Why bother attacking convoys???

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

Until the technology shifts (radar, etc), I like nothing better than a convoy. It's like a great pot roast: main course on Sunday and leftovers most of the rest of the week. Spotted far enough out in the Atlantic, you can pick the thing clean before it ever reaches England.

Yes, the escorts can be pesky -- or worse -- but patience, care, then depth, silence and more patience pretty much make convoy attacks a more-than-acceptable risk.

It has often occurred to me, reading posts here, that newer players wildly underestimate the patience required to make a successful convoy attack. There is little room for TC (maybe up to 16x in the beginning, and once the escorts are largely evaded) and a great need for concentration.

If you can't set aside two hours of real time to do a convoy attack, you are going to miss a lot of targets; you are also going to miss a lot of the sim's inner beauty.

There's a fine line between wild and aggressive. Long as you know the basics to evading escorts time is largely the biggest factor. Some battles may last 4-6 hours real time, you have to be prepared to reap what you sow.

The more aggresive you are the harder (generally speaking) it will be to escape the escorts. If you stumble upon a tanker convoy or a 40+ ship one with large warships it can become an all you can eat buffet. You could play it safe attacking from a distance and immediately heading away from the convoy so that when the torpedoes hit you're far enough away that the escorts have a much lower chance of locating you being 5000-7000m away. Then shadow the convoy and repeat.

One tactic I like to use (personally I'm not fond of shadowing convoys, I will if there are still major targets in there or for one reason or another they pissed me off) is the merchant shield. Can be done if attacking head on or close range (1000m ish) once the torpedoes hit you slam the engines to flank decrease depth to 25-30 meters (depends on the weather) and then get under a large tanker/merchant or any other big ship while you reload. Once ready you'll be in perfect position for a 5 target salvo and duck back under a merchant. You need to find a disabled ship, or one only moving at 1 or 2 knots and head straight at it. Once under it the escorts may circle but won't risk dropping charge to close to a merchant ship. Eventually the escorts will be forced to leave in order to join the convoy.

While being a very aggressive method (you'll always be making so much noise all the escorts will know you are there) it hinges on disabling a ship enough that doesn't sink. If you did manage to sink every target you aimed at it almost makes the situation worse. If you hadn't fired any eels yet you should have 2 stren left over that you can use to aim at merchants aft in hopes of disabling the motors or causing it to slow down enough the you can safely hide under it. OTHERWISE you are in major trouble. Now you're going to have to work on evading anywhere from 2-6 escorts after the battle. It is possible to do so but will take many hours real time to do so. Have had several times where I stopped to have dinner during my escape, longest I've personally been underwater and succeded in evading 3 or more escorts is 6 hours. It takes a lot of patience but the rewards you get once your safe make it worthwhile. You can easily get 60,000-80,000 tons this way if you're aiming was good and you didn't have many duds.

Several Kaleun's that did have 50,000+ patrols were generally awarded a RK for that feat alone (even if that didn't put them above 100,000 tons), it was like coming home with from a hunting trip with a 20 point buck or a sniper picking off someone from 1700 yards. The feat itself is so noteworthy that it deserves special recognition.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Tessa

Eventually the escorts will be forced to leave in order to join the convoy.

Not always.

I sat perched underneath a very very slowly sinking Empire Freighter once, while an escort circled for about 12 hours game time. The Convoy was long gone. I eventually had to sink him as he came around the ship. I was at full stop, under or parked directly beside the Empire. I had to do something as air quality and a slowly disappearing hide was becoming an issue.

Was going to link the full play by play, but I cant seem to find it. Somewhere in the Campaign thread.....

[Capt. Morgan]

I can see the OP's point.

The risks you need to take, and the skill you must possess in order to succeed - for rarely more than 2 ships, well you can see why the Convoy System was invented.

In reality, you would attack convoys alongside other U-boats (on occasion, over a dozen others), forcing the escorts to divide their attention, and to leave entire sectors of the convoy undefended.

A single wave could take out 6-7 merchants, there could be up to 3 waves in a night, and some convoy battles could last a week. That's why (and how) the real guys attacked convoys. In SHIII, you're on your own.

I tend to think of Silent Hunter as taking place in a WWII in a parallel universe, one where Doughnuts didn't think of wolf-packs.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

I tend to think of Silent Hunter as taking place in a WWII in a parallel universe, one where Doughnuts didn't think of wolf-packs.

Oh oh oh! Thank you!

Been trying to figure out how to approach the character in the schlitzor stories! That's how I'm gonna do it, different spelling of course!

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Not always.

I sat perched underneath a very very slowly sinking Empire Freighter once, while an escort circled for about 12 hours game time. The Convoy was long gone. I eventually had to sink him as he came around the ship. I was at full stop, under or parked directly beside the Empire. I had to do something as air quality and a slowly disappearing hide was becoming an issue.

Was going to link the full play by play, but I cant seem to find it. Somewhere in the Campaign thread.....

Interesting, what year was it? Late in the war when a convoy might have 12 escorts they could afford to detach 1 or 2 DD's from the convoy to hunt you down. Depending on how close you are to the convoy's destination is a factor as well, if it's only 10 miles from the destination once it reaches it all the warships will dissapear. Obviously if you're in the middle of the Atlantic that's not an option, in the Irish Sea you could potentially wait him out long enough for the convoy to reach Britsol or Liverpool.

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. Whoever makes the first mistake is likely going to the bottom.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

I tend to think of Silent Hunter as taking place in a WWII in a parallel universe...

That's very true in that I also command a u-boat that was in reality commanded by someone else, and my photograph in SH3 Commander looks an awful lot like a completely different person in this world. Also, I'm much better at it than any of those losers.

[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.

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

... Thank you!...

De-nada, or as the French say, derriere.

[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.

[unterseemann]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

De-nada, or as the French say, derriere.

In french it's 'de rien'
derrière means behind.
Just my 2 cents

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by unterseemann

In french it's 'de rien'
derrière means behind.
Just my 2 cents

I was wondering when that would be noticed - A feeble attempt at a pun in a language not my own.

[Hanomag]

I remember in my early days of playing SH3... before I started realism game play...

In 1939 I could surface in the middle of an unescorted unarmed convoy use all my eels, every deck gun shell I had and sink em in order of high tonnage first... usually wiping out 90% of the convoy...

Once I upped the realism and started using the GWX mod this became err.. more difficult to do.

Toward the later part of the war 43-45 I stay away from convoys altogether and pray for singles.. and the end of the war.

But to answer your question .. Why bother..?

To SHOW EM I GOT CAJONES!!!