Attacking convoy in stormy weather

[JoeCorrado]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

I got credit for the sinking. The gray "ship sunk" icon simply means there wasn't any visual confirmation of the sinking.

And so you are right.

On my last patrol, I was first assigned to deliver an agent. Then to patrol the area just south of the entrance to the straight formed between the main island of Honshu and Shikoku to the West. One of my all time favorite patrol areas due the the combination of military and merchant traffic through the narrows.

The weather was terrible upon my arrival on station, and terrible it STAYED. For the entire patrol... which lasted till I ran out of torpedoes.



It was November 1942, and my Gato class submarine has just recently been upgraded with surface radar. The horrible weather and use of radar, made it a snap to deliver the agent, and then for fantastically fun hunting afterward. By the end of the patrol, I had sunk 15 ships for over 92k tons. The tally included a fleet class carrier and a heavy cruiser as well as an entire 8 ship convoy consisting 3 dd escorts and 5 large merchantmen, the prizes were the two large tankers included in this convoy! The icing on the cake was casually taking out the escorts one by one afterward.

The only time that I felt like I was in any real danger at all, was after getting a tip on a task force nearly on top of me. I circled back and within just a few hours they began showing up on my radar. I was feeling pretty invincible by then... but I quickly realized that the escorts had radar as well. Once I realized that, my feeling of invincibility was quickly dashed aside- and I went to a more involved strategy.

I was able to lure the lead and near side escorts (3 dds) out of position by showing myself on their radar till they all charged toward me like angry bulls seeing red- once they began their charge, I went emergency dive into the stormy seas, and kept descending to 400 feet as I changed course and continued at speed to cut off the capital ships on their now unprotected flank. The escorts charged right on to the place where I had been detected on their radar, and searched dutifully, if haphazardly... but I was long gone. In well under an hour of their charge, I was back at periscope depth running slow and quiet, ready to pop up to radar depth at the last possible moment for my final attack. Setting up to use my now most beloved piece of equipment... my radar, and the Dick O'kane method of attack as the heavies crossed my bow at slightly over 2000 yards.

Sank one carrier and a cruiser- all others escaped, happily- so did I.

Except for the task force escorts equipped with radar of their own- sinking the others was like taking candy from a babe. Even got to make use of the deck gun quite a bit since the merchants show up very well even through the storm once you get them burning.

One other thing I discovered... the escorts without radar are as blind as bats and their use of search lights and signals after my initial attack, was a great assist for my gun crew in sighting in on them... usually managed to sink the destroyers before they ever had a chance to locate me in the storm or fire a shot in reply. I felt obligated since they were there after all.

All in all, I have learned to LOVE the stormy weather and poor visibility. So long as I have radar and they don't. It isn't even a fair fight.

I got credit for every ship that I sank even though every ship showed up gray on the map.



Using TMO 1.9