How To Kill A Convoy

[banjo]

This works for me everytime (well, almost).

Get ahead of the convoy, move in front of it and point generally toward it. When the escorts get within about 2000 yds raise your periscope and head toward the first one--speed doesnt matter since you will be detected. When the closest excort is within 1000 yards do one of two things--if he is coming straight for you fire a torp...if he is zigzaging wait. When he is under 500 yds fire a torp. Be sure you have your torp door open...you want no delay. As soon as you fire turn hard left or right to avoid what will soon be a sinking ship. Find the next nearest escort and repeat. Do this until all the escorts on you side of the convoy are dead. Watch for other escorts to come barrelling thru the convoy to you. Get them in the same way. You can also point away from them and kill them in the same way using the stern tubes.

Once all the escorts, or escorts in the neighborhood, are sunk you can deal with the merchies at your leisure, picking them off 1 or 2 at a time.

Don't forget to go to Battle Stations prior to the fight as you will need as fast torpedo reload as you can get.

This is my standard convoy routine now and I almost never get hit--plus it is very exiciting. : )

Good luck.

[SteamWake]

Its that "well almost" that concearns me :p

[ReDRuM71]

Not sure you want to try that with Dicimus's Trigger Maru 1.5

[banjo]

However, I've been using TM 1.4 since it came out. Is 1.5 a whole lot different? In fact, I've been wondering what the differences in the two are.

But if you are detected, wont all the merchants start zigzagging?

[Captain Scribb]

Ya, they'll zigzag. But as long as you remain submerged and careful about not leaving your periscope up, you can close in close and torp em easy. I have done a similar sort of tactic on convoys for awhile. After all escorts are gone, I give priority to ships with deck guns of significant size. If you get rid of all of those, then you can surface and use YOUR deck gun on ships, at your leisure.

[Rockin Robbins]

In TM 1.5 the deck guns of merchants bite hard. If you're attacking a convoy of merchies with your deck gun you're probably in big trouble there. Regardless, that should be an untenable tactic.

First of all, eliminating all those escorts just wasn't in the cards in R/L. Coordinated attacks by two or more escorts just about totally preclude retaliation. You're left with survival mode. So you have to be lucky enough not to run into a convoy protected by elites.

But TM1.5 has more realistic targets, too. You won't see many 15+ ship convoys, but a lot more groups of 1, 2 and 3 ships, both escorted and unescorted. Those that are escorted are often escorted by a gunboat or a single DD. This reflects tater's massaging of the unrealistic stock Japanese fleet setup.

Your situation would be quite rare in TM1.5. If you found it, you would be surprised how different it would turn out, I believe.