What would you do?
 

OK, here's the deal:
time: september 1940, just after sundown
place: Grid AK01
Sub: type VIIC
5 G7a torpedoes in the tubes, no reserves, 180 rounds of HE ammo for the Deckgun
GWX 3

This is what I ran into, the escort is a side-guard, the freighter is the third one in the closest row of the convoy, speed is reported as 10 knots
also note the weather report.

http://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/iamges/cha1.JPGhttp://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/images/cha1.jpg

This is the view from the Binos. there's an estimated 70.000 GRT in view, and there's more in that convoy. I have 5 eels.

How would you handle this?

http://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/iamges/cha2.JPGhttp://home.kpn.nl/fourn003/images/cha2.jpg

As an additional challenge:
There's 7 (maybe 8) ships visible in the screenie, can you name the types,?
from left to right. give it a go :up:

I'll post my approach and results later....

It still looks a bit light out there!!!

shadow untill nightfall would be my advice.....although it is 1940....those escorts are still relatively wet behind the ears:up:

That 's because the convoy is backgrounded by the last bit of setting sun, my sub is against a darker background from their point of view. I also know from an earlier attack on a single ship that there won't be any moon fot the entire night:salute:

Any darker and the screenie would just show black on black :D

There is only one thing you can do: get ahead of the convoy and Attack!!!

true mate...your sillhoette will be hard to spot in a moonless night.

i would set depth at 7m-decks awash....just to be cautious:D

btw.....wish i could understand written german....i play german voices but english text...but your screenies look the real deal:up:

If there is only one defender I would get ahead and set up a solution on the escourt.

I would then surface and finish the merchants if they are not armed.

Brag, YES :arrgh!: of course :)

Von hally, yes, that's what I'm doing in that picture, and that's also how I intended to attack but for one minor problem,

which brings me to

Laufen, there's 3 confirmed escorts, probably 4, a black swan out front, probably some corvette in the rear, the closest is a flower, that don't worry me.
But have a good look at the binoc pic, it'll show why I'm hesitant to go in on the surface, 2nd ship from the right.... :o

Photon torpedoes, full spread. :yeah:

Rodney or Nelson? A guess from my limited knowledge...

Yes, Indeed, Nelson, as it turned out....

Now I have a few options; as cawimmer says, full spread, and don't I wish I had photon torpedoes :hmmm:

This will, if it hits right, sink the Nelson.
submerged, I won't get closer than 3 or 4 km to take the shot. but for a 4 eel spread that should be close enough.
Decks awash with the Nelson right in the middle of the convoy, 5km is about as close as I can get. By then I will have the Flower corvette about 2 km away at 270degrees , this is close but not too close, even decks awash at slow speed it probably wont spot me. Escaping will be a bit more difficult though. because to get out I'd have to make a hard turn and get out at flank speed. this will get me spotted before my eels hit..

There are however at least 2 T3 tankers in this convoy, so I'd like to take at least one and preferably both down with the Nelson.

Now, keeping in mind that through GWX testing I know exactly where to hit the Nelson to take her down with two or even one eel, that means I have two forward and one rear tube left for sinking tankers

The trouble is, if I try for the tankers I will either hit one of those, or Nelson first, meaning the other ships will start zigzagging, making the hits less ideally placed, or even miss.

I could of course do my standard trick in this sort of scenario and aim for the Nelson, then the ship next to it, one row closer, and then the ship next to that. This will guarantee almost simultaneous hits, so they won't be able to evade. I can then save the rear torpedo for my escape. I might need it to blow up the Flower if it gets frisky.

The problem here is that one of those targets is a small tanker. I hate those, they're nearly as difficult to sink as a passenger/cargo because of their hull shape and shallow draft, this will mess up impact eels, and i don't like to use magnetics until 1941 because of malfunctions, using them for the Nelson is gamble enough, but with BBs you sort of have to.

I'm also considering blowing up the Flower from about 3km away, then fleeing from any investigating escorts, then shadowing the convoy until they stop zigzagging, then go in and sink 1 tanker with 1 eel. bug out again, wait again, sink another tanker with 1 eel. then for the final insult I sink the Nelson and head home to st. Naz.

I reckon I can make 4 attacks in one night I have about 10 hours of darkness to use....

Now, I've tried all of these before with varying degrees of success. So can anyone come up with something different?

I would look to put a couple in that battleship, the escorts are worthless when you have something that big sitting there.

Maybe you could save the patrol and do one thing, if you arent happy you can always reload and try something else. I know its not strictly in keeping with the game but you could use the save to try out alternative ideas before doing it for real.

Windgeschwindigkeit 0 Meter pro sekunde (wind speed 0 mtrs per second),
Der Wind kommt aus 72 (the wind is coming from 72)
Wetterbericht klar (weather report clear)
Niederschlag kein (downpour none) Note: directly translated, its not always possible to directly translate german into english word for word otherwise it may not make sense, as in this case with downpour lol
Sicht Gute Sicht (View Good View)

so, looks like the weather is certainly good for attacking :salute:

Guten Abend (oder Morgen), Keptin,

Looks like a good night for an attack! Provided the moon is not there, the enemy has no radar, and you do not make a big wake or lots of noise, it is amazing how close you can get to the escorts before they see you. I've done surface attacks by watching the escorts' patrol patterns, and to slip in between them undetected is the most exciting way!

It takes time to plan these attacks, and if you have the moon phase timetable for 1940, that can help, too. Let it get really dark, and keep asking your watch officer for the distance to nearest ship. He could save your life! Also, it always helps to shoot an eel right in the bow. At the very least the ship will slow down and drop out of the formation -- easy pickings later!

Gute Jagd!
Wayne

The moon is not an issue, found that out, the weather is good, maybe even too good. Radar is also not yet a problem, it's only 1940 and I'm working under the assumption they don't have any...

If they do, I'm going to find out how big a hole a 16" gun make sin a u-boat :o

What I did was approach carefully decks awash until I was about 2,5km from the outer row of merchies. fired 2 eels at Nelson, both aimed for aft of the bridge, then fired one eel at a medium tanker and one at a large merchant.
Then I did a quick 180 turn and made my egress.
This is where I messed up, I fired the stern tube at the flower corvette. Even though I hadn;t been detected yet.
Only I didn't time it right so the flower got sunk about 1 minute before the rest of the eels were to hit.
As a result they all started zigzagging, the eel for the tanker missed, the large merchant did get hit but not sunk right away. and only one eel managed to hit Nelson, but nowhere critical, right in the bow, which won't sink it.

They didn't detect me though so I got out safely. the large merchant I hit did get slowed down a bit and started lagging about 2km behind the convoy. I did shadow them for about a day to see if the straggler would drop back any further but it didn't, so having no torpedoes left I went on back to base.....

better luck next time, and I must remember not to mess up a well aimed salvo by getting over-eager. :shifty:

saving that close to a convoy is a sure way to get your save corrupted, so I don't get to retry... oh well, I'll find a similar convoy on my next patrol.

Heh, I've seen a few threads talking about trying to sink multiple high priority targets. I think if that was me, I would have put two in the Nelson, and two in a tanker, shadowed the convoy, and return again later.

Not that I haven't done similar things, but I'm starting to realise that every time I try and be too clever with an attack, it always (and I mean always) seems to get me depth charged.

Shame you didn't have more torps. Bet you would have been straight back in if you did.

I always enjoy reading these on the forum, whether they work out in the end or not, so thanks for posting. Good fun :sunny: