What would you do?

[KeptinCranky]

OK, here's the deal:
time: september 1940, just after sundown
place: Grid AK01
Sub: type VIIC
5 G7a torpedoes in the tubes, no reserves, 180 rounds of HE ammo for the Deckgun
GWX 3

This is what I ran into, the escort is a side-guard, the freighter is the third one in the closest row of the convoy, speed is reported as 10 knots
also note the weather report.

http://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/iamges/cha1.JPGhttp://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/images/cha1.jpg

This is the view from the Binos. there's an estimated 70.000 GRT in view, and there's more in that convoy. I have 5 eels.

How would you handle this?

http://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/iamges/cha2.JPGhttp://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/images/cha2.jpg

As an additional challenge:
There's 7 (maybe 8) ships visible in the screenie, can you name the types,?
from left to right. give it a go :up:

I'll post my approach and results later....

[von hally]

It still looks a bit light out there!!!

shadow untill nightfall would be my advice.....although it is 1940....those escorts are still relatively wet behind the ears:up:

[KeptinCranky]

That 's because the convoy is backgrounded by the last bit of setting sun, my sub is against a darker background from their point of view. I also know from an earlier attack on a single ship that there won't be any moon fot the entire night:salute:

Any darker and the screenie would just show black on black :D

[Brag]

There is only one thing you can do: get ahead of the convoy and Attack!!!

[von hally]

true mate...your sillhoette will be hard to spot in a moonless night.

i would set depth at 7m-decks awash....just to be cautious:D

btw.....wish i could understand written german....i play german voices but english text...but your screenies look the real deal:up:

[Laufen zum Ziel]

If there is only one defender I would get ahead and set up a solution on the escourt.

I would then surface and finish the merchants if they are not armed.

[KeptinCranky]

Brag, YES :arrgh!: of course :)

Von hally, yes, that's what I'm doing in that picture, and that's also how I intended to attack but for one minor problem,

which brings me to

Laufen, there's 3 confirmed escorts, probably 4, a black swan out front, probably some corvette in the rear, the closest is a flower, that don't worry me.
But have a good look at the binoc pic, it'll show why I'm hesitant to go in on the surface, 2nd ship from the right.... :o

[cawimmer430]

Photon torpedoes, full spread. :yeah:

[Damo]

But have a good look at the binoc pic, it'll show why I'm hesitant to go in on the surface, 2nd ship from the right.... :o

Rodney or Nelson? A guess from my limited knowledge...

[KeptinCranky]

Yes, Indeed, Nelson, as it turned out....

Now I have a few options; as cawimmer says, full spread, and don't I wish I had photon torpedoes :hmmm:

This will, if it hits right, sink the Nelson.
submerged, I won't get closer than 3 or 4 km to take the shot. but for a 4 eel spread that should be close enough.
Decks awash with the Nelson right in the middle of the convoy, 5km is about as close as I can get. By then I will have the Flower corvette about 2 km away at 270degrees , this is close but not too close, even decks awash at slow speed it probably wont spot me. Escaping will be a bit more difficult though. because to get out I'd have to make a hard turn and get out at flank speed. this will get me spotted before my eels hit..

There are however at least 2 T3 tankers in this convoy, so I'd like to take at least one and preferably both down with the Nelson.

Now, keeping in mind that through GWX testing I know exactly where to hit the Nelson to take her down with two or even one eel, that means I have two forward and one rear tube left for sinking tankers

The trouble is, if I try for the tankers I will either hit one of those, or Nelson first, meaning the other ships will start zigzagging, making the hits less ideally placed, or even miss.

I could of course do my standard trick in this sort of scenario and aim for the Nelson, then the ship next to it, one row closer, and then the ship next to that. This will guarantee almost simultaneous hits, so they won't be able to evade. I can then save the rear torpedo for my escape. I might need it to blow up the Flower if it gets frisky.

The problem here is that one of those targets is a small tanker. I hate those, they're nearly as difficult to sink as a passenger/cargo because of their hull shape and shallow draft, this will mess up impact eels, and i don't like to use magnetics until 1941 because of malfunctions, using them for the Nelson is gamble enough, but with BBs you sort of have to.

I'm also considering blowing up the Flower from about 3km away, then fleeing from any investigating escorts, then shadowing the convoy until they stop zigzagging, then go in and sink 1 tanker with 1 eel. bug out again, wait again, sink another tanker with 1 eel. then for the final insult I sink the Nelson and head home to st. Naz.

I reckon I can make 4 attacks in one night I have about 10 hours of darkness to use....

Now, I've tried all of these before with varying degrees of success. So can anyone come up with something different?

[Patkins1983]

I would look to put a couple in that battleship, the escorts are worthless when you have something that big sitting there.

Maybe you could save the patrol and do one thing, if you arent happy you can always reload and try something else. I know its not strictly in keeping with the game but you could use the save to try out alternative ideas before doing it for real.

[Feuer Frei!]

true mate...your sillhoette will be hard to spot in a moonless night.

i would set depth at 7m-decks awash....just to be cautious:D

btw.....wish i could understand written german....i play german voices but english text...but your screenies look the real deal:up:

Windgeschwindigkeit 0 Meter pro sekunde (wind speed 0 mtrs per second),
Der Wind kommt aus 72 (the wind is coming from 72)
Wetterbericht klar (weather report clear)
Niederschlag kein (downpour none) Note: directly translated, its not always possible to directly translate german into english word for word otherwise it may not make sense, as in this case with downpour lol
Sicht Gute Sicht (View Good View)

so, looks like the weather is certainly good for attacking :salute:

[Schöneboom]

Guten Abend (oder Morgen), Keptin,

Looks like a good night for an attack! Provided the moon is not there, the enemy has no radar, and you do not make a big wake or lots of noise, it is amazing how close you can get to the escorts before they see you. I've done surface attacks by watching the escorts' patrol patterns, and to slip in between them undetected is the most exciting way!

It takes time to plan these attacks, and if you have the moon phase timetable for 1940, that can help, too. Let it get really dark, and keep asking your watch officer for the distance to nearest ship. He could save your life! Also, it always helps to shoot an eel right in the bow. At the very least the ship will slow down and drop out of the formation -- easy pickings later!

Gute Jagd!
Wayne

[KeptinCranky]

The moon is not an issue, found that out, the weather is good, maybe even too good. Radar is also not yet a problem, it's only 1940 and I'm working under the assumption they don't have any...

If they do, I'm going to find out how big a hole a 16" gun make sin a u-boat :o

What I did was approach carefully decks awash until I was about 2,5km from the outer row of merchies. fired 2 eels at Nelson, both aimed for aft of the bridge, then fired one eel at a medium tanker and one at a large merchant.
Then I did a quick 180 turn and made my egress.
This is where I messed up, I fired the stern tube at the flower corvette. Even though I hadn;t been detected yet.
Only I didn't time it right so the flower got sunk about 1 minute before the rest of the eels were to hit.
As a result they all started zigzagging, the eel for the tanker missed, the large merchant did get hit but not sunk right away. and only one eel managed to hit Nelson, but nowhere critical, right in the bow, which won't sink it.

They didn't detect me though so I got out safely. the large merchant I hit did get slowed down a bit and started lagging about 2km behind the convoy. I did shadow them for about a day to see if the straggler would drop back any further but it didn't, so having no torpedoes left I went on back to base.....

better luck next time, and I must remember not to mess up a well aimed salvo by getting over-eager. :shifty:

saving that close to a convoy is a sure way to get your save corrupted, so I don't get to retry... oh well, I'll find a similar convoy on my next patrol.

[Mopy]

Heh, I've seen a few threads talking about trying to sink multiple high priority targets. I think if that was me, I would have put two in the Nelson, and two in a tanker, shadowed the convoy, and return again later.

Not that I haven't done similar things, but I'm starting to realise that every time I try and be too clever with an attack, it always (and I mean always) seems to get me depth charged.

Shame you didn't have more torps. Bet you would have been straight back in if you did.

I always enjoy reading these on the forum, whether they work out in the end or not, so thanks for posting. Good fun :sunny:

[KeptinCranky]

Heh, I didn't have more eels, otherwise I would indeed have taken my time and made sure :D

also it was that skipper's 2nd patrol, so I had to be extra careful about not getting killed :-? Nearly died right at the end too, with the new st. Nazaire I didn't check where the minefield is supposed to be, got lucky .

I am now on the third patrol, with 2 successful attacks on a convoy in grid BE, have sunk 3 cargos 1 tanker and a DD that came poking around while I was finishing off a straggler.

[Pacific_Ace]

I see for sure a tanker in the lead and what appears to be Nelson behind and stbd to the tanker, and then a bunch of freighters which Im lousy at identifying. As a U-Boat skipper early in the war I would have left Nelson alone for these reasons: It is against policy to shoot warships in the presence of merchants, and even with 5 eels you have no guarantee of a sinking and with Nelson being so far interior its likely the fish will be spotted and Nelson will avoid anyway.
So I choose the tanker for two shots, another larger freighter for 2 shots and a small one for 1 shot. All shots are aimed to at least disable the vessels so that if I dont get a sinking I can go to guns after taking my medicine and the DD's leave.

[von hally]

You live to fight another day Keptin...thats my problem sometimes too.......pushing my luck!!!....theres times i slide into the zentral from the coning tower and darent say to the crew how close i let some escort or dd get to us because of my greed :haha::haha::haha:

:up:

[Torvald Von Mansee]

I would have aimed all four bow fish at the Nelson, dove to 160 M, and gone away on silent running. That stern torp would have to wait.

[Zilch]

Cool scenario...I probably would have done 2 or 3 at Nelson, and another 1 or 2 at a choice tanker and take her deep to evade and listen for effect with hydrophones. I'd save the rear tube for whichever didn't sink properly (or quickly enough.) That way, as mentioned earlier by others, you'd at least slow them down enough to separate them from the convoy. You could take your pick of which deserved a torp (definitely Nelson, if both survive initial attack) and gun the tanker later if needed.

That's me...maybe not a "proper" approach but if I saw a battlewagon I couldn't just let it go. We see merchants on the seas all the time. They're officially a priority, granted, but the rarity of battleships makes them interesting targets.

[popcorn2721]

Call me crazy but in that situation I certainly would get in front of that convoy and shut everything down, running silent so your within say 700metres (just keep your scope down and follow with sonar, you wont be detected with all the other noise around you), set your solution from the map first with a good spread so your hitting the front of the vessel and then aiming for the munitions in the rear third of the ship. Then pop your parascope up when the Nelson is @ 353-355 degrees and fire when shes around 358 (i seem to get better contact detonations like this). Those two torpedoes should take her to the locker... Next (this is where I deviate from most of the other Calhouns here) I surface the boat and hit full flank with 3 men on the deck gun and one watch officer so I can get accurate ranging information. Id your escorts and try to keep the other larger merchants between you and them. Remember your accelerating quickly and take this into account as well. Pummel them with the deck gun and save your torpedoes while running out ahead of the convoy... after you've sank the escorts, you can as they say behave like a "wolf in a chicken coup". :arrgh!:

[KeptinCranky]

Well, just saw this from the subsim meet :O:

Popcorn, I'm sorry mate, but at my realism options don't allow for munitions locker/magazine shots easily. but as stated, I know how to sink her with one fish.

but no deckgunning, that would be silly, I'd like to keep it historically plausible, just my style y'know :|\\

[popcorn2721]

Well, just saw this from the subsim meet :O:

Popcorn, I'm sorry mate, but at my realism options don't allow for munitions locker/magazine shots easily. but as stated, I know how to sink her with one fish.

but no deckgunning, that would be silly, I'd like to keep it historically plausible, just my style y'know :|\\
I play mostly @ 94% ... sometimes I turn on the external cam so I can get some screen shots. I understand that munition and boiler shots are rough, that's why I suggested making the first hole in the front of the ship. I agree one shot could take her down, but I used two on this one (even though I took this pic when I was thinking of shooting all four at her and getting the hell out of there). I felt like the margin of error could be too large to overlook the need for the second torpedo.
The deck gun though, thats just my style with just about everything... let me go in with guns blazin'
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a400/popcorn2721/hmsnelson.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a400/popcorn2721/goinunder.jpg

Having said that, here is a pic of me sinking the Nelson with a munitions shot... it was broad daylight out and I surfaced to fight the escort's. My deck crew ended up wasted after a lucky shot so I had to dive. Good luck with that brother.:rotfl2:

[Snestorm]

Thinking realisticly, and considering that english capital ships had radar in 1940 (That's how HMS Dorsetshire (SP?) shadowed KM Bismarck and KM Prinz Eugen without being detected), I would lean toward a submerged attack. All 4 bow tubes at HMS Nelson. Oh, 14 inch guns don't make holes in uboats. They make holes in the ocean where a uboat used to be.
IJN = 18 inch. USN = 16 inch. KM = 15 inch. RN = 14 inch. Keep in mind that a battleship also carries a secondary battery of many, many 5 inch guns. Thats more than enough to handle light targets, like us. With radar tied into the fire control system - Think dead.