Surface attacks.
 

Salutations.

I was wondering if anyone has done a lot of nighttime surface attacks on convoys in SHV.

I am currently reading "The Golden Horseshoe" which details the exploits of Otto Kretschmer, which (so far) focuses a lot on his advocation of nighttime surface attacks on convoys (before radar became commonplace, I imagine), and so I've recently tried my hand at it last night.

After receiving reports of a nearby convoy, I made contact with it (something like 9-12 merchants escorted by 2 DDs), and decided to shadow and attack it by night.

By nightfall the weather had turned very nasty, with 15 meter winds along with rain and a dense fog. Still I moved in, periodically diving to get hydrophone bearing (I am using IRAI w/ the no hydrophone/aircraft spotting option). Spent my time on deck peering through the sheets of rain for signs of the convoy.

Eventually, a cargo loomed out of the fog directly ahead, and we were likely seen at the same time as suddenly the entire convoy lit its floodlights. We were slightly north and behind the convoy, with targets in sight everywhere.

I turned us into the convoy and accelerated to normal speed, and started taking snap shots at targets as they presented themselves (no time for TDC, I just set speed to 0 knots and eyeballed it). Mostly I was aiming at floodlights, so poor was the visibility.

The chaos was incredible, with the convoy scattering the moment the first torpedo hit. At one point I barely avoided collision by going full reverse (and I certainly did not want to submerge, so as to remain invisible to ASDIC).

I launched 8 torpedoes in total (including 2 from the rear tube), w/ 6 impacts (1 torpedo did not have time to arm I think and bounced off a target) and 5 sunk targets, then turned south and sped away at flank speed. Not a moment too soon, as well, as it turns out a DD was searching in my direction (around then my game crashed, but fortunately I had saved when I decided to end my attack, and as there is a delay between loading and the weather effects kicking in I could see the DD heading towards me *grin*).

I made my escape safely, and all in all it was an amazing experience. First time I tried something quite so dangerous (usually I would just submerge in the convoy's path and lie in wait), and it was quite a thrill. I literally had to constantly switch between the UZO and normal to keep an eye on any nearby ships. I even had the deck gun manned for a while, but decided it was rather unrealistic to man it with the sea we had going.

So anyway, has anyone else tried such attacks? What about doing them in clearer weather (at night)? Indeed, does the sim handle the phases of the moon and changes nighttime visibility accordingly?

Itkovian

That's a great story. Thanks for sharing. I don't think there is any other game that can give you this type of feeling and get your blood pumping so much. This is what subsims are all about. It's really an experience.

Now about me. After sinking one cargo during a submerged day attack I'm currently stalking the rest of the convoy at night. They started taken pot shots in the evening when I surfaced. So I held back a little to let it get darker. That's where I'm out now, the rest of the story is still to be told.

It my favourite tactic in the late campaigns since is more chance to escape on surface than under. Of course, only night or when is a heavy fog. But I do it from outside the convoy with long blind shots, never had the guts inside, except early war.

Just last night had a very intense and fun dogfight with the escorts through a heavy fog after I launched a blind salvo in the middle of a large convoy. We tracked each other only by the radar, no visual contacts was made. After some heavy blind gun fight and extreme zig-zag's I managed to escape just because we were very far from the convoy and the escorts decided tot let me go and returned to their positions. From 5 torpedoes only 1 hit a target, dunno if the ship sunk or not, but.. was a very tense and fun moment.

These are the moment when you jump off the chair screaming 'frak yeah' .. then realizing that you have the whole family in background looking very sad at you and scheduling an urgent meeting with the family doctor :D

It was just great to be able to put into practice what I was reading. Happy Times indeed. :)

Though granted, the horrid weather made things a lot more chaotic than they needed to be. :)

Itkovian

Just today, actually, I had a similar experience.

It was about one o clock in the night, with dence fog, and mildly heavy sea. I had just manouvered away from a task force when all of a sudden I bump in to a convoy of six or seven ships, no escorts. It was crossing my path at a lovely 90 degrees bearing, but having wasted all my torpedoes earlier on two tankers (I was using an obviously flawed mod, sending torpedoes in all kind of strange directions), I called to man the deck gun. Just then, I ran into a fog bank, and I started to lose sight of the convoy.

I knew that the task force was very close, and that I hade only a few minutes at max before they would all be here. I turned up to flank speed, and as I sighted what I thought was the silhouette of a tanker, I fired a high explosive shell in that direction. It was a direct hit at the ships bridge, and the fireworks revealed more silhouettes in the fog. Preserving HE shells, I went for the waterline with AP rounds, and in about a minute, the tanker went down in an inferno of flames.

At this time, the deck watch spotted the task force heading for us. However, keen on seeing some more tonnage go down, I decieded to press the stakes. Two more british freighters was sent to the bottom of the sees by my deck gun, and every single shell used, as I crash dived into the dark seas to the wheeze of rounds from the task force. I rigged for a silent run, as I turned 180 degrees, and passed directly under the warships, and headed for the nearest safe port.

i have, twice!
the first was a small convoy of about 9-11 ships wih 3 destroyer escorts, as it was dark i innitially ignored the 2 destroyers in the rear (they were on the back corners of the convo and there was 1 lone merchant ship in between them, the rest of the convoy were in 2 collums of 4-5 with 1 escort infront
i took out the lone merchant and the world lit up, that's when the 2 escorts changed direction and started closing, i freaked and, seeing as how the on behind me was closer, i lined up and fired off a torpedo out of my rear tube ( i take time to line up too as i HATE missing with a torpedo) i hit it and the destroyer starts sinking like a rock, i then check my map and the second destroyer is bearing down on me, switching tubes i drop to minimum speed, order crash dive and fire off a torpedo at the same time, my periscope just misses the ship, and only beause i lower the periscope as an added avoidance measure when sailing under a ship, the torpedo hits it luckily, and it begins sinking, after i pass along side it (resurfacing) i order the deck gun manned and sail thru the middle of the convoy, shooting at all the ships, i get hit with some small arms fire from 1-2 armed merchants, but they do minor damage and just end up singling themselves out for firing, after the first 3 ships sink the escort at the lead has made a u-turn and is sailing right for me, i don't notice it among all the other ships though until cannon shells start raining on me, (i've also climbed up onto the deck too) noticing some cannon flashes ahead of me i hop on the uzo and take up, firing off a torpedo at high speed, it smacks right into the from of the ship opening up it's bow and it essentially dives like a submarine... 3 ships left i've run out of he rounds and have 4 torpedos left, this is when the sun starts coming up and the ships have decided to make a u-turn and scatter- the first ship crosses right across my bow and i order the firing of armor peircing rounds, got the ship down to about 50% and fired off a torpedo, BOOM! it explodes in a nice fireball :D, i kick it into full speed to catch up to the other ships and fire off a torpedo at the closest one, saddly... it missed D:, luckily (in a hillarious way) the ship ahead of it decides "now is a good time to turn" and gives it's broadside to the torpedo, it detonates right smack in the middle of the ship and breaks it in half :D, i then fire off my 2 remaining torpedos right up the last ships...umm...rudder? and watch it sink :D.... of course at this time i'm pretty much out of ammo except some armor peircing rounds, so i sail back to the nearest friendly port for resupply.... (i'll continue my story with my second convo later =D )