What would you do?

[KeptinCranky]

The moon is not an issue, found that out, the weather is good, maybe even too good. Radar is also not yet a problem, it's only 1940 and I'm working under the assumption they don't have any...

If they do, I'm going to find out how big a hole a 16" gun make sin a u-boat

What I did was approach carefully decks awash until I was about 2,5km from the outer row of merchies. fired 2 eels at Nelson, both aimed for aft of the bridge, then fired one eel at a medium tanker and one at a large merchant.
Then I did a quick 180 turn and made my egress.
This is where I messed up, I fired the stern tube at the flower corvette. Even though I hadn;t been detected yet.
Only I didn't time it right so the flower got sunk about 1 minute before the rest of the eels were to hit.
As a result they all started zigzagging, the eel for the tanker missed, the large merchant did get hit but not sunk right away. and only one eel managed to hit Nelson, but nowhere critical, right in the bow, which won't sink it.

They didn't detect me though so I got out safely. the large merchant I hit did get slowed down a bit and started lagging about 2km behind the convoy. I did shadow them for about a day to see if the straggler would drop back any further but it didn't, so having no torpedoes left I went on back to base.....

better luck next time, and I must remember not to mess up a well aimed salvo by getting over-eager.

saving that close to a convoy is a sure way to get your save corrupted, so I don't get to retry... oh well, I'll find a similar convoy on my next patrol.

[Mopy]

Heh, I've seen a few threads talking about trying to sink multiple high priority targets. I think if that was me, I would have put two in the Nelson, and two in a tanker, shadowed the convoy, and return again later.

Not that I haven't done similar things, but I'm starting to realise that every time I try and be too clever with an attack, it always (and I mean always) seems to get me depth charged.

Shame you didn't have more torps. Bet you would have been straight back in if you did.

I always enjoy reading these on the forum, whether they work out in the end or not, so thanks for posting. Good fun

[KeptinCranky]

Heh, I didn't have more eels, otherwise I would indeed have taken my time and made sure

also it was that skipper's 2nd patrol, so I had to be extra careful about not getting killed Nearly died right at the end too, with the new st. Nazaire I didn't check where the minefield is supposed to be, got lucky .

I am now on the third patrol, with 2 successful attacks on a convoy in grid BE, have sunk 3 cargos 1 tanker and a DD that came poking around while I was finishing off a straggler.

[Pacific_Ace]

I see for sure a tanker in the lead and what appears to be Nelson behind and stbd to the tanker, and then a bunch of freighters which Im lousy at identifying. As a U-Boat skipper early in the war I would have left Nelson alone for these reasons: It is against policy to shoot warships in the presence of merchants, and even with 5 eels you have no guarantee of a sinking and with Nelson being so far interior its likely the fish will be spotted and Nelson will avoid anyway.
So I choose the tanker for two shots, another larger freighter for 2 shots and a small one for 1 shot. All shots are aimed to at least disable the vessels so that if I dont get a sinking I can go to guns after taking my medicine and the DD's leave.

[von hally]

You live to fight another day Keptin...thats my problem sometimes too.......pushing my luck!!!....theres times i slide into the zentral from the coning tower and darent say to the crew how close i let some escort or dd get to us because of my greed

[Torvald Von Mansee]

I would have aimed all four bow fish at the Nelson, dove to 160 M, and gone away on silent running. That stern torp would have to wait.

[Zilch]

Cool scenario...I probably would have done 2 or 3 at Nelson, and another 1 or 2 at a choice tanker and take her deep to evade and listen for effect with hydrophones. I'd save the rear tube for whichever didn't sink properly (or quickly enough.) That way, as mentioned earlier by others, you'd at least slow them down enough to separate them from the convoy. You could take your pick of which deserved a torp (definitely Nelson, if both survive initial attack) and gun the tanker later if needed.

That's me...maybe not a "proper" approach but if I saw a battlewagon I couldn't just let it go. We see merchants on the seas all the time. They're officially a priority, granted, but the rarity of battleships makes them interesting targets.