I've joined the 100K Patrol Club!

[SmokinTep]

Congrats...................now can you do it again?

[Jimbuna]

LOL :rotfl:

[predavolk]

Well, I went and said it's almost too easy...

I did my first Milch Cow patrol to Cape Hope at the tip of Africa. On the way down, I ran into enough convoys that I decided to top off my torpedoes with U-470 (460?). Total haul for that trip 1/2 way to my destination was 85K tons, with one convoy near Gibraltar/Atlantic opening, and two near Cape Verde. The east side of those islands are a goldmine for convoys, so I highly recommend following the map with GWX to find the convoy route. I've never failed to hit a convoy in the 4 trips I've made with that route! I then restarted my patrol, and got to see the tanker as I left (you don't see it when you arive at the location).

Seeing them off, I decided to stop at St. Helena. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why the hell does this idiot keep raiding harbors in a Type IXB? Well, in my defense, I only raid those with really deep harbors. Sure enough, I manage to sneak past the lone patrol craft by cutting through the far end of his oval search pattern. I creep in at 100M to within 3KM, then spend 2KM coming to periscope depth at 2 knots (that's a good tip- it takes 2KM to rise 90M at 2 KTS). It's a rainy day, but I make it deep into the harbor. In fact, when I stop and raise the periscope, I notice underwater a huge sub net or wall! That was some serious luck on my part to not blunder into it by a few meters! But my luck continues with a big tanker (neutral), another big tanker (not neutral), a troop ship, a cargo ship (that I can't see well- heavy rain), and a Southampton Cruiser!!!

Well, this totally rocks. So I set my torps to 1M depth, and fire two slow electrics at the Southampton. First one, tick, tick, BOOM! It explodes right in front of my boat! It must have hit the net/wall. Luckily, the second torp appears to somehow make it over the wall. I put the boat in full reverse (heck, the escort will know I'm here soon enough!), and pump a fast steam at the allied tanker. It explodes nicely, as I hoped it would with one shot (right in the middle of the boat), so I send a second torpedo at the cruiser. With the extra distance, it easily clears the net/wall. It's also fast steam, and just after it goes the 2nd electric hits the cruiser! Seconds later, the steam hits it too! I gun the boat to full ahead and crank her around. I can no longer see either the troopship or the cargo ship, so I put my electric and steam rear torps down one of the sound bearings, slightly to each side. I pour on the coals to clear my datum. After a few close calls initially, I make it out of the habor. A stationary patrol ship had joined the hunt, as had another and a destroyer from outside the harbor. Fortunately, the weather is bad and the water is DEEP. Like 200M+ 3KM from the harbor.

Feeling fine, I wander over the the Guinea Coast on my way to Cape Town. Granted, my orders are now to return to base, but what the hell. That Milch Cow was meant to keep me going, not get me back to base! This is where it gets ugly. I ran into an A/B or C/D destroyer escorting a small cargo ship. Moments before, two other destroyers had passed through the area. Worst of all, the sea was glass. It was close to dinner time (real world), and I was arrogant and/or foolish enough to attack the little ship. In hindsight, I should have ignored it or at the very least, taken out the destroyer first. Any how, waiting in front of their path for an ambush, the destroyer takes a funny turn and starts heading in my direction. Sure enough, he gets close enough and starts pinging me! Damn!

Well, no problem, just one destroyer, right? Deploy decoys, dive, and I'll be out of here in these deep Atlantic waters. WRONG. He's on me like white on rice. I can't shake him. Worse, I can see that the two other destroyers are coming back. I make a snap decision to try and kill this guy before the other two destroyers join him. So I flank up to the surface, shoot one electric at him (thanks to the loading of the Milch Cow, all my current torps are electrics. He easily dodges my stern tube shot from 300M! That's no good. He makes an attack run and damages me slightly as I try to dodge him at PD. He then obligingly goes in front of me, I estimate his speed at 12 kts, set a spread of FOUR forward torpedos, set their depth to 5M, and shoot! Faced with this spread, he's nutted- he can't dodge them! Two run underneath him and...nothing. In my haste I forgot to switch them to magnetic from impact!!! By now, the other destroyers are 5KM away and closing fast. I dive deep, down to 220M, releasing decoys. I dodge, release, dodge, release, but I can't shake them! My technique is to go low, then when they cross over me on the map, and I hear DC in the water, I go to flank for 20 seconds or so while turning 45 degrees off course (as much turning as I can do on flank- I don't like to turn on slow because I want that extra 1KT!). I avoided taking any hits from the trio of destroyers, but they are relentlessly hammering me for 30 minutes now. At this point, I have to quit the game because of family issues! So it's technically not a kill, because I certainly can't save, and I might get away from them in time, but at the very least, I'm in the middle of an extremely unpleasant stand-off. Thanks to my arrogance and rushed carelessness.

Well, I end up loading the game again the next day, and decide to submit myself to the same situation, or close enough, to try and get out of it again. It's not a good feeling to "cheat", or at least "Deus Ex Machina" out of the situation. Unfortunately for my attempt at realism, the destroyers are all gone and instead there's a convoy of two coastal freighters escorted by a large merchant. Well, I sink 'em, but I don't feel really proud of doing it. I then head down to the southern tip of Africa and hunt down a few lone merchants. Then I get radar signals! Crash diving (my standard response to radar born of a fear of airplanes) soon reveals that there is indeed an enemy warship out there. And another. And another. And a merchant. And etc. A convoy! Well, I move a little away underwater, then surface and try to get ahead of the convoy. I use the edge of detecting their radar as my guide and end up in front of the convoy. The water is fairly choppy, 10 knots, so I'm ready to go. At PD, I make sure I'm on the opposite side of the convoy from the lead escort (there's 5 in total I think). I get in the middle of the convoy and notice that a warship is almost on top of me! I haven't used my periscope yet, as I don't want to risk detection. So I raise the scope and holy cow, the place is full of big merchants, small tankers, ore carriers, and a HEAVY CRUISER!!! I can't tell which type it is, but they're all the same size so I don't care. Best of all, it is perfectly approaching for a bow attack. For the third time, luck has been very kind to me this patrol! I use an ore carrier to calculate the speed of the convoy, and set a spread of all four torpedos, slow, 2M, impact. This will be a near-perfect 80 AoB, 350M shot. I shoot, and notice to my horror that in my excitement, I noted the AoB as port instead of starboard!!! WHY OH WHY CAN'T I LEARN!?! Fortunately, I did do some double-checking on the TDC screen (F6), and made my spread large enough to be effective. At this range, the error is forgiving, and I land two solid hits near its stern. I then let a large cargo ship behind me taste my two stern tubes before hitting flank, turning 90 degrees into the convoy, and diving deep. The cruiser goes down (within 200M of me), and the large cargo goes too. My fast speed gets me well clear of the datum point, which is good because the water here is only 130M deep. I get down to 120M depth, and am 1100M away from my datum point by the time a rear escort belatedly arrives. Another clean get away! Almost out of torps, I head back home, bagging a couple of merchants with my last torps along the way.

The total for the port-to-port cruise is 155K tons, and 5,600 renown! A fantastic cruise, that is unfortunately marred by that ugly incident with the destroyers. I'm proud, but wise enough to know that luck saved my ass BIG TIME on this one. I wish I had the chance to spend 2-3 hours to try and evade that pack of destroyers. I think that the original one might have returned to his escort, making a two-on-one plausible. With that in mind, I'll offer some hints, as usual:

1- CALM WATER IS DOOM AGAINST ESCORTS!!! I was lulled into a sense of false security by my experience with weak, presumably green, surface ASW in the Caribbean. These Atlantic Brits knew their job, and did it well. From now on, I'm not attacking anything with escorts in calm water. I don't care if it's a battleship. Well, maybe then, but not much else!

2- Decoys worked beautifully earlier this year. By now (April 1943), they appear to be less effective. Perhaps the 2nd generation decoys will be better, but they aren't the magic bullets they were on my last cruise. Perhaps I've simply come up against better opponents. They did work against the very first convoy of this cruise, but I'm convinced there is a better defense against destroyers.

3- That is- SPEED. I will strongly advise that after you shoot your torps, you immediately cut to flank speed until you are well over 500M from your datum point, or the nearest escort is within 1000M. The best defense, not shockingly, is not getting detected in the first place. And that means you have to get out of there quickly. I hope more experienced members can confirm this, but it appears that the destroyers first head to your datum point, not to you unless they detect your scope or you get to close and they ping you. So run fast, run far, while you can. Deep too.

4- A spread of 4 torpedoes vs. a destroyer is quite effective, even with slow electrics. Just make sure you fuse them properly! Destroyers can also, unrealistically, see and dodge electrics shot at them (one was coming at me, then veered off to dodge the torp, then veered back at me).

5- St. Helena is a fairly easy raid, and Cape Hope is quite productive in mid-1943.

6- Milche Cows set up your torpedoes arbitrarily, so be prepared if you usually mix your torps for easier loading/better flexibility.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I have very little luck with flanking away after an attack. They seem to pick me up immediately. When I crawl away I can usually get a decent gap as they navigate amongst the remaining merchants.

Also, a spread of four torpedoes seems a waste on an escort. I see you correctly estimated their speed at 12kts. They always circle at close to that speed. But if you know their speed and they are circling 'round for another run it should be fairly easy to hit them at nearly 90.

A bit of advice for those escorts, which you may have seen me repeat, endlessly, in other posts; Once they run over you and begin to turn around just go full rudder in their direction at 1/3 or slow speed. For small escorts like Flowers you may have to go to standard for a bit. Don't even bother to input data into the TDC, just set fire bearing to zero for a target with a speed of zero knots.
Open the tube you wish to use. If using a fast steam torpedo fire when he is 10-12 degrees from the zero mark as his prow crosses your reticle. Electrics are roughly 33% slower so use a 15 or 16 degree lead for those. Always use impact unless the seas are rough and always use a 1.5 or 1m depth for impact.
One hit, if it doesn't blow them to pieces, will at least immobilize or severely cripple them.
Now you have 3 torpedoes left for the other escorts or some nice, fat tankers.

[predavolk]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I have very little luck with flanking away after an attack. They seem to pick me up immediately. When I crawl away I can usually get a decent gap as they navigate amongst the remaining merchants.

Also, a spread of four torpedoes seems a waste on an escort. I see you correctly estimated their speed at 12kts. They always circle at close to that speed. But if you know their speed and they are circling 'round for another run it should be fairly easy to hit them at nearly 90.

A bit of advice for those escorts, which you may have seen me repeat, endlessly, in other posts;

Thanks for the advice! I think that, before the next patrol, I might spend some time practicing against German destroyers to get the hang of this. In 1943-, a more active defense may, at times, be required!