Night surface attack minimum distance?

[Frumpkis]

On my last few career patrols I've mainly been doing daytime periscope attacks or nighttime periscope attacks due to escort action. On the current patrol I finally had a good nighttime setup for an attack on a single merchant. So there I was, floating dead stop on the surface, lined up for a shot when the merchant would pass my bow at roughly 0.5nm. There was a half moon, and the sky was 50% cloudy. Pretty dark, at least from the external view cam.

The merchant saw me and veered off, at just over 1 nm. I guess I should have stood further off, but still... a mile at sea, on a fairly dark night... and they spotted me? Does anyone here have a good handle on reliable attack distances at night, where your sub won't be seen?

P.S. I don't mind if merchants are that watchful... that's nice, actually. I'm just trying to get a feel for what the safe attack distances are.

[rissler]

at day follow the shipies http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif at night get close the eazy way to get the best distence is to watch your target indicator (the triange in atack periscope) jellow good green best you can see what you rbest line of atack is by eazy watching how big your target in the periscope is realy eazy tho if you cant see your target clear get closer, do you see only a part of the ship Your TO close??? wel you figure it out ...

[veovis39]

Why not just submerge and not have to worry about it? Or use your deck gun.

If you can see them, logic follows that it won't be long before they see you, eh?

[Frumpkis]

Originally posted by veovis39:
Why not just submerge and not have to worry about it? Or use your deck gun.

If you can see them, logic follows that it won't be long before they see you, eh?

No, even when surfaced, I'm much lower in the water and harder to see than the merch, and if I'm dead stop I'm also not kicking up a bow wave or wake that can be lit up by moonlight or starlight. That's the theory, anyway.

I'm just sayin'... I'm not sure that 1 nautical mile is the distance where a merch in the dead of night should spot you and veer off. Doesn't seem very realistic. It takes some of the fun and challenge out of the game, if nighttime attacks have to be done at periscope depth like daytime attacks. Surface attacks were the way it was done, when the conditions were right. And I had all the right conditions on this last patrol (only a half moon, clouds, calm seas, no escort, dead stop in the water).

[ARM505]

How cloudy? I can tell you from real world experience that you can actually spot something at half a mile on a calm night with half a moon (it's actually quite bright then when you've adjusted to the low light conditions). But you do need to be quite observant and know what you're looking for, depending on the size/colouration of the target.

[joeap]

Originally posted by veovis39:
Why not just submerge and not have to worry about it? Or use your deck gun.

If you can see them, logic follows that it won't be long before they see you, eh?

Actually the u-boats preferred attacking at night early in the war because of their small profile. Didn't work once the allies started widespread use of radar. The Japanese did not however, so night surface attacks remained a valid tactic in the Pacific.