Stay on the surface

[U49]

I always check the weather conditions. If they are too good (low waves, great visibility) I attack submerged.
Otherwise I check for the escorts, if I can see an opening. Up until 12/41 I always find my spot an go for the outer lanes.
If you want to go for the center lanes, then you better forget about it on the surface. They have to many eagle-eyes on the lookouts .

[Sailor Steve]

Part of the reason for the night surface attack is that periscope lenses are too small to allow submerged attacks at night. Not enough light. If the game properly reflected that, and made it harder to spot surfaced u-boats in bad light, everybody's life would be a lot better.

It has been pointed out that in daylight destroyers can see just as well as submarines, but at night a black object lying close to the water has every advantage.

[joho]

I managed not only to escape detection on a dark, but not moonless night, but to cirkle around and attack again on the surface at sunrise. I was mearly 1500m astern from the port middle column and managed to put a magnetic in the rear of the zigzaging merc.

I is also important to remember to have the moon on the "right" side. If you do it will illuminate your targets and conceal yourself. Right side is between the moon and the target.

[TarJak]

Another little known tactic is to move all your crew to the forward most comaprtments when running decks awash. This reduces the bow wave as you approach and makes it harder for the escorts and merchies to spot you.

It is possible even in late war to make a surface approach if the conditions are right. Last week whilst testing GWX1.04 I was crisuing in a IXD2 near Freetown in April 1944, when I got a radar signal detected warning. I dived to PD and got a fix on the hydrophones. It was a large convoy moving at around 5kt. I was a bout 15km away and they were heading away from me.

The weather was overcast with little fog and high 15m/s winds. Given that I was testing and not playing DiD I thought bugger it I'll try a surface appraoch to see if I can catch them and make a hit and run on them using the high sea state as cover.

Sufaced, went to flank, moved the crew forward, then set decks awash with the schnorkel up so that the high waves wouldn't slow me down. I got ahead of the convoy spotting them at around 6km distance.

Managed to evade the covette that was on my side of the convoy and ordered ahead slow. I got to around 500m of the Large Merchant I had selected as the target before firing all four bow tubes whilst still surfaced. I then turned 160 degrees an sped up to flank again to get away.

Once the torpedoes hit I ordered PD and went silent. The Escorts milled about a bit trying to find me, bu I was about 3km away by the time they reached the datum that I fired from and they now had no way of finding me.

I shadowed them and struck anohter from a similar position. If the weather is in your favour then it is very possible to cause them some real damage and survive.

[Captain Nemo]

I agree with others here, a surface attack gets the adrenaline going and you feel a great sense of achievement if you are successful. Personally, I don't fire from 3,500 - 4,000 metres out like melnibonian does. I try to get in as close as possible, keeping an eye on the lead escorts and any escorts positioned out on the flanks. When conditions are ideal, I have managed to close to a distance of less than 1,000 metres of the convoy without being detected. It's a great experience and I highly recommend it.

For those interested in the real life tactics of Otto Kretschmer, he was interviewed for the World at War series (Wolf Pack: U-Boats in the Atlantic 1939-1944) back in the 1970's which is available on DVD. It was also available to watch online at www.tv-links.co.uk but this site seems to be down at the moment. But you could try Stage6 here (page 2) http://stage6.divx.com/videos/tag:world+at+war

Nemo

[Paajtor]

Originally Posted by joho

I is also important to remember to have the moon on the "right" side. If you do it will illuminate your targets and conceal yourself. Right side is between the moon and the target.

I wonder if this is really modelled into SH3(-GWX)?
I mean, you can paint your Uboat in a bright pink colour, and still the enemy-AI will react, as if you were using an ideal matt-grey/black (I'm talking about a night-attack).

In Il2-FB (played it for about 5 years), I had so much online-flights vs. human pilots, that picking (or making) the right camo-skin became one of the most important things to consider, prior to takeoff...certainly because I usually flew the Il2 itself.
AI can't react to custom-camo patterns...humans, on the other hand, can.

But in SH3, every opponent is AI per definition.
So which skin I use, is of no concern....it's all just eyecandy.
And so my question is: can the way a Uboat is illuminated (or not), be detected by SH3?

Can the AI really tell the difference, depending on my course, the time-of-day, the moon-phase, moon obscured by clouds or not (a cloud moves in front of the moon, and moves away after a short while), the position of the enemy relative to my uboat, ship-crews being blinded when looking into the moonlight, etc. etc.

I really doubt it.:hmm:
Would be cool, though.

[johnno74]

I've often wondered the same thing. I can say with 100% certainty that the aspect ratio is hugely important - whether you are bow/stern on to the enemy, or broadside.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

I'm not really one to try doing surface attacks on convoys since I raid ports and prefer lone merchant ships. But I still attack convoys, the only problem is that when I get a report of one it's eather too far away it go after or it in the middle of the afternoon. So I do the standard underwater attacks. Once in late 1940 I found and tryed to get into a convoy but one of the escorts heard me and soon it and two others where after as fled towards Norway. At one point two of the three split and went to look in another area but the one that had heard me first kept right on trying to blow me out of the water even after he was out of wasserbombs. So after he went over me trying to make me think he still had charges left I surfaced and shot the hell out of him with my deck gun. But say the convoy has no ecsorts but the ships in it where armed I'd attempt to have a go at it when on the surface and try to destroy the merchants deck guns with my own, and I can say from expirance that a deck gun on an enemy ship can be destroyed with one shot.

[danlisa]

Surface attacks are possible & rewarding. Also, IMHO more intense. You've got to be very aware of your surroundings.

Recipe:
Decks awash
Low Light conditions
Correct angle of attack.

I ran parallel to the convoys course for about 1hr game time, travelling just a little faster them them, so I could get into a good position for the 31000 BB in the middle.

I've had to brighten/lighten this abit but the nearest merchant you can see is about 1500m away and I was never detected.

[Janus]

Damn, I wanted to post that in another thread - sorry

* Post deleted - wrong topic *

[GoldenRivet]

danlisa that is exactly how i do it.

if i encounter a convoy at night (up until radar comes along anyhow), i almost always opt for a surface attack, and i would estimate that 80 percent of the time i am never detected.

i will fire my bow shots while in a turn opposite the direction of the convoy's line of travel, this helps me bring the sturn tube around much faster.

anyway, when i have cleared the bow shots, i take a pot shot at another target with the stern tube(s).

upon firing the last shot i dive deep, deploying decoys at 30 - 40 meter depth intervals, and maneuvering on the way down I try to position myself beneath the convoy lanes to take advantage of the fact that this prevents accurate depth charge runs against me because of the risk of surface collisions.

this process gets more and more difficult as the war progresses obviously... one of the last times i tried it in GWX 1.03 i was sunk due to a combination of extreme depth-pressure and blast from hedge hogs and depth charges. it was a hell of a game of cat and mouse which lasted for a few hours in the game about 100km west of portugal.

surface attacks are wonderfully simulated in GWX... and GWX2, it really detracts from the enemy's ability to detect you by sonar, but it takes an extreme amount of patience and planning.

[kiwikapitan]

So trying a surface attack in Mar. '43 would be considered suicide then? That is if you are trying to emulate Werner from 'Iron Coffins' in that huge wolfpack attack in the end of the 1st part of the book. Mind you a lot of info in that book leaves me wondering how he survived the war. :hmm:

Personally I prefer the stealthy submerged attack similar to Kretschmer but approaching from the front of the convoy and then letting all hell break loose once inside the convoy. Dangerous but satisfying if you pull it off.

But maybe if conditions are right I'll try the surfaced attack with the various tactics given by fellow kaleuns.

[harzfeld]

Well, I think Otto Kretschmer was very lucky to be captured and lived that time, especially in 1941, before Allied's radar was very much improved. He could have ended up dead or worst later in his career if he had managed to get away instead of being captured. I have done surface raiding or fleeing in early war years, but after 1943, it seems too impossible to be invisible from their radar.

Sometime just for fun, I went after convoy on clear day while the water was smooth as ice in 1944, couple grids away from England or Ireland, once I am around 1000-2000m in front of incoming convoy, I raise my depth to snorkel and hit flank to be detected, then crash dive toward and under the convoy. Why did I do that? In game, I attracted Allied’s bombers, they came and dropped so many bombs on merchants and destroyers, while I was watching bombers damaging or destroying their own ally ships using external view feature. I doubt they would be so stupid in real life, lol, so it just one of exploits in this game.

[Rhodes]

Originally Posted by kiwikapitan

So trying a surface attack in Mar. '43 would be considered suicide then?

Well in July of 43 I manage to do my last surface attack, at night. Calm sea state, pick up the convoy aproxing and with deck awash manage to get inside the destroyers screen. Quitte simple by the way. There was 2 of them at the sides of the convoy but the first one was almost paralel to the lead frigate, and the second was zig-zaging, often going back and returning. Did a little "ziguezague" and voilá. But then fired to soon... and manage to got away. (It was still in GWX 1.03; GWX 2.0 I still in my 44/45 campaing... )

By the way, an historical question, Otto Kretschmer junior officer name was Bernard?

[Uncle Goose]

Kretschmer went even that far that he often entered the convoy with the wind in his back because the lookout on the ships couldn't see that well due the sprays of salt water and suchs. However I don't think that's accounted for in SHIII.