Navy Convoy

[cadetat6]

was just whatching " Victory at Sea" Episodes. They said the convoys would Zig-Zag because of the German Sub's. Can a large ship do that and keep from being sunk?

cadetat6

[Nagalfar]

The zig zag pattern was so the enemy subs wouldnt be able to get a torpedo plot/firing solution on them.. unless a sub was right on top of the ship it wouldnt be able to get a accurate shot off..

[Joseph P Carey]

Actually, a reading of the story of the USS Indianaplois and the sub that sunk her may be of some interest to you. The Irony of the story is that the US Navy would have never known what happened to the ship had it not been reported by the Japanese sub commander that sunk her upon his surrender at the end of the war, and, in his remarks, he noted that the ship was not Zig-zagging, and that is why he had such a good shot at her.

[yellowwing]

From Captain Charles B. McVay, III, USN, Commanding Officer of USS Indianapolis (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq30-7.htm)

We made this sustained speed without any difficulty so that we arrived in Tinian the morning of 26 July and unloaded the material and the bomb which was later to be dropped over Hiroshima...On Sunday night, the 29th of July, we had been zigzagging [evasive movement, making the vessel a difficult target for torpedoes fired from submarines] up until dark. We did not zigzag thereafter. We had intermittent moonlight, so I am told, but it was dark from about 2330 until sometime earlier the next morning.

At approximately five minutes after midnight [on 30 July], I was thrown from my emergency cabin bunk on the bridge by a very violent explosion followed shortly thereafter by another explosion.
[transcript continues]

[Osotogary]

Small world!
My next door neighbor in Livermore, Ca., alooooong time ago, said that his father was one of the few survivors that endured those terrible days and nights in the water. I believe that although there were injuries and death as a result of the torpedoes more seamen were lost to shark attacks. I believe that this would be the first time that an enemy would be brought forth as a witness for the prosecution during the court martial trial of the commander of the USS Indianapolis.