Surface Surprise. Good tactic against light escorts.

[RAM]

Well, first of all I don't know if this was done by german U-boats but I'm certain that it was a tactic used by allied submarines in the Far East against japanese light escorts. So it IS realistic (just in case someone says it won't happen in WW2).

The whole idea of doing this started when I read Edward Young's "One of our Submarines". Mr. Young was the first RNVR officer who got a submarine's command in WW2, HMS Storm. He was very successfull in Storm, mostly on his patrols on the Far East theater. In his books he describes a couple of very exciting and daring surface actions against enemy light warships, and from those actions I took the idea of doing this in SH3

The reason I didn't post anything about this before is that pre-GWX gun actions were unbelievable. The gun was way overpowered and/or too stable for a submarine deck. However with GWX it's much harder to hit anything with it, so now you can pull this trick without feeling a cheater.


Ok, Whole thing is...when an enemy light escort (armed trawler, Flower class FF...) detects you or gets a hint of you being near him, he will hunt you down and try to sink you with Depth Charges (obviously). If he gets you in the surface, he will come straight at you shooting from far, far and away, farther than what you can expect to hit with the 88 or 105mm because of your pitching deck. He will force you to dive (either because the holes in your hull or because you volunteer to do a crash dive ), and then he will try to get you with DCs.


Well, you can turn tables on him. What would happen if you surface next to him when he less expects it, to immediately vomit fire on his weaponry before he even knows what's happening?...Those ships have only one 4'' gun. It all comes down to speed and skill. If you're fast and accurate enough to take off his gun before he hits you hard-he's dead.


Take this for instance (just happened minutes ago in a career I'm currently playing): patrolling CG85 while submerged, I got several sound contacts, and after estimating course and speed, I surfaced and ran to the estimated point of interception. Crew spotted two enemy freighters (large and small merchant) and one armed trawler sweeping ahead of them. All french (date: 6 June 1940, hour, 5:30 am). I order periscope depth, silent running and approach the point where I intend to launch.


I set up a simultaneous shot on both cargo ships, coming from their side, and I Send 2 torpedoes to each one of them, estimated distance, 900-1000 metres. Everything goes smooth until one of my torpedoes chooses to explode too early. The other three impact. 2 on the big ship, 1 on the small one.

Scope up, I see the armed trawler (well past my position now) turning on the reflectors (not sure if its said this way in english) and start a turn towards me even when it's clear he still doesnt know where I am. Scope down. I wait for a couple minutes, scope up. Both merchants seem to be injured but none of them is certain to sink. I only have the aft torpedo loaded but I don't feel like doing a 180º with an escort looking for me. I won't reload and make noise with that escort nearby. In 1 hour it will be daytime and so I won't get another chance to attack (hard to shadow such a small force on the surface-and much less with Gibraltar so near).

So either I let them go and hope for progressive flooding to sink either of them, or I must engage again. With deck gun. And I do so.

I turn the submarine head on the zig-zagging escort ,and then I say bye bye to silent running. Flank ahead until I raise 5 knots, blow ballast, action stations everyone (damage control party ready for action). The U-boat rises to surface in mere seconds, and before the "we are detected!" message pops up, I already have the deck gun manned. Flank ahead still on, the uboat accelerates fast towards the enemy who's still doing a mere 6 knots. And all he can see of me is my small and hard to hit front profile.

Before I man the deck gun I already knew a rough distance for the enemy escort (1500m), so my first shoot will be a bit over that distance (to hit the upper works of the escort. Target is not sinking it, target is disarming it). By the time I fire, he will be turning towards me and firing back, so every shot counts.

Use x1 sight on the gun. that way you can SEE your gun elevation and your gun's tilting up and down because of wave motion. If you use zoom, you won't be able to measure neither of them and more than not you'll miss much more than you hit. And you must be accurate (and FAST) to pull this out.


First shot is for ranging purposes, but you should get a hit if you know what you're doing. From there onwards do your best and aim for the forecastle to smash his 4 incher. If you do it, he's done for good.

In this battle I missed first and second shots. Third one smashed the bridge. Fourth one blew up the enemy gun. The guy had good accuracy, tho. Even while I was head on towards him (I was a VERY small target profile for him to hit), he was able put one 4'' on my bow spaces which caused some damage (but nothing too important) before I got his main gun. So remember, this IS dangerous. But if you're fast and accurate, you will survive and he won't.



After getting rid of his main gun, I proceeded to get near him to sink him...now a word of warning...
It's been ages since I've tried this move and seems GWX has changed a bit or two about damage modelling...they fire with MGs (expected)...and those MGs HURT!!!! (totally unexpected, lol). I lost one of my gun crew hit by enemy MG fire before I could blow up those spots too. But in the end the armed trawler was a defenceless torch over the water...and then I had two damaged merchants waiting for my attention. And they didn't last long (the larger one blew apart from bows to rear with just 3 shots that turned the ship into an inferno-tasty ammo cargo I bet ).

The second one took a couple minutes more. Sank it and ran the hell out from there, just in case any other enemy ship was coming to see the fireworks.

From "Flank ahead&Blow Ballast" order to "crash dive", the whole action lasted roughly 4 minutes.

I secured 17000 tons of merchant shipping (14500+2500) I might had not sunk had I not engaged on the surface. And the armed trawler sank too (I stopped firing at it as soon as it was silenced).


I would say that doing this should be the exception and not the norm. It's dangerous for your ship and your crew (as my dead crewman can testify). But when the situation calls for it, its a good last-resort move. The enemy for sure doesn't expect you surfacing that close to them, and at those small distances, your accuracy doesn't suffer as badly as in longer ranges, so if you're fast and accurate enough, you will win the battle.


Needless to say, DON'T pull this one against more than one ship, or against anything bigger than a corvette (and if the corvette has more than one main gun mount, you'd better not do it either), because stakes will be against you. Also, be sure that you know how to accurately shoot at pin-point locations from distances of 1000-1500m. If you have problems with shooting accurately with your gun, DONT do it either.


Ok, this is it. Hope you liked the idea, and if you use it in your careers, I hope it works for you as it has worked for me .

[Letum]

I know of one incident when a U-boat did this on its way back from a patrol near central Africa.

They surfaced near what they thought was a large armed merchant at night. They kept the crews away from the ships guns with two machine guns that where aboard the u-boat, all the flack guns, and used the deck gun to sink her.
When the merchant ship took to the life oats her radio SOS revealed that she was a royal Navy AUX merchant/warship. The radio message didn't give the signal "SSS" for a submarine attack either. It gave the signal that it was under attack from enemy surface vessels.

I wish I could remember the u-boat number.

[spork542]

U-701 was known to have attacked a US submarine chaser and sank it.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by spork542

U-701 was known to have attacked a US submarine chaser and sank it.

hehe, not difficult perhaps. Many early sub chasers where just glorified speed boats.

*edit* I remember sinking sub chasers in a SH2 mod.

[Melonfish]

i've done this to a C class destroyer in vanilla game. gone all ahead flank and blown ballast as he's about to make a run and manned the deck gun aimed at his weapons whilst i man the flack aimed specifically at his D/C's i was on his port side passing him abeam and ordered left full rudder so i swung through his rear axis. i killed his d/c's and switched to my deck gun and wasted both his rear turrets. i was going to crash dive but i pushed my luck and eventually sank him. i think what helped was the fact that he took such a pounding so quick he tried to run so i had his rear to me at all times, i used all my ap ammo up sinking the chap but it was worth it.

i was at about 67% hull when i'd done he'd got a couple of shots into my bow (in R/L i'd be dead) so game wise not so bad.

GWX i prolly wouldnt even attempt it unlessi was desperate and even then i'd just blow off his D/C's and then crash dive.
pete

[Letum]

It must be a hell of a bang when a D/C rack explodes IRL.

[peterloo]

I've tried once... Killed a flower with a 88 (in unmodded ver)

However, with GWX, I don't think you will be able to do that, as that flower always give you a bad position

If you want to do that, destroy that 4" first. That will make your life easier

[RAM]

Originally Posted by peterloo

If you want to do that, destroy that 4" first. That will make your life easier

That's the whole point of surfacing . Killing that single gun (and THEN the MGs too!!!) means that you can disable the escort at will and then go for the merchies. you're free to do whatever you want in the surface.

Of course,it's early in the war. I wouldn't have tried it later when most merchants are also armed.

[azn_132]

some brit destroyers dont have DC racks in them tho.

[Letum]

It's a shame we can't get the MG34/42s and MP40s that most subs had on board in surprising abundance.

[Herr Russ]

I have a brandy new quad flak gun on my IXC in place of the slow single shot heavy flak. When I assign my flak crew to man it, it takes 2 men and all 4 barrels blaze away.. When I man it by myself (to use against surface targets), will all 4 barrels fire or just two?? Just wondering..

Thanks and great advice!!

[Letum]

Hehe, I just noticed the username of the original poster.

I wouldn't trust tactical advise from anyone with that name! :rotfl:






just kidding

[RAM]

Originally Posted by Letum

Hehe, I just noticed the username of the original poster.

I wouldn't trust tactical advise from anyone with that name! :rotfl:






just kidding

LOL!!!



Sailor-Steve. If an U-boat pops 100metres behind a corvette, the 20mm will reduce any crewman on the deck to meat. That's no wonder.

But if the same U-boat pops out of the water 1500-to-2000 metres from the same corvette, facing it directly (small target profile), that same 20mm gun will have some trouble hitting anything, giving enough time to the sub crew to open accurate enough fire with the 88mm. At longer ranges you will have problems with the wave motion ruining your fire solution. At shorter ranges, light cannon and MGs will kill your crew. But at 1500-2000 you're out of the light cannon range (they fire and can hit your sub but with no accuracy at all, so they can't purposely kill crewmen), and the range is small enough for you to be able to hit with a high degree of accuracy.


"so much for game mechanics"...well, as I already said in my opening post, I'm not making this out of air. British subs did just this with their 3 inch deck gun against light escorts, taking them by surprise, and in multiple escorts-vs-one sub engagements. Go read Capt. Young's book if you don't believe me. Maybe they were also gaming a "real life mechanics" loophole?

This tactic WAS used in WW2. Not sure if by any U-boat but it was by allied subs. And very succesfully, if I might add.




AVGWarhawk, sorry it didn't work for you. In which circunstances did you try to do it?. As I said avobe you must be careful of the range at which you blow ballast. Too far and you can't hit the escort's main gun with accuracy. Too near and it's light weapons will get crewmen killed. But done at the right range and when directly facing the enemy (a well trained crew won't hurt either because that means higher rate of fire), it works...or at least it does for me :O

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by RAM

But if the same U-boat pops out of the water 1500-to-2000 metres from the same corvette, facing it directly (small target profile), that same 20mm gun will have some trouble hitting anything, giving enough time to the sub crew to open accurate enough fire with the 88mm. At longer ranges you will have problems with the wave motion ruining your fire solution. At shorter ranges, light cannon and MGs will kill your crew. But at 1500-2000 you're out of the light cannon range (they fire and can hit your sub but with no accuracy at all, so they can't purposely kill crewmen), and the range is small enough for you to be able to hit with a high degree of accuracy.


"so much for game mechanics"...well, as I already said in my opening post, I'm not making this out of air. British subs did just this with their 3 inch deck gun against light escorts, taking them by surprise, and in multiple escorts-vs-one sub engagements. Go read Capt. Young's book if you don't believe me. Maybe they were also gaming a "real life mechanics" loophole?

This tactic WAS used in WW2. Not sure if by any U-boat but it was by allied subs. And very succesfully, if I might add.




AVGWarhawk, sorry it didn't work for you. In which circunstances did you try to do it?. As I said avobe you must be careful of the range at which you blow ballast. Too far and you can't hit the escort's main gun with accuracy. Too near and it's light weapons will get crewmen killed. But done at the right range and when directly facing the enemy (a well trained crew won't hurt either because that means higher rate of fire), it works...or at least it does for me :O

If a submarine surfaces bow-in to a destroyers broadside, it's not that hard for the DD to move around to the side. It still takes more than a minute to ready a deck gun that's been waterproofed. I'll find the book, but this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone using a tactic like this, and I've heard a lot. Don't forget that the escort only has to get one hit on a submarine's pressure hull and it's no longer a submarine.

Saying it works, at least for you, indicates that again you're talking about the game, not something you've done in real life.

[RAM]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

If a submarine surfaces bow-in to a destroyers broadside, it's not that hard for the DD to move around to the side.

Well, for starters, if you do this against a full-fledged destroyer you deserve to die . This is intended to take light escorts out of the fight, not to dance a tango vs a DD.

If you surface bow-in to a corvette or smaller armed ship it may be not that hard for him to turn around. But it will be hard for him to try and hit you while he turns around. You're a small target and he's turning-the worse scenario for an accurate shot on a ship you barely see, 1.5km away and giving you his smaller profile possible.

Its not hard but the It still takes more than a minute to ready a deck gun that's been waterproofed. I'll find the book, but this is the first time I've ever heard of anyone using a tactic like this, and I've heard a lot.

"One of our submarines"
Edward Young
Wordsworth Military Library
ISBN 1-85326-681-7.

Pages 240, 279,280, 281,282, and more pages describe different surface actions by HMS Storm vs lightly armed ships. But page 298 and 299 are the ones which made me wonder if this would work in SH3 (and it does ). There, Mr. Young describes a 35-minute surface action fought vs a whole convoy of small ships, with escort of light armed ships and some MTBs. Storm sank several ships by gunfire and escaped unharmed.


Oh, and it's a wonderful read anyway, so if you purchase it you won't regret it

Saying it works, at least for you, indicates that again you're talking about the game, not something you've done in real life.

indeed, I haven't done it in real life. But others did. And with a good degree of success...and against multiple enemies .