Attacking task forces (groups of warships including a small escort carrier) is a dangerous errand, because these are groups of ships sent out specifically to hunt down and kill u-boats. Once you awaken them, you are going to have them taking turns making depth-charge runs at you and you are toast.
The way to approach any convoy, task force or otherwise, is to first locate it. You will almost always see them before they see you. If you are given intelligence on the map where they are, even better.
First thing to do is use the marker tool to mark an X on the map where they currently are. Set your submarine to a parallel course to the convoy, and wait a bit. Then set a new X on the map where the are now. Now use the line drawing tool to draw a line that goes through the two X's and extends out in front of the convoy. This give you their predicted path.
Now set waypoints to do an "end-around" maneuver well away from the side of the convoy to avoid detection, and then dog-leg back in front of them bringing your u-boat 90 degrees across their course way out in front of them.
The idea is to arrive there well before they do. Drive at flank speed. When you arrive, go to periscope depth and SET FOR SILENT RUNNING. Make sure all your torpedoes are set for correct depth and fusing. By default, I set all my fish at 2.5 foot depth and impact fuses.
Now sit and wait for the convoy to arrive. You should be able to follow them on sonar, and even refine their course.
Once they get close, pop up your scope and hit "L" to lock as many ships as you can see. Here's a cheat: Pressing L while the scope is aimed at a ship will lock it up even if you can't see it.
Go back to the map. You can now see the ships you locked up on the map (they will fade away soon though so work fast). Zoom up on the ships and now you can draw a line that exactly matches their course (unless they are zig-zagging, which they should not be if they have not spotted you).
You can also at this point draw multiple lines representing each column of ships in the convoy.
If you have electric torpedoes (and who would use air ones?) you need to be within about 3km of the convoy, closer is better. Often I like to position my sub just inside the first column of ships - they always put little guys on the outside of the convoy anyway and you don't want them blocking your shots to the fatties on the inside!
Line up your shots and shoot! If you find that you have to make a high-angle shot for some reason (like you can't risk waiting for it to come 90 degrees) then identify the ship in the ship identification manual, then set torpedoes to magnetic fuse and about .5 m deeper than the depth of the target ship, and fire magnetically. Torpedoes that hit ships at high angles of attack do not go off.
After the fireworks go off, you can try to evade the escorts by diving deep. With an undamaged sub you can go to 200m or so. Watch the map, and try to keep your stern pointed at the destroyers so as to minimize your profile. Drive flank speed to get to depth, drop a noise maker, and then go to 1 knot speed and go silent running. Sometimes you get away, sometimes you don't. I figure about a 30% success rate early in the war, and it gets worse once the allies bring hedgehogs to the fight.
I find the best bet is to reserve your stern tubes for escorts and stay at periscope depth. Run at flank speed and let the nearest escort chase you. Point your stern DIRECTLY at them, identify the escort to get it's keep depth, and then fire a magnetic torpedo from your stern tube right at the escort at 500m range. Have your second stern tube (if you have one) ready to fire at the same settings if the first fish misses. Never fire at less than 200m range as the torpedo will not be armed. One torpedo hit will kill all escorts.
If you are not trying to hide, get your crew busy reloading torpedoes so you can shoot more escorts as they come in. With any luck, you can kill ALL the escorts and then you can have leisurely fun picking off the rest of the merchant ships.
If the merchants have guns forget about trying to surface and use your deck gun - they will cut you to pieces.
Steve
|