US coast in 42
 

Well, i'm very dissapointed, i just completed my first patrol to the US coast in my IXC but targets where very few and far between.

I had real eough weather going over there which burned up a bit more fuel, i got a little over a week patrolling before i was down to 50% fuel. I managed to make contact with only 1 merchant ship in that time! Lots of DD's and a hospital ship but only 1 merchant was very dissapointing.

I might stick to the western approaches from now on.

Stix

So much for the second happy time!

Are you useing GWx? What grids did you cover?

Get into the caribbean (tanker territory) :yep:
You might even come across a similar vessel to your own ;) (assuming your in GWX) :arrgh!:

Yeah using GWX

Mainly patrolling between Norfolk and New York on the edge of the deep water. Just did a second patrol in the same area, again lots of DD's and few merchants, ran in to lots of large convoys up around Halifax, many many DD's and convoys that change direction every 20-30 km made life real hard. I managed to get in to 1 convoy, took out 2 tankers, a victory, whale factory, black swan and DD, got hit by a depth charge travelling at 2 knots at 200 meters 2 mins after releasing a bold, took out my hydrophone and radar so i'm rtb :damn:

I would like to crack the US market with my pretty IXC but opportunitys seem few.

Where abouts do you patrol the carribean for tankers? Does a IXC have the range leaving from Lorient? I seem to only just have enough to make the trip to New York worth while i.e. enough fuel for a week patrol and ahead standard here and there getting in to position.

Stix

I don't have the exact dates in mind, but there should be a milkcow somewhere at this time ?

Yeah there is one out there but i don't use Commander so it's about as useful as tits on a bull for me.

Stix

Milkcows work even without SH3 Commander. Use a little utility called SH3 Patrol to set your stop time to 1 day and assign a new grid if you want to...;)

Ahhh i just bloody left for EC51 (Central Carribean), Bdu has sent me down there so they must think i have enough fuel :s

4th mission in my IXC maybe i will get to use more than half my torps this patrol, lol. Might go back to VII and hit the western approaches if this keeps up, lol.

As Corsair said, Milk Cows work without Commander. I will add that you are missing out on the best single tool created for SHIII.

Along the US east coast, admittidly it is not my most favorite of places, however, there is acutally ALOT of traffic there. The problem is, most of it is up on the continental shelf at the 30 meter line. Given the patrol concentration in some areas, i tend to not go up on the shelf very often. If you get caught in 30 meters of water by an DD/DE with a clue, it can get pretty ugly fast. On top of that, before you have a radar detector or radar, going up on the shelf in bad visibility has the potential to turn into a death sentence.

Now all that said, there are areas along the US east coast where ships come off of the shelf, allowing you to attack without undue risk

A map, off the top of my head:
http://www.ducimus.net/sh3/hot_spots.jpg


Some patrol results:


So ya can't tell me there aint much there ;)

new york harbour is always full of goodies if u're that desperate for action :)