Finding "xxxx" ship...can work in small groups...

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Till today I've always been asked to attack a named ship among small or medium groups...and was just fine; found the group, identified the ship, put a couple of torpedo in it and objective is met.

But today I was ordered to sink an Empire Bell among a whole convoy of 30 vessels!?!
There were 4 Empire Bells in it, it's impossible to achieve realistically such objective.

Say you even recognize the four of it, you should try to "snipe" each of it with a single torpedo?

I don't find it very realistic.

I believe when given the order to sink a specific ship, it's better to keep it alone or maybe with one escort (imaging it's carryiing important/sensitive cargo), while a different objective should be given for bigger groups (i.e. sink at least 3 freighters...)

[The cursed Jäger]

Had a smiliar experince in a former Version like B115.
I had to find the Ship "Empire Bell" in a small Convoy. Conovy spotted and all three Ships identified and surprise 3 Empire Bells. 1 British-, 1 Canadian- and 1 Swedish Ship. I sunk the British and Canadian ships first because it can't be the Swedish one, but, i had to sink the Swedish ship. I still had the Task to sink the Empire Bell, eventhough I sank 2 of it.

[Maxim]

Although I have an example mission like yours described below and what I did when faced with so many targets, It is more challenging for the devs to make a game for all the people who purchase it, than it is to play the hard missions.

See image here:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtHmw0Cbvn9ihCcvgjVV5XWUk72K

Simulating a variety of missions is better than always having a simple mission.

When you find the challenge too easy you get bored, and other players still have different needs.
When you find the challenge too hard you learn to fail, and other players still have different needs.

It's like going for some food at the restaurant and finding out they dont have anything you like on that day, you move on to somewhere else disappointed.

Now failing isnt as bad as it seems. In real life a sub that was already out of torpedos couldnt even attack a single corvette escorting a single freighter.

So what a sub would do instead is use keep heading home for resupply and "get the points" for reporting the convoy using the radioman.

Later, another German sub or wolfpack would be alerted, knowing which direction the convoy was headed, set a course to intercept, if they were in the next best position, and so on.

This is teamwork, being simulated.

TLDR: Keep your sub at depth, centered in front of convoy, moving in same direction, but stay ahead of convoy, and identify the 4 targets. Choose whether you want to turn at the opportune moment, fire two rear torps in one direction, and 2 front torps in the other, criss-crossing the path of each target. see images:

See my mission here..
https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/2530372519571668335/

[gerald2]

Originally posted by Maxim:

Although I have an example mission like yours described below and what I did when faced with so many targets, It is more challenging for the devs to make a game for all the people who purchase it, than it is to play the hard missions.

See image here:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtHmw0Cbvn9ihCcvgjVV5XWUk72K

Simulating a variety of missions is better than always having a simple mission.

When you find the challenge too easy you get bored, and other players still have different needs.
When you find the challenge too hard you learn to fail, and other players still have different needs.

It's like going for some food at the restaurant and finding out they dont have anything you like on that day, you move on to somewhere else disappointed.

Now failing isnt as bad as it seems. In real life a sub that was already out of torpedos couldnt even attack a single corvette escorting a single freighter.

So what a sub would do instead is use keep heading home for resupply and "get the points" for reporting the convoy using the radioman.

Later, another German sub or wolfpack would be alerted, knowing which direction the convoy was headed, set a course to intercept, if they were in the next best position, and so on.

This is teamwork, being simulated.

TLDR: Keep your sub at depth, centered in front of convoy, moving in same direction, but stay ahead of convoy, and identify the 4 targets. Choose whether you want to turn at the opportune moment, fire two rear torps in one direction, and 2 front torps in the other, criss-crossing the path of each target. see images:

See my mission here..
https://steamcommunity.com/app/494840/discussions/0/2530372519571668335/

i think what he is writing is mainly about that ,so its impossible to recognise wchich of those 4 bells is mission target ,not about how har dis hit 4 vessels in convoy...and he is absolutely right its screwed.
such mission targets show be named ships with rare name ,or just diff type of ship ,or at least if u get certain % of target calculations you should get confirmation from officer "its mission target" otherwise ,way liek its now its not challenge ,its pure lottery

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Originally posted by gerald2:

i think what he is writing is mainly about that ,so its impossible to recognise wchich of those 4 bells is mission target ,not about how har dis hit 4 vessels in convoy...and he is absolutely right its screwed.
such mission targets show be named ships with rare name ,or just diff type of ship ,or at least if u get certain % of target calculations you should get confirmation from officer "its mission target" otherwise ,way liek its now its not challenge ,its pure lottery

Exactly...

[Qatsi]

Well, often a single torpedo is enough to sink a freighter, sometimes you need more. I don't find it hard to sink 6 freighters with a full torpedo loadout on board, or even more.

[Silence Suzuka]

It is not that hard to sink 4 targets.

But what i feel unrealistic is the target is called "high value" and doesn't have any escort. That is stupid.

[gerald2]

Originally posted by Qatsi:

Well, often a single torpedo is enough to sink a freighter, sometimes you need more. I don't find it hard to sink 6 freighters with a full torpedo loadout on board, or even more.

its not about how many torps you need or how hard it is ..its about that so if you have order to sink certain ship ,it should be marked in any way i dunno diff name type or so in big convoy you can have fckin 10 empire bells and is lottery if u hit this one you need ....
And about that OP is absolutely right .

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Originally posted by Qatsi:

Well, often a single torpedo is enough to sink a freighter, sometimes you need more. I don't find it hard to sink 6 freighters with a full torpedo loadout on board, or even more.

I know, in the game it is...in reality is another story.
Crew used spreads against a single target (usually tankers in the middle rows of the convoys) and reloading torpedo wasn't that fast.
Furthermore as soon as the first water column was sighted following a torpedo hit, the convoy started to break formation, scatter around zig-zaggin violently to not offer uboat crew possibility to calculate firing solutions.

So long story short, after one salvo, I don't believe uboat was able to re-attack immediately

[Goffik]

I don't have a problem with this as it is. Someone else mentioned that the more "unrealistic" aspect of this mission type is when the so-called "high-value target" is in an unescorted convoy of 2-3 freighters. :p

As for the difficulty in identification, I'd say that was pretty realistic to be honest. I mean, even if German intelligence was able to name the ship that the high-value cargo is aboard, how would you know each ship's name? Are you going to infiltrate the convoy and get close enough, at night and undetected, to read the name on the back? And that's assuming the allies leave the names written on them to begin with.

So if such a mission were undertaken in real life, your only real option would indeed be to identify all the ships in the convoy that match the class, and try and sink them. If that mean sinking one or two, backing off for a day, and coming back at the same convoy later then so be it... that's what real u-boats did when they had to.

[Lawndart]

Intelligence wasn’t likely to identify anything specific based on the convoy let alone a specific ship... so all freight ships are high value. Enter Wolfpack’s

But they did know allies where using ships marked as hospital ships to ferry troops...

[Surrexen]

Pretty hard to pick out the right ship in a convoy of 38 ships.

[Whoom]

We can see the names of the ships in the convoy when zooming on them on the map or by centering the camera on the target. This screws up realism of course but it works.

But I'm facing a slightly different but related issue. in my current mission, the ship I am supposed to sink is simply not part of the convoy and is nowhere to be found :/

[athenian]

But ships in a convoy become identifiable by name when you get closer. I like getting in the middle of the convoy so I can identify even more ships that way. Just pointing your mouse over the ship should show you the ship's name.

[Jabrwock]

Last time I had "sink a ship" the damn thing was in a convoy of 22 with a heavy escort. :D

I had to make stalk them until nightfall where I could come up periscope depth in the middle of the convoy and get a good look at ship names.

[namah99]

When groups are small, I tend to not cheat, and play by the game design, scoping the targets trying to identify. But, as the ships get tangled in some pretty large groups, all heavily guarded, the frustration sometimes get the better of me when I chase down 5-6 ships, and play cat and mouse with warships only to find I have not sunk the correct ships.... My "go to trick", is to click on the different boats in the convoy, then selecting the target camera which then zooms in perfect at this boat.... Then I just orbit the camera around the ship and read the name of the shipside....I then repeat until I find my target, and then I lay down a masterplan to sink it, along with some other colleteral damage. I know - it screw's up realism..... but I'm no real world sub captain, and the day only have 24 hours.... :-)