Moving to Penang
 

This is only a rough map but it gives you an idea where to look. ;)

Over the months I have been working out where to look and what is on that route, as I said it's only a rough idea. One thing is for sure less Allied Planes to bug you but be warned they can pop up anywhere. In the case of the red air circles I came up against more planes in those areas.


Blue Arrow = Merchants
Dark Red Arrow = Task Force
Red Circle = Allied Aircraft

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ShipRoutes.jpg

Wow! This is very nice of you mate! I never find anything down under, so this is needed for sure!:up:

Thanks alot for sharing your research. Will make it easier once I reach the region. :cool:

I've been to penang before and your pretty right about your map. I purposefully go to southern india/sri lanka to shot down the planes.They come every 2 hours or so. Anyway have you checked out the water east of india? There are some single merchants there also.

Some not many, true to say it you stay close to the shore lines you will see the odd one or two now and again. By the way not much North east by east of Australia, you may be lucky to run in to an American sub but there are few and far between.

Thanks, Steed. This is good for us who are thinking of heading to warmer climes :D

Well, I just started a guy in Penang. Here I have been, going along under the surface w/a schnorkel like a sucker, when I don't have to worry about aircraft, yet!!!

there is usually another "task force" that runs from Western Australia up to the Western side of India.

I've attacked it once with visibility about 300 meters and only saw few merchants, a few escorts, and a handful of LSTs.

What frustrates me is that after painstakingly researching from multiple sources and snippets of information the Indian Ocean convoy routes for GWX 1.0, I found one actual 1940's map containing them all, including average composition, speed, "rules" and other useful information!! Of course, by this stage GWX was already released. :roll:

Fortunately, GWX is not too far from the money; the main routes are all included give or take a few hundred kms of the actual route.

Unfortunately though, the composition/speed of Indian Ocean convoys in GWX is not quite correct. I did raise the corrected convoy details with Lehmann and BBW a few times, but I never heard anything more about it, so don't know if 1.04 will be even more historically accurate. :hmm:

One thing though, Indian Ocean warship movements in GWX are about as historically accurate as possible - you can look at nearly any historical map and know that the same ships will be in the same places in GWX. :up:

Don't expect "Bay of Biscay levels" of aircraft in the Indian. It's a totally different theatre where submarines were not considered the same threat as they were in the Atlantic. For example, an Allied instruction issued in Dec 1943 ceased the use of convoys *except* for around India and the Persian Gulf, so this gives you a bit of an idea of how little a threat the Allies saw subs in the region.

Even around Australia it would be rare to see ASW patrols consisting of more than one or two planes. More often it was just single planes on two to four hour rotated patrols during daylight.

Of course, this doesn't make the planes you come across any less deadly, so don't go getting too complacent. ;)

I think I shall do the Black Sea next as I got the itch to go there so in a month or too watch this space.

Nice illustration:up:


RDP

Now I remember that you can find some BIG tankers in the Red Sea at times. No DDs either (unless you go north to Suez ofcourse, and that's one thing I'll NEVER do......again....)

Curiousity defeated sanity. (say the one who tried to raid ports in dem Kanal. :88) )