Having a hard time convoy hunting in poor weather.

[Paul Riley]

Interesting CueBall,I had a similar encounter the other day,but only against a single vessel.I was in the N.Atlantic,waves were 15,vis. practically nil with heavy rain.Yet I was determined to nail the ship,as there is a solution to everything.The only practical way was to plot the vessel's course ready for a night attack,and get to about 300m from the target's beam,as any greater than this and you cant see your target as you stated,which also happened to me in the initial phase.A night attack was crucial due to the fact that I would be using the darkness to hide most of the uboat as I struggled to keep a good depth as it bounces up and down in the current.I normally try to maintain a depth of around 9-10m,giving a fairly unimpeded view through the PS and adequate cover.
This tactic COULD work against convoys,but as someone said,radar is a nightmare and your boat would be picked up probably as it bounces up and down at the surface.A possible workaround would be to try and track the lead warship of the convoy just using the hydrophones,and then use the previous mentioned method of depth control as the warship passes in front of your position to get as good a view of the convoy as possible,and then execute your attack as quickly as possible,then make your pre-planned evasion route,if you have one.Again,this of course would only be useful at night,as in the day you would be like a sore thumb,and DC'd to the bottom in seconds.
Also consider the wind direction too,as once or twice before I have had torpedoes that veered off their track and pass harmlessly by the target.If firing into a head wind add +1kt to your torpedo speed to compensate for the drag.Yet,at 300m you are virtually assured a direct hit if all other values are correct,and you dont get a dud.

You probably know much of this already,but hope some of it helps.

I eventually was able to sink one ship in the convoy (there were at least two big tankers, but all I could get was a tramp steamer...<sigh>) through pure blind luck, but that was it. I just happened to get into a decent firing position and was close enough to see him and just *barely* far enough away that the torpedo would arm. I sent him to the bottom but gave up on the rest of the convoy. After hitting the tramp steamer I submerged and slinked away at slow speed, staying submerged as much as possible to stay out of the weather.

The most irritating thing isn't even that I can't see my quarry in the weather. The worst thing is that my spotters on the bridge apparently can't see enemy ships until they're right on top of me, but the destroyers guarding the convoy had NO trouble homing right in on me. This, despite the fact that the waves were over the conning tower and visibility was only about 350 meters, at best. This is December of '39, so the destroyers shouldn't have radar. And even if they did, the rain is very heavy and the waves are huge, which should make it nearly useless. One interesting thing is that when I asked the bridge for a weather report they always said "Precipitation: None". Riiiiiiiiiight! It was like a monsoon!

I wound up spending as much time as I could submerged, ignoring hydrophone contacts because I knew that even if I intercepted I'd never be able to see well enough to get off a decent shot. After about a week of in-game time the weather cleared and the seas were smooth as glass. When the seas are rough and I can't see my hand in front of my face I get two convoy reports and multiple single ship contacts. As soon as the weather clears it's like the ships all disappeared with the rain!

To add insult to injury, I finally was able to find and intercept a ship, since the weather finally took a turn for the better. It turns out to be an American transport which is off limits! There goes two hours of time intercepting a ship I can't even sink. Lucky me, I get a ship report from BdU and am in the perfect position to intercept. I get in position and listen as the ship closes. Again, it's a tramp steamer. I was hoping for something bigger, but won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I bide my time and setup a perfect "fast 90" shot. The torpedo runs straight and true and explodes perfectly, sending the ship down in less than 15 minutes on an even keel. I'm so excited about finally sinking something (this is only the second sinking in over three weeks of game time) that I accidentally drop my hand right onto the Windows key. SH3 minimizes to the taskbar and when I try to reopen it, it crashes.

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

For those that asked, I play on 75%-ish realism. I leave on external and event cams, but try to use them for eye candy without relying upon them for other uses. I also leave on Weapons Officer targeting, since I really suck at manual distance estimation.