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Originally Posted by Letum
The very next patrol I got my second. It was doing 6knts in a convoy escorted by
only two flower class corvettes. Surely no one had it that easy IRL??
(GWX)
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I know it might sound strange but the most difficult thing in sinking a capital ship in WWII was the fact that they used to travel at high speed. Thus it was almost impossible for submarines to attack them unless they managed somehow to be on the exact path. A battleship in a convoy is a sitting duck so if a submarine can penetrate a convoy escort screen and attack the merchant ships I see no reason why it will be difficult to attack the battleship as well.
Another thing to remember is that in the Pacific the US submarines caused havoc to Japanese aircraft carriers and battleships sinking and damaging a very large amount of them. This is important as the USA were using torpedoes far worse than the German (they were having massive problems with the impact and magnetic pistols and with the depth control) and their torpedoes were equiped with a much weaker warhead than the equivalent german ones. Therefore if the Americans managed to sink and damage so many capital ships with their torpedoes (and all the problems they were having) I see no reason why the Germans couldn't do it.
The main reason for the Germans not to attack enemy warships was that they couldn't get into a firing position (enemy ships were moving very fast) and that most of the enemy capital ships used to be clustered together into task forces and not convoys.