1508 ships sunk while sailing Independently

[Der Teddy Bar]

During WWII the u-boats sank 2827 ships. Of these 53% i.e. 1508 of these ships were sailing independently, that is they were not part of a convoy or a straggler.

I bring this up as I feel that though RUB's intention were good, that they were poorly implemented. It would be my intention should the interest be there, to increase the single ship instances while at the same time fix what was the original issue.

The original issue was not just initially too many ships, but too little Air and escort cover amplified by 20 Km response range of escorts and the Lost contact time= stopping a responding escort from showing up. And of course no over riding Coastal Command.

Year - ind - convoy
1939 - 100 - 67
1940 - 181 - 383
1941 - 211 - 289
1942 - 694 - 628
1943 - 224 - 357
1944 - 78 - 170
1945 - 20 - 80

I wish to selectively increasing traffic and escort/air patrols for a location based upon the year.

BTW, I do not wish to create a lot of easy targets. However, for example, the East Coast of England is barren compared to WWII. The English East Coast shipping was essential and did not stop or lessen during the war. But air cover, escorts and minefileds made this area too risky thus forcing the u-boats ever westwards.

[Drebbel]

Interesting stats Teddy. Would the same go for ships attacked or damaged ?

Or would in those cases the percentage be a lot different ?

[donut]

Six months ago I was still playing Silent Hunter Commanders Edition.Good mod Idea MHO.SHIII will be active,at least until SHIV.

[irish1958]

Der Teddy Ber
A couple of months ago I posted a thead to this effect, but I did not have the stats you quoted.
I suspect that lone stalking u-boats probably accounted for a much higher percentage of single ships; and wolf-pack attacks on convoys accounted for the greater percentage of convoy kills.
Since we don't have wolf-packs in SH3, the number of single ship attacks should be much higher than allowed in RUB 1.45.
When several u-boats attacked a convoy, the escorts would be engaged in attacking the subs, leaving some subs unmolested to attack the convoy.
Radar and air-cover stopped the suscess of the u-boat attacks later in the war, not convoy escorts.
So yes, DER TEDDY BAR, re-ballance the ratio of single ships to convoys.
irish1958

[Panama Red]

Der Teddy Bar:
Us poor Type II players will really love you for this correction, thanks.

[Crash Dive]

Wow the numbers of independants sunk in 42' & 43' are surprising to me. Their must have been alot off Africa, the Carribian and U.S. East coast. :hmm:

[Letum]

I say, didnt exspect that many

[don1reed]

Hi Teddy,

Please, would you identify your source(s) for the stats. Thanks.

[Der Teddy Bar]

Originally Posted by don1reed

Hi Teddy,

Please, would you identify your source(s) for the stats. Thanks.

No probs, The source is 'The U-boat Offensive 1914-1945' by V. E. Tarrant

[GlobalExplorer]

Hi Teddy Bar.
You should go on with that work. During my work with the campaign files I found a lot of things I didn't like. There should be many single merchants, but only in certain areas, while other areas are completely protected. During the hot period of operation drumbeat for instance (i.e. January to May 1942), there should be lots of single targets around the US East coast. This should then shift southwards to the Caribbean and South Atlantic, because when the U-Boat sinkings rose alarmingly, so did the dangers from ASW measure. With the current campaign files however, it's pretty much the same in every theater during the whole war (I am somewhat exaggerating here, but it could be greatly improved).

[Der Teddy Bar]

This series of images shows the location of where the ships were sunk during the war.

Sept 1939 - May 1940


June 1940 - March 1941


April 1941 - December 1941


January 1942 - July 1942


August 1942 - May 1943


June 1943 - May 1945

[baxter]

As GlobalExplorer is pointing out it is a matter of where the increased independent ship contacts should be. From looking at individual patrols on U-Boat.net its clear that many of the Type IX subs (which typically patroled in these distant locations) would sink almost entirely independent ships during most of the war. On the other hand, once you get past 1940 or so, the Type VII boats in the North Atlantic were sinking almost entirely ships from convoys. In one of the last releases of Improved Convoys (which is part of RUb) the number of independent ship contacts was raised in the South Atlantic, Caribbean, Indian Ocean and U.S. Coast. Maybe they need to be increased, but I know from experience they were an improvement over what RUb had in those areas.

The U-boat.net information on patrols is excellent for this...they have nearly every patrol and they list the ships sunk by name, what convoy they were from (if any) and show the patrol locations on a map. You do have to become a member to access this information, but its been worth the cost so far as I'm concerned.

[Der Teddy Bar]

It is not only where the increased independent ships should be, but when, and just as importantly is modifying the previous easy areas to stop the sinking of all shipping, both convoy and single ships.

The u-boat war went for ever west ward, not because the weather and scenery was better :rotfl: but because England made it too risky through the Coastal Command with increased escorts patrols and/or air craft patrols which made it impossible to operating effectively and/or the risk of loss was too great.

Again, a lot of issues come back to no Coastal Command. We can sink ship after ship after ship after ship after ship after ship after you get the idea, and in most cases nothing will happen. If it does it might be a 2 aircraft response or a escort that hangs around for 5 minutes.

The only way to combat this is to use decreation to increase the scripted air & escort cover to such a level that in a round about way we simulate the Coastal Command reacting to your presence.

If this is to be done I will require a lot of help. I will need people to help with…
when and where the independent sinking occurred
improving escort patrols around ports
improving escort patrols around the English coast
adding scripted air patrols around the English coast
adding scripted air patrols from Iceland to simulate the air cover from 1943 onwards (?)
adding more minefields around England historically relevant
adding more coastal defences where historically relevant

I have been a member of the U-boat.net's Conning Tower since its inception and a visitor to uboat.net since 1997 (?).

[Crash Dive]

Great topic Der Teddy Bar, useful information.