In my last career in a Type XXI in Apr '44, received a contact report of a convoy North of Scotland...

So I moved in for the kill, picked out a Victory ship. Fired two ladders at the convoy, hoping just one would hit them. I got impatient so I reverted back to straight-run eels.:nope:

Fired two of them at the Victory ship, and what do you know? They're both duds!
I think the rough seas messed up the magnetic pistols so I cut my losses and fired two Zaunkönigs at their escorts. :arrgh!:

Bad idea... 60 years later divers found U-2513 under 163 meters of water... :cry:

After a few near fatal encounters with escorts in '44, I completely abandoned convoy attacks. I'm still with my good old IX/C, constantly harassed by aircrafts and destroyers, spending my days going deep and slow, only sticking my schnorkel out once or twice a day.

I thought that this period of war will be boring, but it's not. Actualy I'm having a good time.

My first priority is pure survival, and I live for those rare moments when I pick up a faint sound of a lonely merchant, when the hunted becomes hunter once again.

Without people like Prien, Kretchmeer, and Schepke the u-Boats would not have been very effective at all. It's true that almost all of the aggressive captains died, but then, so did the non-aggressive captains! The difference was the aggressive captains at least took some tonnage out with them.

In 1944, you really have four choices:

1- Hide like a scared schoolgirl. This may be sensible, but it was enough to get you court-marshalled in real life for cowardice.

2- Attack convoys from a distance. In an VII or IX without a lot of homing torps, this is probably your best option.

3- Conventional convoy attack. Is nearly suicidal at this point. Which is why most of the u-Boats were sunk!

4- Non-conventional SH3 attack. With or without the XXI (which surely helps though), arm yourself with as many homing torps as you can carry. Especially in a big boat like the IX, stack up 10 or so of 'em. Then annihalate the escorts before eating up the convoy. Small convoys have 5-7 escorts at this period, normal have 6-8, and large have 7-14! I'm half tempted to go back and try this in a VII or IX, as they are less maneuverable but have a rear launcher (or two) that would make things very nasty for escorts.

As long as you have a good supply of homing torpedoes, there's no reason to be timid late in the war. Quite the opposite. If you want to nerf the torpedoes to be realistic, then you're back to pot-shots and lone merchants. But then, to get the full experience of realism, I'd also suggest you stay on the surface and shoot it out with airplanes like you would've been ordered to! :o Full realism means you're doomed unless you're lucky. That's LUCKY, not skilled.

Staying alive is an admirable goal, but it wasn't the primary goal of the u-Boat arm, Doenitz, or a dedicated Kalheun. If you want to play DiD, then be prepared to die if you want to play realistically. Because realistically, that's what happened other than to the very lucky.

The moral being:

After 42, the hunter becomes the hunted.

I would humbly suggest that GWX is pretty damn close to emulating that fact http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

Hear, hear
 

Jimbuna;
I couldn't agree more. I enjoy as much realism as possible and learned pretty quickly (and the hard way) that yes, aggressiveness has it's price. I think I've learned now when to press on and when to pull back.

I would also agree that there have been missions when just surviving a lengthy DC attack made my day and I was happy just to get back in one piece!!:know:



"The day you stop learning, is the day you become dangerous."

I would respectfully suggest that common saying is a little over-simplified.

39-41 = The Hunter (relatively easy pickings)
42-43 = The Soldier (highest loss rates on both sides, relatively even)
44-55 = The Doomed (loss rates become very one-sided)

You can still fight in 1943, but by 44 or 45, hunted isn't the right word. You're doomed unless luck prevails. I don't know the stats on this, but I suspect a lot of crews who survived did so because their ships suffered early minor damage or mishaps that forced them to abort many of their '44 or '45 missions. Otherwise, especially with the stay surfaced order, it was a (long-shot) toss of the dice whether you'd survive. Also, remember that unlike in this game, real crews spent part of the war safely in base as Doenitz suspended all offensive actions in response to unknown, but damaging, allied defenses.

My advice is thus to not just try and survive in '44-'45 if you want to be realistic. Actual crews still thrust themselves into the deadly breech that were late-war convoy attacks. Doenitz adopted the fatalistic logic of Hitler that even suicidal attacks on convoys were better at tying up Allied resources than leaving the convoys unmolested because the risk to his subs was too great.

I agree. In 1943 you can still inflict considerable damage to the convoys with relative ease. IMO, the escorts in '43 are not much better then those in '42.
It's '44 when they realy start to hurt you.

[quote=predavolk]Sad but true, three of my last careers ends just a few months before the end of the war. The last time, I can't resist the urge of attacking a task force of Heavy Cruisers in swallow water (about 100m deep, western aproaches). The cruiser took 1 torp , stopped cold, but lived, I manage to sunk 5 of the 6 escorts before the last one done me in. The last 2 torps aim at the last escort come heartbreakingly close too, when my HI is at 7%.

Moral of the story:

1. DDs WILL find you
2. DD are still quite vulnuerable during the circle back, if you dodge the first round of VERY DEADLY hedgehogs, K-Guns, and old fashing DCs.

May 1943 saw the heaviest loss of U-boats in a single month: 43, I think.

From then to the end of the war it cost 1 u-boat for each merchant sunk when that period is viewed as a whole.

It was not uncommon for u-boats to attempt wolfpack attacks only to fail to sink a merchant and lose a number of u-boats in the process.

You're referring to what those in the U-bootwaffe called "Black May".

When you consider 75% of all U-boat crews never made it home, and most of those losses occuring from 1943-45...well, that tells you that your odds won't be much better in this game during the same time period.

Sinking enemy shipping is still your mission on paper but knowing it's a 3 out of 4 chance that you and your crew will die makes it a victory every time you return home mostly intact and with at least some of your crew still breathing.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why this game is considered so much fun...being the underdog and beating the odds.

Those Butt heads are pains in the later years, Im starting to find that out agian.:shifty:

I'm playing a gwx 2.1 Black sea campaign at the moment.It's June 44 and it's like one big submarine picnic.A regular supply of lightly escorted merchants, no serious counter attacks and only a few easily dodged air patrols.I don't know if the ruskys are incompetent or whether I've just been lucky but I'm starting to long for a really good depth charging.

You can take my September '43 patrol off the coast of Ireland if you like :yep:

Not as incompetent as one would like.....but make hay while the sun shines http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif