "worth" beyond just it's tonnage.


If a U-boat sinks two 6,000 ton ships and one 3,000 ton tanker, here is a typical list of the sort of losses we should incur: 42 tanks, 8 6-inch howitzers, 88 25-pounder guns, 40 40-mm guns, 24 armored patrol vehicles, 50 Bren guns or self-propelled gun mountains, 5,210 tons of munitions, 600 rifles, 428 tons of tank accessories, 2,000 tons of rations and 1,000 drums of petrol. Just think what we could have done with that lot, if the three ships had reached port safely! To inflict similar losses by air-raid the enemy would have to fly 3,000 sorties!


As some commanders showed, sinking the really big targets (HMS Hood, HMS Royal Oak, HMS Barham) did get them recognition, but a destroyer wouldn't gain them much notoriety.

[Commander Gizmo]

That's kinda what I was thinking. Good to know the way they thought back then. I think I'll still hit the escorts on calm days when I have plenty of deck gun ammo. I am a pretty good shot (~90%) even in GWX.

[richardphat]

Good as long as you enjoy it and play with cautious!:up:

[kylania]

That's kinda what I was thinking. Good to know the way they thought back then. I think I'll still hit the escorts on calm days when I have plenty of deck gun ammo. I am a pretty good shot (~90%) even in GWX.

If you run into a convoy situation with limited escorts, by all means, take out the destroyers and than have at the merchants at your leisure! I tried that tonight, but unfortunately didn't look close enough. There was a trailing escort I didn't see till I'd begun my attack and one of the ships in the middle was a Southampton Cruiser! Bad time to try a surface attack! hehe

[Steeltrap]

One thing the sim does poorly is replicate just how difficult a target an escort was. The following factors are relevant:

- they're relatively small targets (especially something like a Flower class corvette), meaning your solution needs to be more accurate.
- they have shallow drafts.
- they have 'proper' lookouts, so the chance of your torp (assuming it's steam) being detected is greater, and they have a greater capacity to evade once the torp is detected.
- they don't follow a simple course like the main body of the convoy. Historically, they tended to zig-zag within their sector of the escort screen.
- you don't really want to get too close to an escort if possible, and firing from longer range means you're even less likely to hit what is already, for the reasons stated above, a difficult target.

I've always found the fact that people talk of "killing all the escorts" then sinking the whole convoy an indication of how this factor is poorly handled. That's not to say subs wouldn't sink an escort under the right circumstances, but they generally avoided them. Note that the most effective maulings of convoys were done despite the escort, not as a result of sinking them....

[Erich dem Roten]

I'd imagine sinking a DD or DE maybe got you a nod or two from fellow captains if you got back to port and pulled your boat out of a nasty situation, but if you made a habit of it you'd probably find your crew hiding in the fields. The supply line to England and Russia was quite tenuous for a long time, and merchants didn't drop depth charges.

[Commander Gizmo]

My crew must hate me. I have been known to lure a DD at just the right moment by going flank with him at my rear. As soon as he start's his run, an torpedo suddenly explodes under his keel. I find them much easier to hit when I know exactly where they are going to be next.

Of course that tactic doesn't work when they get smarter later in the war, but the first 2 years there are plenty of green crews and daft commanders to fall for my ploy.

[iambecomelife]

I never try to replicate this tactic in career mode. Historically, the Germans only attempted to destroy a convoy's escort screen on one occasion. I can't remember the convoy designation, but I do recall it wasn't a success. Although the escorts suffered 2-3 losses the U-Boats suffered too, and nearly all the merchantmen survived.