IMO there are too many lone merchants running around. In my current VIIB patrols starting from Kiel, when I have to go to a BF quadrant around Scapa Flow I often have almost no ammo left when I get there because all those reports of single ships give so many targets on the way, way too many I think.
I'll probably go over to just hunt for ships which I spot or hear myself...
IMO there are too many lone merchants running around. In my current VIIB patrols starting from Kiel, when I have to go to a BF quadrant around Scapa Flow I often have almost no ammo left when I get there because all those reports of single ships give so many targets on the way, way too many I think.
I'll probably go over to just hunt for ships which I spot or hear myself...
Only in the early part of the war. Remember the royal navy was stretched to the limits in this new kind of war. providing escorts, setting up the convoy system and ASW screens needed time and the help of the yanks.
By 1942, different game
I started a campaign in 1939, and I've been observing the progress of developments since then. At the start of the war, there were a lot of single merchantmen running around. They'd almost always be travelling at 6-7 knots. I'm up to mid 1941 now. I'm seeing merchants with guns mounted on them. Single merchants are much less common. Those who are running out of convoys are travelling much faster. Coastal/small merchants are running at max speed, 9 knots. The larger ships are usually running at 12 knots. I'm starting to see ships running in tandem, one behind the other. More changes are still to come.
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The Brits (and allies for that matter) remembered the lessons learned from WW1 by traveling in many convoys yet in 39-41 or so, they did not have adequate numbers of escorts.
Convoys were also often unprotected in the deep sea because starting escorts had to turn back due their lack of range. Escorts at the destination could only sail out so far to link up and bring em home.
In the later part of the war, say 42 on, the escorts not only became better but refueling bases along the way helped give convoys round the clock protection.
Well, I know there have been more lone merchants in the earlier stages but I never heard about them being reported to the BdU. I think I'm quite profound in German sub warfare but this would be new to me, other subs or such reporting lone merchants...
Yeah, I often make it to my grid with only a couple torps left because of the huge amounts of contacts everywhere.
I'm seeing changes now, however. It is late October of 1940, and my base just got moved to St. Nazairre (sp). I decided to head down to West of Gibraltor area in my first patrol from that port. I found the typical lone merchants still, but I also saw two cases of 2 merchants traveling together- both were C2s with a small merchant. I killed several with the deck gun on the way to Gibraltor area.
I got down there and made contact with a large convoy. It had several troop transports, a T3, and some C2s. First of all, the destroyer detected me, at night, from at least 2.5km. I thought I was being careful with the scope, too. Anyway, this destroyer was the toughest I had ever seen. I managed to get away from him and eventually shot torps at some ships.
I surfaced behind the convoy to finish off the T3, and all of a sudden I'm under attack by the Merchants. They took my hull down to 60% in only a few seconds. I forgot that the threat of this happening increases greatly as the war drags on, and payed for that mistake. The destroyer was coming back for more by now, and I barely escaped and only got the T3, and had to return to base.
I got lucky and was almost killed by some **** merchants.When I'm dead, my campaign is over, and all this work is down the drain.. so I'm gonna start being careful around those crazy merchants from now on.
the increase in speed from the single merchies makes life difficult if you are in a IIb. in bad weather, its really hard just to catch up, let alone spot them. go under, you'll get a sonar contact, but you can't get enough speed to catch up. makes the intercept angle really important.
nothing worth while is easy
You've to understand that many things in this game were tuned to appeal a wider audience.
During WW2 many frustrated capitains returned from several weeks long patrols without ever encountering a single target.
While the tales of the exploits of uboots have a certain appeal, most people forget that life aboard a submarine was dull and all the action, the fear and the "thrill of the hunt" were condensed in a few hours.
On these very forum there are enough people complaining about the game patrol being too long and boring.Imagine the outcome, if Ubisoft decided to make an hardcore simulation!
Yeah, I was thinking the same while starting this thread.
Maybe a realism setting like "lone merchants: many/frequent/rare" would be an option?
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