Convoys

[Hotspur1337]

I'm now at the point in the war where single ships are few, and most traffic is in convoys. I'm having a really hard time attacking convoys and getting away with it.

I fire my salvo then do an about face and dive, but the escorts always find me and depth charge me until I'm dead.

I travel at ahead slow, and rig silent running.

Any tips on tactics would be appreciated.

[Osmium Steele]

There are countless threads on this subject. Search the forum for evasion, evading, avoiding, sonar, etc. and be ready to overwhelmed.

Things to remember:

1. Depth is life. Avoid attacking in shallows if escorts may be involved.
2. Learn how to set the # of revolutions lower than silent running. I just learned this one today. Been trying to figure it out on my own. Finally gave up and searched the forum. (search: make turns)
3. Small rudder inputs, 5-10 deg. do not slow your boat, and, anecdotally, seem to be more effective at putting distance between you and your DDs.
4. Elite crews are probably going to kill you anyway. :arrgh!:

[Pisces]

Keep flank or fast speed setting until you are deep. It's going to take ages getting deep at 1 or 2 knots.

And no need to turn away from the convoy when you go deep. Use it as cover against DDs. Only turn about when you intend to stay on the surface while you sprint away.

[frau kaleun]

And no need to turn away from the convoy when you go deep. Use it as cover against DDs. Only turn about when you intend to stay on the surface while you sprint away.

True, if you are going to dive anyway, do so on a course that will put under the convoy, just be careful that it doesn't take you underneath the positions of the ships you are likely to have hit - being submerged is not a benefit if a sinking ship lands on top of you!

I have had success making my approach towards one of the forward corners of a convoy, firing off all my shots, then diving and turning on a course that takes me underneath the convoy. From there I just let the rest of it pass overhead. By the time they clear my position the escorts usually have no clue where I am and I am too deep for depth charges to be of much concern even if they figure it out. At least early in the war.

[Fish In The Water]

And no need to turn away from the convoy when you go deep. Use it as cover against DDs.

It may sound strange but it's true...

Often the safest place for the fox is directly under the chicken coop. Makes for great cover. :yep:

[reignofdeath]

I'm now at the point in the war where single ships are few, and most traffic is in convoys. I'm having a really hard time attacking convoys and getting away with it.

I fire my salvo then do an about face and dive, but the escorts always find me and depth charge me until I'm dead.

I travel at ahead slow, and rig silent running.

Any tips on tactics would be appreciated.

I have not played too far into the war yet but I can give you some general convoy tips.

When you spot one, stay at max distance and try to manually observe it until nightfall, depending on year, you can make a much nicer and cleaner attack at night.

Use range to your advantage, if you plan on pulling a hit and run, fire your torpedoes from at least 3km out if possible and on slow settings, this gives you time to (Especially if your on the surface) sprint away to come back later for a second round.

DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT GET GREEDY! The idea of fighting a convoy is sort of like guerilla tactics, hit and run, hit and run, hit and run. Just because you see 10 tankers doesn't mean you can stick around, the destroyers will get you. You always can find the target later.

If you must like FK and Pisces said, if you are trying to speed away, try diving into the convoy at flank and then turing to its 180 and silent running when you're deep enough, its a nasty trick to use all of the convoy's ships as a screen.

Another tactic to help with using the convoy as a screen is to infiltrate and fire from inside the convoy you can usually poke your sub out through the back corner if you have a 4 destroyer screen.

The main thing however is being greedy, that has killed me more than once, another huge thing with convoys is observation. Let me tell you a story about the latest convoy I had in my latest patrol, I got report of a medium convoy and moved to intercept. I got there about an houre before them and found they changed course (by submerging and listening to hydrophones) so I sped off in their direction a few hours later I made contact. Now this is where the boys are seperated from the men, the boys want to rush in as soon as they see and do a quick scope of everything. The men (and women :) ) wait, they stay back and observe the convoy maybe for days at a time before they make their move.

[I quote probably the truest short story that could relate to submarines like this in a sense. There was a bull and his young son standing on a hill overlooking a flock of female cows, the son said to his father "Lets race down there and **ck one of the heffers" the father replied "Or we can calmly walk down there and **ck them all"... this should be your philosphy when attacking a convoy of almost anysize, save unescorted ones.]

I decided to sit back and wait and observe, seeing as how I had to any ways since I had manual targeting on with WO assistance. So I ID'd all of my targets and all ships and took a look at the map, I then picked out the 2 most valuable targets that were in a row and decided to attack them. Once night came, I sped ahead of the convoy about a kilometer or so, and turned perpindicular to their course at about 4.5km out. I got my solution for the inner most ship of the 2 I picked and set my scope on gyro, the bow passed the crosshair, fire one, the middle passed it, fire 2. The same once the outership (on my side) passed my crosshair. I then, being on the surface, kicked it to ahead flank in the convoys course direction. I got 3 hits, and 1 miss, by the time they went off, I was 4 or 5 km ahead of the convoy (They were moving at 6 knots) Their searchlights didnt even spot me, I decided to sprint further ahead and set up for a second attack. By the time I set up, I found one ship sunk and one was crippled to be moving at 2 knots, so I picked the next 2 most valuable targets right next to eachother and waited. Once they crossed my hairs, I fired and sped ahead. I did this from 11pm until 3 am and bagged almostt 10 ships without having a single depthcharge dropped on me, the escorts couldn't find me.

As others have said though, if the escorts do find you, run deep, as deep as you can get, sure they can reach you at 200m, but from the time the charges drop to when they actually make it to you, you have plenty of room from them by then.

Also to truly run silent, click silent running and switch your speed dial to the knot meter (is that the technical name??) and select 2 knots, this sets you too 100 rpms, which is needed for true silent running. However if you have h.sie's hardcode fixes then when you click silent running this will happen. Also, 5 to 10 degree long curving S's are a big thing to do also, maximum speed with almost maximum side to side movement.

Another key is when you hear a DD on the hydros ramp up speed kick it to flank until the last DD blows up then set it back down to 2 knots again, wash rinse and repeat. Hope this helps!! :salute:

[Missing Name]

Bad weather may make it hard to attack (let alone see), but it's also one of the best covers you can get. You can literally run into the escorts on the surface and they sometimes won't notice. RADAR will destroy this, though.


[I quote probably the truest short story that could relate to submarines like this in a sense. There was a bull and his young son standing on a hill overlooking a flock of female cows, the son said to his father "Lets race down there and **ck one of the heifers" the father replied "Or we can calmly walk down there and **ck them all"... this should be your philosophy when attacking a convoy of almost any size, save unescorted ones.]

There have never been truer words. Keep your distance and be patient. Advice I should learn from... MAN THE DECK GUN!

[sublynx]

Some very good advice given in previous answers:agree:

I have one point to add. One thing that helped me a lot, was realizing that when my radioman shouts "wasserbomben!", it does not necessarily mean that the depth charges are anywhere close to the boat. When I heard "wasserbomben!" I always put on flank speed and made a hard 90 degree turn - and thus gave my position away to any destroyer listening.:gulp:

Now I keep listening to the hydrophones myself and try to find out if the destroyer is actually over me. If the hydrophone bearing moves quickly, even so quickly that I lose the destroyer's position, he's close and I have to be ready for flank speed. If he's close, you may hear his engine screws in the Zentrale room (F2 room) too. Many times they just waste depth charges having really no clue at all where I am. No need to panic if you know there are no destroyers dangerously close to you. Just keep on going silently.:lurk:

The depth charges need to be very close to you to damage you. These thoughts apply from 1939 to March 1942. I have only played that time period yet. I haven't really played vanilla SH3 either, only GWX.:ahoy:

[Snestorm]

Beware. In '42 things change drasticaly.
Things that "always worked", begin to stop working.

On my last patrol we evaded 2 escorts while crawling down to 98 meters at silent speed.
That's about 30 minutes for a IXB or IXC.

We were doing very well and were filled with confidence, until 3 more escorts came onto the scene. One can't keep their nose and tail pointed in 4 directions. Once we lost the ability to present a norrow aspect, it was all their game. Luckily, we managed to escape and survive this time, but eventualy we probably won't.

There is no guaranteed formula (other than modding a "super-boat". No thanks).
Just keep your head, think of the consequences, and give it your best.

Hint: Provided you are not making repairs or loading torpedoes, and you are turning less than 100 RPMs, you do not need to set "silent running" to reap it's benefits.

[sharkbit]

Impatience and greed will kill you in this game.

Later in the war, from mid-late '42 onward, night surface attacks become more and more difficult. The escorts are starting to have radar and the radar improves over time. It becomes extremely difficult to penetrate the screen. Daylight submerged attacks against the convoy become a better option most of the time. Even that becomes difficult with sonar improving, not to mention the escorts are just getting better.
In either case,submerged or surfaced, being forced to shoot from outside the screen happens more and more which means longer ranged shots than you may be used to.

:)

[Hotspur1337]

Gee, thanks everyone. I never thought of diving under the convoy instead of coming about and running.

Last night I had a Flower Class pass by me while I was waiting for the convoy to come into position. So, I decided to take him out. I sent three torpedoes, and as soon as the first hit him he steered towards me, but then he sunk. The two other torpedoes than went on to take out a cargo ship way over on the other side of the convoy. Heh. Then I got away.

I'm sailing a Type VII/B.

How deep would be considered desirable?

[maillemaker]

Depth, depth, depth.

I still haven't made it past '44 with dead is dead.

But later in the war, I find that unless you have 100% hull integrity so that you can dive to 200+ meters, don't bother attacking. Never attack with less than 300 meters under the keel. You must attack and then go as deep as you can and then run silent. As was said, you'll have to manually adjust your RPMs to be less than 90. Just clicking "slow" won't do it.

Make sure you are on silent running.

Steve

[sharkbit]

Gee, thanks everyone. I never thought of diving under the convoy instead of coming about and running.

Last night I had a Flower Class pass by me while I was waiting for the convoy to come into position. So, I decided to take him out. I sent three torpedoes, and as soon as the first hit him he steered towards me, but then he sunk. The two other torpedoes than went on to take out a cargo ship way over on the other side of the convoy. Heh. Then I got away.




Waste of eels. You got lucky with the added bonus of a cargo ship but that was lucky.

If the escort was the only escort and you could have the convoy all to yourself after the escort sinks, take advantage of it. If he has friends with him, they are going to be hunting you and you are going to be dodging them instead of sending tonnage to the bottom in the form of cargo ships/tankers.

Later in the war with more and better escorts, shooting escorts is a complete waste and more than likely you're tugging on the tiger's whiskers.

:)

[frau kaleun]

Gee, thanks everyone. I never thought of diving under the convoy instead of coming about and running.

Wait until the first time you slip past the escorts and take all your shot from inside the convoy, and then dive. Nothing like trying to set up your shots while a couple dozen other ships are coming in your general direction.

And if you ever feel like having a mini heart attack, do that and then TAB your 'scope/UZO view to 'zoom' and then forget that you zoomed. The first time you scan around to check on the rest of the convoy and momentarily think you're about to be run over is quite the attention-getter. :D

[sharkbit]

And if you ever feel like having a mini heart attack, do that and then TAB your 'scope/UZO view to 'zoom' and then forget that you zoomed. The first time you scan around to check on the rest of the convoy and momentarily think you're about to be run over is quite the attention-getter. :D

Even worse is when you are looking thru your scope while you're in the midst of the convoy submerged and a ship fills the field of view and you realize that you ARE NOT zoomed in with your scope. :o
Then there is no thinking you may get run over-you will get run over.

:)

[reignofdeath]

Gee, thanks everyone. I never thought of diving under the convoy instead of coming about and running.

Last night I had a Flower Class pass by me while I was waiting for the convoy to come into position. So, I decided to take him out. I sent three torpedoes, and as soon as the first hit him he steered towards me, but then he sunk. The two other torpedoes than went on to take out a cargo ship way over on the other side of the convoy. Heh. Then I got away.

I'm sailing a Type VII/B.

How deep would be considered desirable?

Early war, 200 M should be sufficient, late war, as deep as you dare to take her. Just remember the more damage you take, the less deep you can go without severely crushing.

As to going into the convoy, I've used it a few times, but I prefer outside shots from about 4km or 5km. Why?? Like I stated before, if I set my torpedos to slow, I can be a good few km ahead of the convoy before they even impact, which is good, because thats not where theyre looking.

And like the other person posted, and I said, greed will kill you. A single ship is a quick meal to fill your hunger right away, a convoy is a 3 course meal for breakfast lunch and dinner that you can leave in the fridge for a day or so. If when your on your approach to set up attack, if anything smells fishy, just bug out and reaquire later.

[Fish In The Water]

Gee, thanks everyone. I never thought of diving under the convoy instead of coming about and running.

If the escorts get real aggressive, I'll even take it a step further and try 'shadowing' the larger merchants in the center of the convoy. That way you can use the noise from their screws and the disturbance of their wake for extra cover. Plus it's pretty hard to get depth charged if you're directly under a large tanker. :yep:

[thegreattriscuit]

So, not meaning to hijack here, but I'm still learning the art of the convoy attack myself... and have just completed one pass, and would like some feedback...

so, this is a slow mover (6kts) with more than a dozen ships, and im' in a IXD, so plenty easy to sprint around it and put myself right in front... I figured I'd sit right in their path, submerged, with engines off (I'll have to look more into this 'setting the turns' business...), silent running, and even dropped my scope, and wait for them to get right on top of me so I could quickly pop up, dump all my tubes, and then GTFO...

Except when the first escort was passing me, everything went bad... my little meter went red, and suddenly people are screaming about getting pinged... thankfully I only had it on 8x and was able to crash and avoid the Depth charges, and in so doing wind up right where I wanted to be anyway and take a moment to sink 3 ships (inc. one of the escorts).

I was a shade deeper the parascope depth (12 or 15 m, I believe) with my scopes at around 6 or 7m (to avoid the ~5m draft of the escorts) in the middle of the night and perfect glassy waters. How did I get detected? Is it just assumed that if they're that close, one of my sailors is going to fart too loud and they'll pick it up in their hydrophones or something? Or is it "just one of those things"? Or was it a fluke and I should be able to get away with it just fine in the future? (by the way, I'm really not sure how close he was... <100m probably... i was at the nav map, at 8x, and was totally convinced I had nothing to worry about, so I wasn't really even watching his 'hydrophone line'...

And, related to the same scenario, I'm in the process of sprinting around them, and I can detect the radar from the escorts... they don't appear to have seen me yet, since they haven't sprinted up to kill me... and I'm considering running in close to pull one of them off and see if I can take him out so I don't have to worry later... is this worthwile at all? will all his friends come to the party, or just him, you think?

[sublynx]

thankfully I only had it on 8x ... How did I get detected?

Time compression is a big no no when the enemy is near. TC somehow makes you more easy to be spotted.

[desirableroasted]

If the escorts get real aggressive, I'll even take it a step further and try 'shadowing' the larger merchants in the center of the convoy. That way you can use the noise from their screws and the disturbance of their wake for extra cover. Plus it's pretty hard to get depth charged if you're directly under a large tanker. :yep:

Nice in theory, but the AI escorts do not hear other AI ships.

"Lurking" under a large merchant is also a good idea, in theory, but how are you planning on keeping station under a zig-zagging merchant? And so what if you managed to? The escorts would still know where you are, so you would end up sailing across the Atlantic like that, without ever escaping.

[desirableroasted]

So, not meaning to hijack here, but I'm still learning the art of the convoy attack myself... and have just completed one pass, and would like some feedback...


No offense, but I would take a long, prayerful look at the GWX manual's section on convoy attacks (even if you are not using GWX), and then I would dial my clock back to 1939-1940 and practice, practice, practice.

BTW, running TC does not make you easier to detect, but it makes reacting to detection much harder. Do the math... do you want 2 minutes to react to an escort turning to you, or do you want 15 seconds? If you want 15 seconds, by all means stay with 8X.

[Osmium Steele]

I was a shade deeper the parascope depth (12 or 15 m, I believe) with my scopes at around 6 or 7m (to avoid the ~5m draft of the escorts) in the middle of the night and perfect glassy waters. How did I get detected? Is it just assumed that if they're that close, one of my sailors is going to fart too loud and they'll pick it up in their hydrophones or something?

I've had that happen in vanilla. Interestingly enough, not in GWX, yet.

Remember that the hemispherical detection area to the front of the destroyer, when you select the escort on your map screen, extends downward as well. If you are that close to the escort, do not be surprised if you are detected. Depth is Life.

IRL, an escort's sonarman could detect their own screw noise reflected off underwater structures at very close range. If that underwater structure (your boat) is in open water, the sonarman might just wonder what the heck is under their ship all of a sudden.

I'm not saying this is modelled in SH3, I don't know, it is just how I rationalize such situations in game.

[thegreattriscuit]

heck, osmium, why not? I'll buy "rotor echo" over "crew farts", any day.

guess that means I should get out the way of that Black Swan Class that pointed right at me 900m from my bow...

And I'm sure you're right about the manual... I *HAVE* read through it, but it was many moons ago... I'll have to look through it again someday soon.

And I have my own frustrations with the early war, but those are deserving of their own thread, which I'll create when I get home from work, probably... in the mean time, thanks for the input guys.

[Pisces]

There could very well be a minimum distance while underwater that is going to make you detected no matter what precautions you make. But it might also have been your periscope sticking out of the surface for just a small moment. Difficult to say exactly what happend. All you can do is react appropriately and get away.

[Fish In The Water]

"Lurking" under a large merchant is also a good idea, in theory, but how are you planning on keeping station under a zig-zagging merchant?

It's only intended to be a temporary tactic. If the escorts are already 'on top of you' it provides a respite while you plan your next move. Try tracking their search pattern and then break when they're at the furthest point in the arc.

[Snestorm]

Even worse is when you are looking thru your scope while you're in the midst of the convoy submerged and a ship fills the field of view and you realize that you ARE NOT zoomed in with your scope. :o
Then there is no thinking you may get run over-you will get run over.

:)

You just hit on my biggest SH3 fear.