Well done Penelope, but I don't think I am going to try this in my precious career, I don't like to take risks with escorts :oops:

....and I like to hear the band on my return and sample the fine French wine/women :arrgh!:

Yes and that as well

In a convoy attack nothing ever works according to plan. Recognizing the "This is as good as it gets" moment, firing And getting the hell out is the secret for the payoff of gliding to a stop at the dock. Music, girls, flowers, wine. :sunny:

Brag, you are right and that is why this game is so great. One stupidity and your plan is void. If GWX is reality how many of us would be alive in 1945?

Not many I fear :nope: ...and I include myself in that number :lol:

I am making it my personal goal to survive the war

Mid-41, I had a very protracted night surface attack in what appeared to be hurricane conditions. Visibility was about 500M and due to the heavy seas it was possible to get sporadic sound contacts while maneuvering on the diesels. Using a high periscope resolved any issues that would have made the UZO hard to use. Despite about five escorts or so, it was possible to maneuver within the convoy totally unhampered.

Finally, after causing a fair bit of trouble, an escort showed up. I crash dived, but didn't need to do much evasion. Simply creeping a little bit from where I went down and the escort's natural tendency to sweep back and forth, put them out of visual range. So, I was able to quickly surface with the escorts very close, and then sprint out their clutches; leaving them to hunt a ghost sub. Then, I resumed reloading and hunting for more prey. (Yes, someone was kind enough the other day to let me know that the escorts would be tied for about 30 minutes hunting the sub that wasn't there.)

It seems a storm presents a wonderful opportunity to hunt!

Yesterday I again did a surface attack on a convoy. Although the destroyers pretty much stayed tight with the merchants still holes remained to sneak into a half in front of the convoy position. Watersurface was smooth, no moon. I destroyed a merchant and then all searchlights lit up. I was forced to dive and to make my escape. I was DC'ed but everything went well untill I thought I was safe enough to use TC. Destroyed suddenly re-appeared and destroyer my scope. Had to return.

Stormy conditions are your friend though they can make attacks harder the chances of being spotted are reduced also
Not sure how realistic it would be to conduct a convoy attack in such weather though
Moonless nights are another godsend

When the weather is too severe you simply cannot operate.

When conditions are Clouds: Overcast, Rain: Heavy, Windspeed: 15 m/s. There is no way you can successfully operate against a convoy in that, so I don't even try.

Generally speaking, I will attack in rough seas, provided the visibility is good enough to actually see where I am shooting.

What I'm wondering if there is someone who did escape at the suface as well. I think that is the main challenge rough sea or not.

I don't think trying to escape on the surface is feasible. Not realistically, they knew U-Boats attacked on the surface, so, the minute something went boom they would throw searchlights everywhere to try and find you.

In RL in the early years it was actually the favoured means of escape :arrgh!:

Early in the war if you are lucky that closest escorts are Flowers, you can outrun them on surface. On a dark night it works.

Penelope,

Think about it ...

No radar.

Visibility is 500M perhaps even with search lights.

I can easily crawl 200M since the last DC attack.

The sweeping searching destroyers can easily be between 100-1000M from me as they hunt. They are hunting passive and active. They don't really care about the surface.

So, they readily create a condition where I can surface unobserved. At which point, they can neither hear my engines or ping my boat. Compared to my 1-2KTS crawl, when I hit the surface, I can sprint at 14-17KTS. Within a few minutes, they have lost any chance of possibly reestablishing contact with me.

In the meantime, as Kpt. Lehmann has indicated, they are going to spend 30 minutes trying to reestablish contact. Thus, I have two escorts tied up in a fruitless search while I can run off and sink more merchants.

With the heavy seas, I get a combination of deck watch and sound reports making it not that hard to locate the merchants.

Definitely give it a go. It's not as wreckless as it would seem. :)

I'll give it a try, but well, Radar will be hitting the scene soon, and I am in 1941 so they are getting better. So my window of opportunity is closing.

Even with radar you can out run a corvette
He will be able to follow you though and they do
For ever
Till you lose complete contact

Covettes if I am right, like Armed Trawlers, do not posess ASDIC. Diving and using Silent Speed is by far the most efficient way to get away from them.