Not to brag or anything, but.... um.... I managed it! :D

Still, they found me way too fast!

I tought you guys went in with a spare torp to try to torp anything on point blank range:D Guess not...

I certainly don't know how you get away with a night surface attack. I have never been successful at it yet.

I have a large convoy on a dark night, just on the ledge of 1000 m keel. It has a Clemson, a V&W and 3 Flower Corvettes. I am having problems. That Clemson is leading and is a pain, and when I sink it to get in, or if I don't sink it to get at the merchants and also full of neutrals (1940) all the escorts come-a-running.

Rob

Hmm,

If the leading escort is a hassle, you might want to try a shot from in front of the convoy as follows.

you are of course decks awash at 7 meters, otherwise, do this first:D

the following trick is doable with manual targeting provided you know the convoys course and speed. AOB can be calculated from that and you can do shots like described below.

position yourself about 3km in front of the convoy, and about 1500m off the outer row closest to you. and perpendicular to their course. then turn the boat about 20 degrees towards them. you will now be in position to shoot at several of the leading ships in one quick series. you'll have to use magnetics though because of bad AOB for impact. then pick 2 of the leading ships, if possible in the middle of the convoy.

you should start shooting when the farthest ship you'll target is about at 350 degrees, the lead escort shout bear between 0 and 10 now

If they're in range for electrics, that's 3500 meters, use those, if not use steamers at medium speed, then fire at the farthest ship first, then the nearer, for tankers use 2 eels for cargos just one. you should now have one electric eel left with the closest ship being the lead escort, if this hasn't seen you yet and is moving slowly in a straight line, fire your electric at it, for a Clemson set it to 5 meters magnetic. If not, don't bother fire the eel at the closest merchant you haven't yet fired on. Then do a quick 180 and out of there, with the lead escort bearing 210 on your rear, if you're feeling aggresive, you might try firing your rear tube at the leading ship of the outer row which by now should be on a nice gyroangle, I usually don't but it could be done, then keep up that course at 8knots or so until the first fish hits, this should be the lead escort. Ideally the two ships you targeted earlier should be hit almost simultaneously, it works out that way because the distance the eels need to travel is shorter for the second ship and the escort but the eels were fired later. I haven't got the maths to prove it but doing this by seat-of-the-pants calculation has worked several times for me.

If the lead escort is hit it will sink, maybe not immediately, depends on where it's hit but it's out of the fight. You now have a window to escape, go to 12 or more knots same course as the convoy but angling away from it a little to get as far away from the lead flanker as possible. If they don't have radar, you'll get away clean.

If the lead escort does not get sunk it will head towards the point where you fired from, keep your stern pointed at him and stay at 8 knots or so, with any luck you'll be far enough away to not be found, if detected, (starshelled, searlighted or plain fired upon) crashdive and do the whole underwater evasion routine

good luck and good hunting :up:

edit; didn't see the bit about the neutrals...damn that doesn't help. my thoughts: shoot them anyway they're not supposed to be in a convoy anyway!

This is basically what I have"

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/9691/convoysx3.jpg

Rob

and I get the s****t knocked out of me :damn: 3 out of 5 times. I've only been able to get the tanker and C2 in the front row before I get attacked. One of the neutrals is a passenger liner in the third row

You mention to take out the Clemson using magnetic at 5 m depth. It's draft is only 2.8 so I have been trying to use 3.3 m

I think the only real thing you can do is be patient, that is the secret, when you see an opening then go for it.

Putting the boat low in the water helps too, but really the only thing for it, is patience. You just have to take it steady and don't rush.

hehe, I quit for 40 days, then trying to take this convoy I have started up again. Never ever had any trouble with a convoy like this one. Oh, I am at periscope depth.

I've been letting the Clemson go past. It has only a draft of 2.8 m so I been using magnetic at 3.3 m, (? 5 m)

Rob, you're right, clemson very shallow draft , was going by memory there, obviously faulty :oops:

what year is this?

as for a good attack... I think you're in the wrong position, that convoy is going to plow right over you, you should ideally be outside it. on the side with the single flower, I don't think there's enough time to get back in position though.

If you do manage to reposition I'd sit between the northen flower and the c2, but in front of them. you can still take out the leading C2 and T2 and maybe escape on the surface.
if not I'd attack submerged in this case. but if that clemson is sweeping in front he might just be pinging and find you at pd.

odd though that all the escorts come after you, I'd expect the two flankers on the other side to just keep doing their thing...:hmm: that still means 2 escorts on top of you the flower and the clemson, the point of taking out the clemson is that a VIIc sub can outrun a flower (barely) at least you can go just as fast and maintain distance, which in this case could be a lifesaver.
especially if that flower is the only one to react, you might be dodging shells for a while, but flowers only have a puny popgun and at long range in the dark that's survivable, if you keep running away from the convoy for say 20 minutes you only have 1 flower to contend with, which should be doable, you can then crashdive and go silent, the other escorts are then so far away that they don't come to help the poor flower, which should be killable with a stern-shot or one of the torpedoes you reloaded while hightailing it outta there for 20 minutes.

If however that V&W DD also comes for you, even though it does have to go through the convoy which should slow it down enough for it to loose you, you're screwed, crashdive, go below 200 meters and make like a hole in the water.:-?

hope that helps

It is Sept 1940, and yes you are correct, the convoy plows right over/ around me. Is there a passive device that the DD are using now that have an affect on the torpedoes that cause them to miss the DD?:hmm:

You mentioned in another post to fire the T1's at medium speed, do you mean at the Clemson?

If I find I cannot reposition myself, and have to stay where pictured, I'll have to take out the Clemson, preferably with a stern torpedo as it goes by because it's going to be a real pest if I don't.

I always set my mag torps 1m below the keel Rob
Less chance of a downward movement in the ship as it rides waves and the torp bouncing off the rounded bottom of the hull

Hi BW, Okay for the Clemson 2.8 draft, set it at 3.8 then. Will give it a try.

Rob

:D<lecture mode>:know:

No, NEVER fire T1s at escorts unless heavy fog and heavy seas, otherwise they spot them and instantaneously go to 30 knots and dodge, even at night.

The T1s should be used on merchants and on medium for 3 reasons:

a: they take longer so more time for you to escape

b: they run longer, have longer range, this means that even if you miss your intended target it carries on into the convoy. it's happened to me a few times that I accidentally hit a ship way on the other side, which is good because it gets me tonnage and makes the escorts look for you in the wrong place

c: if you make the long range shots with t1s at medium and the shorter shots with T2s the timing is better, more chance of simultaneous impact which not only looks cool but makes sure the merchies don't start zigzagging

as for passive devices well..eyeball mk.I for spotting the bubble trail and hydrophones, IRL they can hear torpedos, just like you can they make a very distinctive noise, I don't think that's moddeled in SH3 though because t2s if correctly fired always hit, they may not detonate because of bad magnetic detonators or sharply angled impact but the escort doesn't react to the CLONK of a dud eel hitting it.

as to positioning, if you can't relocate: submerge, go silent and turn 90 degrees on the convoys course. then stop and wait and blow up the first non-neutral to cross your bow. try to have one row of ships sail right behind you, like 100 meters or so this gives you more time to calculate and plan your shots from the forward tubes. don't use the stern tubes, they probably won't hit so it's wasteful.
after firing your forward eels at 1 or 2 ships, go to 4 knots set rudder 10 degrees away from lead escort and dive, when at 70 meters go silent and go as deep as you dare.

If that clemson somehow finds you while you're at a dead stop and submerged (and this might happen, although in 1940 the odds are still good that he won't) usually it finds you when it gets real real close or is pinging, don't hesitate and crashdive, live to fight another day and when diving head into the convoy, they make noise and hamper the escorts movement. go silent when you hit 70 meters or so, set rudder 10 degrees away from the escort but stay underneath the convoy. go at least 150 meters down but 200 is better an undamaged VIIc should be able to go at least 210 meters without imploding. I've done that regularly in the Med in 42 where you absolutely have to to get away.

the downside of taking out the clemson is that you probably won't be able to attack merchants afterwards because they will start zigzagging and at least 2 other escorts will come to get you. what you could do is evade those (eventually) and then overtake the convoy again. since it's now short a lead escort is should be a cakewalk to ambush them from right in front of them by getting in front, lying in wait submerged and taking out whatever juicy target takes your fancy.

that's planning ahead, if there's enough night left when the escorts stop hunting you for an end-around and second attack that may be your best option. although not very realistic, they wouldn't have done that in ww2

</lecture mode>:D
good hunting :up:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...nny/convoy.jpg

This here picture should prove beyond all shadow of doubt just how close you can get to the convoy at night if you are careful and don't run round like a crazy person on the surface.

As you can see, not a great deal of distance between me and the ships.

Though this surface attack was not flawless far from it. I made a silly mistake, I attacked two ships in the line closest to me and got machine gunned by the destroyer, I dived with Hull at 83% so really, surface attacks are really cool, but... they can get your ass riddled like swiss cheese.

I have always used G7a on as I never use anything but T1s and I wait until the DD or DE is within 500 yrds and fire bow shot and I always get them, well, 99 % of the time because they cannot move out of the way fast enough when the T1 is fired fast and magnetic.

I used T1s right to the end of the war with my other sub VIIB with no problems.

as for passive devices well..eyeball mk.I for spotting the bubble trail and hydrophones, IRL they can hear torpedos, just like you can they make a very distinctive noise, I don't think that's moddeled in SH3 though because t2s if correctly fired always hit, they may not detonate because of bad magnetic detonators or sharply angled impact but the escort doesn't react to the CLONK of a dud eel hitting it.

as to positioning, if you can't relocate: submerge, go silent and turn 90 degrees on the convoys course. then stop and wait and blow up the first non-neutral to cross your bow. try to have one row of ships sail right behind you, like 100 meters or so this gives you more time to calculate and plan your shots from the forward tubes. don't use the stern tubes, they probably won't hit so it's wasteful.
after firing your forward eels at 1 or 2 ships, go to 4 knots set rudder 10 degrees away from lead escort and dive, when at 70 meters go silent and go as deep as you dare.

If that clemson somehow finds you while you're at a dead stop and submerged (and this might happen, although in 1940 the odds are still good that he won't) usually it finds you when it gets real real close or is pinging, don't hesitate and crashdive, live to fight another day and when diving head into the convoy, they make noise and hamper the escorts movement. go silent when you hit 70 meters or so, set rudder 10 degrees away from the escort but stay underneath the convoy. go at least 150 meters down but 200 is better an undamaged VIIc should be able to go at least 210 meters without imploding. I've done that regularly in the Med in 42 where you absolutely have to to get away.

the downside of taking out the clemson is that you probably won't be able to attack merchants afterwards because they will start zigzagging and at least 2 other escorts will come to get you. what you could do is evade those (eventually) and then overtake the convoy again. since it's now short a lead escort is should be a cakewalk to ambush them from right in front of them by getting in front, lying in wait submerged and taking out whatever juicy target takes your fancy.

that's planning ahead, if there's enough night left when the escorts stop hunting you for an end-around and second attack that may be your best option. although not very realistic, they wouldn't have done that in ww2

</lecture mode>:D
good hunting :up:[/quote] Okie dokie

This was my first attempt at attacking the convoy and I had to take out the Clemson. Following are 3 snaps I took in order. 1) fire tube 5 at Clemson, 2) Impact with Clemson then indicator shows a C2 behind it at over 1,000 m and 3) Clemson sinking.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8002/snap0318ii9.jpg

Fire five at Clemson

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/7918/snap0319et0.jpg

Clemson hit, shows C2 behind it

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4343/snap0317fe7.jpg

Clemson sinking!

But then I had to crash dive.

Rob