[Catfish]

Hello Bilge_Rat,

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

"... actually, the Royal Navy did use capital ships as convoy escorts in 1939, since they were as worried by German surface warships (Graf Spee, Scharnhorst, Gneiseneau, etc.) as by submarines.
convoys started as soon as the war did in early september. England had suffered in WW1 from starting convoying late and on that point, the RN was ready in 39. ..."

Hm, ok with some warships, but much convoys in 1939 ? And defended convoys ?
The british declaration of war was at september 3rd 1939, and despite the declaration the british merchant fleet was not really ready for a war, and initially also not for convoy duty (the german fleet and Navy wasn't so well prepared either).
As the sinking numbers and accounts in the reports of 1939 show the majority of the english trade fleets were not sailing in convoys then.
It also takes some time to organize convoy systems and train the crews. But ok, some obviously did.

" ... Actually, the RN had many destroyers available in 1939 with experienced crews. The French Navy was also available. The escort shortage started in summer 40 and was caused by many factors: France surrendered, many RN warships were damaged/sunk at Dunkirk and the RN kept a sizable force, including many fleet detroyers in england to guard against a German invasion. ..."

Ok, this sounds reasonable, and i did not know it. Were so much destroyers sunk, at Dunkirk ? I have heard two differing accounts of this - some say Hitler let them go intentionally unharmed while other sources speak of heavy attacks - frankly i don't know, but a lot of the british troops made it to England.

" ... RN fleet destroyers had ASDIC in 1939, although you are right about radar, it only became generally available starting in spring 41. ..."

They relied heavily on ASDIC, but ASDIC was rather useless against U-boats attacking like torpedo boats at night, on the surface. And yes Radar was used, but as you wrote not all Navy ships had it. But i really doubt there were enough fleet destroyers to guard all convoys that were necessary to support England. They used all kinds of ships as an "Ersatz" escorts. Even the corvettes used as destroyer escorts were slower than the U-boats; as soon as a boat had penetrated the escort screen, it was pretty much unreachable.

Anyway like in Silent Hunter V : 10+ Fletcher class destroyers with well-trained "Walker-like" crews, for a 12-ship convoy, plus a battleship, in 1939 ?

"... On the other points, what mods are you using? it does'nt sound like the stock game. ..".

Yes i use TDW's "Opus magnum" mod (with patch 2), where the IRAI AI seems to be increased. Will see if i tone it down a bit, at least in 1939

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish