Help attack the convoys

[Mrs_Pancake]

Hi guys, I'm new to the game and therefore not very experienced.
I started the career in 1940 aboard my type VII / B, and patrolling the north-west of Ireland I met a convoy formed by British and American ships (are they green can I attack them?) since I am quite inexperienced I thought of save the game and rehearse to attack the convoy. The convoy consists of four escort ships two corvettes and two destroyers the merchant ships are small, C2 and a C3 together with a small (American) tanker. Now the point is that my attacks have been a failure after another, the first pretext is to get close below or I am identified or I have to go so slowly that I can't get close enough, when I manage to reach within range, sometimes the missile does not hits the target and sometimes hits it but does not explode. In short, I wanted to have strategies on how to conduct an attack on a convoy I want to clarify that the game has no MOD

[Dmitry]

Hello Captain:)

First at all try to do a tutorial Convoy Attack in the Naval Academy:)

In real life they did like this:

1. Take a parallel course far away (3-5 km) from the convoy so that you can only see the steams. They won't see you.

2. Go parallel to them to the head of the convoy.

3. Better to approach at night so that you stay surfaced. In day time submerge and get closer up to 1,5 -2 km. The closer, the better.

4. Fire all the torpedoes at different targets at once. As Otto Kretschmer said: "1 target - 1 torpedo'.

5. Turn right or left at 90 degrees, full spead ahead and go as deep as you can, at least 120 m so that the depth bombs don't attain you.

6. Go away slowly in silence rigging so that the war ships don't spot you. But always move at 1 kt, never stay in 1 place because otherwise they will detect you. If you have depth bombs falling on you - full speed head and turn at 90 degrees in the opposite direction, right or left. But very quickly please so that they don't detect you.Then return to the 1 kt speed.

7. If you are undetected and alive,go away in silent rigging far enough to surface the boat

8. Load new torpedos, repair if needed and repeat all the process

Good luck!

[Mrs_Pancake]

Originally posted by Dmitry:

Hello Captain:)

First all try to do a tutorial Convoy Attack in the Naval Academy:)

In real life they did like this:

1. Take a parallel course far away (3-5 km) from the convoy so that you can only see the steams. They won't see you.

2. Go parallel to them to the head of the convoy.

3. Better to approach at night so that you stay surfaced. In day time submerge and get closer up to 1,5 -2 km. The closer, the better.

4. Fire all the torpedoes at different targents at once. As Otto Kretschmer said: "1 target- 1 torpedo'.

5. Turn right or left at 90 degrees, full spead ahead and go as deep as you can, at least 120 m so that the depth bombs don't attain you.

6. Go away slowly in silence rigging so that the war ships don't spot you. But always move at 1 kt, never stay in 1 place because otherwise they will detect you. If you have depth bombs falling on you - full speed head and turn at 90 degrees in the opposite direction, right or left. But very quickly please so that they don't detect you.Then return to the 1 kt speed.

7. If you are undetected and alive,go away in silent rigging far enough to surface the boat

8. Load new torpedos, repair if needed and repeat all the process

Good luck!

thanks just one more question one torpedo is enough to sink large mercantilids??

[Dmitry]

No, not always.

But you have a limited number of torpedoes and a lot of traders. So the best is to shoot at as many of them as possible to hit the maximum of targets and if you hit somebody it might just sink itself.

And if it doesn't, it's enough to memorise the direction it is sailing to and you can always come back and finish it off it later because the speed will be around 4-5 kts instead of 10-12.

If you have survived of of course:)

[Dmitry]

P.S. The best angle to hit a ship with a contact torpedo is the right angle= 90 degrees.

But it can also vary up to +/- 30 degrees = between 60 and 120 degrees. In this case the torpedo will normally explode if you manage to hit the target.

If your attack angle is not within these ranges, for ex. if the angle is, say, 30 degrees, your torpedo risks just not exploding at all even if it hits the target ship.

A solution to this is to use torpedoes with magnetic charges which are launched under the keel of the enemy ship and for them the angle doesn't matter. But I have never used them myself, see the manual to know how it works exactly

[BanDHMO]

Hopefully you already figured everything out, OP, but if not, I'll add a couple of my own approaches to what was suggested here.

1. Approaching to visual range is too dangerous for my liking, and requires decent visibility conditions, which you don't always have in North Atlantic. Once the enemy has radar, I would not dare run in parallel within 3-5km. I don't know if in 1940 it is still safe or not, but I never do it. A much safer way is to run along at 10+km, far beyond visual range, submerge periodically, and rely on your sonar to determine the approximate enemy positions (this relies on having sonar directions on the map turned on, if you are going for full realism, it's too much of a pain to plot them accurately, IMO). Also, distance. Don't just overtake the convoy by a little bit and then struggle to get into position to fire. Overtake by a lot, get to where they will be way before they get there, and lie in wait, until they come to you.

2. If you have been spotted, do not try to attack. After the ships are alarmed, they will initiate evasive maneuvers, zig-zagging, and making it very unlikely your torpedoes will hit, and if they do hit, it will probably be at a glancing angle, so there will be no detonation. Attack with the element of surprise and be on your way out before your torpedoes hit.

This also means it's not a great idea to attack ships at vastly different distances, like on opposite sides of the convoy, because as soon as the first torpedo hits the closest target, the far target will start to evade, and by the time your torpedo makes it the rest of the way, the far target will not be where your calculations said it was expected to be when it was not alert.

3. Magnetic detonators are very easy to use. Your manual has the draft of each ship. Set the torpedo to run about 1m below that, and switch to magnetic. Most of the time, there will be an explosion regardless of angle of impact if the torpedo passes under the target's hull. You do have to make corrections for wounded targets, whose actual draft will be lower than normal due to flooding. And, of course, sometimes there will be duds, as these things were not exactly reliable, but overall, they are worth it, IMO. Especially when attacking an alert, evading target, magnetics are the easiest way to go.

4. I would disagree with the one target one torpedo maxim for convoy attacks. It depends on your style of play. If you are OK reloading if you get killed, then it's efficient to conserve torpedoes. I play "dead-is-dead", meaning the campaign is over if I'm sunk, so the risk/reward math is a little different. An attack on a convoy is by far the most dangerous part of any cruise. For that risk, all four torpedoes are getting launched, no question. Sometimes it's possible to launch them at four different ships, other times doing four attack calculation takes too long, or some targets are at bad angles, different distances, etc.

Another consideration is that far too frequently big ships do not get slowed down sufficiently by a single hit to fall behind, and stay within the convoy. If that happens, you either wasted a torpedo or you must attack again that specific ship within the convoy (rather than the most opportune target) on next approach, which increases risk.

Finally, big battleships can have very robust survivability and one torpedo may easily be shrugged off. A cruiser, carrier or battleship gets at least 3 torps from me, and often all 4. For targeting medium to large merchants, two targets each getting a a pair of fish is my standard. When the target is unescorted, though, you usually have free reign to hit them with one torpedo at a time and can be thrifty.

[stoked_toker]

I thought Otto was silent.

[stvlepore]

Originally posted by lastolfi97:

Originally posted by Dmitry:

Hello Captain:)

First all try to do a tutorial Convoy Attack in the Naval Academy:)

In real life they did like this:

1. Take a parallel course far away (3-5 km) from the convoy so that you can only see the steams. They won't see you.

2. Go parallel to them to the head of the convoy.

3. Better to approach at night so that you stay surfaced. In day time submerge and get closer up to 1,5 -2 km. The closer, the better.

4. Fire all the torpedoes at different targents at once. As Otto Kretschmer said: "1 target- 1 torpedo'.

5. Turn right or left at 90 degrees, full spead ahead and go as deep as you can, at least 120 m so that the depth bombs don't attain you.

6. Go away slowly in silence rigging so that the war ships don't spot you. But always move at 1 kt, never stay in 1 place because otherwise they will detect you. If you have depth bombs falling on you - full speed head and turn at 90 degrees in the opposite direction, right or left. But very quickly please so that they don't detect you.Then return to the 1 kt speed.

7. If you are undetected and alive,go away in silent rigging far enough to surface the boat

8. Load new torpedos, repair if needed and repeat all the process

Good luck!

thanks just one more question one torpedo is enough to sink large mercantilids??

Most times not. I would not agree with the one ship one torp.. You get no credit for damaged ships. One sunk is better than 4 damaged.