Jan 10 1940 high-speed friendly convoy North Sea

[desirableroasted]

Odd.

Got a message (real, not eye-candy) about a high-speed (30 knots!) friendly task force in AN93 going west. Got updates almost hourly (on the map). It went straight into Blyth, turned around and came out again.

I was a good 300 km away, so I am not sure why BdU thought it prudent to give me constant updates.

[Gargamel]

Destroyers on a mine laying mission running flat out to use darkness?

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

Odd.
I was a good 300 km away, so I am not sure why BdU thought it prudent to give me constant updates.

In order to bolster your morale by reminding that your U-Boat is not the only German warship opposing Royal Navy.

[Missing Name]

@Gargamel: You got it right. I was actually there to see exactly what happened. It was a bunch of Type 34 destroyers, with mine racks instead of depth charges.



You can see me and a bunch of destroyers in the background. They left my position shortly after contact. It might help that I had infiltrated the night before and sank the destroyers...

[ralphnader23]

Bdu worried you might get lazy on the flag checking?

[Gargamel]

Well if I was BDU, and I was sure the RN couldnt read ENIGMA (and they were sure until '42 ish), Then hellz yeah I'd be sending posit updates to the uboats of a high speed convoy in the dark. Kreigsmarine needs all the boats they can get.

[desirableroasted]

Well, I was hoping some old salts, preferably those who helped with the scripting in GWX3.0, might chime in.

I can't find a historical basis for it, so I was thinking it might be some sort of "in the know" Easter Egg, sort of like Swindon being dotted on the map of England, that's all.

But kudos, Missing Name, for managing to slip through the minefield barrage at exactly the right time and place to provide a "solution" to the mystery and document it. In five years of playing, it has never occurred to me to go tomcatting around Blyth on January 9, 1940 just in case Raeder found it in his head to mine there.

By the way, in another thread, you claim the screenshot is taken in February, 1940. Which is it?

[desirableroasted]

Bumping this.

I hope that is OK, but I never got a real answer, and wonder if some older salts can provide a view.

[Missing Name]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

By the way, in another thread, you claim the screenshot is taken in February, 1940. Which is it?

January. I simply got mixed up because my patrol ended in February.

But nope, I can't provide a real answer. I only saw the destroyers en route, not what actually happened. My guess is still minelaying.

[desirableroasted]

@Missing Name (or JokerOfFate, or whatever)

Stick to what you know about. In the first place, it was not a question you were in a position to answer.

[HW3]

I found this with a quick Google search....

From 'Engage the Enemy More Closely' - Barnrtt

From the first week of the war, however, Germany embarked on a campaign of offensive minelaying - ambushes beneath the sea Britain's own ports, coasts and naval bases. Most of these were o orthodox contact mines, of which the German Navy had over 20,000 in stock. One such minelaying operation, off the Tyne, by five destroyers covered by the cruisers Leipzig, Nurnberg and Köln, on 12-13 DeXcember gave the British submarine service the opportunity for biggest success so far in the war. The Salmon (Lieutenant-Commander E. O. B. Bickford), which had already sunk the U-36 with torpedoes, attacked the German squadron on its homeward voyage in the Heligoland Bight at dawn on the 14th, damaging Nurnberg and Leipzig so severely that they were out of action until May and December. 1940 respectively - a serious reduction in Germany's slender strength in cruisers during what was to be a decisive campaigning year at sea. Nonetheless, the German minelaying campaign in British waters, quite apart from causing vast disruption to coastal traffic, was to lead to the loss of 79 merchant ships, totalling 262,697 tons, in the first four months of the war.

As early as 16 September the damaging of the SS City of Paris by an underwater explosion confirmed Admiralty fears that the enemy was also using magnetic mines - that is, mines laid on the seabed and exploded by the influence of a ship's magnetic field on the mine -electro-magnetic detonating mechanism. In the shallow waters of the Continental Shelf round the British Isles, such seabed explosion could seriously damage or sink a ship.