Determined intercept

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Albrecht Von Hesse

Wow! Thanks everyone for the compliments!

Actually they were doing 13 knots. The fastest I've ever seen for a non-task force convoy.

Normally what I do when I encounter a convoy is immediately go to dead stop (unless it's bad weather and they're within 2 klicks :p ). Once I'm at 0 knots I pick a ship, lock my UZO on it and take bearing and range readings, marking that on the map relative to my position. I do that twice more, at 5 minutes and 10 minutes, then connect the points to set a course for them.

I place the compass at the first point and draw a circle. Depending on the weather and the mod I'm running (and at times other factors, like the year and number of escorts) the circle is anywhere from 8 klicks to 20. My course line is at least 200 klicks long, and I'll draw another circle (same-sized) at the middle and at the end. Next thing I do is plot a course, at flank, away from the convoy and out to the border of the first circle. The circles are drawn at what I estimate is the visibility range of the convoy (if they have radar I'll make the avoidance circle lots bigger that I do for visual avoidance).

Once I'n chugging away, and hopefully still undetected, I plot a course parallel to the convoy, by connecting my course tangent to the middle and end circles. Now things get a bit 'math-y'. What I want to do is travel the minimum distance necessary to intercept. This is for two reasons: one is that the longer I travel, the more any errors in plotting accumulate and grow, and the other is the longer it takes to intercept, the more likely the convoy will make a course change and/or I'll be spotted by aircraft or another ship.

Based on the convoy speed and my flank speed I set my distance so that when I reach a set point (where I'll plot a forth circle and set my course tangent to it) and turn 90 degrees to the convoy course, that when I reach 1 - 2 klicks away from the plotted convoy course I'll be around 20 klicks ahead of them. I choose 20 klicks for two reasons: that's far enough away to remain beyond their visual and radar range, yet is close enough that when I submerge I can pick them up on passive hydrophones.

Then it's usually just a matter of waiting. Sometimes I'll re-surface and do a surface attack approach (early years and at night) but normally I'll make creep adjustments submerged and sneak past the forward escorts until past and inside their screen.

@TarJak

I couldn't do that with this convoy TarJak because at the point you see they were between 6 - 9 klicks out, and on a divergent course between 120 - 130 port AoB. At their speed, and course, and also because they'd already made one unexpected radical course change, I decided trying to outflank and re-approach them would likely fail. That happens of course but that's life.:p

There are two types of convoy just as in the war. Fast and slow. So it is nice to know that this was modelled into the game

[Sailor Steve]

NYGM has a lot more types than that. Their convoys change speed every time they change direction!