How to survive ??

[predavolk]

Well, I just got smoked by a destroyer in late 1943. Attacking convoys is absolute hell now thanks to improved sonar. There's just no escaping it. Using a IXB probably doesn't help, but it's just bloody nuts.

I don't play die = end of career (I don't have the time to start new careers), so I will write the whole thing up in my ongoing 100K thread when I reload the game. Briefly:

1- Attacking convoys off the West coast of Africa, along that money line 'cause thats where I was sent (I'd choose the Caribbean again in a heartbeat vs. this convoy doom).

2- First convoy I attack, I nail a couple of ships and speed away nicely. I get over 500M from my last datum point without being detected, go to silent from flank, and coast another 300M. I'm thinking- sweet! Then I get pinged from 1000M away by a destroyer who hounds the crap out of me. Decoys work for about 5-10 seconds. I'm just about to screw it and load my type IVs to clear him, when he finally gives up after 45 minutes. Fortunately, the other escorts are gone back to the convoy too (at one point, 3 were hunting me). My conning tower is badly damaged, no periscopes left, so I'm happy to be alive. I limp to a milche-cow for new optics.

3- Back in the game, but now without type IVs. Which will prove fatal. I find and attack a convoy in the midst of a terrible storm. Perfect! I nail four ships, then head down deep and fast (as always, settling at around 220M). I then get pinged. Deploying decoys isn't working well, I end up with 3 of 6 escorts again hunting me. A fan-shaped deployment at 30 degree intervals, 4 decoys, then turning back into the middle of them, actually works once they are all on the other side of them. After a brief burst of speed (~15 seconds), I coast free and clear. Two return to the convoy, but no, the other one detects me again. I'm creeping at 2 knots, 220M beneath the sea, behind a screen of decoys, in 15knot, stormy weather.

Ping, ping, ping. I'm trying everything. Eventually, I get nailed and start taking on water. I see some of the escorts starting to return to my position. Low on decoys, I can't take any more of this, especially not from a pack of 3. I rise to the surface, getting hit on the way up, damaging my forward battery. I managed to fire a quick shot at the lone escort that runs safely under his ship. Either I forgot to set it to magnetic, or it was a dud (type III, so unlikely). Then I get blown out of the water by his attack run. On the plus side, I finished with 90K for the total cruise, but dead men can't brag.

Penetrating the convoy was as easy as ever. Even easier actually, as either their radar doesn't detect you before you detect it, or they don't respond to it at long ranges. So you get a really nice, early, on-the-surface account of how the escorts are laid out, which makes your ambush choice much easier. But once alerted, this improved sonar is absolutely lethal. My only possible suggestion now is to blow up the escorts, then dive. Maybe an all-out decoy deception could work, I'll try that too, but even if it works, that means only one convoy per patrol.

I understand that this lethality is (mostly) realistic, but it really sucks the wind out of your sails and radically alters the gameplay. Convoys are henceforth verboten without good anti-escort torps at the ready (meaning fewer anti-merchant torps can be fired, as the IVs and Vs need to be loaded and ready to use). And after I reload and finish this cruise, I think I'll ask for a transfer to a Type VII-41/42 in Norway while waiting for the XXI. Either that, or I'm taking my boat the hell away from convoys, no matter what! Maybe the American convoys will be easier to beat, but as is realistic, the war just became a LOT more suicidal.

Historically, some have chastised Donitz for sending his knowingly men to their deaths. I understand the strategic importance of maintaining the offensive, but I can also appreciate how some of the Kalheuns must have felt that they were being wasted on suicidal missions that had no hope of achieving anything beyond tying up resources for an imminent invasion. Donitz should've been in on the plot to nuke the nut and ended it for his men. I don't mean to turn this into a political arm-chair thread, just to point out that it sheds a lot of light on the relative futility of the later stages of the U-Boat war.