Merchant hunting off Canadian coast in '39, '40 & '41

[KeptinCranky]

Yes I've been there early on and pickings are decent but there really is not much point in motoring all the way over to Canada where you'll be back within the aircover when you could go only half that far, be outside air cover and still find the convoys

this is also what happened historically most early sinking were fairly close to the British Isles and in 39/40 certainly not further west than Greenland

[seafarer]

Just for the record, you do not need a type IX to try this. Once France is taken and the bases moved to the French coast, a type VIIB/C is perfectly suitable for a trip to North America. Some of the operation drumbeat boats were VIIB's - like U-85, which was the first drumbeat loss for Germany (off Cape Hatteras in 14 April 1942).

In one of my very first careers back in 2005 with stock SHIII, I cruised to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a VIIB in 1940 and returned to dock my boat back in France. You just need to cross the Atlantic at a nice steady 8 knots, and avoid any temptation to run down reported contacts on the way - save your fuel for hunting in the Gulf or off Newfoundland (and note your fuel consumption going over, so you'll know when you need to turn for home - and give yourself a decent safety margin too). I even sailed well up the St. Lawrence, although it gets to be tight quarters, and there are escorts patrolling around, so be wary of depth under keel!

P.S. for a good read, track down a copy of Steve Neary's The Enemy On Our Doorstep: The German Attacks at Bell Island, Newfoundland, 1942
(1994, Jesperson Publishing Ltd., St. Johns, Canada).

my pic of the remains of one of the torpedoed ore carriers at Bell Is. (taken in 2003)

[Sigurd]

You dont even need to wait that long. I just made it to a re-supply ship off Greenland in '39 with a VIIB. This is with GWX of course, but I'll let you know what I find. The current plan is to catch convoys leaving Halifax.

[Deathfrombelow23]

Great picture seafarer!! I may read that book if I get some spare time and I'm not using it to play SH3. Kaluen Sigurd, any contact reports or information about shipping off the Canadian coast in 1939 or 40 would be very valuable intel. Please pass it along if you find anything worth while. BDU would appreciate any recon reports you can send back.

[Sigurd]

Originally Posted by Deathfrombelow23

Great picture seafarer!! I may read that book if I get some spare time and I'm not using it to play SH3. Kaluen Sigurd, any contact reports or information about shipping off the Canadian coast in 1939 or 40 would be very valuable intel. Please pass it along if you find anything worth while. BDU would appreciate any recon reports you can send back.

No problem. I'm not the best with finding ships however, so your results may vary. I probably wont be able to get a good feel for the area until tommorow, since I have class tonight. I'll take notes, and pass them along. Hopefully the waters will be rich, as I doubt the Canadians are expecting a U-Boat this early

[Deathfrombelow23]

Originally Posted by Sigurd

No problem. I'm not the best with finding ships however, so your results may vary. I probably wont be able to get a good feel for the area until tommorow, since I have class tonight. I'll take notes, and pass them along. Hopefully the waters will be rich, as I doubt the Canadians are expecting a U-Boat this early

It stinks how those darn classes get in the way of doing your duty for the Fatherland! I just had grad class myself tonight. It really interferes with my U-boat commander duties!! Anything you could pass along would be great. I heard that in some of the inlets around some of the large ports, Halifax convoys assemble and spawn. I would think that, like you said, early in the war (39 and 40) the pickings would be VERY rich! Anything you could pass along would be appreciated! I'll tell Doenitz what a great job you're doing to help your fellow Kaluens and perhaps he'll award you that Ritterkreuz a bit earlier! Good hunting, Kaleun Sigurd!

[Sigurd]

U-32 is back in port, and here is what I found.

After reaching the Newfoundland coast, I was bombarded with Warship contacts. Each one of them came from south of Newfoundland, and rounded the cost up to the north, and continued on their way from what I could tell. All of them heading about 9 knots, so they were interceptable, I just didnt for reasons I'll get into in a minute.

Once you reach the Canadian Coast (around Halifax), the warship contacts get replaced by Merchants, and appear at around 1/3 of the rate (at least). Fealing lucky, I decided to head into Halifax harbor, and sink all the Merchants. I didn't get a chance to explore the entire harbor, but none of the merchants were very good. The best one I sunk was a Troop Transport (actually, its the only one I was able to sink). I left the harbor with some trouble from the patrols, but luckily they never found me.

Around then, I decided to head back to the supply ship instead of heading down to the Halifax Convoy assembly point. Why? Fuel. The weather was bad, so I know I was burning more fuel then I could afford to, plus I needed to keep enough in my engines to make it back to the supply ship if I wanted to patrol again. You actually have to burn almost half of your fuel to even reach Halifax, and you cant keep chasing contacts on the surface like you would be used to patrolling English Waters. Even if I did make it to the assembly point, I'd probably be forced to sail underwater to save fuel.

All in all, its not a bad hunting ground. Its theoretically possible to reach at the beginning of the war in a VII-B, but I'd wait until you get a IX-B at least so you have more fuel to burn.