Warships?

[con20or]

I am currently in my second campaign, on my second patrol. I have yet to sink a warship. I always go for the merchants, and have only once taken a shot at a warship.
It was a corvette, i fired a 4 torpedoe spread, i couldnt believe they missed, he turned so sharply. unfortunatley this was before i knew how to take screenshots so i havent the pictures that i tried to take( i kept hammering on the F11 key,uselessly) so i cant show you.

But im wondering how often do any of you take on warships? And how much success do you have? I dont mean battleships or anything worthwhile, i mean destroyers,frigates,corvettes etc.

[Nabeshin]

Basically i leave them alone, you get more points for sinking cargos and tankers anyway.

The one exception would be at night when there are a few merchants being escourted by a lone DD. Only at night because the destroyers seem to be extra good at visually spotting torpedoes. Maybee they even find them by sound.

If they have been alerted to your presence just forget about them completly, they move to fast and turn too quickly for you to have much of any luck hitting them with a torpedo at anything but short of point blank (- safety range of 300m).

If however you take out the escourt you can surface and save some torpedoes by using the deck gun. I tend to use the deck gun on the smaller merchant ships that go down in a few shots anyway.

[con20or]

i wonder how often (if ever) that happened? A boat take out the single escort then start shelling the convoy. not often i would think. they would always be afraid of a second one nearby,or reinforcements on the way. i try not to do that, just go for merchants.

[Venge]

Have to use wakeless torps for the small fast warships. I sink em if things are perfect and there is a need, if not I let them pass.

[BlitzPig_Rivet]

I try not to take on warships at all. If I do it's in desperation. Best to avoid them if you can.

[HW3]

I tend to leave them alone also. The only time I will mess with them is if I find one escorting a small convoy by its self. Then I will try to sink it so I can then go after the convoy with no worries about a escort. Since the merchants have guns now, I don't try to shell them besides, the weather usually won't let me anyway.

[con20or]

another reason why i leave them alone is that i fins them nearly impossible to identify with the recognition manual. From a distance, one destroyer looks pretty much like another, and u have to get very close before you can start to count how many guns they have, or funnels. And it is IMPOSSIBLE to see how many barrels they have in the gun mountings without cheating and using the external camera.

[Dominico Baggio]

It doesnt really matter that much about the perfect ID, in real life they would often not id them properly.

I am lucky enough to have the id manual (paper one) and i can tell you most destroyer mast heights are similar. You can allow for the margin of error, just try to see how many funnels they have, and make a rough guess at them, and you can get them.

In "real life" in campaign i have only ever sunk one escort, and that was near the east coast of england when i found one in bright sunlight making across my bow. I went to periscope depth, saw he was not zigging so set up, and sunk him

Other then that i got about 3 in an online game, by firing from the rear tube and forward tubes when they are looking for you and you are at p depth. I just did it by eye, watching how fast they move and aiming the scope infront of them.

That said i didnt get many points for it since escorts are churned out so fast and sinking a tanker full of oil is much more important to the war effort