Deck Gun Attack of Destroyer Within Convoy

[Bent Periscope]

Has anyone tried a deck gun attack on a destroyer while surfacing from within the convoy? Especially at night time since I’m a small silhouette lost in the crowd while he starts off away from the ships.

Of course this would have to be during the early years when the merchants don’t have guns. I’m wondering if you start firing from a distance, could you hit them for some real damage before they would hit you?

Would the DD be careful to fire since you are near the merchants or are they so accurate that you’d be deadmeat within seconds?

As the DD grows closer, I’d try to submerge under a merchant and try to trial it while I go deeper. Hopefully the convoy will get in the way of the warship and allow me to escape, pop up later and start again.

I’ve never tried this since Bdu has instilled the Fear of God into me regarding destroyers.

BP

[Shadowblade]

well, it looks like suicide attempt, Herr Kaleun

[Kubryk]

Using your deck gun against DD is the quickest way to end your career. Good thing is, you'll be remembered in British pub's for some time

From my experience (stock version, patched), destroyers don't mind endangering merchants - they urge to kill u-boat. I was ca. 50m from a merchant, when DD came out of nowhere shooting like a madman. I crash-dived, but he was able to put at least 3 rounds in a merchant, unfortunetly not enough to sink it. My boat was unharmed. Judging by this event I'd say convoy is not going to protect you. Plus, in a middle of a fight you can get rammed by enemy ship.

[Torplexed]

It's the rare convoy that's protected by only one destroyer or escort. You're going to find yourself in a vicious crossfire long before you can take down a merchant, let alone a DD. That sort of fight is what schnellboots are designed for, not U-Boats. Plus, in turrets, even a lone destroyer outguns you about five to one.

[Bronzewing]

Biggest warship I ever took out with a deck gun was a Flower corvette, and she had already been damaged badly by something else (was crawling along at 4 knots and listing heavily, blew ballest 1500m astern of her and blew her stern off beffore she could turn round). Other than that I've worked over a good number of ASW trawlers and Elco boats in the early war years, but that's about it.

[Jimbuna]

If you surface and get spotted by an escort, the escort will commence firing immediately.....even putting a merchant between yourself and him will not deter the rate of fire.

Them escorts turn into bloody maniacs once they get a sniff of you

[Synthfg]

They will fire back
Remember being on a trip into Scarpa once, sitting in the lee of a cruiser reloading eels with 3 DD's circling, everytime I stuck my scope up I would be shot at

In the time it took me to load fore and aft tubes, the cruiser took so much frindly fire that it sank


At night I have in the past enganged Corvettes and Friggates at ranges of 5000m+ with the deck gun to some effect, however taking on a DD, no chance

[bookworm_020]

To survive, you need to take out the forward guns before they get your range and hammer you to death.

If you can do that, you have a good chance of sinking a destroyer.

I've done it before, with a hunt class. I got lucky by taking out the forward guns. Corvettes are easier to sink as they have less gun armaments than destroyers. If there are two or more escorts, or armed merchants around, it would be better to dream it than do it!

[MRV]

I did some crazy things in my careers and sometimes even with sucess.....someting like surfacing about 1000 meters away from a destroyer and firing manually at it....after 5 or 6 hits it exploded and went down....which I havent expected myself....after this the whole convoi was mine.
In early war situations with unarmed merchants, if there is only one DD Escort, I normally give the escort one torpedo, surface and have fun with the deck gun....

another crazy thing was chasing a Nelson-Class Battleship with a Type II U-Boat....It survived the first salvo of 3 Torpedoes and I just wasnt willing to let it get away with this. Submerged my boat was too slow to keep up with the ship, so I surfaced about 3000 meters behind the battleship and went to flank speed. At day in bright sunshine, thx to my small silhuette only the destroyer-sized secondary guns of the ship hit me a few times and I was able to close up to about 1500 meters. At this time my next torp was loaded and I took my shot with magnetic detonator (more an act of desperation)
With a chance of 1:1000 it hit the screws of the battleship, destroying 3 of them and bringing it down to about 3 knots. Finally, I dived to periscope depth again with a badly shot up u-boat. I fired my last torpedo on the side of the ship where my first three had hit it, it capsized and went down 5 minutes afterwards.....

SH3 Commander told me after this patrol my hull integrity was about 15 %, but hey, the Nelson was down.

[Sniper_Fox]

DD's could care less whats near you. I was caught on the surface while attacking a merchant with the deckgun in daylight when i got spotted by a flower DD. I stuck close to the unarmed merch when the DD tried to ram me, but ended up slamming into the merchant, and propped himself up so high that his gun couldnt hit me anymore. the merchant he hit exploded and began to sink slowly, so i manouvered to the side and began pumping AP rounds into the bottom of his exposed hull, and then to his rear and pumped a few HE into his exposed deck - he detonated like the Hood.


But if you are a wiley captain you can take on a destroyer. Close in and keep turning. hammer his guns, stay in the rear and hammer those guns. if its a flower corvette you have no worries about rear guns. but a tribal has rear turrets, but easily overcome if you can nail em quickly. once the turrets are down close in, but stay out of machineugn range, those guns are next to impossible (if at all possible - I've never disabled them) to disable. Remember keep him turning, and stay slightly on the outside of him, so if your both turning right, stay on the outer left edge of the turn so his fore guns are blocked by his command deck. it is harder to keep this spot on the inside of the turn. when on the outside if he switches direction then you can easily maintain position. Dont dive!!!!!!! if you do yer ****ed.
Once his guns are disabled destroy the upper works. His hull is too armoured for your 88's. If you are using a IX then your 105's will do much more damage to his hull. Once the gun is disabled your next target is the screws. Destroy them with High-explosive. Now his rudder is buggered. his engine is stopping. Slow down and stay in position. Hammer his command deck and other things with HE. stay behind him and keep firing.

God speed!

[rubenandthejets]

I just engaged a DD at 5k yards and got a few hits in, more as a way of drawing him and his buddies to my decoys while I went deep and snuck into the convoy.

Biggest thing I've taken on toe to toe successfully is an armed trawler / tugboat, again from long range (4K+) with the 105mm.

Tried a DD once, ten or twelve hits to his two and I was fish food. I owe it to my crew to avoid anything that shoots back.

[Pisces]

@Bent Periscope

The rest has allready said enough so I will just pose the question: why would you like to die so much.

But all kidding aside. When I first saw your post I saw nothing. Like an empty message. I soon realised what you wrote was with black text. As I use the SmartDark layout style it didn't show well on the dark background. I'm guessing you use somehting different. Anyway, could you change it to a different color, so other readers won't have that problem again.

[Bent Periscope]

I just corrected the original message so that the font is no longer black.

Thanks for the replys, I've just restarted my career and I'll see if I take any chances with the deck guns against the convoy's screen. I'm glad to see that there have been some aggressive attacks against the DDs.

I'd just like to save my torps for the big merchants.

Thanks again,

BP

[kaptkirkU4467]

From the old WPL Camp we had going...

U Boat "Expert" Deck Gun Award in Gold
Sink a enemy "warship" with your deck gun.
2 destroyers sunk by deckgun

I gave BdU fits as I could not stop deckgun'n V&W's.Most time I battle surfaced and got off a few shots right into the depthcharge racks...boom.

*and yes...I "D.i.D" many times as there gunners were faster.*