Shadowing a Convoy.

[mowgli99]

Hi all. I havent been here in the past couple o' weeks but anyway to the point. Whenever i find a convoy i either attack or lay off due to various reasons. Most of the time after i attack i can never find the convoy again(to strike yet again). So my queston is, is how are you supposed to succesfully shadow a convoy. Is it a guess or do you use hydrophone tracking.When i use hydrophone tracking i am going to slow to catch up and if i speed up I always get picked up by escorts. Any help at all would be appreciated again. Thankyou yall. I have always wanted to strike again and again till the convoy disappears but alas i cant. --mowgli p.s my writing may be sloppy as i am still sufering from jetlag.

[GoldenRivet]

you are going to get about as many suggestions as there are forum members...

ill start us off hahaha


what i do is quite simple. First, when you spot a convoy observe them from great distance. using the pencil tool mark one of the ship's positions on the map... trail them for a couple of hours and mark again. you now have "mark #1" and "mark #2"

Use the ruler tool and start at mark one, draw a line straight THROUGH mark #2 and continue to extend the line out about 100 KM ahead of the convoy. BUT MAKE SURE YOUR LINE PASSES THROUGH BOTH MARKS.

This has established the convoy's "Mean course" now there is no guarantee they will hold this course for any length of time, but it gives you an idea of where they will be over the next several hours of travel.

Your first attack should be executed by very early night - perhaps 2000 hours local time.

after your initial attack, break off to either the port or starboard side of this "mean course" line and set your own course to parallel it.

Speed out (on the surface if you can) several KM ahead of their mean course line while reloading your tubes for the next attack. your next attack should occur perhaps 5 or 6 hours after the initial attack. perhaps 0200 hours local time. Once you have reached what you think is a good position, submerge slightly to one side of the convoy at very slow speed and silent running, perhaps as deep as 50 meters and wait until the convoy is in range before ordering periscope depth. if you do this directly in front of the convoy, the lead escort will almost always find you so it is vital to be off to one side slightly of their mean course line. when you are in position and feel confident - attack.

repeat the process, observe the convoy from afar to changes in their course and replot their mean course line again and again if you have to.

Using this method you can peck away at a convoy with 2 attacks per night while shadowing them for several days or until you run out of torpedoes.

[KeptinCranky]

To add a few things, if your sailing parallel to a convoy at a certain speed you might want to get ahead of it, so go a bit (or a lot) faster than they are going, ocassionally do a quick dive to PD, remember to go to slow speed right after you give the order to dive or an escort may hear you, listen for them and make sure they haven't changed course, if they have changed course catch up with them again so you have at least one merchant in visual range, now from that merchant's course you can roughly determine where they changed course, you now have about 50km from that point to attack, after that they may(!) change course again, nothing is quite so frustrating as having placed your boat in a perfect attack position and lying in wait for them and then have them turn away at the last moment

if your early on in the war say 1939 or 1940 you might also try attacking on the surface at night, there's a few threads with hints and tips for that so I won't repeat them here, doing so makes it a lot easier to track the convoy after your attack, also watch for damaged ships that didn't sink, they often burn for a long time which makes them easy to spot

[Heibges]

If you have the 16KM Mod you can truly follow a convoy at the edge of the horizon. This is probably my favorite mod in the game.

[Brag]

to add what the Kaleuns above had said:

When overhauling a convoy, plot your course at least 10 kms to the side of the convoy course.

Keep in mind that often convoys change course at sunrise and sunset. I like to attack about an hour after sunset, when twilight allows me to see the targets well.

On the Operation Spinnennetz map (in the stickies section) you can see at least the track of one convoy from Freetown to near the Western approaches. It took two weeks of shadowing.

Reporting daily contacts to Canovaro at BDU while shadowing a convoy will help a lot in maping transatlantic convoy routes

[Mooncatt]

yeah its a good tactic but after you make your first attack the convoy just starts to zig-zag and if you run away they will almost certainly have changed course AND you will probably have most of the escorts trying to find you. by the time the escorts have given up i usually find the convoy is out of range of the hydraphones anyway.