Run silent, run shallow!

Ping Panther · 12-06-07, 05:52 PM

I have tried this method several times while hunting convoys from inside, and it seems to suit my hunt & shoot style. These are the screens I could manage to get from one of my earliest single missions using this kind of attack. It's not your usual run down the line tactic, it's a little different. And it has all worked pretty good, even in daylight.

At first, I made a traditional outside attack with a couple of eel shots. Then I quited down a while... one escort had sniffed around and pinged just a bit.
(they were steamers, and the first shots on this group, all by surprise & approached submerged broadside)

I then waited on a patient reload.

Then... run in sort of deep, keep hydro. sound checks going ahead as approaching with no scope up at all until you are in! Find a small, shallow draft merchant.
(it helps here to visually sight this guy ahead of time in your first recon., in this case I made an earlier note of his spot in formation, 2nd column, 2nd rank)

^ Here's a screen of my sub (orange marker), inside this medium-sized convoy. Some escorts are still on the flanks of the convoy. I had already sunk an armed trawler at my fast & submerged approach run from outside & then timed a similar hit on a leading merchant (hit a leading merchant at near center column of convoy & hope for getting it dead-in-the-water in the props./engines to slow one down and cause the followers to swerve courses!

, not going for a fast kill shot on that one, just choosing one to send skidding around slow & ahead)

^ Now in this F12 underwater screen, you can se me hanging close & at periscope depth to one of my selected merchants (best to pick a ship of shallow draft depth, small merchants are good

). As the remaining escorts perk up more to your earlier hits (and the previously targeted & limping merchant stirs up some chaos in the formations and zig-zag shifts), you get to stay centered in the fleet. Carefully keep tabs on the smaller ship you are trailing, he's the key to the hunt & peck. He's the guy giving you super visual cover when you poke your scope up for targeting on numerous bow & stern shot opportunities.

^ Here's a screen-shot a few minutes later (notice I stayed silient-running, first tries at this , not really needed, keep them loading!) & I strayed just a little off of my drafting of that small merchant for the moment, yet kept the more-confused escort just ahead and shadowed off from me... why?, because I was targeting up that sweet large ship (notice torpedo trail (steamer) heading for midships!

I finish this big guy up a little later on after a good reload. Once again here, notice I am cruising the left-perimeter column of this convoy, so this guy gets hit here, heading him back into the front & center of the convoy & shakes up the trailing ships here as well.

^ Now here I let go of just one more eel (I had a fortunate hit on this guy from my first attack, then some down time to reload before I hit them with this inside run tactic), so this is a steamer eel again, set it fast running to just about full range length, and on MAGNETIC DETONATOR! I love these mag. shots when the chance ever arrives! It's best when chasing down a ship from its stern, no more than 1 meter under draft depth for best effect. Often rips a ship clean open even with just 1 shot like this one is headed. Bad angled shots with no other chance are good as well for magnetics, you just need a good large ship. It quadruples the effect over broadside impacts, you gain damge to the keel-line seams, and the explosion lifts the ship up from it's water displacement & slams it back down again.

^ So to end with a final highlight of this skirmish... here's the damage going on to that same escort I had hid from as shown in image #2 above. I let a shot go to this escort just after the broadside shot on the large ship, turned my scope a bit to port, watched the escort steam from behind a bit from my "shadow" ship and got lucky! It took a while to burn along, & slid down slow. (Racerboys effects!

)

Drafting inside the convoy just behind a small merchant & at periscope depth or just below at times, allows you to:
1> hide from most escort runs, pinging is confused with the merchants wake, and escorts shy from making depth charge attacks as well
2> keep visual/hydro. coverage of most of the fleet while staying mostly hidden from escort siting your periscope
3> be fairly safe from merchant & escort deck gunners (risking hits to one of their own ships), and you stay submerged & slowed speed from most any chance for their re-targeting to your scope
4> as I learned even more later, you can run full operations (reload, repair), since most of your underwater racket is being now often masked & confused from the ships props. you are trailing
5> even in later war era, with more armed merchants around, even it the poor guy you have chosen to trail under is fully armed, his crews can't traverse and depress their gunnery low enough to target you... enemy aircraft even get pretty upset to try a bomb-drop on top of you as well!

Mush Martin · 12-06-07, 06:54 PM

I approve of this behaviour well done.

ReallyDedPoet · 12-06-07, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

I approve of this behaviour well done.

Seems to fit in well with this

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=126236

RDP

Mush Martin · 12-06-07, 07:05 PM

Oddly PP never voted but I think we know what he would have voted.

TarJak · 12-06-07, 07:51 PM

Go get em tiger... err... panther

U49 · 12-06-07, 08:11 PM

Interesting tactics :hmm:

Canovaro · 12-07-07, 02:41 AM

Interesting, but almost impossible without external view

Oberon · 12-07-07, 06:44 AM

Reminds me of the tactics the Soviets used to use to try and get their boats over the SOSUS line without being detected by close trailing a large noisey merchant. 'Buggering the whale' I think they used to call it.
No real idea of the success of such tactics, but I think a Victor did ram a merchant by accident once, possibly whilst close trailing.

Ping Panther · 12-07-07, 12:56 PM

Once inside and behind your chosen shallow drafted ship, I tend to find the need to do periodic periscope ups to be sure I'm on it's wake trail. Once you observe the general convoy route, speed, and zig-zags, (as any good Kaleun would) you can very soon get a sense of the track you follow.

Through it all, it sure keeps your wits on edge. I would not say it will carry you through in all cases, and it takes some efforts to stay in some range of tracking the path of your lamb within the flock. I had learned from some chances on other convoys at times where I got too involved with setting up new shots out from this, and had my engine speed up a knot just a little too long and had some very soft conning tower bumps. (no real damage, since you have practically no relative speed on any contact) but since you need to really assume a convoy speed here, you learn to lay in a fix on this, and take some gentle glides off to the sides as needed for targeting or sneaking from sight of an escort ship. (Magnetic det. shots down the length of convoy columns; all tricky here too, but sometimes you get lots of hull lines along a row when set up like this)

Taking an early hit (not so much for a quick sinking, just a lucky dead-in-the-water shot or slow burn, going for a stern shot here), at a leading merchant does help stir up the general ability of the convoy & its escorts ability to move along. I have seen ships halt (even some escorts, novice crews?) to avoid collision with others once a few go down slow.

I just can't get enough of the various tactical challenges GWX brings to us here!

:p

12-06-07, 05:52 PM	#1
Ping Panther Lieutenant Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: the armpit of the Mid-Atlantic / Quadrant CA42 Posts: 262 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Run silent, run shallow! I have tried this method several times while hunting convoys from inside, and it seems to suit my hunt & shoot style. These are the screens I could manage to get from one of my earliest single missions using this kind of attack. It's not your usual run down the line tactic, it's a little different. And it has all worked pretty good, even in daylight. At first, I made a traditional outside attack with a couple of eel shots. Then I quited down a while... one escort had sniffed around and pinged just a bit. (they were steamers, and the first shots on this group, all by surprise & approached submerged broadside) I then waited on a patient reload. Then... run in sort of deep, keep hydro. sound checks going ahead as approaching with no scope up at all until you are in! Find a small, shallow draft merchant. (it helps here to visually sight this guy ahead of time in your first recon., in this case I made an earlier note of his spot in formation, 2nd column, 2nd rank) ^ Here's a screen of my sub (orange marker), inside this medium-sized convoy. Some escorts are still on the flanks of the convoy. I had already sunk an armed trawler at my fast & submerged approach run from outside & then timed a similar hit on a leading merchant (hit a leading merchant at near center column of convoy & hope for getting it dead-in-the-water in the props./engines to slow one down and cause the followers to swerve courses! , not going for a fast kill shot on that one, just choosing one to send skidding around slow & ahead) ^ Now in this F12 underwater screen, you can se me hanging close & at periscope depth to one of my selected merchants (best to pick a ship of shallow draft depth, small merchants are good ). As the remaining escorts perk up more to your earlier hits (and the previously targeted & limping merchant stirs up some chaos in the formations and zig-zag shifts), you get to stay centered in the fleet. Carefully keep tabs on the smaller ship you are trailing, he's the key to the hunt & peck. He's the guy giving you super visual cover when you poke your scope up for targeting on numerous bow & stern shot opportunities. ^ Here's a screen-shot a few minutes later (notice I stayed silient-running, first tries at this , not really needed, keep them loading!) & I strayed just a little off of my drafting of that small merchant for the moment, yet kept the more-confused escort just ahead and shadowed off from me... why?, because I was targeting up that sweet large ship (notice torpedo trail (steamer) heading for midships! I finish this big guy up a little later on after a good reload. Once again here, notice I am cruising the left-perimeter column of this convoy, so this guy gets hit here, heading him back into the front & center of the convoy & shakes up the trailing ships here as well. ^ Now here I let go of just one more eel (I had a fortunate hit on this guy from my first attack, then some down time to reload before I hit them with this inside run tactic), so this is a steamer eel again, set it fast running to just about full range length, and on MAGNETIC DETONATOR! I love these mag. shots when the chance ever arrives! It's best when chasing down a ship from its stern, no more than 1 meter under draft depth for best effect. Often rips a ship clean open even with just 1 shot like this one is headed. Bad angled shots with no other chance are good as well for magnetics, you just need a good large ship. It quadruples the effect over broadside impacts, you gain damge to the keel-line seams, and the explosion lifts the ship up from it's water displacement & slams it back down again. ^ So to end with a final highlight of this skirmish... here's the damage going on to that same escort I had hid from as shown in image #2 above. I let a shot go to this escort just after the broadside shot on the large ship, turned my scope a bit to port, watched the escort steam from behind a bit from my "shadow" ship and got lucky! It took a while to burn along, & slid down slow. (Racerboys effects! ) Drafting inside the convoy just behind a small merchant & at periscope depth or just below at times, allows you to: 1> hide from most escort runs, pinging is confused with the merchants wake, and escorts shy from making depth charge attacks as well 2> keep visual/hydro. coverage of most of the fleet while staying mostly hidden from escort siting your periscope 3> be fairly safe from merchant & escort deck gunners (risking hits to one of their own ships), and you stay submerged & slowed speed from most any chance for their re-targeting to your scope 4> as I learned even more later, you can run full operations (reload, repair), since most of your underwater racket is being now often masked & confused from the ships props. you are trailing 5> even in later war era, with more armed merchants around, even it the poor guy you have chosen to trail under is fully armed, his crews can't traverse and depress their gunnery low enough to target you... enemy aircraft even get pretty upset to try a bomb-drop on top of you as well!

12-06-07, 07:05 PM	#4
Mush Martin Eternal Patrol Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 4,398 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	Oddly PP never voted but I think we know what he would have voted. __________________ RIP Mush Tutorial

12-06-07, 08:11 PM	#6
U49 Grey Wolf Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: D/Niedersachsen Posts: 777 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Interesting tactics :hmm: __________________ SH3 battle capability upgrades: GWX2.0, JSGME2.0, SH3Commander 2.7, SH3Gen 0.8.2, TorpDamageMod 2.0, OLC GUI 1.1.5 Awaiting combat readiness for GWX2.0: SH4 effetcs for SH3, SH3Weather 1.5 Following development of: www.subwolves.com Realism: 90%

12-06-07, 06:54 PM	#2
Mush Martin Eternal Patrol Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 4,398 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	I approve of this behaviour well done. __________________ RIP Mush Tutorial

12-06-07, 07:51 PM	#5
TarJak Fleet Admiral Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 17,052 Downloads: 150 Uploads: 8	Go get em tiger... err... panther

12-07-07, 02:41 AM	#7
Canovaro Ace of the Deep Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Netherlands Posts: 1,062 Downloads: 34 Uploads: 0	Interesting, but almost impossible without external view

12-07-07, 06:44 AM	#8
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Reminds me of the tactics the Soviets used to use to try and get their boats over the SOSUS line without being detected by close trailing a large noisey merchant. 'Buggering the whale' I think they used to call it. No real idea of the success of such tactics, but I think a Victor did ram a merchant by accident once, possibly whilst close trailing.

12-07-07, 12:56 PM	#9
Ping Panther Lieutenant Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: the armpit of the Mid-Atlantic / Quadrant CA42 Posts: 262 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Once inside and behind your chosen shallow drafted ship, I tend to find the need to do periodic periscope ups to be sure I'm on it's wake trail. Once you observe the general convoy route, speed, and zig-zags, (as any good Kaleun would) you can very soon get a sense of the track you follow. Through it all, it sure keeps your wits on edge. I would not say it will carry you through in all cases, and it takes some efforts to stay in some range of tracking the path of your lamb within the flock. I had learned from some chances on other convoys at times where I got too involved with setting up new shots out from this, and had my engine speed up a knot just a little too long and had some very soft conning tower bumps. (no real damage, since you have practically no relative speed on any contact) but since you need to really assume a convoy speed here, you learn to lay in a fix on this, and take some gentle glides off to the sides as needed for targeting or sneaking from sight of an escort ship. (Magnetic det. shots down the length of convoy columns; all tricky here too, but sometimes you get lots of hull lines along a row when set up like this) Taking an early hit (not so much for a quick sinking, just a lucky dead-in-the-water shot or slow burn, going for a stern shot here), at a leading merchant does help stir up the general ability of the convoy & its escorts ability to move along. I have seen ships halt (even some escorts, novice crews?) to avoid collision with others once a few go down slow. I just can't get enough of the various tactical challenges GWX brings to us here! :p