Well, I'm finally out of the club.
My last trip was to patrol just North of Puerto Rico, and it was dead quiet. I ended up missing a convoy and a task force going through one side, then the other, of the straight between P.R. and the Dominican. So for most of my cruise, I was forced to hunt small ships- coastal merchants, small merchants, small cargoes, etc. I also blasted five destroyers (2 of them where sailing together in trail- I was particularly proud of nailing both, but it was a reckless attack born of frustration and boredom).
Just as I'm leaving, of course, I run into a HUGE convoy of American tankers. I managed to blast a whale factory ship, then had a point-blank shot on a large tanker. First shot hit, but failed to detonate because the angle was too sharp. Second magnetic hit, but failed to detonate because I had the depth set for the whaling ship - 11 M, which was too shallow for the immense 11.6M draft of the large tanker!
Again, rapid torpedo changes were a problem. Fortunately, a quick dash at high speed got me out of the convoy with no problems from the 6 escorts. So my total for the cruise was 55.5K tons, 2150 renown (thanks to the many destroyers).
Some observations:
1- American destroyers appear to be less capable than British destroyers. Anyone else find this?
2- North of Trinidad was again the best place to hunt, by far. I also did a nice raid on Barbadoes again (with just a destroyer in dock).
3- Frequently, ships appeared to be
escorted by twin-engined airplanes. Sometimes multiple airplanes! I went to gun a lone tanker, just surfaced, and got aircraft spotted call immediately! 3 planes where circling away, letting me frantically dive and get the hell out of their attack runs. I then torpedoed the tanker.
But this is a worrying development if aircraft are going to start escorting merchants.
4- One class of troop ship, the one that looks really boxy, is wickedly armed. I almost did a gun attack when I looked again at the ID booklet and noticed what appeared to be turrets. So I sailed closer (night time), and sure enough, this thing was armed like a cruiser!
Torps sent in to the bottom though.
5- Thankfully, I have yet to even spot an aircraft in the Bay of Biscay.
6- I did much of my patrolling underwater, finding that my detecting range was much better than surfaced (using 16K mod). However, I would surface and patrol up top in good weather that allowed for a wider patrol range and OK detection.
7- Lastly, for like the billionth time, I ferverently wished that we could blast Venezuala's fleet of tankers out of the water!