Tactics vs Convoys

[ColonelSandersLite]

Ok, so I was thinking about something here in regards to attacking convoys.

Consider:
In general, the strongest possible attack you can make is generally your first when the convoy is not alerted and not squirreling around unpredictably. In this situation, I can hit my targets pretty reliably from 4,000 yards.

Ideally, you probably want to set it up so that you can hit two or three targets.

You probably also want all torpedo impacts to be within a few seconds of each other so that when the SHTF and the targets start evading, none of your shots are fouled.

Setting an attack up that meets all of the above criteria requires a fair amount of preparation and planning, with certain approaches lending themselves well to hitting certain combinations of ships in this manner.

Most convoys move fairly slowly.

In the era where you have good radar, you can figure out your approach and have it planned out well in advance of actually seeing the contents of the convoy, but the result is that you are picking an arbitrary setup without seeing what the targets actually are.



So the thought I had, and I've never really seen it discussed, is that it might be a good idea to dedicate the first pass on a convoy to reconnaissance. Suppose that the sub submerges and heads on the opposing course of the convoy, about 5,000 yards off their track. Maybe not that exact distance, but the idea being to be close enough to identify most or all of the targets, but far enough away to reliably avoid detection from the escorts. From here, the sub lets the convoy steam past and follows with an end around. The next time the sub is ahead of the convoy, it already knows where the choice targets are and has plenty of time to set up any desired approach accordingly.


Thoughts?

[TorpX]

Interesting idea, but personally, I would not approach a convoy without attempting an attack. Imo, you don't risk your boat, unless there is a prospect of doing greater harm to the enemy.

Generally, I find myself in a S-boat, so there is no guarantee I can even get one shot, and very difficult to get more than one.

The above is not to say I would not spend time stalking a ship/convoy from a distance on the surface, but this would have to be done at night.

[Havan_IronOak]

I generally try to set up a constant bearing solution ahead of a convoy then go deep and wait for the lead escort to go by.

Then rise up to periscope depth when the first row of merchants approaches my firing line. I start with the one nearest my firing solution and work back to the nearer ships. If they're all small fry, I can down scope and wait for line 2. Of course, I'm playing with map updates on so it's easier to do this.

[Fearless]

Sometimes I fire 2 to 4 torps at range 9000 yards usually at the furthest away if the column is at 3 abreast. One in three chance of hitting a merchant. It also tends to send the DDs in the wrong direction as they weren't alert enough to see from which direction the torps came from.

[Rockin Robbins]

My most successful attacks have been very different. I approach the convoy from the side with a Dick O'Kane attack, hull awash. I set up about 3,000 yards away with stern to the convoy and wait to take to shots at the largest target in the center of the convoy. I shoot two, surface and jet out of there at ahead emergency. When the torpedoes hit I'm already away at 21 knots. The escorts then swarm to where I was and begin depth charging the fishies.

But I'm doing an end around to the unguarded side of the convoy where I can attack at leisure, get super close and take out the two of my choice. If radar indicates the one I hit on the first pass is still afloat I'll mark him on my chart for later cleanup. Same deal, shoot, run end around because all the escorts are going to my new attack site.

You have over an hour to attack an unguarded side of the convoy every time. Your goal is to have all the untouched escorts just disperse when they have no merchants to protect.

Of course you do this in the early night time because the procedure is an all night party. In the daytime I don't believe that jetting out of there, even from a 3,000 yard shot would get you enough distance from the escorts to avoid annihilation. But that was with TMO. With other mods the procedure would be easier to pull off. I don't believe an initial reconnaissance would be helpful because my aim is to sink everything except the escorts anyway. What it is is what it is......or was.

[ColonelSandersLite]

@Torpex
The s-boats are a special case here. Their low peak firepower means that trying to hit more than one ship at a time is generally a waste, so you just pick the biggest and go. Any approach you want will work for that. Their low speed means it's often to your advantage to deliberately alert the convoy if you can't get into attack position. This will make them zigzag. In my experience, this slows a 9 knot convoy down to 5 knots, making them easy to catch.

In fleet boats, the point I'm trying to make is to not risk the boat until you know which targets are the best. You don't recon from inside the convoy, but from several thousand yards away. The possibility of detection in this scenario is remote. Essentially, they would have to change course and just by pure chance be in a perfect position so a DD just randomly plows right over you.

@IronOak
You're talking about shooting zero gyro perpendicular to their track right? This lets you simultaneously hit multiple targets in the same row. However, that's only one possible approach that achieves the goals above, and locking yourself into it every time is a waste of potential imho. For example, suppose that the best targets in the convoy are a nippon maru at r1c1 and a nagara maru at r2c1. Shooting at and sinking the nippon maru and, lets just say kinposin maru, at r1c2 is a sub optimal result.

@Fearless
I'm playing TMO, and my experience there is that mk14s on slow speed get spotted and evaded 100% of the time. Even ignoring that, I prefer better odds of sinking a choice target than 1 in 3. I figure that from 4,000 yards, with fast 14s or 18s my hit rate is about 90%. So if I fire at two targets the odds of sinking one of them is very high (assuming reliable torpedoes).

@RR
I prefer to save my stern tubes for destroyer defense if at all possible. Different strokes and all. I can say for sure though, that the number of times I have been depth charged when firing my my bow tubes from 3,000+ yards while submerged is very low. They basically have to get very lucky to find me at all in that situation.

While I agree that the best result is to sink all of the merchants, I always try to consider that making a second (or more) attack is not guaranteed. There are a variety of conditions that can prevent this, so I always strive to make my first attack hit as hard as possible.

[Rockin Robbins]

Can't argue with your numbers, you're racking up great scores.

And yes, the skipper with the biggest bag of tricks wins every time. You can't force every attack into one cookie cutter scenario and have great success. I'm thinking a Dick O'Kane sonar only attack from about 100' depth would be a cool thing to do as a first approach to a convoy if you can separate out the separate targets on sonar. Haven't tried it yet. I'm working on conventional stadimeter attacks again to stay sharp there.

The versitility of the American submarine was to be able to do all the U-Boat attack methods plus have the position keeper available for a whole new family of attack methods.

There are two things you can do when duck hunting. One, you aim for a point in the sky and time your shot for simultaneous arrival of shot and bird. The gun stays stationary. And two, you can follow the bird with the gun with enough lead angle and you can shoot at any time in the swing to hit the bird. An American submarine can do both. We should be equally adept at both.

[Armistead]

Each attack is different, The best attack is stacking values in your favor, sinking your targets and escaping. My attacks depend on the size of each group, number of escorts and what type. If it's a large convoy, I will submerge in front between the lead and flank escort and helm by bow to the lead always keeping a narrow profile, silent and deep and come up in the middle of the convoy able to shoot bow and stern torps at different lines.

[merc4ulfate]

As soon as I have detected the convoy or task force I run a head of them and lie in wait. Most of my attacks are from 2000 yards and less.

I just pulled a whale of an ambush in the San Bernardino straits. I caught a task force (Not Center force of Oct. 1944) steaming up the passage headed north. The weather was foul and visibility was maybe 500 yards at best.

I sat on the north edge in shallow water on the surface. I waited until they had gotten close and began firing on radar bearings alone. I then went all ahead flank and moved with the task force under cover of the storm which was quite bad and fired after my reloads continuing on radar bearings only.

I sank a Soryu carrier, Fuso Battleship, Taiho and Hiryu carriers, Takao heavy cruiser, and a Kuma light cruiser. The initial salvo gave me 4 hits out of 6 fired and then they started scattering in all directions. Rear tubes and reloads gave me the rest of the hits and I ran all but 5 fish out from my full load during this time. A few hours later the weather clear and they spotted me and put a few shells in me but I dove to periscope depth and continued the assault and sank the heavy cruiser.

There was a huge amount of luck not so much from my radar bearing firing but that the escorts had been sank during the storm. The light cruiser was the only one with depth charges and she never came close to me. I was strafed by a few planes after the weather cleared but had no damage to report.

Saipan fell and I headed to port there and sank two tankers in convoy along the way with only minor damage from the escorts.

Generic Mod Enabler - v2.6.0.157

1_TriggerMaru_Overhaul_2-5
1_TMO_25_small_patch
RSRDC_TMO_V502
RSRDC_V5xx_Patch1
Improved Ship Physics 2.6_TMO_RSRDC
TMO_Visuals_for_RSRDC
FJB_Navigation_Maps
FJB Color Navigation Map
Gyoraitei
11 New Ships + Yamato AA Fix by Miner1436
Ship pack 1
SMALLER SEA PLANTS SMALL
SMALLER SEABED ROCKS
#5 Depthcharge Sound
#2 Other Clouds
Webster's Eliminate Floating Plankton for v1.4 and v1.5
Aircraft_reflections
Hull_Numbers
TMO Smoke Mod
Classe_Balao_CamoTri
MAP_TABLE_MOD_1,3
TMO+RSRDC missions pack

[granite00]

Hi Mercfulfate,
How did you know you were firing at IJN ships?

[Rockin Robbins]

If you're seeing a large convoy of warships before middle 1944 they're Japanese. Fire away!

[granite00]

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

[Crannogman]

I'm not sure that any US surface warships transited the San Bernardino between 1941 and the end of the war.

[merc4ulfate]

How did I know it was ok to fire?

Situational awareness. Luck. Friendly fire has happened and will happen in every war that is fought. It is a regrettable outcome of trying to kill another human being.

Reason one. In this case the Philippines are being held by the Japanese. A huge task force is heading up a narrow straight within their control. Logic dictates the probability of this being an allied task force is very, very low.

Reason two. I got so close to a heavy cruiser that it opened fire on me and left me with 25% hull damage. Earlier I wrote, "A few hours later the weather cleared and they spotted me and put a few shells in me but I dove to periscope depth and continued the assault and sank the heavy cruiser."

I have hit my own ships before ... I might have even sank a US destroyer but I was looking through the scope and no one else so I think it was hit by a mobile Japanese mine. Must be some kind of new weapon.

[TorpX]

If I'm in my designated patrol zone, and it's a bad neighborhood, I figure Allied merchantmen have no business being there ... almost lit up a Dutch merchant last patrol.

Yes, accidents can happen.