NYGM ASDIC

[Zosimus]

Originally Posted by UKönig

I recall reading, watching vids, that the British would be happy enough to run interference while the convoy tries to 'gain ground' so to speak. After a while the British warships would return to their convoy, lest it get too far away and come under attack by other U-boats. The American solution was a little more direct. They believed that the only way to eliminate the U-boat threat to any convoy, was to eliminate the U-boat itself. If the Yanks made contact then they would stay over you until you ran out of air and had to surface (or not). Or they would bomb you over and over until they got that tell-tale oil slick. It didn't matter how far the convoy got in the meantime. In the beginning, the US is not so hot when it comes to anti-submarine warfare, but (unfortunately for us perhaps), they get pretty good at it and in fairly short order. By March of 1943, the writing was on the wall, and it said, Death to U-boats.

I think perhaps you're overstating the case of the destroyers. In reality the US beat the U-boats with air power. A U-boat can easily stay underwater for 16 hours and at 2 knots that's 32 nautical miles covered–that's almost 60 kilometers. It would be impossible for a ship or even a group of ships to cover that much ground.

Planes, however, could easily sweep the area and report the U-boat location when it surfaced. If forced down a second time without proper venting and battery charge, the U-boat is basically toast.

I've never run into a HK Group, but if I do my plan is to spend 24 hours under at 2 knots and then check the air. If I can go longer, I will. I don't know if SH3 models this, but I run my boat with a skeleton crew–the absolute minimum number of personnel that SH3 will accept. This should (fingers crossed) allow me to extend my underwater time to the maximum.