Advice for harbour raids

[Wreford-Brown]

What harbours have you raided, when did you raid them and what advice can you offer to fellow Kaleuns who wish to follow in your footsteps?

If you enjoy harbour raiding then please give others the benefit of your hard won experience. What route did you take, what ships were anchored, what ships defended the harbour?

I've raided Gibraltar in April 1941. It is possible to get almost to the Rock of Gibraltar under the layer (160m or deeper) then creep into the harbour area. HMS Nelson (33k tons) and a small depot ship (6500 tons) were on the north western side and three Southampton/London class (10-13k tons each) were on the north eastern side along with a couple of static destroyers. In the harbour itself there's another Southampton class plus a troop transporter, modern tanker, large and medium cargo and a few other smaller ships. Watch out for torpedo nets on the northern side of the harbour - I took a lot of damage when I hit one net and broke the surface for a few seconds as those capital ships have a shedload of firepower (but can't traverse very quickly). Torpedo nets in general seem to finish about 2 submarine widths from the harbour walls in any port, so I sneak in by running very close to harbour walls.
The only things protecting Gib are the static surface ship's guns and 2 or 3 ASW trawlers and Isles class, all of which seem to be either blind and deaf or just plain stupid in early 1941.

Edit 02-08-2008 09:10 PM: Just completed the patrol (had to break away to reload externals) and finished up with just over 150k tons and over 4800 renown. Not bad for a couple of days work!

[Oberon]

Portsmouth has a sub net at the narrowest point of the channel in, and also a rather shallow section you'll have to surface to get over. So therefore, do it in very low vis otherwise your conning tower will get peppered by the shore defences. Scapa Flow...well...it's a nest of zerstorers so watch your step, but the northern section of the eastern approach has a subnet and a gun/searchlight combo which can cover the north and south section so, once again, do it in low vis and watch out for the zerstorers when you've hit your target.

[PavelKirilovich]

Loch Ewes in late 1941 requires a close-to-the-coast approach at ahead one third. You can get to the mouth of the bay surfaced, then dive to periscope depth in a calm sea (otherwise your tower will broach) and creep in at ahead slow.

Escort carrier, four destroyers, T3 tanker, and sometimes a Dido-class. Haven't tried penetrating the harbour in mid-1942 (two raids only, late '41 and early '42) so I don't know when they move on to a better harbour or when Scapa Flow decides to relocate down to Ewes, increasing the ASW presence there hugely.

There's a small island on one side of the bay and a narrow band of water on the landward side of it. You can run in there and it'll narrow the angles that destroyers can come after you, but be aware of the gun emplacements. I found my least stressful operations in that area involved staying out of that small segment and simply creeping ahead to within 500m of my target before launching a torpedo at magazines / engine spaces and going silent for a creep away towards the next target.

Remember: If you can break contact, why not break contact towards your next objective? Don't let those ASWs drive you off if they're herding you in towards the ship next on your "To Sink" list.

[Fenris_Wolf]

what advice can you offer to fellow Kaleuns who wish to follow in your footsteps?

Sink them all

Oh, and go in playing the bagpipes tune! lol

[gordonmull]

My advice...

Don't follow in my footsteps! Every time I sail into an enemy harbour I die a slow death on the shallow bottom

[Marriott]

I've raided Loch Ewe in 1939, in GWX 2.0 it was easy to get in, with only a few ASW trawlers patrolling and maybe one destroyer. Because it was so early in the war there were a number of neutrals but i still managed to sink 5 enemy ships (4 merchants, 1 ASW trawler) I have also raided the port in the Faroe Islands but other then a few docked warships and a couple of puny fishing trawlers not much there. I raided that port in late 1940.

[harzfeld]

I started at 2nd Flotilla in VIIB, here's ports I raided in my first patrol and what I have sunk;
I started at Southend
2 Large Troop Ships
Then moved to Dover, found a gap thru subnet and sunk a Floating Dock, Southampton Class. They also have a troop ship but I didnt bother with it.
I skipped Portsmouth cuz too narrow and shallow for me to get thru, also not much gold there, so I moved on to Portland and sunk a Large Merchant and a modern tanker.
I moved on to Plymouth and sunk a hood after found a gap thru subnet.
Moved on to Bristol, sunk Auxilary Cruiser, large tanker, Large Cargo. They have more Large cargo, troop ships, and other kinds even I didnt bother about em.
Moved on to Loch Ewe, sunk a Hood again (After Sept.15 1939, Hood Appears for short time) also sunk a floating dock and a modern tanker.
On way home, I spotted another Hood escorted by several destroyers out of Inverness, they were too far for me to go after. That's 3rd Hood in a patrol. :hmm:
Also I sunk some ships on way to patrol and back home using deck gun. So I got a bunch medals for crew, and I was pretty close to buy a IXB, but got it after my 2nd patrol, lol. I like to expliot spoilers by knowing where capital ships are, and what each ports have. I wish they included intelligent reports in game that tell us where capital ships are moored at. Germans sure did have spies in WW2, like Japan studied Pearl Harbor and reported to headquater.

lerwik in 39..........

its a small dock for ships and subs. there is a anti subnet and that is sometimes not there. there is a s class and a t class and an anti sub tug (yo, yo) sink the ships then sink the cluster of fishing boats and call in the luftwaffe!!!. i did this in a iia.

in some russian port, u go under the subnets and the ships try go over but sink. there was about 10 dd buts sticking out of the water. on my way out, i saw a banana tug. its cabin was yellow and its hull was brown. some people complain there is no banana boat when there really is!!

[Wreford-Brown]

This post moved to first post.

[Tessa]

Scapa Flow always is a gamble as to what's actually in there, sometimes its full othertimes empty. Dealing with the aircraft patrols just to get into the west channel can take forever. One nice little trick I found is being able to reload your torpedo's safely while in the harbor. After you sink something large, a battleship or carrier move your sub right up to it and start reloading; haven't had any DD's even notice I'm there while reloading.

Loch Ewe is great as its easy to get into, and has those 2 floating docks-almost 60k in tonnage for just 2 torpedo's

[Sandman_28054]

Sink the Nelson and the Revenge over and over again, up to 4 times.

See my post here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134585

[Wreford-Brown]

Tessa has found an absolute gem of a target behind Halifax. Tricky to get into (and out of) but endless tonnage to sink.