Merchant Marksmen

[UnderseaLcpl]

Some of you have seen the recent post where I complained about being shot in the periscope. Well, now I'm complaining about being shot on the surface.

Just today I attacked a convoy westbound in grid BF15. It was a big one and contained 4 large merchants and an ammunition ship along with a plethora of medium-sized vessels and 4 escorts of various classes.

I botched my approach because of a target course miscalculation (tried to compensate by making decent submerged speed) and alerted the lead escort.

So I sunked the escorts, one at a time and made an two end-arounds blowing off all my torpedoes.

I was not happy with the results. 2 good sized ships sunk but the 3 mediums I hit only damaged and showing no loss in speed.

A sizeable contingent of fat merchants was at the rear of the convoy and I decided to shadow and attack them by deck gun at night, keeping a range of about 3000m. Impatience prompts me to attack slightly before sunset and I cripple a tramp steamer with the gun.

Overtaking her underwater I surface and dispatch her aft gun with my twin-20mm cannon. I then sink her at my leisure. Pleased with these results I repeat the process with a Granville type freighter and set my sights on a large merchant.

I surface around 3500m astern of her and try to close to 3000 before opening fire.
To my unpleasant surprise she fires on me at around 3200m and scores a hit on my stern with the first shot using some type of small cannon.

Undaunted, I order the deck gun crew to open fire and target the waterline when I am hit a second time. The impact killed my whole deck gun crew.

Thinking this poorly-trained merchant crew couldn't possibly be so lucky as to hit me a 3rd time I continue the attack. The next impact hits the conning tower and kills my watch officer and another rating. I decide to abort immediately and dive to escape.

---------------------------------

So, what is going on here? My boat is sighted at 3000m and fired upon, successfully, at night? By a merchant gun crew? 3 times in a row? Yeah, my a$$.

Maybe I am just very unlucky.

[Cezbor]

War is a hell, isn' it. Now you've learned an old truth "always respect your enemy". More seriously, in GWX ships are more stable platform for deck guns than uboats. sensors works the same for you as they work for your enemy, if you can see him - he see's you too. Be more aggressive, but it doesn't mean to be stupid. Large merchants are equipped with two deck guns. They can be devastating.

[Sailor Steve]

Running gun battles are always a bad idea. The reason they 'saw' you at three kilometers is that they knew exactly where to look. You had already fired on one of them, so the AI on the others was in 'Alert' mode.

Instead of wasting your torpedoes on the escorts you probably should have just targetted the merchants and been done with it. Also, merchant gun crews were better trained than you might think, especially as the war progressed. Deck guns are for sinking helpless victims, not ones who can shoot back.

Here's a very good discussion of the subject.
http://www.uboat.net/forums/read.php?20,64443,64448

[note] This is actually a response to a question on that forum. The original question and other answers are also interesting.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Also, merchant gun crews were better trained than you might think, especially as the war progressed.

In fact, I believe in a lot of cases, merchant gun crews were trained RN or Army personnel rather than full time merchant navy men. Hence they were good at their job.

Nemo

[msalama]

Here's a very good discussion of the subject.

Sorry to butt into your discussion, but just as an aside thanks for the link Steve. An interesting topic this...

S!

[Platapus]

You should also consider where the merchant's guns are located. Many merchant ships only have one gun hard point.

If they are located on the blunt end, perhaps you should attack from the pointy end?

[UnderseaLcpl]

Meh.... I still don't think they could have seen, let alone hit us. It was dark by the time I engaged that big ship. All they would have been able to aim at was the muzzle flash from my gun, and I was moving at a good clip. All I could see of him was his silohuette.

Instead of wasting your torpedoes on the escorts you probably should have just targetted the merchants and been done with it. Also, merchant gun crews were better trained than you might think, especially as the war progressed. Deck guns are for sinking helpless victims, not ones who can shoot back.

As I said, I botched the approach and was sighted. I would have just attacked the merchants but the destroyers kept trying to drop some kind of exploding barrels on me.
Even a well-trained gunner has to be able to see you to hit you. Especially 3 times in a row.

Oh well. I guess I just wanted to let off some steam. I hate it when things don't go the way I say they're supposed to.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

...some kind of exploding barrels...

:rotfl:

How rude!


The truth is I haven't played enough GWX to know how bad it can actually get. I just try to put some perspective in, but I don't know if it's out of balance or not. You might be right.

[Penelope_Grey]

If you survive to 1944, that will be fiun.

I know what u mean u should be lucky u haven't hit a mine as I did on my last good career I still remember how that was hard to handle, it just sucks in its own way

But I can confess I deserved such a fate then, since my all patrol areas was always AN 14. Lazy grid for an easy prey

[Schwuppes]

thanks for the tip!

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I was moving at a good clip.

This could be the problem. When approaching ships at night, especially convoys, I tend to order ahead slow or a speed of 1-4 kts depending on the situation to reduce my bow wave so that it is not easily spotted by any ship. The faster you go the more chance you have of being detected in this way.

Nemo

[predavolk]

I do a lot of gunning, and there's a couple of things I'd comment on:

1- You were unlucky. It is highly unusual for any ship to hit you consistently at that range. Even a destroyer. Maybe late in the war the RN could do it, but you just had some bad luck.

2- Large merchants are very dangerous to take on with guns from 1942-on. They tend to have a big gun (105mm?) on the stern, a 20mm (sometimes twin?) in the midship area, and sometimes even an 85mm on the bow. Liberty ships are another class that are heavily armed. Tankers don't seem to be so well-armed, but the general rule is that attacking the bow is much safer than attacking the stern.

3- You mentioned attacking with your deck gun and your AA gun(s). That means you're broadside to the attacking boat and therefore a much broader target. I like to go AoB = 0. That lets my gun hammer away at them while they can't shoot back at me with their stern gun.

4- Bigger guns (105mm etc.) can engage you from over 4000M. Smaller guns 3K and 2K respectively.

5- At longer distances, change your course to throw their aim off. Particularly if you notice that they are getting close. Or increase/decrease speed. The flight time of the shell is long enough that relatively small changes can make them miss.

Bottom line is that gunning is increasingly risky as the war goes on. As the link mentions, the biggest effect of arming merchant ships was to deny easy deck gun kills to U-Boats (a major source of kills for early WW2 aces and many WW1 aces). Deck gun kills were made late in the war, but generally against lone merchants in permissive (Southern) areas. Generally speaking, U-Boats tended to win those engagements cleanly.

[U-46 Commander]

When atacking ships that are armed, attack S-style to throw off their aim.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by predavolk

I do a lot of gunning, and there's a couple of things I'd comment on:

1- You were unlucky. It is highly unusual for any ship to hit you consistently at that range. Even a destroyer. Maybe late in the war the RN could do it, but you just had some bad luck.

2- Large merchants are very dangerous to take on with guns from 1942-on. They tend to have a big gun (105mm?) on the stern, a 20mm (sometimes twin?) in the midship area, and sometimes even an 85mm on the bow. Liberty ships are another class that are heavily armed. Tankers don't seem to be so well-armed, but the general rule is that attacking the bow is much safer than attacking the stern.

3- You mentioned attacking with your deck gun and your AA gun(s). That means you're broadside to the attacking boat and therefore a much broader target. I like to go AoB = 0. That lets my gun hammer away at them while they can't shoot back at me with their stern gun.

4- Bigger guns (105mm etc.) can engage you from over 4000M. Smaller guns 3K and 2K respectively.

5- At longer distances, change your course to throw their aim off. Particularly if you notice that they are getting close. Or increase/decrease speed. The flight time of the shell is long enough that relatively small changes can make them miss.

Bottom line is that gunning is increasingly risky as the war goes on. As the link mentions, the biggest effect of arming merchant ships was to deny easy deck gun kills to U-Boats (a major source of kills for early WW2 aces and many WW1 aces). Deck gun kills were made late in the war, but generally against lone merchants in permissive (Southern) areas. Generally speaking, U-Boats tended to win those engagements cleanly.

1) I think I am.

2) Totally agree. This particular ship only had one stern gun So I thought I'd chance it. Attacking the bow wasn't really an option because the rest of the convoy was up there somewhere. One ship shooting at me is enough.

3) I was pretty much following his wake. It was a different ship I hit with the AA gun. I only use it to attack ships at point-blank range and destroy their guns. It works well because they can't depress their guns low enough to hit me.

4) Once again, yeah, but they would have to see me.

5) That's one thing I didn't do. Both my gun crew and myself were having a hard enough time hitting the damn thing that I didn't really consider zig-zagging.


Actually, I think I may have to reinstall GWX. I think my game is broken. This morning I was cruising the Irish Sea and was startled to hear the "Enemy ship engaging us!" message.
I went topside to slap my watchcrew around a bit and look for the offending vessel.
After several 360 scans I could see nothing. It was a fairly pleasant morning with just a bit of fog/haze limiting visibility to 2 or 3000m. Somewheres in there.

I checked the map to see if a visual contact was plotted somewhere, but nothing.
Nonetheless, shells are splashing around my boat.

Finally I decided to cheat and use the external camera to identify my attacker, and backtracked his cannon shots. At some ridiculously crazy long distance, I saw a little coastal freighter chugging along, enthusiastically lobbing ordinance in my direction.

When I dove, completely mystified as to how I had been spotted, the hydrophones indicated he was 8km away.

Some kind of bug?