@Pablo
Hmmmmm....thinking back to most of my patrols where I've sat and waited quietly for a convoy, what you are saying makes sense!
Not every time do they close to right where I am, but sometimes they'll pull up short and drop back to 11 or 12 knots when they get within a 2 to 3 km radius of me.
Then again sometimes it is right on top of me, they drop speed and start pinging away! Ack!
I have gotten inside to the convoy many, many times, normally I get depth charged, but it's almost like the DD's are guessing. If I wait and tough it out, I'll normally get through without damage and the convoy will start to pass over head. The DD normally breaks off then.
That's when I surface and go "Surprise!"
I'll have time to target one or two ships, and then down I go to hold my breath again. Those DD's sure do get POed when I do that! eheheheheheh!
The objection that I had is the same DD's spoting me from over 6km away, at night, in choppy seas, with no moon and I'm sitting DIW (Dead In the Water). I can't see them at all, until their guns light up!
Then I can see them just fine as I start pounding on the "C" key to do a crash dive! Wondering if one of my watchstanders had lit up a cigarette (you CAN see that at night for miles and miles, I've seen it myself, freaky!).
Another approach I have to convoys is different (abiet suicidal). This only works if you are NOT doing manual targeting of course, so those die-hard realists won't like this approach
.
If the weather is not too bad and my visability is not too limited, I'll get the escorts attention.
Yes I know, Andy must be insane (I think my crew thinks that!). I've found that most DD's go down with a single topedo (that is more realistic than most know. A DD's hull is actually very thin, carries a LOT of flamable fuel oil, and hundreds of HE rounds, sort of a floating bomb. My modern DDG's that I served on were even worse! Add 38 Terrier missiles and 8 Harpoon cruise missiles to the mix!).
I get submerged as soon as I know I have one of the escort's attention. I manuever until I'm bow on with her approaching. She'll start to S around when she get's within 2 km of me. I set my torp to 3 meters, Fast speed. I also hit Q and open the torpedo door. Then I wait.
When the Escort get's within 450 meters of me, I cut the torp loose. The torp almost never misses. As soon as the torp hits (or if it doesn't or duds out) I go to flank and either have my rudder to Hard to Port or Starbord depending on what the Escort is doing.
Did I mention that just before this I set one of my stern torps for the same thing?
That way if I missed, as I dodge out of the way, I straighten my rudder, slew the scope around aft and reaquire the escort, as soon as she's over 350 meters away, I'll cut loose the stern torpedo (if needed. If the Escort was hit, she's more than likely going down).
Once you got rid of her, I make my course towards the convoy at a nice speed of 4 knots. Yes, 4 knots. That's because the other 3 escorts are going to be on their way.
I use the same approach for each one of them. When I'm done, and if I was lucky, I've now got an unescorted Convoy, and I only used up 4 torps. Since I use a Type IX, that's good enough for me.
The neat thing is, you can turn the manual targeting back on if you want and go after the convoy that way. But you shouldn't use it with my above approach, else you'll be one dead u-boat commander!
That approach also has some rush for me too! If the torps a dud, well, I can feel my heart leap up into my throat! AAAAAHHHHG! Get Benard out of the torpedo room!
In anycase, I'm happy with GWX. If they've got the DD's harder, then they've got them harder. I could sit here and whine about it, but then if you think about it, I've got an unfair advantage over those poor DD's if I use automatic targeting, the F12 key to look above at what is happening, etc. They don't get those options!