Two mad merchants - very strange ships behaviour

[Abd_von_Mumit]

GWX, career, May 16th 1940, grid CG95 (150 km west of Gibraltar):

- 1600 - Sonar reports a merchant contact, bearing ~270, slow, closing
- 1600-1800 - contact reported and lost accordingly _many_ times, repeatedly
- 1800 - contact observed on periscope, hardly visible. Actually 'a merchant' occures to be TWO ships (sonar never reported two different contacts)
- 1800-2000 - contact closing, more visible as the time passes, sonar still looses the contact every while, still reports a single ship
- 2000 - ships close enough to observe their strange behaviour. Two large merchants heading East on W-E route, French flagged. They never move both in the same time, one is always 'all stopped' while the other moves very slowly (estimated 2 knts) and changes her course significantly, virtually surrounding the stopped one in a half-circle route with variations. Then stops and after a while the other starts moving in general E direction, again extremely slowly and on a half-circle' route. A few time they almost collide, but change course in the last seconds before collision, then both stop.
- 2030 - first torpedo launched, misses targeted ship and hits the other (that was actually not the target for the torpedo).
- 2045 - second torpedo launched, hits the first ship. Ships don't seem to be alerted in any way, contiune their strange behaviour and don't change their routes, proceeding very slowly and dancing together.
- 2200 - ship hit as the second sinks
- 0200 - ship hit as the first sinks just before I was to decide about wasting a second torpedo to kill it.

What I think is the source of their strange behaviour is setting their route exactly in the same coordinates in exactly the same time. Thus the AI has a quite big problem to solve how to continue the trip and not destroy the ships by collision. But that is only my hipothesis. I've never coded anything for the game nor developed any missions, so I don't know, how the ships' route is used to be set and what the bug is. But that behaviour was absolutely a misbehaviour and I think it should be corrected.

PS Actually it was hard to hit the ships, even though they were extremely slow and stopped from time to time, because one never knows, what's their actual speed and course, as it alters every moment. Hitting 'regular' ones is much easier for me.

[fabel]

Strange, but congratulations with the sinkings

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Thanks.

What could be also interesting for anyone involved, it's the first time I saw two Large Merchants goind together. If the ships come together and one of them is a Large Merchant, the other has always been a tiny one, like tramp steamer or anything around 2k tonns. And then they always go in quite a straight line, not having any collision problems.

[Mooncatt]

yeah that is really wierd but can think of anything for this

[GT182]

I've seen the samething a couple of times in GWX but both were not Large Merchants. The second contact can be lost even if it's a little bit behind the first contact.

Have ypu seen this yet? It's actually a bit funny to watch. A wolfpack hit them the same time as I did and put the merchants in chaos. They had no idea where to turn to and several ran into each other becoming stuck together, tho each had to be sunk seprately. These did turn and were alll over the place. Sometimes going in circles.

[Warmonger]

I once spotted a small convoy SW of Freetown: A USN DD, 3 US tankers/merchants and a fat passenger liner with the British flags. As it was Nov '41 the US ships were safe but I wanted this liner badly.
Problem was, the merchants always tried to position themselves in a square behind the DD but it didn't work out, they were criss crossing, zagging, stopping, accelerating again like mad. It was impossible to get a solution for the liner. Frustrated I fired 3 torps nonetheless and of course hit a US tanker with 2 because chaos had broken out again...Luckily it didn't sink so at least I wasn't punished for neutral sinkings.

[cobalt]

why did you attack french merchants??

[rasmus1896]

Maybe because france is enemy for some time?
just thinking.....

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by rasmus1896

Maybe because france is enemy for some time?
just thinking.....

France is neutral after it falls untill D Day

@ Mumit
Where and when were these 2 ships ?
Sounds like they are spawning too close and cant seem to work out who is doing what lol
If I can narrow it down I can sort it

[johan_d]

There is a very reasonable explanation for this, and I quote you:

"Ships don't seem to be alerted in any way, contiune their strange behaviour and don't change their routes, proceeding very slowly and dancing together."

"Two large merchants heading East on W-E route, French flagged."

Frogs..

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

@ Mumit
Where and when were these 2 ships ?
Sounds like they are spawning too close and cant seem to work out who is doing what lol
If I can narrow it down I can sort it

Grid CG95, they come very close to exact point were I was, that is:
- exactly 150 km west of Gibraltar port,
- exactly 10 km south of above point.
Today I'm going to post a report from that patrol, so you'll get the exact time of sinking. Unfortunately I can't provide you with my save file, cause I save few times a night and ususally on the same save slot.

[Abd_von_Mumit]

From the log:
16 May 1940
2226 CG 95 Ship sunk! S.S. Alcoa Shipper (Large Merchant), 12261 tons
[this is the ship hit as the second]
17 May 1940
0111 CG 95 Ship sunk! S.S. Chandeleur (Large Merchant), 12269 tons
[this is the ship hit as the first]

Link to full log in my sig, "current".