Quote:
Originally Posted by 4saken
How are you able to get inside a convoy when the columns are 0.5-1 km away?Even if you are around 800m from the 2nd column that means the first column is just 200 m behind you and they can easily see your telescope...
I always come as close to the 1st column,let the escort pass and then move a little bit closer as close as 800-1000 m so i can target both first and second column (the second one has usually better targets than the first).I never bother attack 3rd column. Its too far and there are quite a few obstacles in front (1st and 2nd column ships that is).
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A convoy I ran into this past night:
As the convoy got close enough to start selecting targets my course led me to the left of the middle column, perfect for the targets that I picked out (sorry only took the 1 screen shot, was hectic when it came time to actually do the firing).
Though doesn't show on the map, it's late November near Iceland - almost the whole day is darkness, since radar hasn't been installed on ships yet they'll never spot my scope until I hit someone or my CE screws up and revs the engines to alert the escorts. This was an inbound convoy pretty close to the destination, if I didn't sink them with the first shots there's no way I was going to get another; and in this situation if I disabled a ship it wouldn't have done me any good. The convoy would reach its destination and the ship would disapear before I could surface to finish it off.
In the middle of the convoy was an ammunition ship, to its left and right large merchants. Waiting until they were ~ 1000 m away then hit hard to starboard so that at 400m I'd be at a 45 degree shot into the ammo ship as it was closest. Fired two shots into both, and once it came into range fired the last one that ended up behind me. ALL the settings are magnetic, gambling on one shot kills if possible. Both hit the ammo ship and it goes up in fireworks; one misses the large merchant but the other hits (as well as the aft one) right under the main forward hold. Both explode with 1 shot kills.
As you can see there was another convoy that passed by south which showed up about a hour after I had submerged. Fortunately it was heading west and didn't have to potentially deal with a dozen escorts. I took a pounding from the escorts but managed to slip out with 69% hull damage. There was only 1 DD in the back (and a few stupid trawlers that were easy to ditch), the ones in the front and sides (luckily) didn't come back to hunt me, with 3 trawlers and 2 DD's I guess they figured the guys didn't need the help.
Ships will only spot scopes up once they have radar, you make too much noise, or hit something to alert them. In total darkness you can keep it up for much longer periods than normal and no one is the wiser.