"Battleships Escorting Convoys" Topic

When one of the older and slower British battleships, such as HMS Malaya, was used to provide escort to convoys, where would it be positioned?

I know in Russian convoys, battleships and carriers were usually many miles away from the convoy, but I don't think it was this way in the North Atlantic. So would they have been in the middle of the convoy, the front, the rear or to the side?

Nevertheless, Terrement, they did cover convoys as Cuchulainn says. Haven't read specifically about BBs on the convoys so can't answer your question.

I doubt they would be mixed in with a convoy, since most merchants were so slow.

If you needed to react to an enemy capital ship, or mixed force, you'd want to do that easily, without disrupting the convoy, or your own naval formations, so I would guess they would be close, but separate.

Presumably, the BB would at least have DD's with them, and perhaps cruisers too, although I've read of BB's sailing just with a handful of destroyers for escort as well, when redeploying to the other side of a large ocean.

Looks like at least the HMS Nelson was used for convoy duties on a few occasions. Robert

"[SCENES ON BOARD THE BATTLESHIP HMS NELSON ON CONVOY ESCORT DUTY IN THE ATLANTIC] [Allocated]
(film) Made by: Blundell, George Collett (Production individual) 1941

Silent 8mm black and white and colour film footage taken by Acting Commander G C Blundell on board the 23,000-ton battleship HMS Nelson at Scapa Flow, whilst escorting a large troopship convoy bound for the Middle East and India via Cape Town and Durban…"
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"On 25 and 26 September she performed escort duty during the salvage and rescue operations of the submarine HMS Spearfish. Nelson was first deployed in the North Sea in October against a German formation of cruisers and destroyers, all of which easily evaded her. On 30 October she was unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 near the Orkney Islands being hit by three torpedoes, none of which exploded. Later she was again shown up for pace in the futile pursuit of German battlecruisers. In December 1939 she struck a mine (laid by U-31) at the entrance to Loch Ewe on the Scottish coast and was laid up in Portsmouth for repairs until August 1940.

Upon return to service she went to Rosyth in case of invasion[1] and was then deployed in the English Channel. From April to June 1941 she was on convoy escort in the Atlantic. In late May she was in Freetown and was ordered to Gibraltar to stand by to take part in the chase of the German battleship Bismarck.

In June 1941 Nelson, now in Gibraltar, was assigned to Force H operating in the Mediterranean as an escort. On 27 September 1941 she was extensively damaged by a Regia Aeronautica torpedo strike and was under repair in Britain until May 1942. She returned to Force H as the flagship in August 1942, performing escort duties for supply convoys running to Malta. "

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Battleships (especially the slower WWI veterans) were indeed used fairly regularly on convoy duty, especially when the surface raider threat was high; I seem to recall Ramillies was on one of her semi-regular Halifax escorts when Bismarck broke out. No real idea on positioning I'm afraid, but if I had to guess I'd say head of the convoy's main body, so as to be inside the ASW screen, but best able to intercept a surface threat when sighted. The few photos I've seen captioned as on escort duties seem to support them not being in the middle at least, as they're not surrounded by merchant ships….

Battleships, even old slow crocks like the Ramillies were never in and among the merchants. Even they were too fast to go with them. Battleships as escorts had two functions. The first was to be there in case a surface raider got out. Their job was to interpose itself and its escorts (usually an even older cruiser and a few destroyers) between the convoy and the raider allowing the convoy to escape. This "nearby" was almost always "over the horizon." The second function was to keep the U-boats down. A submerged U-boat is practically blind, and unless at perescope depth cannot fire its torpedoes. U boats when submerged are also slower than the slow convoys. It takes time for the sub to get itself in position for a shot, and if the battleship was roaming around with its escorts it was tramping around in that area around the convoy where the U-boats like to run on the surface to get in position for a run. That meant' it spoiled their getting into position to be lurking ahead when the convoy passed. Battleships also used their floatplanes to search for subs, not to sink them, but to detect them as far out as possible. Once detected long range and long endurance catalina's and coastal command bombers armed with depth charges were dispatched to make their day difficult.

So to answer you questions, convoys were generally of two groups, the convoy itself with its close in destroyers, sloops, and rescue ships, and a more distant hovering group which might have a battleship. Once the small escort carriers came along they often got a group of their own and being much faster were much more trouble for the U-boats.

Remember, in convoy operations the aim is not to sink U-boats. It's to get the merchants through. If you can do that and bag a U Boat- well that's just a bonus. So it doesn't matter if you sink em, keep down, or keep them away it all is the same.

One interesting fact. During the War the British and Americans used the big luxury liners as transports. Tricked out in camoflage, and with a few AA guns just for show these big ships took huge amounts of men across the sea. They made the trip completely unescorted. Why? They were simply too fast. Unless a U Boat was submerged in EXACTLY the right firing position when the liner ran over them, they simply could not catch them, even with a surface chase. Once in England they were re-united with their heavy equipment and heavy weapons which had come by slow convoy.

unless at perescope depth cannot fire its torpedoes.

Not exactly so. Subs routinely calculated firing solutions based on periscope sightings and then fired from a deeper depth. In fact, the only submerged sub-on-sub kill ever is from WWII.

In March 1941 Malaya, while escorting a convoy, was hit by one of two torpedoes aimed at a merchantman. The other hit the merchantman. As the hits were from the same spread and about one minute apart, Malaya was fairly close to the convoy – less than a mile from the merchantman by my calculations.

Battleships, even old slow crocks like the Ramillies were never in and among the merchants. Even they were too fast to go with them.

Battleships have no minimum speed…
-Kle.

I hope you are not suggesting that His Majesties extremely expensive battleships should limp along at nine knots and make themselves the juiciest target any U-Boat commander ever saw?

Martin,
I think that's just what the Admiralty resolved in 1940. They were willing to risk some of the older battleships to
U-boat attack in order to ensure the convoy was protected against surface attack.
Check out convoy HX16 escorted by Malaya and convoys HX106, 127 and 130 escorted by Ramillies. It was due to her being a part of HX106 that Scharhorst and her sister broke off their attack on the convoy following der Fuhrers orders not to risk combat against superior surface vessels.
I disagree with the earlier comment about the BB escorts being "over the horizon" in their escort duties. Those on "distant escort" were. But the Royal Navy also had "close escorts" with the convoy and at times they were BB's.
I can accept that they may not have been within the middle of a convoy (that's a poor tactical position), but they were much nearer to it than 20+ Naut.miles (what over the horizon implies). I would have to believe, based on my readings, that during those "close escort" times the BB was alongside the convoy, especially the smaller ones of a dozen ships or so.

I have been reading that Soviet battleships served as convoy escorts during the evacuation of Tallinn in Aug of '41 too. Robert

I hope you are not suggesting that His Majesties extremely expensive battleships should limp along at nine knots and make themselves the juiciest target any U-Boat commander ever saw?

Because I tell you what, my mouth really is watering at the thought of a battleship poking along at 6-9 knots. Screw the convoy, I'm going for big game!

Presidential Unit Citation for the crew, and a Navy Cross for the captain (if not a CMOH)!

unless at perescope depth cannot fire its torpedoes.

Not exactly so. Subs routinely calculated firing solutions based on periscope sightings and then fired from a deeper depth.

More precisely, you lose accuracy if you dive deeper and then shoot. Modern surface-attack practice is still to watch the fish all the way to the target, then 'clear datum'.

You see, a submarine close to the surface but without a 'scope up is very vulnerable to getting run over. We report depths to the keel, but that means the entire ship is shallower than that. There is about 40 feet of ship (or a lot more for the newer boats) going up. A carrier or battleship draws close to 30 feet. This means you need to be 100 feet down to give yourself 30 feet of clearance between the keel of a big boy and your fragile head (and *maybe* 20 feet between the 50,000hp food processors and your 3/4" thick hull).

"Presidential Unit Citation for the crew, and a Navy Cross"

Did Hitler issue Presidential Unit Citations? :)

Because I tell you what, my mouth really is watering at the thought of a battleship poking along at 6-9 knots. Screw the convoy, I'm going for big game!

Then you're a truly lousy sub commander.
The Brits needed battleships a heck of a lot less than they needed cargo ships and cargo. On top of which, a few spectacular exceptions notwithstanding, It would generally take a pretty fair number of sub torp hits to sink one. U-Boats didn't carry hundreds of torps.
-Kle.

Apparently they sank HMS Barham about a hundred times, if documentaries are to believed.

I recall reading in Werner's Iron Coffins about how, before the US was officially at war, the Texas was sent into the Atlantic (which probably made E. J. King simply thrilled), and he writes about how the crew was all for "shooting and sinking the Texas" and how disappointed they were when the U-boats were ordered to *not* sink any warships not positively ID'd as hostile.

Battleships, as far as I'm aware, were only used to escort convoys when there was a threat of surface action. As has been pointed out previously, in the N.Atlantic if Bismarck or Scharnhorst were in the offing, for example. Or if they were going in the same direction, at about the same time, as a convoy. If they were on their way to Gib, for example, and a convoy was on it's way to Sierra Leone/South Africa, they would sail "in convoy", as an extra escort. They were used far more often in the Med, when Italian surface attack was far more likely.

Funny, six Mk14 torps sank the Yamato-class hull Shinano.

That leaves me with another ~14 torps to go merchie-hunting.

I think it was more then just the torpedoes that doomed the
Shinano. Robert

To return to the original question, I am sure I read somewhere that heavy ships sailing as close escort to a slow convoy were generally stationed astern of the centre columns.

This makes sense for several reasons.
1. This is a safer location from a submarine attacking from outside the convoy as she is inside the protective A/S screen.
2. The heavy ship has freedom to manoeuvre. For example to launch a reconnaissance aircraft.
3. If the convoy is turned away from a potential threat the battleship can easily take station between convoy and the threat.

A drawback to this is if the ship is equipped with an early version of surface warning radar the performance of the forward arc is degraded by the presence of the convoy. As so often happens the final positioning of a battleship escort depends on the commander's assessment of the most likely threat and how best to counter it.

Distant cover, such as that provided by the Home Fleet to Russia convoys, was over the horizon. This could lead to problems where convoy and its cover did not know the position of the other.

Only four of the six torps fired actually hit Shinano, but did so at a critical joint between the belt armor and torpedo bulge. Faulty watertight doors and inadequate pumps combined with an inexperienced crew doomed her, but she stayed afloat and under way for almost eight hours after the attack. I think a Revenge class BB might have fared a bit better :)

Battleships escorting convoys mostly did so in the areas where the threat of interception by a raider was high. In the early part of WW2 German submarines did not range all that far out into the Atlantic. It made no sense to go hunting a convoy in the vastness of the ocean when with the limited number of U Boats available, they could instead, concentrate closer to the UK where the chance of seeing a convoy was greater.
When operating on the western side of the Atlantic, and to some extent in the middle, battleships could take up a position outside the convoy. Once in U Boat zones that was not practicable because they could not have their own screen as there were precious few escorts for the convoys let alone an old battleship. Plus one of the early problems was that the range of most British destroyers was very poor.

Thus it was more common for the Battleship to take up a position in the centre of the convoy. In that way it was protected by the escorts without having to take any away from the convoy for its own use.

The ships most commonly used for that duty were the old R class ships because they were available from other duty. But they were not considered 'expendable' because although their fleet days might have been gone, the loss of one would be a huge propaganda victory for the Nazi's.

After the loss of the Bismarck the practice was discontinued as German major ships rarely ventured far. The merchant raider was never considered much of a threat to a convoy because these could not slug it out with any other ship. They might have had 5.9" guns but a few hits from the 4.7" of an old destroyer would ruin their whole mission. They were weapons of stealth.

When battleships escorted TROOP convoys, they usually had their own destroyer escort and could operate independently.

The positioning in any situation where a battleship was escorting a convoy, but not in its ranks, depended entirely on ULTRA reports that were sent out daily and indicated the direction of greatest threat. This was also used by Escort Carriers and the failure to pay attention to it resulted in the loss of HMS Audacity, the first CVE.

Convoys were always being re-routed via messages from the Admiralty. They did not know it was due to ULTRA intercepts, they just obeyed. The positioning of escorts around the convoy was however up to the SOE present and he based that on the daily reports indicating the direction of most U Boats, and thus where the most attacks might come from. He was aided in that by HF/DF if he had it, as that would give him a localised idea of where boats were around his convoy. But by the time HF/DF was at sea in number, battleships no longer escorted normal convoys. Only troop convoys.

BTW when I say that the practice was discontinued after the sinking of the Bismarck, I am mostly referring to normal convoys in the Atlantic. Battleships escorted convoys in the Mediterranean and for special operations, but in most of those cases they had their own escort screen and could work independently.
Similarly on convoys to Russia the battleship covering force had its own screen and worked quite independently of the convoy.

There was also a practice where ships headed to the UK or later to the USA for refit and repair would sail with a convoy to provide additional escort. Hence a convoy from Gibraltar to the UK for example might, in addition to its normal screen, have a cruiser or some destroyers attached, as they were on the way home and might as well do something useful. This was how it came about that some convoys had a fleet destroyer or two with them. It was simply making good use of the resources available.

It was also commonly done when new or refitted ships were being sent out to other stations. Most of the destroyers and Hunt class destroyers transferred to the Mediterranean sailed with a convoy bound for Gibraltar and detached there. The SOE of the convoy was often junior in rank, but his position stood, and the senior officers had to comply with his convoy protection arrangements.

There were also occasions when if a convoy was slow, they did not want to risk major units, so they proceeded ahead and swept for U Boats or raiders in the path of the convoy. In those instances they were not under the control of the SOE and responded to the Admiralty, which directed their course based on available intelligence…usually ULTRA. Zig Zags and course changes across the line of the convoy in response to threat reports, might mean that although they steamed at a faster speed than the convoy, they remained in reasonably close proximity.

early in the war ,no serious uboat threat mid ocean,north atlantic convoys had an "ocean escort" an AMC or old battleship usually in the centre of the convoy.if attacked the escort headed for the enemy whilst the convoy scatered,examples JERVIS BAY and RAWALPINDI plus the happier outcomes above.
for the mediteranean and arctic convoys the covering forces ,close and distant, and were esentially small fleets there to fight an enemy surface fleet if it attacked preferably BEFORE THEY FOUND THE CONVOY,examples PEDASTAL and SCHARNHORST sinking.
in both situations the escorts first priority was to protect the convoy
the WINSTON SPECIAL troop convoys were a special case and had an escort able to deal with ANY POSSIBLE SURFACE THREAT however unlikely!which in practice meant a battleship