Dumbest destroyer evasion tatics that worked

[Soviet Creeper]

Title. :D
I was engageing a large convoy fulled with yummy tankers, Spewed off 4 torpedos and got 2 hits on one tanker, and disabled the engine of another. The tanker that I hit twice quickly sank, but as the ocean was very shallow, its nose hit the ocean floor,but its engine was still out of the water. 4 destroyers quickly found me and began depth charging, so in a panic I moved my sub UNDER the tanker, so that the destroyers couldnt get me. After a few hours they ran off, and thankfully the tanker did not end up crushing my sub.

I quickly surfaced and gunned down the other tanker that I disabled, and went back to my home port with only 3 aircraft encounters. Horray.

[sparrs]

Now thats cool. I remember sinking a Jap Carrier in the Java sea, or near Surabaya where it is a shallow sea - she just sat half in and half out of the ocean, quite funny to see, shame that the sinking wreckage never carry over from mission to mission.

[TorpX]

This reminds me when I used to play SHCE. As I was learning the game, I replayed one particular scenario quite a bit. In that one there were a number of merchants anchored in Lingayen Gulf, which is shallow, and these were protected by four destroyers patroling and pinging away. I found I could get in undetected most of the time, but getting out again, wasn't so easy. Sometimes I resorted to tricks like hiding under the anchored ships, or going aground in the shallows, and the sort of things you are talking about here. I don't know how realistic it was, but I had fun.

[Armistead]

I try not to do it, but once in awhile I will. Once I had the Yamato dead on the water and hid under it to evade about 6DD's. I had cams off, but heard planes and realized US planes were attacking it, they scored a few good hits before I could haul arse and it blew up....killing me....

It was a trick occasionally used in real life as well. On 25 May 1915 KL Otto Hersing (U-21) torpedoed and sank the battleship HMS Triumph off the Dardenelles. Pursued by a bomb-armed aircraft he escaped by diving under the French battleship FS Henri IV. Two days later he would sink another British battleship, HMS Majestic in a mere 18 metres of water.

Some versions of the action have U-21 escape by diving under the sinking Triumph rather than the anchored Henri IV; one of the neat things about first-person accounts is how they generally conflict with other first-person accounts of the same event. In any event, most accounts agree that Hersing dove under a capital ship to shake off his pursuers.

So there's nothing really dumb about it, provided it works.

[Elektroniikka-Asentaja]

I've often tried to use the same tactic in convoy attacks and stay under moving merchant shps to avoid dive bombs. The success levels vary from warships accidentally ramming the merchants to breaking my periscope as I've hit the merchant ship.

It's funny tactic to use but I'm still trying to improve it somehow, with manual tdc it would probably be possible to shoot torpedoes blind and even hit.. Worth a try :P

- Johnny

[Daniel Prates]

Weird tactics, though.

[troopie]

Yeah have used that one a couple of times too. Works really well if you've slowed one of the merchies; duck under it, and, eventually, the escorts will give up and take off to catch up with the rest of the (undamaged) convoy.

You then get to pick off the sick one at your leisure.

Easy in deep water, even easier with external cameras.

[Hylander_1314]

Works in convoys, and task forces! Especially if you can get the whole tf to slow to a crawl! The DDs get stuck waiting for boats to move, and then you can pounce on unsuspecting victims!

Sunk a Kongo once in the shallows of Cam Rah Bay. The DD's didn't like me much so i positioned myself above the forecastle of the Kongo. Parts of it's superstructure were still above the surface, so all the escort did, was steaming circles and dropping randomly. Two blew their aft DC-rails, another gutted itself on the superstructure and i had lot of fun watching. After i scored a Shiratsu and a Fubuki, the remaining two escorts took their heels. Shame that i didn't make a screenshot. The burning second Shiratsu in the superstructure looked really good.

[TorpX]

That's a good one.

[Hylander_1314]

Actually thinking about it, if it saves your neck, it's not so dumb in the end.

[Sailor Steve]

The greatest sub commander of all time was Kptlt Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, way back in WW1. He said that during one of his attacks he hid under a merchant he had just attacked, only to have the sinking ship land on top of his u-boat, taking them down with it. He attributed their escape to pure luck, the boat sliding out from under the ship in time to let them stabilize their boat.

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The greatest sub commander of all time was Kptlt Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, way back in WW1. He said that during one of his attacks he hid under a merchant he had just attacked, only to have the sinking ship land on top of his u-boat, taking them down with it. He attributed their escape to pure luck, the boat sliding out from under the ship in time to let them stabilize their boat.

Jeeez!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Daniel Prates

Jeeez!

Not to go off on a tangent, but the man was truly amazing. From 1915 to 1918 he sank a total of 193 ships for 453,369 tons. He always stuck to the prize regulations, stopping ships and allowing the crew to abandon ship, then sinking it by opening the seacocks, using the deck gun or scuttling charges. He was so strict about this that on one patrol he sank 54 ships for 91,150 tons and only used 4 torpedoes...and one of those missed!

Truly the greatest of all u-boat captains.
http://uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/10.html