Why bother attacking convoys???

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Tessa

Stubborn escorts like the one you encountered I would have sunk too. If he is so fixated on sinking you that he's willing to lie in wait for half a day its no longer cat and mouse, but endgame Chess.

In real life, yes, you could ascribe his stubbornness to time on his hands, a hunch, or just orders.

In SH3, though, it means you are making noise often enough to keep him on station.

If an escort sinks you in the first hour of contact, that's not necessarily your fault. If it sinks you after that, it's your fault.

Hard to say, not knowing his tactical situation, but parking just under the Empire is almost certainly a mistake. 200m down and 7000m away would be a far better place to spend the day.

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

In real life, yes, you could ascribe his stubbornness to time on his hands, a hunch, or just orders.

In SH3, though, it means you are making noise often enough to keep him on station.

If an escort sinks you in the first hour of contact, that's not necessarily your fault. If it sinks you after that, it's your fault.

Hard to say, not knowing his tactical situation, but parking just under the Empire is almost certainly a mistake. 200m down and 7000m away would be a far better place to spend the day.

If he's got you spotted with his active sonar continuosly you could be moving at 1/2 a knot and he'd still attack you. The way the game handles active sonar isn't very realistic. That's one aspect that has always frustrated me (unfixable though from a hard coded game "feautre") is that bottoming the boat doesn't provide any camoflodge.

You should be able to stay 3-5 meters above the bottom and slowly slip away. Unless the ocean bottom curved dramatically there's no way he should be able to differentiate you from a large rock on the ocean floor. Or for that matter just stay on the bottom, even if the SO could get a fix on you with the active sonar after circling for a few hours they usually assumed that the u-boat sunk.

[Tinman764]

The active sonar had me scratching my head tonight aswell.
Had just made my 2nd attack of the night on a large convoy and was quietly slipping away at 2knts 80m deep backtracking down the convoys route. I had 2 escorts chasing shadows 1500m away and was just letting the tail end escort pass over me when he started pinging me. I did nothing to alert him, wasn't reloading etc, so how he knew I was there is a mystery - his 1st round of DCs where bloody close aswell.
2 RL hours later, and I was able to surface and bring in my external stores ready for round 3

[Iranon]

To the 'why bother?' question: That's why ships sailed in convoy, to deter or at least fare better against submarine attacks.
Germany tried hard to get some large commerce raiders into action to take advantage of this - even the RN didn't have the resources to protect most convoys against a battleship.

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Tinman764

The active sonar had me scratching my head tonight aswell.
Had just made my 2nd attack of the night on a large convoy and was quietly slipping away at 2knts 80m deep backtracking down the convoys route. I had 2 escorts chasing shadows 1500m away and was just letting the tail end escort pass over me when he started pinging me. I did nothing to alert him, wasn't reloading etc, so how he knew I was there is a mystery - his 1st round of DCs where bloody close aswell.
2 RL hours later, and I was able to surface and bring in my external stores ready for round 3

For true silent speed you need to be going around 1 knot, in the command room look at the engine rpm's; once they hit 50 keep the engines at that speed and you'll be (more or less) invisible to their passive sonar. Have had them frequently pass right over me but unable to get a solid contact (and weren't using active sonar) makes for a pretty easy escape.