Realistic sinking times, how long can they be?

[Bosje]

hmmm i thoroughly enjoy the gwxperience but i do want to know this one thing:

how come the empire freighter, crippled and listing more than 45 degrees, is able to put holes in my lovely boat?

i crippled it in a convoy run, after the escorts broke off I stalked the convoy track and found this one sitting still. i surfaced and prepared to sink her with a couple well placed rounds but instead i found myself running away fast

her gunners scored over 50% accuracy, againt perhaps 5% from my own gunners.

that kind of pissed me off because it put my boat down to 40% hull integrity. i can't imagine that being very realistic, nor historic.

other than that: great stuff

[Schwuppes]

Some RL realism questions from me...


So when A U-Boat scored a hit on a single merchant... would they hang around until it sinks?
Also what about convoy attacks... when the U-Boat had to evade dive for several hours in order to escape.... how did they know if the target was actually sinking?

[Sailor Steve]

Sometimes they would hang around, and sometimes not. There are many records of even 'confirmed kills' turning up in port, and post-war the scores were changed; so nothing was always certain. With convoys they might hear the ship breaking up as it sank, but the best confirmation was the intelligence system. BdU would intercept 'SSS' distress signals, and they could read published reports of what ships didn't make it. Again, some of the details had to wait until the end of the war for final confirmation, but both sides had a pretty good idea of what the other was doing.

[GoDeep]

Originally Posted by Bosje

hmmm i thoroughly enjoy the gwxperience but i do want to know this one thing:

how come the empire freighter, crippled and listing more than 45 degrees, is able to put holes in my lovely boat?

i crippled it in a convoy run, after the escorts broke off I stalked the convoy track and found this one sitting still. i surfaced and prepared to sink her with a couple well placed rounds but instead i found myself running away fast

her gunners scored over 50% accuracy, againt perhaps 5% from my own gunners.

that kind of pissed me off because it put my boat down to 40% hull integrity. i can't imagine that being very realistic, nor historic.

other than that: great stuff

I read that from 1941 onward, many merchants were fitted with guns. So even a wounded ship could have fired at a U-Boat. I don't think that realisticly there would be a problem with that.
The GWX manual also explains that a surface vessel makes a stabler gun platform than a U-Boat. That could explain the accuracy of their fire. On the other hand, I don't know if the people who operated the guns on those merchants were highly experienced. I would think they would have had at least some basic training in how to do ship to ship shooting.
And I bet they wanted to stay alive, so all in all, I think it is realistic that they're going to fire at you. Just because the ship is crippled, doesn't mean the crew is! Probably a warning for all skippers who surface near a wounded ship.

[rls669]

I find the accuracy of merchant gunners highly suspect. These aren't Home Fleet battlewagon gunners, just guys with a crash course in gunnery who have probably never fired the weapon in combat until they encounter your U-boat -- in which case they are probably on the receiving end of naval artillery for the first time as well. Not a situation in which good performance is likely.

[Cohaagen]

Remember that guns wouldn't have been manned by merchant sailors. DEMS (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships) had dedicated Army gunners who'd man heavy deck guns and multiple mounts, etc. Army isn't a mistake either - I know it sounds like it'd make more sense for the gunners to come from the Royal Marines, but they provided the gunhouse crews for the surface Fleet instead.

Ore ships were the worst - they were generally knackered old tubs that went down in seconds.

There was actually a sea master in the Falklands STUFT flotilla, Ian North, who'd survived a torpedo attack in the second war only to die in the water during Operation Corporate. Think it might have been the Atlantic Conveyor incident, I'll check the book again and see.

(yep, it was)

http://www.sama82.org.uk/garden/1/0/4/home.htm

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Cohaagen

Remember that guns wouldn't have been manned by merchant sailors. DEMS (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships) had dedicated Army gunners who'd man heavy deck guns and multiple mounts, etc. Army isn't a mistake either - I know it sounds like it'd make more sense for the gunners to come from the Royal Marines, but they provided the gunhouse crews for the surface Fleet instead.

Ore ships were the worst - they were generally knackered old tubs that went down in seconds.

There was actually a sea master in the Falklands STUFT flotilla, Ian North, who'd survived a torpedo attack in the second war only to die in the water during Operation Corporate. Think it might have been the Atlantic Conveyor incident, I'll check the book again and see.

(yep, it was)

http://www.sama82.org.uk/garden/1/0/4/home.htm

Sadly, I remember it well

He was a well respected veteran skipper....and quite a character by all accounts.