Convoys taking damage

[vinnie71]

Don't know if this ever happened to anyone. When creating a large convoy (30, 40 or 50 ships) I always have 2 (yes just 2) merchant ships which get damaged. No attacks of any kind or hitting mines, just accumulate damage, obviously slowing down the whole convoy. What's this about? It never happens with small convoys though...

[Nomad]

Did you look for collisions? They do happen, and maybe larger TFs have a higher chance.

[LoBaron]

Sounds a bit like damage due to collition. IIRC theres some penalties on too large convoys.
And since its always 2 ships that points in the direction.

If you don´t think your convoy is too big id check the TF commanders.

[vinnie71]

Thanks! This collision thingy is new for me! I normally concentrate ships with similar speed profile in large convoys in order to provide the most powerful escort possible (especially due to the dearth of good convoy escorts up till '43).

[Rob Brennan UK]

unloading a huge convoy is now rather hard in AE. In a lot of ways your better off having many small ones and just praying you avoid the subs while escorting the important ones (i.e men).

just my 2p .. and yes collisions can be nasty indeed.

[Shark7]

They are probably colliding with each other. 50 ships in a convoy is huge, and as the number of ships increases, so does the chance that they will collide with each other.

[vinnie71]

Yeah I'm splitting up the large convoys now. I know its a pain in the neck to unload a huge convoy, but in my mind it is offset when you could provide a cruiser, a couple of destroyers and minesweepers for each convoy. I was just waiting for '43 to come by to add the escort carrier too...[:(]

[LoBaron]

It usually makes sense to split forces into different taskforces because of survivability anyway.

e.g.
TF1 AK Tranport + target waypoint
TF2 AP Transport + follow TF1
TF3 ASW I + follow TF1
ect.

Helps a lot when picking through things because it all went different to what you thought.

[baghdadbob]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

It usually makes sense to split forces into different taskforces because of survivability anyway.

e.g.
TF1 AK Tranport + target waypoint
TF2 AP Transport + follow TF1
TF3 ASW I + follow TF1
ect.

Helps a lot when picking through things because it all went different to what you thought.

When using this arraingment, will the ASW TF3 following TF1 help defend TF1 against Subs or does TF1 have to have at least one ASW type ship?

[LoBaron]

I don´t know the exact percentages so cannot tell you if this method is better than including ASW ships in the transport TF´s.

The target of ASW for a convoy is to drive the sub away anyway. You could go for a mixture by including some DC eqipped corvettes or
patrol craft into the transport TF and add ASW TFs with capable DD´s and aggressive commanders to escort and go sub hunting.

Another advantage is that there are chances that the sub is detected by the ASW before they can even close in for an attack on any valuable transports.

[Smeulders]

Maybe let the transports follow the ASW, otherwise the transports can get in the next hex first, get attacked by subs and only then will the ASW arrive.

[LoBaron]

I am not absolutely sure if this is the case, Smeulders.

In fact if you set a TF to follow another and go back to the main screen you see that the TF has a destination set to
where the followed TF is after the turn.
So my impression that this relies more on TF speed and maybe some random events.

[bsq]

One thing that does strike me about the use of one large convoy over several small convoys, is that from an anti-submarine/sub attack perspective it makes little difference if I read the rules correctly inasmuch as there can be only one sub attack per hex per turn. (Good job they are 'I' boats and not 'U' boats, cos I don't think anyone told the wolf packs about that rule)

So if you send one big convoy then you run the risk of collisions (personally I'd smack the heads of skippers together and tell them to keep their spacings in the columns as they are supposed to - smacks of poor convoy discipline to me), whereas if you send several smaller convoys keeping them in the same hex then the collision chance recedes, the chances per ship of a successful sub attack is exactly the same and your poor beleaguered escort forces can protect all of the ships to the best of their ability.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: bsq

One thing that does strike me about the use of one large convoy over several small convoys, is that from an anti-submarine/sub attack perspective it makes little difference if I read the rules correctly inasmuch as there can be only one sub attack per hex per turn. (Good job they are 'I' boats and not 'U' boats, cos I don't think anyone told the wolf packs about that rule)

So if you send one big convoy then you run the risk of collisions (personally I'd smack the heads of skippers together and tell them to keep their spacings in the columns as they are supposed to - smacks of poor convoy discipline to me), whereas if you send several smaller convoys keeping them in the same hex then the collision chance recedes, the chances per ship of a successful sub attack is exactly the same and your poor beleaguered escort forces can protect all of the ships to the best of their ability.

I think there is a slight advantage when running specialised ASW TF´s with an aggressive commander it can offensively prevent an attack
by attacking the sub first. Escorts in a
Transport TF act more passively from my impression and setting an aggressive commander in it to change that you put the transports in danger.


So using ASW TF´s, your transports should get attacked less often and you have a higher chance to damage or sink the sub before it even fired a torp.

No game decider IMO but worth thinking about it. [;)]

[bsq]

Sorry I didn't specifically say that I run the escorts in specialised ASW groups. You are right that they perform better that way and can give (some) cover to all the ships in the hex.

Of course if you do it properly (historically), then you need ASW groups, close and distant cover groups. Not sure exactly how to set that up, but it might go something like:

Convoy 1 (Cargo) leads
Convoy 2 (Cargo) follows
Convoy 3 (Fuel) follows
ASW TF follows
Surface Combat Group follows (perhaps trailing by one hex, perhaps not).