Radar end 1942?

[Tahrn80]

Hello all...

I use GW and SH3 commander.

Last week end, I set up a carrer starting in dec 1942.
In the first convoy I picked, night, no moon, calm sea (so ideal conditions :D), one escort detected me at a distance of around 5000 meters.

I had no radar detection device installed, but it is the only hypothesis I have.
However, I have never noticed radar so early.

Am I wrong? Is it due to some other thing?

[ronbrewer]

Possibly the calm sea gave you away depending on your speed. Rough seas would allow you to get in closer on the surface.

With calm seas I would go to periscope depth before getting too close to escorts, even at night. No need to take chances with the early radar units.

[tycho102]

Yeah, they'll pick you up at 12-15km if you're using your radio or radar, and over 10km if they are using radar.

At 5km, you were spotted.

[NeonSamurai]

Personaly ive always thought the AI destroyers tend to pick your boat up far too soon at night, especialy when there is little to no moon, or in fog.

Of course they also tend to cheat, ive noticed they tend to be magneticly attracted to my boat even though they obviously havent detected me. Like today when i was stalking a convoy, christmas 1939. one of the destroyers suddenly made a beeline to me even though i could barely see him myself with binocs, he followed behind me for about 5 hours, well with in gun range, but zigzagging and neither shooting at me nor having me in his spotlight (i was running on the surface). Every time I changed course he matched it but he never fired a shot. Eventualy he gave up after i got far enough from the convoy. He maintained about 1200-2000m distance the entire time.

[johan_d]

They have hydrophones also..

[NeonSamurai]

Hydrophones are useless on the surface vs surface contacts, especialy at speed. Wave action and a bunch of other environmental factors pretty much nullify hydrophone detection.

[panthercules]

Of course, visual spotting at that range might have been possible depending upon your speed and aspect to the escort (bow-on vs side-on) (calm sea would have increased your chances of being spotted as compared to somewhat rougher seas, as pointed out above). However, my bet would be that you woul probably have been spotted by their radar at that range or further in any event. I started having problems with escorts finding me on the surface even in the densest fog from about mid-1942 onward, and based on the research I did it seems likely that at least some of the escorts in any given convoy would have had radar by late 1942, so surface attacks on convoys seem to be pretty much out of the question by then.

Good luck and good hunting