Outrunning escorts
 

Having read a few books on my beloved subject, there is several references to u-boats being persued on the ouskirts of a convoy, only to change course and use their superior speed and ability to cut through a sideways sea to out-run escorts. this seems to be at quite a short range!!

can this be done in gwx?...ive never fancied it as i play D.I.D...so always opt for the safe method.

I have never outrun a DD but I could always get into a turning battle with them. Type IX and XXI respectively. :arrgh!:

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Yeah...milk turns quicker than them!!!

dive like overstuffed lazy whales as well:rotfl::rotfl:

Maybe if you use your head start. I went the hell out of there (1 km to the side of a convoy, front and back escorts, night time jan 1940) as soon as the torpedos were in the water. If you are still inside their detection range when they turn on their searchlights it's going to be fireworks. You can't outrun cannonshells.

true pisces...but in real life....accurate fire from a DD or escort on a rolling sea against a small manouverable object may have been harder than it looks....i know u-boats were not designed for surface gun battles due to the drawbacks of the superstructure...its just...from accounts of survivng u-boat commanders...chaotic cat and mouse games seemed to be played, where u-boat spotted enemy and vice versa, and much manouvering behind rain squalls and heavy seas seemed to give a layer of protection.....as apposed to game world where , when your detected your pounded from above or accurately fired upon from the surface

not complaining....just wondering if this amazing game would allow more options afloat :up:

To me it seems that after torpedoes impact succesifuly their targets , escorts find you extremly fast.It does seems a bit unrealistic though i can be wrong.

Agreed.

Sometimes they seem to run straight to you, even if you didn't use electric eels :-?

Granted, last night I fired a steam eel at a largo cargo in the med that had 2 escorts, the ship saw it at the last mintue, flood lights on, hard to starboard, but the fish hit her right in the prop! dead in water! :arrgh!:

But the 2 frigates with her drove around in circles for 2 hours looking for me, but they never did or drop one DC :o

Needless to say I finished the girl off after they left with a stern shot :rock:

i agree INDY

i've had the same thing happen to me also...this is why i'm not venting about this....gwx modelles this behaviour very well....sometime's the escorting ships are pretty "green" which leave you with an easier kill....while later in the war they are much more veteran/experienced....i love it.

what i'm getting at...and it's not a gwx/sh3 gripe...is that u-boats were detected but had options on surface,...having ypur stealth meter turning red ingame brings hell immediately...which in many cases was true...but..there were time's i assume that the u-boat had the advantage of curvature of earth-/ visibility,- heavy seas to stay on surface at times
while the escorts didn't nessiceraly have the time to warn the convoy to change course ,- direction etc.

in a nutshell...while watching films like DAS BOOT etc...the captain will suddenly find a escort starboard out of nowhere, turn dive, surface, flank speed, manouver, dive, etc...cat and mouse stuff..where ingame it's pretty much shoot,- dive, s*** yourself for hours.

i know that later in trhe war, the defenses were such , that this opton was pointless, with improved asdic etc...and terror from above causing endless suffering, but i woner how these commanders manouvered their boats to such great effect!

as i say,,this is not a gripe, i love how the defenses improve historically over time...gwx is forever in my heart for that...aircraft improvment is vital too.....something that i cant get enough of...it's just that surface option are limited...which i know is the original game engine fault...not the modders

cant believe i've ranted on so mutch over one simple question at the start of this post......too much brandy!!!

P.S i've managed to add another sh3 addict to the list...some poor bugger at work.....he fell for my ramblings..hook,line and sinker:rotfl::rotfl:

I also thought that was the case. Each time I attacked from, say, 2-3km, the DDs would come at my position as if there was a "I'm here!" sign sticking out of the water. :damn:

Then I started attacking from greater distances. The DDs would still come to a position about 2-2,5km away from the nearest ship and started to circle around that position. I would often escape undetected.

I guess my point is that they'd have rough idea where the eel came from if it was steam at night, but if it was electric at night and under the keel, they would have no idea surely?

Correct me if I'm wrong please!

The game uses the datum point from where you fired your eels as the point of convergence for the escorts. The way to avoid getting found is to dive as soon as you've unloaded at your targets then hit silent running when you are deeper. I nornally crank up the electics to full speed, dive to 200m or so drifting the last 75m rigged for silent then run slow in the opposite direction to where the most escorts are. Works most times.

That's what I did in the above example.

Started flooding my tanks while dead in the water at PD, got down to about 35m when the eel hit, got to 50m and then kicked in ahead slow while running silent.