Surface attacks

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by VonHelsching

Well said tycho. Just to add that these ranges are for lone merchants only.

I've been spotted visually by an escort at arange between 4500 and 5000 m.

Later on in the war, you will see escorts / lone DDs come our of nowhere @ 30 knts straight at you. It's radar.

Amen to that - I stalked a convoy for 3 days through the storms with heaviest fog/mist on my last patrol (July 1941), and during my first 3 attempts to sneak in to attack under the cover of fog I was surprised and damaged by escorts charging at me out of the fog/mist, even though they had been nowhere near when I surfaced for my attack runs. After the third time I figured it had to be more than coincidence, and that I must have run up against my first radar-equipped escorts.

Fortunately, the weather broke the next day and I was able to make a series of submerged attacks in which I sank 4 ships from that convoy before I finally ran out of torpedoes and had to head for home.

So much for surface attacks on convoys - those "Happy Days" are apparently over for this Kaleun.