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[Cam0sam100]

In this episode we find our heroes tasked with escorting a slow convoy across the Atlantic on February 1st 1943. Once again I am the escort commander aboard USS Helm DD-388. 

 

We will fight this Sunday and I want to let you inside my head as we prepare for the encounter.

 

My convoy designated HX 57 is a slow convoy of 10 ships out of New York and bound for Liverpool. I have 4 Escorts with which to protect the convoy. USS Helm DD-388, USS Hull DD-359, USS Whipple DD-217, and HMS Lotus.

 

Let's take a closer look at my command and decide the best position for them. We will be using the GQ3 Convoy rules (for the first time) so I will describe their position based on the Small Convoy Template.

 

Let's start with the most problematic of the escorts, HMS Lotus the little flower class. The positives are an excellent ASW load-out. She has good depth charges and tons of them paired with a Hedgehog Projector, this little ship can put a serious hurtin on a submerged target. At 16 knots top speed I'm afraid maneuvering for the attack will be difficult and any kind of substantial hunt will leave her out of position for a long time and burning a ton of fuel to catch up. Her locally directed single 4 inch gun means she can just about out fight a uboat on the surface and my biggest concern is her radar or lack there of.

 

Next is Whipple, she is a Clemson Class Destroyer modified for escort duty. Her top side has been cut down to make room for more depth charges, a larger AA armament and a basic radar set. These modifications have reduced her top speed to 25 knots but all and all she's a solid escort.

 

Last but not least are Hull and Helm. These are to be my workhorses and I expect to run them hard. They are fast ,35 and 36 knots respectively, with RFC and an excellent radar set. The only real downside with these ships ,and it's a big downside, is limited depth charges.

 

I've got a good force here, I'd trade it all for a little more but I'm confident I can get some work done. As far as placement I'm thinking of two options 

 

Option 1: L,R B,H that puts two ships on either side of the convoy but leaves the front open

 

Option 2: A,B,H O that's one escort out front with two on the starboard side and a lone escort to cover the port side.

 

I'm choosing option 2 mainly because of what I call the "nightmare scenario", that is a Uboat diving ahead of the convoy and then emptying all their tubes as the merchants drive over them while I am scrambling to make my way through my own formation.

The ship alone in the O position will be the weakest for sure but a fast ship in the H position should be able to come to their aid relatively quickly.

 

I'll put Lotus in A, Whipple in B, Hull in H, and I'll put my ship Helm in O.

 

This positioning can be debated but this is what I'm going with. Let's see what happens.

 

 

Now that my convoy has been formed let's try and get it across the Atlantic.

 

About half way across the great ocean and 2 and bit days into transiting "The Gap" I received a message from my friends in England. "Uboat concentration reported".

A Wolfpack waiting for me. The message went on to say that 1 to 3 Uboats were forming up to attack me and that they had accurate knowledge of my composition. The message must have be a little slow getting to me because I'm already in the area they said to be aware of. So far I've seen no indication of any hostiles but if I were in their shoes I would attack tonight.

My force is already in the best position I can come up with and they are as alert as I can expect them to be. 

 

Now it's time to talk about fuel. As of today's fuel report all escorts are almost below half capacity with Whipple being the lowest. We had bad weather up to this point and the old tin can consumed more fuel trying to keep station. 

This means that even if I got the message in time to change course I probably wouldn't have done so. My slow convoy makes agonizingly slow progress through the gap anyway without having to go around an area wide enough to avoid the Wolfpack.

 

So far we've taken no losses and expended no depth charges so we are going into this fight with our fullest possible strength and while fuel is a major concern at all times, I'm of the belief that running out of fuel under air cover is preferable to losing merchantmen or dumping that fuel out of a torpedo hole as you head to the bottom.

 

I will post the fight when I get the chance. I would love to have a discussion about issues or points I might not have thought.

 

 

Will our Heroes fend off the Uboats? Will Donitz swarm HX 57 with more boats? Will Whipple be forced to make her way to Liverpool under sail? 

Tune in next week to find out

 

[simanton]

An interesting comparison with Forester's The Good Shepherd.

[Peter M. Skaar]

I am interested to see how this plays out.

[Cam0sam100]

The Good Shepard was certainly an inspiration for the scenario and after playing I have a much better understanding of what takes place in that book and the choices that had to be made as Kraus fought off his own wolfpack.

 

(Note Hull was replaced with Arron Ward. My model for Hull must have been lost in the move)

 

This was a difficult AAR to write because so much happened all and once in all corners of the battle. Hopefully my crude MSP Drawings will help to make sense of the battle. I'm going to try and tell the story from the point of view of each ship as for the most part they fought their own battle. Keep in mind that all these events happened simultaneously. 

 

HMS Lotus: She was leading the convoy at the head and was the first to detect the enemy. The ubout was a scant 900 yards away and running silent when a moment of perfect conditions allowed Lotus to pick them up. Her skipper quickly grasped what was happening and swung Lotus in position to make a hedgehog attack. He was rewarded by a geyser of water erupting in front of him but he was now faced with the difficulty of bringing his ship around to reengage. Lotus was already making 16 knots (her top speed) and her turn would take her out of the fight for quite a while.

 

I ordered all escorts to make evasive maneuvers to frustrate any firing solutions and everyone was to turn on their search lights.

 

USS Helm: At the same time as the Lotus attack, the lead merchant in the 1st column was broken completely in half by a torpedo fired from somewhere to port. I got a pip ahead on radar but my search lights were out of arc and I couldn’t spot them well enough to open fire. I rang up 22 knots (Max speed for sonar) and I swung to port to unmask my lights. We got a fleeting glimpse at the Uboat as she submerged and we scored no hits with the few 5 inch shells we had managed to fire. I brought Helm back around to begin the hunt.

 

USS Aaron Ward: As part of her evasive maneuvers had slowed to 2 knots. I also wanted her at the rear of the convoy so that she was able to rush to help Whipple or Helm. That's when my opponent surprised me. Radar reported two contacts coming in at high speed astern of the convoy seemingly intent on racing down either side of the merchants. I guessed that the closest contact was lining up a torpedo shot on the center column and made turns to bring my guns to bear. 

Unfortunately I was right and a fish a piece slammed into the two trailing merchants causing massive flooding on both. The beams of AW’s lights converged on the U boat and the 5 inch boomed scoring a hit on the bastard. 

AW was now traveling the opposite way of the convoy and was rapidly closing the distance on the uboat while trying to keep her search lights and guns in arc. The Uboat skipper refused to submerge and instead led AW by the nose while banging away with their little 88.

 

This is a good time to take stock (something I did not have time to do during the battle). My intelligence was off and I had a 4 boat Wolfpack attacking me fore and aft. I've damaged two of them to some extent but only the front boat seems to be out of the fight. I've lost one ship out right and two are almost certain to sink. Lotus is desperately trying to come about, Helm is hunting a submerged target in a perfect position to maim the 1st column while another is racing down the line from astern of the convoy, Aaron Ward is fighting a gun battle with a uboat to try and keep it out of the convoy and Whipple is flailing around trying to make herself useful.

 

Helm: sonar reports reloading noises from about where I expected the uboat to be. My gunners acquire the uboat racing up from the rear and open fire while I have to calculate if I have enough room to make a DC attack without colliding with one of my merchants. If I’m right it’ll be dang close but we’ll make it, just. We lay down our pattern and advance 200 yards before we put the rudder over hard to starboard and miss the leading merchant with a scant 100 yards. In that time the other Uboat has made it into the heart of the convoy and is wrecking havoc with its deck gun, but not before my guns scored 2 hits on her. Helm can do nothing to stop the uboat from her position and another merchant in the first column is hit.

 

Lotus: has finally gotten into position and about to chase the uboat between column 2 and 3. ASDIC picks them up instantly and in the restricted lane between ships it is easy to line up on the target and drop hedgehogs all around the Uboat. Again a geyser of water erupts ahead of Lotus followed by a huge air bubble and debris. Scratch one uboat.

 

Aaron Ward: Neither AW or the Uboat can manage to hit each other as they circle round and round. The two merchants that were hit at the back of the convoy are sinking and just as AW’s skipper believes that he has maneuvered to ram the stubborn Uboat it shoots out from the round about and submerges under the DIW merchant man.

 

The Uboat marauding through the convoy submerges before exiting out the other side and we decide to call the game. I have lost 4 merchants totaling 18,000 tons or so. The Germans have lost one boat outright and every other boat is damaged to some degree. Most have had their conning tower destroyed but the Uboat that went through the center had her diesel engines smashed to bits and will probably die later. The Uboat depth charged by Helm had her planes jammed in the full dive position and dove to 600’ feet before her crew could get them unjammed (those were some of the most exciting rolls you've ever seen! And since the battle was over I got to be party to some of them).

 

 —--------------------------------------------------------

This was a monster to keep track of. 4 subs is about as much as I think we can handle and even then one got missed. The sub at the front of the convoy was supposed to stay still and let the convoy pass over them but a misunderstanding about how movement works in this scenario and information overload meant that it simply did not move at all for several turns (it happens). I think there was still some battle to be fought but we ran out of time and it was a good stopping place since I had lost contact with the enemy.

 

I think my formation worked great. Lotus prevented the nightmare scenario (sort of) and Helm and Aaron Ward were up to the task of rear guard even though I had no idea that they would try and run up the back like that.

 

My opponent really did her homework and I was hard pressed. The two forward boats were supposed to draw my attention to the front and then the wolves (she got the idea from watching a nature show where a pair of wolves jumped on the back of some kind of predator) would chew up my convoy from the rear. I would say it worked great and 40% of my convoy was sunk. She also ignored the escorts for the most part and my word of warning to other commanders making the crossing is, if a uboat skipper is determined to get in the convoy it's damned hard to stop them. Also gunfire is not a perfect or instant solution.

 

I think I failed in one area in particular, you’ll notice Whipple is absent from this AAR. Well, Whipple spent most of the battle at the front of the convoy dancing from left to right. I could say that it was there to protect against another uboat but truthfully I could not decide where to commit it and instead it helped no where.

 

It was a ton of fun as always.

 

P.S. The first picture is the convoy at the start and the second is from when we took stock.

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