Wow! Thanks everyone for the compliments!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by TarJak
Nice work and your determination impressed me. Why didn't you try for an angled end around. I've found running flank at about 30 to 45 degrees to the target's course runs me out far enough to escape the notice of the escorts. You then have to do the long run to get ahead. Guess it all depended on their speed. Were they a fast convoy doing +9kts or a slow one?
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Actually they were doing 13 knots. The fastest I've ever seen for a non-task force convoy.
Normally what I do when I encounter a convoy is immediately go to dead stop (unless it's bad weather and they're within 2 klicks :p ). Once I'm at 0 knots I pick a ship, lock my UZO on it and take bearing and range readings, marking that on the map relative to my position. I do that twice more, at 5 minutes and 10 minutes, then connect the points to set a course for them.
I place the compass at the first point and draw a circle. Depending on the weather and the mod I'm running (and at times other factors, like the year and number of escorts) the circle is anywhere from 8 klicks to 20. My course line is at least 200 klicks long, and I'll draw another circle (same-sized) at the middle and at the end. Next thing I do is plot a course, at flank, away from the convoy and out to the border of the first circle. The circles are drawn at what I estimate is the visibility range of the convoy (if they have radar I'll make the avoidance circle
lots bigger that I do for visual avoidance).
Once I'n chugging away, and hopefully still undetected, I plot a course parallel to the convoy, by connecting my course tangent to the middle and end circles. Now things get a bit 'math-y'. What I want to do is travel the minimum distance necessary to intercept. This is for two reasons: one is that the longer I travel, the more any errors in plotting accumulate and grow, and the other is the longer it takes to intercept, the more likely the convoy will make a course change and/or I'll be spotted by aircraft or another ship.
Based on the convoy speed and my flank speed I set my distance so that when I reach a set point (where I'll plot a forth circle and set my course tangent to it) and turn 90 degrees to the convoy course, that when I reach 1 - 2 klicks away from the plotted convoy course I'll be around 20 klicks ahead of them. I choose 20 klicks for two reasons: that's far enough away to remain beyond their visual and radar range, yet is close enough that when I submerge I can pick them up on passive hydrophones.
Then it's usually just a matter of waiting. Sometimes I'll re-surface and do a surface attack approach (early years
and at night) but normally I'll make creep adjustments submerged and sneak past the forward escorts until past and inside their screen.
@TarJak
I couldn't do that with this convoy TarJak because at the point you see they were between 6 - 9 klicks out, and on a divergent course between 120 - 130 port AoB. At their speed, and course, and also because they'd already made one unexpected radical course change, I decided trying to outflank and re-approach them would likely fail. That happens of course
but that's life.:p